I move—

The Bill as at present drafted provides that the annual amount set aside and paid into the Reserve Fund shall not exceed 3 per cent. of the aggregate amount of the total expenditure on capital account up to the end of the current financial year. That provision is alright as things are today, and covers the lines which the Commission has followed up to the present. But it will not cover the position which will arise when the time comes when some of these loans have to be redeemed. As the Committee knows the Electricity Supply Commission raises loans on a 20 to 25 years basis, and the time may arrive when under the provision as we now have it, the Commission may be able to make an appropriation amounting to 3 per cent. on a very large capital sum, a good deal of which may have been paid off, and that seems to me to be unnecessary, and undesirable. Because it would enable large appropriations to be made which would affect the consumer and the cost of the current. So I now propose to substitute certain words and delete certain words in the clause as it stands at the moment. I propose to delete the words “expenditure on capital account” and to substitute “unredeemed loan.” I understand that this is satisfactory to the Commission and that it will give adequate safeguards to the consumer. But if we do that we shall also have to add a proviso as printed here, because we may find in time to come that you may have your Reserve Fund amounting to 15 per cent. of the unredeemed capital, and then a large loan may be paid off and you find that automatically your Reserve Fund stands at well over 15 per cent. Well, we do not want the Reserve Fund to have to be interfered with, and so this proviso will deal with that position. When the Reserve Fund finds itself over 15 per cent. owing to the redeeming of loans, the amount in excess of 15 per cent. will stand to Reserve but will not be taken into calculation in allowing the Reserve Fund to be augmented by 3 per cent., as soon as the Commission starts raising fresh loans again, because it stands to reason that when fresh loans are raised proper provision should be made for the Reserve Fund again.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 2,

I move—

I already explained yesterday that there are at least four interpretations as to exactly what this original clause which we have been amending can be intended to mean, and if one of those interpretations were held by a Court of Law to be the right one, some of the appropriations to Reserve which have been made in the past might be held to be invalid although they have all been made in terms which will come within the present proposal; therefore, in order to validate without any doubt the past operations of the Reserve Fund it is considered necessary to make it retrospective to the date of the original Act.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

The Title having been agreed to.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill with amendments.

Amendments considered.

Amendments in Clauses 1 and 2 put and agreed to, and the Bill, as amended, adopted.

Bill read a third time.

To this clause I want to propose an amendment which was placed in prospect at previous discussions on this Bill, an amendment that will meet important industries which are new industries and which are now being established, and which have Convinced the Minister that they have a chance of survival after the war. I think it would be a wise policy to give these industries the opportunity of finding their feet. My contention is that in the statutory percentage of 8 per cent. in respect of companies, and 12 per cent. in respect of individuals, insufficient provision is made for the building up of sound reserves. I think it is very important that new industries which are established now should be placed in the position of building up sound reserves so that they shall be in a strong position at a time when they may perhaps need it. That is my object. I have put my amendment in fairly wide terms; I have put it in such a form that the Minister can grant exemption from excess profits tax in respect of an amount that may be used for a purpose approved by him. I did not prescribe the words “approved purpose” in my amendment, but where an industry has the chance of carrying on after the war, the Minister ought to give alleviation to enable it to use the amount which would otherwise be subject to excess profits tax for the purpose for building up reserves. I move—

As regards the last part of the amendment, it means that whatever portion may be set aside for the purpose, the Minister’s power is limited to the exemption of one-third. If a sum of £300 is subject to excess profits tax the Minister can grant an exemption only in respect of £100, in terms of the amendment which I propose.

I want to ask the Minister to adopt the amendment: It is a very fair proposal. It gives the Minister the right to decide whether exemption shall be given or not. He need not be afraid that there will be any action detrimental to the country, for the matter is in his own hands. We all say that plans should be made now for post-war conditions, and that is precisely what is incorporated in this proposal. We ask that the Minister should help industries that start now, and that must be strengthened now, so that they may strengthen themselves to continue after the war. We know by experience that depressions generally follow as an aftermath of war, and therefore the Minister ought to give new industries that have a chance of survival the opportunity to carry on after the war. We want to plan here for the post-war period. Let us not wait until the evil day comes, but let us strengthen the industries so that when the consequences of the war make themselves felt, those industries shall be economically strengthened in such a way that they, and through them the country, shall be able to withstand the post-war conditions.

It is of course quite clear what the hon. member envisages here. We have already discussed the matter several times. But I think the hon. member himself will admit that the amendment which he proposes is too wide, and will also introduce a very dangerous new principle into our legislation. I know that the hon. member is thinking of the building up of reserves, but he proposes here that the Minister of Finance should be empowered to exempt any taxpayer from one-third of his excess profits tax if he uses the money for an approved purpose. This gives the Minister enormous power, which is completely in conflict with the spirit of our legislation. The spirit of our legislation is to eliminate the Minister as a political person as far as possible, so that he should not be dragged into the arena. That is the reason why so much discretion is given the Commissioner, and that is why the Commissioner is not placed under the influence of the Minister. The Minister cannot for instance influence the Commissioner regarding the assessment for income tax. I heartily decline the honour. If I were to assume that power it would mean that I would lead a dog’s life. I cannot accept it.

The conditions can be laid down by way of regulation.

What the hon. member proposes is wrong in principle. The hon. member can perhaps draft his amendment in another form, although I am against the principle. What we have already done is to provide that the Special Advisory Committee, as regards applications made for a reduction of the scale of taxation and also the increase of the pre-war standard, shall have the authority, where the statutory percentage has been determined, to bring it back to its original position, which will have practically the same effect as that desired by the hon. member. This power is today granted to the Special Committee in connection with incomes, and I do not think we should go further. Further, as I have said on a previous occasion, the provision in the law which operates automatically so that where a profit is first made and thereafter a loss, and where the two are calculated together there can be an ultimate repayment, remains the same. This is already happening today and it is of very great importance with a view to post-war circumstances when, as has been repeatedly indicated, a tremendous drop in the price of commodities will follow and may perhaps affect commercial undertakings seriously

How long will it remain applicable after the war?

I gave an assurance in this respect at the introduction of the Bill. I have not the exact wording of it here, and I will therefore not repeat it now, but I said very clearly that it will not be repealed immediately. I chose my wording very carefully at the time, and I would not like to put it differently now, in any case it is not intended that it should be repealed immediately. I regret, therefore, that I cannot accept the amendment.

I want to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that his argument against assuming these big powers sounds a little queer from the mouth of a Minister who is inclined now and then to adopt a dictatorial attitude. But apart from that, the Minister has mentioned that under the existing legislation certain concessions, certain alleviation, can be given on the advice of the Committee. Who must approve the advice of the Committee?

The Commissioner, not the Minister.

Does it not come before the Minister?

Not at all.

If the Minister’s difficulty is in connection with assuming that power, then the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) may perhaps alter his amendment, and where it now refers to “Minister” the word “Commissioner” may be substituted. Will the Minister be satisfied with that? I hope he will be, for the arguments in favour of the amendment are very strong. I want to point out in the first place that three things are necessary for the continued existence of new industries after the war. In the first place they must be able to compete with overseas countries after the war. For that purpose it is necessary that the new industries should not be crushed to death after the war by capital burdens, in other words, their capital burden must be reduced as much as possible during the war. In the second place the new industries must have a chance of renewing and improving their machinery so that they shall not be burdened with obsolete machinery with which they cannot continue. In the third place it is essential that the new industries should get a chance during the war to reach their export markets, and to increase and enlarge and stabilise these, so that they can sustain their production after the war. It is necessary that the capital burden should be reduced, that the machinery should be repaired and renewed and that connections with overseas should be strengthened so that after the war they would also be able to deliver and compete at the cheaper prices that will be brought about by competition. The point is of the greatest importance, it is a vital question, and I hope the Minister will realise that he should make a concession in this case and should not reveal Hitler tendencies. Let the hon. member alter his amendment in such a way that the matter shall be left to the Commissioner. I think that will solve the Minister’s difficulty.

I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that the hon. member for Fauresmith might perhaps alter his amendment in such a way that the Committee which has already been appointed in connection with concessions can also act in this case. The Committee can then consider and grant such applications up to a certain point, and the amounts can then be used for building up a reserve fund. The Committee can approve and recommend such cases to the Commissioner. I think that would be an important concession. The hon. member for Pretoria District (Mr. Cost) said rightly that it is very important—I am speaking as an industrialist—for the reason that it will enable new industries to build up reserves. I think that the concessions which the Committee may make at the moment are too few. One cannot build up a sound industry without setting aside reserves for an abnormal period which we shall probably have to meet. They must be able to compete after the war. If the industries cannot carry on then, it will create unemployment. There is no doubt that the industries at the moment have not enough reserves to be able to compete. If they have to go under, the Government of the day will not be allowed by the public to shut down such industries, and the result will be that such industries will have to receive a much higher protection which will ultimately cost the country a great deal more. I think, therefore, that the Minister should make a concession here. They can consider applications of this kind, and it is not necessary to allow excessive reserves to be set aside. There is also the discretion of the Commissioner, who must approve cases which have been recommended by the Committee. Where a good case can be made out for the setting aside of a certain amount to reserve, the Committee ought to make such a recommendation.

Unlike the Prime Minister, I am prepared to accept the resignation of the Minister of Finance. I am prepared to accept his resignation for the reasons the Minister himself has given. The “Advisory Committee” can be put in the place of “the Minister” in the Bill.

“The Commissioner.”

I think the Advisory Committee is the body. They make recommendations to the Commissioner. They have already the power to allow a reduction of from 15 per cent. to 10 per cent. but that is not enough. I would like to see that where there is a bona fide case for the building up of reserves for a new industry, there it must be clearly put by resolution of Parliament, by the law, so that new industries shall receive the concession in such a case. It should not be left entirely to the discretion of the Advisory Committee. We want a little more certainty. Is he Minister prepared to accept that? He says he understands what we envisage by our amendment. If he is prepared to accept it in principle, then we can give a little more time to formulating the amendment proposed here, and then the Minister can put the matter in order at the report stage or on a later occasion in the Senate. If he will give that assurance we can leave the matter at that. We want more than a general concession to reduce it from 15 per cent. to 10 per cent. in individual cases. We want to place greater discretion in the hands of the Advisory Committee. Where there is an approved purpose, such an industry must be able to demand the concession. Where the concession is used for building up reserves the alleviation must be granted. That is what we would like to have. If the Minister is prepared to adopt the principle, then it is not necessary to go further.

I am not prepared to give that undertaking. I have often said in the past why a certain discretion is left to the Advisory Committee to put back the taxation scale to 10 per cent. in the case of new industries. I am not prepared to say now that the committee shall do so in all cases. It conflicts with the principle of the whole basis of taxation.

That is not what is asked in the amendment.

Now the hon. member wants to bring up another amendment. I have already told him that we must be careful in the matter. It is not now the time to give such encouragement to the establishment of new industries. The Director-General of Supplies follows the policy of being very careful as regards the establishment of new industries, and to restrict the issue of licences for new factories. That is the position today. It is not now the time to pass legislation to encourage this. We go far enough already in the legislation existing today, and I cannot therefore accept the amendment, nor can I give the assurance requested by the hon. member.

I must say that I do not think that the Minister has been correctly informed regarding the attitude of Dr. van der Bijl. Only recently, at the solemn graduation day of the University of Pretoria, he as head of the institution stated that we had always been wrong and had walked on one leg instead of on two legs. We tried to walk only on the agricultural leg and neglected the industrial leg, and therefore we were left behind by other countries which are younger than we are. And only a few days ago Dr. van der Bijl emphatically advocated the necessity for building up industries and establishing new ones immediately, without further delay. Evidently I have different information than the Minister has. Will the Minister not be prepared to leave this Clause 3 over for a little while?

No, my attitude is very clear on this matter.

I do want to renew my plea in connection with the rate of 15s., that this should be the only tax levied on excess profits. I think it is a fair plea that no other taxes apart from the excess profits duty should be levied on excess profits, especially when the tax reaches such a high rate as 15s. in the £.

That is determined by the Income Tax Law.

It could be provided quite easily in this Bill that the excess profits should not be subject to any taxation other than the taxation provided here. I can see no objection to that being put here, and I cannot see why this is not an appropriate occasion to discuss it. This would help particularly new industries. The old established business with a pre-war standard is not hit to the same extent. If one takes into account the 15s. tax, the excess profits duty, plus other taxes on the balance, the aggregate tax is nearer 17s. to 18s. in the £. When the hon. Minister increased the tax this year, he increased the company’s tax by 6d. in the £, but the excess profits duty has been increased by 1s. 8d. in the £. Frankly, I would have preferred to see the normal company’s tax increased more rather than the excess profits duty. I feel though that now we have gone to 15s. in the £ the time has arrived when provision should be made that that is the only tax to be levied on the excess profits. I should like the Minister to consider this matter seriously. We have the report stage still before us and there will be ample time to consider this.

Amendment put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 4,

I wish to move the following amendment—

1. (iii) any amount which a bona fide farmer utilises for the redemption of a farm mortgage bond.”

At the second reading of this Bill and also on previous occasions, we made an earnest appeal to the hon. the Minister of Finance to exempt from excess profits duty such amounts as bona fide farmers are willing to apply to the redemption of mortgage debts. I hope it is not too late to make a final appeal to the Minister to agree to this request. No doubt the past has taught us that if there is one industry which we should try to put on its feet so far as to be able to weather the post-war depression, then it is the agricultural industry. We have learned from experience that if the agricultural industry is having a bad time, the whole economic structure of the country is faring badly. We ask the Minister to meet the farmers now by enabling them to pay off their debts. We are not asking again today, as we repeatedly asked in the past that a proper mortgage redemption scheme should be devised and applied, but by this amendment we ask that the farmers who are at present experiencing favourable conditions and who have the opportunity to make use of those circumstances for the reduction of their mortgage debts, shall be enabled to do so. We appeal to the Minister to enable the farmer to do this. When the farmer can benefit from the better prices his products fetch, the Minister should not come along and extract 15/- in the £ from the farmer in the shape of excess profits duty; he should rather enable the farmer to make use of those circumstances to reduce his mortgage debt. I can assure the Minister that there are cores and scores of farmers, and I want to call hon. members on the other side as my witnesses for speaking the truth, who are now able to sell some of the cattle and who could use such money for the redemption of their mortgages. Many a farmer has his pedigree cattle, and there being such brisk demands for cattle, that farmer would be able to sell a certain part of his stud cattle and that would enable him to reduce his mortgage debt, if he need not hand over 15s. in the £ for taxation. Although that man’s income will shrink temporily because he has less cattle, it will all the same strengthen him economically, for it relieves him of a capital burden which is now pressing on him. That is what we should like to see being done and if the concession were made which we ask for in the amendment that person would be enabled as long as the war lasts and perhaps for one year after the war to get rid of his mortgage indebtedness in this manner I referred to. If the Minister is not prepared to accept the proposal because it is too wide, then we shall be prepared to let him take control of this matter in order to see to it that it shall only be granted in certain cases where he has the certainty that the person concerned deserves this concession. That there are such cases cannot be denied, and if the Minister does not stand in the way of such people they can, by selling a small number of their stock, reduce their mortgage debt and in future they will again be economically sound and not dependent on the assistance and support which the agricultural industry has continually to ask for. I do hope that the Minister will consider this matter as a very serious one, as something on which the farming community is laying very small emphasis. I therefore submit this proposal to the House and ask the Minister not to treat it contemptuously or indifferently. I also want to ask hon. members on the other side who feel the same as we do and are convinced of the soundness of our arguments and the need which exists, to try and persuade the Minister to accept this amendment.

This proposal will, as I have already explained on a previous occasion, only result in certain farmers who have mortgage debts, being subsidised by the State. The farmers in general have mortgage debts, but this amendment will mean that a very small section of them who have mortgage debts will receive a subsidy from the Government in this manner.

Why not go further then and include all.

I am now dealing with the amendment which is before the Committee. If my hon. friend wants to widen it, he should also make it apply to other sections of the public. No, this proposal simply means that a Government subsidy is being given to certain farmers who are able to redeem their bonds, and in fact to those farmers who at the present time are the most prosperous. How can we justify this? No, I am sorry, but I shall have to persist in the point of view which I took up before. We cannot accept this amendment because it would mean the preferential treatment of a small group of farmers. I again want to emphasise that a tendency apparently exists to increase the number of farmers who are supposed to be subject to the excess profits duty. There will not be as many farmers paying excess profits tax as some people may think, for in calculating the taxable income for the assessment of excess profits duty, consideration has to be given to a person’s position in previous years. If he had less than £1,500 income in previous years, then his income which is now subject to excess profits duty is reduced by the previous shortages since the tax was instituted. That in itself will have the effect of a large number of farmers, although having an income of more than £1,500 not being subject to the excess profits tax in view of their position in previous years.

While I am dealing with this matter I want to give effect to a promise I made at an earlier stage in connection with this Bill. We have the position of those farmers who are today being compelled, as a result of East Coast Fever, to sell their stock. It is by State action that they are compelled to do so and the point has been made that as the State is exercising that compulsion account should not be taken of the income derived from such sales. I am therefore proposing an amendment on that matter. The amendment will have to be in the form of replacing the whole of Clause 4 because it involves some slight changes in the existing Clause 4. The main point is to add a new paragraph (2) to Section 10 of Act 25 of 1940. But that section deals with the determination of excess profits and in the first place provides for amounts which must be added to the basic tax to determine the amount to be added to the tax. The clause now before the Committee is paragraph (d). Now that must stand, but the second part provides for deductions. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn wants to add a further deduction. I also want to do that but not the one he wants. I intend to move to insert the following new sub-section—

1. (b) by the deletion of the word “and” at the end of sub-paragraph (i) of the said sub-section; the addition of the word “and” at the end of sub-paragraph (ii) of the said sub-section; and the addition after the last-mentioned subparagraph of the following sub-paragraph:
   1. (hi) in the case of any farmer any of whose livestock has been killed, in pursuance of the order of any competent authority, or of an arrangement with a representative of the State, made or entered into for the purpose of preventing or designed to prevent the spread of East Coast Fever, the amount of any taxable income derived by him during the said period of assessment, by way of compensation or otherwise, as a result of the killing of such livestock.”

Otherwise the clause would remain substantially as drafted but this new paragraph would be added for insertion in the principal act.

The hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux) moved his amendment in this form because we are dealing here with excess profits, and he had no choice to move it in a different form. I should like to explain to the Minister of Finance so that he may properly understand it, that the farming community of any nation occupies a particular place in a nation—if the farming community is sound, then such a nation is sound. There are some farmers who have had a good wheat harvest—one in every five years—and they will now have to pay excess profits duty. They are not being encouraged to reduce their mortgage debts. They have to invest their money in stock again if they do not want to pay that tax, and the result is that they do not decrease their burdens. It should be the main purpose of the Government of the day to encourage the farming community to reduce its debts. The Government is not encouraging them sufficiently. At the moment we have a flare-up in the farming industry. This is a temporary flare-up and it creates an appearance of prosperity. It is, however, not a permanent feature. The farmers are struggling to get rid of their burdens. We should make allowance for the fact that a set-back is bound to come. Once the war is over, we can expect a slump and we should remember what happened in the past. At that time the farmers received as much as 3s. and 4s. for their wool, but unfortunately they did not reduce their debts. Today they are still in a precarious position because they did not make use of a temporary prosperity to reduce their burdens. Today there are still thousands of farmers stooping under the burdens of those days and trying to become rehabilitated. The tendency right through the world is to lighten the burden of the farming community. It seems as if the Minister of Finance cannot understand that. The previous Minister of Finance adopted the same attitude. He had surpluses year after year, but he did not use those surpluses to reduce the burdenes of the farmer, and we know what the results were. Here at last we have a chance to assist the farmers to reduce their burdens on a large scale, but the Minister taxes them so that he makes it virtually impossible for them to make use of that opportunity. I maintain, in view of my acquaintance with the farming community for so many years and my knowledge of the farmers’ difficulties and the attitude they adopt, that we should accept this amendment, even though, as the Minister declared, only the more privileged section of farmers will benefit by it. When the farmers use it to reduce their indebtedness, they should not pay taxation on it until they find themselves in a healthy economic position. If we do that, the farmers will still be able to make a living even when the slump comes along.

I do not, in fact, want to reply to the arguments used here by the hon. member who has just sat down. But he asserted here that the previous Minister of Finance did not assist the farmers. If ever there was a Minister of Finance who did meet the farmers, then it was our previous Minister of Finance. I am thinking of only one instance—take the interest subsidy and the reduction in interest on mortgages. Wasn’t that a wonderful act on the part of that Minister in order to assist the farmers? Just think of the State Advances. That one measure alone kept thousands of farmers out of the insolvency courts. Remember the subsidy for the development of farms, the combating of soil erosion, etc. I believe my hon. friend forgot all that when he made his assertion. The farming population will not forget that our previous Minister of Finance was the farmers’ best friend. I now come back to the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux), something which we have been advocating from the beginning of this Session. Seeing that today we have apparent prosperity—I call it apparent prosperity—and that the farmer can sell his surplus cattle, we plead with the Minister of Finance that if he really intends to do something to assist the farmer, he should not assess the proceeds of the sale of that cattle for excess profits duty. If ever there was a time when we could assist the farmer, when he was in difficulties, it is the present time because he can obtain a fair price for his cattle and he will thus be able to reduce his debts. But now the Minister of Finance comes along and says: No, I shall assess you for excess profits duty on your increased income. I want to make an earnest appeal to the Minister of Finance to reconsider this matter and to do justice to that part of the farming population which has up till now always had to stoop under its burdens and which now has the opportunity to reduce those burdens, and I ask him not to assess them for this excess profits duty.

I really cannot understand the Minister of Finance. The reasons he advances for not being able to accept this amendment is that it will benefit a small group of farmers. I can understand that it will only benefit those people who are able to pay off their mortgages, people who are so fortunate that they can sell cattle or wood or other products for which the price is good at present. Because this is only a small group of farmers he does not see his way clear to do this for them. But in his next sentence he said that he is going to fulfil the promise he made to a small group of farmers in Natal whose cattle have been slaughtered. He is going to meet them. The compensation which they are going to receive for that cattle will not be taken into consideration for taxing purposes. It is only logical to deduce, that if a person has a large forest, the time is now opportune to sell because wood and timber is so high in price at the moment, but he cannot sell now because he has to surrender such an enormous part of the proceeds for excess profits duty. The Minister is losing sight of the following fact. Once the mortgage bond has been paid off, it is disposed off and the future proceeds of those articles can no longer be deducted for purposes of the excess profits tax. The following year it cannot be taken into consideration again. The Government’s difficulty is that when there is prosperity they do not want to encourage farmers to get rid of their burdens, and when times of depression come along, they again have to assist the farmers. If a farmer is able to reduce his bond indebtedness by selling pedigree cattle, he is caught by the excess profits duty and the result is that he does not sell his cattle. But if the Minister now assists him to do so in order to be able to reduce his debt, it will not be necessary to assist that man in future when unfavourable conditions prevail. When a farmer is able to reduce his mortgage indebtedness by selling some of his pedigree cattle, because he need not pay excess profits duty on it, he will be able to help himself. The Minister has not given proper consideration to this matter. His arguments are illogical when he says that it benefits a small group only. He should remember that he is assisting these people only once. When the bond is paid off, it is the end of it and that man will not in future be a burden on the State. Agriculture remains the backbone of the country. Because it is ill, it does not discontinue being the backbone, and it is our duty to restore that backbone to health. The Minister, however, does not want to assist the people in this respect, for he says that it would mean assisting a small group of rich farmers only. I know that there are not many rich farmers, but the Minister when granting this concession will assist quite a large number of people. The position is that the people now have a chance to sell cattle and forest products, but the tax prevents them from doing so. When the times become worse again, they cannot sell it and then the Minister may have to subsidise them again, whereas he is now able to help them in this manner. But the Minister maintains that he cannot do so because it will benefit a small group only. In the same breath, however, he himself moves an amendment in order to assist a small group of farmers in Natal. I think the Minister should reconsider this amendment.

I should like to draw the Minister’s attention to the position of a farmer who owes £4,000 on his farm. He has already had an income of £1,500 in the past. He has now rented some more farms for he does not want to sell his cattle. It is obvious that if he now sells cattle for £1,000, the Government will take away £750 of that £1,000 for his income is already £1,500. He therefore rents some more farms. He is at the moment negotiating for the lease of his third farm. The result is that the rent of land is being inflated and the ordinary tenant is having a difficult time. There are some farmers who even rent land in Swaziland and in South-West, which does not fall under this taxation. In that way the paying of this tax can be evaded. When a person can sell cattle for £1,000 and from that amount has to pay £750 to the Government, he simply is not going to do it. That cattle will somehow disappear—I do not know how. I do not say that the farmers should not pay taxes. I am a farmer myself and I represent a large farming constituency and I do not say that the farmer should pay no income tax. But in the manner this tax is now being proposed, the result will be that the farmers are going to sell the old animals and are going to rent land to keep their other animals. That is one of the reasons why prices are so high. There is a shortage of cattle on the market because, these people who want to evade paying excess profits duty, are buyers on the market. They believe that a change of Government may be accompanied by a change of taxation, or that the taxation will fall away after the war. If there should be a drought, those farmers will perhaps suffer heavy losses, for they will be saddled with large numbers of cattle. Unfortunately the Minister is by this tax forcing the people into that position.

When dealing with this Bill on a previous occasion, I did not refer to the big moneyed farmers. I am thinking more in particular of the farmers who have a bond of approximately £4,000 on their farm. In my area such a farm would probably be 500 morgen in extent. Such a farmer may have concentrated on developing a herd of dairy cattle. He now rents some more land, for he does not want to sell that cattle if he comes under this tax. At this stage he has to rent land which is not obtainable and he is therefore compelled to sell half of his pedigree cattle. If he does that and wants to use the proceeds to pay off his debts, to reduce his mortgage indebtedness, then he should not be taxed in this manner. Capital conversion should not be taxed in this manner. Other industries are allowed to first of all build up their capital. Why should the farmers be compelled to pay such a tax when they want to reduce their debts, their capital loans? We should strengthen the farming population as much as possible by enabling them to pay their capital debts. Then they will be able to struggle through when prices fall again. For that reason the Minister should not brush aside the amendment of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux) so lightheartedly. The people who have to sell cattle, receive a globular sum. Give them the right to reduce their capital indebtedness. They cannot keep all their cattle, therefor give them a chance. Let us add a tail piece to the amendment of the Minister, as the hon. member for Oudtshoorn proposes to do.

The argument of the Minister is that if he accepts this amendment, he is going to give a subsidy to a certain small group of farmers. I cannot understand that argument. It certainly is not a valid argument to say that when the Minister does not collect a certain tax he is paying a subsidy in consequence. I furthermore want to tell the Minister that if he insists on collecting this tax, he will not receive a penny of it from most farmers. What is going to happen is that the man will produce less because he is not prepared to farm for the benefit of the Government. If he runs the risk of having to pay excess profits duty, he will produce less or he will adopt other measures. He buys more cattle, rents more land and in that way does not pay the tax. The Minister is anxious to protect the people in future against over-capitalisation, but the Minister prevents them from reducing their capital burden now. As the Minister maintains that my amendment is too wide, I admit that I do not want to include all cases. The money must first of all be used to reduce the capital burden when people sell their cattle. Let us then propose that it will only apply to the redemption of mortgages down to a certain level. In that case the Minister certainly cannot maintain that he is subsidising the rich people. As the Minister knows, I have always adopted the point of view when advocating a mortgage redemption scheme, that the assistance of the Government should only go so far that the mortgages can be reduced to an economic level. If the Minister is not prepared to make it a general exemption, he should at least lay down a ceretain limit. Apply it only to certain persons who reduce their bonds down to an economic level. But the Minister cannot hide behind the argument that it will mean the granting of a subsidy to a small group of rich farmers. We do not plead for the rich farmer, but for the man of small means who now has an opportunity to rehabilitate himself. If this amendment is not adopted, the country’s production will dwindle or the farmers will be compelled to take other steps to prevent their having to pay excess profits duty. In that manner you will be creating an unhealthy position. Today one comes across scores of cases where people try to rent additional land because they are buying more cattle in order to evade the excess profits duty. But when they are forced to sell cattle, the proceeds are capital and when that is used to reduce capital liabilities, they should be exempted from this tax.

In certain areas of which I can mention the names, the farmers are overstocking their land. They have had a good season, good lambing results, and now they have to dispose of some of their animals and the Minister comes along and imposes an excess profits duty. I know the case of a man whose debt amounts to £1,400. He has taken a lease on 4 additional farms. What makes the position more serious is that the poor tenants cannot obtain any land. They cannot afford the high rents and they cannot obtain any land at all. The poor people tell us that the rich farmers are renting all the land, but this is only the result of circumstances, of the measures adopted by the Government. The people who are saddled with large debts want to reduce those debts by selling cattle, but in that case they have to pay excess profits duty to the Government. They consequently evade it by renting more land. The position of the lower classes, the bywoners, has become quite impossible. You would be surprised to see how many tenants and bywoners are drifting into the small towns because they cannot make a living. They receive good prices for their small number of cattle and they sell out for they cannot afford the high rent in competition with the rich man. You can go to any auction and you will find that land which used to be let three years ago for £100, is now being let for £150 and £200. That is the result of the Minister’s measures. They do not want to pay excess profits duty on the cattle they sell. I therefore want to ask the Minister to consider and meet the man who wants to reduce his bond to an economic level by exempting him from this taxation.

Amendment proposed by Mr. S. P. le Roux put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—21:

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Conradie. J. H.

Dönges, T. E.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Le Roux, S. P.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Oost, H.

Schoeman, B. J.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, C. R.

Van der Merwe, R. A. T.

Warren, S. E.

Wilkens, Jacob.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: F. C. Erasmus and J. F. T. Naudé.

Noes—56:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Carinus, J. G.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hemming, G. K.

Henderson, R. H.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Klopper, L. B.

Lindhorst, B. H.

Long, B. K.

Marwick, J. S.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Raubenheimer, L. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Tellers: G. A. Fried and W. B. Humphreys.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Clause 4 put and negatived.

On New Clause 4,

I move—

1. 4. (1) Section 10 of the Income Tax Act, 1940, is hereby amended—
   1. (a) by the deletion of the word “and” at the end of Paragraph (b) of Sub-Section (1); the insertion of the word “and” at the end of Paragraph (c) of the said Sub-Section; and the addition after the last-mentioned paragraph of the following paragraph:
      1. “(d) any amount deducted under sub-paragraph (i) of this sub-section, in a previous period of assessment, which has been recovered during the period in respect of which the assessment is made;”;
         and
   2. (b) by the deletion of the word “and” at the end of Sub-Paragraph (i) of the said sub-section; the addition of the word “and” at the end of Sub-Paragraph (ii) of the said sub-section; and the addition after the last-mentioned sub-paragraph of the following sub-paragraph:
      1. “(iii) in the case of any farmer any of whose livestock has been killed, in pursuance of the order of any competent authority, or of an arrangement with a representative of the State, made or entered into for the purpose of preventing or designed to prevent the spread of East Coast Fever, the amount of any taxable income derived by him during the said period of assessment, by way of compensation or otherwise, as a result of the killing of such livestock.”
2. (2) The amendment referred to in Paragraph (a) of Sub-Section (1) shall be deemed first to have taken effect in respect of assessments for the period of assessment ended upon the thirtieth day of June, 1941.

Agreed to.

On Clause 6,

I have an amendment on the Order Paper to which I referred at an earlier stage, the omission of Paragraph (a). The Committee will remember that as a result of the considerations adduced by the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. Bell) I agreed to withdraw this paragraph from the Bill. I therefore move—

Agreed to.

An amendment appears in my name on the Order Paper and I regret that the Minister, when he spoke just now, did not say at once that he would take over my amendment. That, would have saved much trouble and time. But it did not happen, and I therefore shall have to explain my amendment. The Bill as proposed here allows certain privileges in regard to what the Minister calls strategic minerals, but those privileges are only effective as from the date of the coming into force of this Bill. I consider this to be most unfair and I should like to tell the Minister why I think so. If this Bill is passed in its present form it will mean that people who want to work and process from now onwards minerals and metals which fall into the category of what the Minister considers to be strategic metals and minerals will enjoy certain privileges, but it will only apply to people who will now commence to write off their capital. What the Minister forgets is that it takes a very long time to reach the production stage and that it may take years. It takes months and months to first of all obtain options, thereafter comes the prospecting work and finally one has to struggle to get hold of the necessary capital for the development which has to take place. The result is that sometimes years go by and during all those years you have the outlay of capital and the trouble and the work. The concession which the Minister grants will therefore in many cases be of no benefit because it excludes all the schemes which have been projected up to the present and all the undertakings which are working already. Certainly that cannot be the intention of the Minister. I shall give you a practical example. In Soutpansberg a deposit has been discovered of first class chrome, chrome of 60 per cent. That is a better percentage than has so far been discovered in the Transvaal or in the whole of the Union. When this discovery was made, options had to be obtained from the owners which involved time and money. Thereupon a preliminary investigation had to be made as to the quality and quantity and that took weeks and months, and all the time there was expenditure. Such an undertaking will not be able to enjoy the benefits which the Minister is granting here. Surely that is not his intention; that cannot be his intention. I therefore maintain that we should fix a date. I can understand that the Minister does not want to go back to the time of Adam and Eve, but in his Budget speech, when speaking of strategic minerals and metals, the Minister probably referred more in particular to the development of minerals and metals which are required in the present war and I therefore thought that it would be best to fix as the date the day on which the present war was declared and that as from that date the concession will be applicable, i.e., in respect of undertakings which were commenced since that date. If the Minister does not accept this, his proposal will be worth very little or nothing at all. If he really wants to make a proposal which will assist the urge to develop base minerals and metals, then he should grant the concession also to those undertakings which have already made a start. It is said that hundreds of millions of pounds are lying idle in the banks. The people do not leave their money in the banks as a matter of fun, but they may have been waiting for an opportunity such as this one in order to see whether something is going to be done to encourage the development of base minerals and metals. I shall therefore be glad if the Minister will accept my amendment. I move—

I regret to have to disappoint the hon. member. I cannot accept his amendment. What is the actual purpose of this Clause? It is not meant to grant a concession to existing undertakings, but solely to encourage new undertakings.

And those who are not yet paying their way at present?

The hon. member wants to apply it to existing undertakings. That is not the intention of this Clause.

What is a new undertaking?

An undertaking which will commence after the coming into force of this Act. The existing undertakings commenced without this encouragement. The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. Bell) on a previous occasion rightly pointed out that it is possible for existing undertakings to obtain the concession, provided the Government Mining Engineer estimates its existence at one year and the Advisory Board can act on that. What we say here is that new undertakings are to be encouraged and they must know beforehand what the position is going to be. They should know that they will receive the concession in any case. That will mean an encouragement. Existing undertakings started on the present basis, but we want to encourage new undertakings by means of this Clause.

Do you understand by new undertakings those undertakings which have not yet reached the production stage?

That has been clearly stated. The Commissioner must be convinced that the taxpayer commenced on or after the date of the coming into force of this Act… . That is quite clear. He will be advised by the Government Mining Engineer when the taxpayer commenced operations. The hon. member wants to make it retrospective in effect. As soon as we do that my difficulties arise. The hon. member himself said that we cannot go back to the time of Adam and Eve. There are certain undertakings in our country which process and export minerals and make good profits. The hon. member wants the concession to be made applicable to them also. He proposes to make it retrospective from September, 1939. Why should we not go back even further? What about the undertaking which started before that date? That undertaking would not obtain the concession by virtue of the amendment of the hon. member. No, the only possible way of dealing with the matter is to make it applicable to new undertakings only.

I would like to express my appreciation to the hon. Minister for his amendment in this Clause in connection with the parent and subsidiary companies. In connection with the amendment of the hon. member for Pretoria, District (Mr. Oost), from what I have gathered from the Minister, the position appears to be that the Revenue Advisory Committee can make certain concessions to those mining concerns that have come into being since the war broke out. They are, in certain respects, limited, and it is because of that that these new conditions are now being introduced. I do feel that there is a lot to be said for making these conditions retrospective, to apply to any concern that started to mine as from the beginning of the year.

Which year?

The beginning of the war—because it is obvious that this concession must confer a greater benefit on a concern than can be conferred on that concern under the prevailing conditions. It seems to me, Sir, that it would be fair to allow those mining concerns which have been enterprising and which have developed their properties, and which have engaged in mining since the war broke out, should be granted the same benefits as the new concern, so that they will be put on the same footing. I have a feeling that in granting those particular benefits to a new concern, and in excluding the venture which is today labouring under very great difficulties, in which the proprietors have been enterprising enough to start much earlier, there is discrimination between the two classes which might be well avoided. If the Minister could see his way clear to consider it in that light, I think he would be doing a service to the country in the development of the strategic minerals which I think the country is anxious to obtain, otherwise these provisions would not be needed at all.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Oost put and negatived.

Clause, as amended, put, and agreed to.

On Clause 7,

I move the amendment standing in my name—

This deals with the same point as was dealt with in the amendment in the previous Clause.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 11,

On the motion of the Minister of Finance, ah amendment was made in the Afrikaans version which did not occur in the English version.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 13,

I move—

This clause has given me a good deal of difficulty. As I understand it, it is that if a person has acquired property before the 1st October, 1939, and he sells it before 1st October, 1939, but he cancels the sale after the 1st October, 1939, then he is regarded for the purposes of the law as having acquired the property on the date of cancellation for the price by which he agreed to sell it. The object in the memorandum is stated to be that it is intended to prevent transactions being cancelled for the purpose of evading the tax. The clause as drafted hits every cancellation, whether the cancellation has taken place for the purpose of evading the tax or for a perfectly valid reason. Supposing, to go back to the case I have cited, a person has acquired property before the 1st October, 1939, and has sold it before that date, and cancels it in September, 1939, because of the insolvency of the purchaser, or because the purchaser is unwilling or unable to carry out the terms of the contract, he is hit just as much as the person who cancels the agreement in order to evade payment of the tax. That seems very unfair. The existing law provides what is to take place in the case of cancellation by agreement. That is in the proviso to Section 28 of Act No. 40 of 1942, and to say that in every case, from the 1st October, 1939, the cancellation is to be regarded as having been made with the object of evading tax, seems a very unfair provision. Now, my amendment is designed to protect a case where the cancellation is genuine. And that means that every cancellation must be gone into by the Commissioner, and if he is satisfied that it is a genuine cancellation and not to evade the tax then the provisions of the existing law will apply to it. But if he is satisfied that it is a cancellation entered into for the purpose of evading tax, then he will apply the provision of Section 13 of the Bill. I may say that I also provide that where the taxpayer is dissatisfied with the decision of the Commissioner he should be able to appeal to the special court. The Minister has told us that he does not wish to burden the special court with additional labours, but it seems to me that that is no answer at all because here he is making a law which is retrospective in its effect, and may be the cause of serious injustice. The special court is there for the purpose of dealing with matters of this kind, it is an inexpensive court to apply to, it will have all the circumstances before it, and there is this important provision, that the onus is on the taxpayer to prove, to satisfy the court, that the decision of the Commissioner of Inland Revenue is wrong. And he will have to satisfy the court that the circumstances under which the cancellation took place are such as negative an intention to avoid the payment of tax. It has always been a principle of law that a taxpayer is entitled to organise his business on a basis which justifies his paying the least possible amount in taxation. The cases which the Minister wishes to deal with, where taxation is evaded, are cases where there is a third transaction. X sells to A at a profit of £300, but no transfer takes place and then A sells to B, and then the arrangement between X and A is that the transaction should be cancelled and transfer should take place from directly X to B. Assuming that is a valid transaction, there cannot be many like it, and no hardship can be caused by making the Commissioner decide what the intention of the parties was and allowing an aggrieved person to take his case to the Income Tax Court.

I do not think the hon. member has quite correctly interpreted what was said in my memorandum. He seems to be under the impression that the purpose of this provision was merely to deal with cases of evasion, but the memorandum does not say that; the memorandum says that the provision is intended to clarify the position in regard to cancelled sales, and to deal with evasions. It was not intended to confine the scope to cases of evasion, and in moving the second reading I expressed myself on similar lines. Now, the underlying principle of this proposal is that where a man cancels an agreement to sell and re-acquires and then makes a profit, he should be liable for tax on that profit which he so makes. The effect of this clause together with other clauses is not that he will be taxable on the difference which he legitimately sells for, and the amount which he originally acquired the property for, but what he will be taxed on will be the difference between what he ultimately sells for and the amount for which he was to have sold the property, and that is a material point which has to be considered. I do not want to create the impression, however, of being hasty in a matter of some difficulty, and if the hon. member is not satisfied I would suggest that he should allow his amendment to be defeated now, and put it on the paper again for the report stage, which will not be taken today. I shall then give him the opportunity of discussing it again on the report stage.

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

The Minister has just said that the object of the memorandum was to clarify the position. Well, I must say that the attempt at clarification has made it worse confounded. I quite understand the implication of this clause, but the point which worries me is this. I think that this date the 1st day of October, 1939, in line 57 should be the 26th February, 1942. Because as the clause is drafted, if a cancellation has taken place between the 1st October, 1939, and the 26th February, 1942, the provisions would apply. But I suggest to the Minister that it is obviously unfair to apply the provisions of this section to a transaction which took place before there was any tax at all. The tax was only imposed on the 26th February, 1942, and if a person in the bona fide course of a transaction cancels a sale between the 1st October, 1939 and the 26th February, 1942, why on earth should he be penalised? I think the effect of this section is that the person who cancels with the object of evading the tax after the 26th February, 1942, should be penalised. Before the tax came into force there could never have been any intention on the part of a person to evade the tax—because there was no tax, and I submit that the Minister might withdraw that.

I am quite prepared to consider that. Let us leave it now and we can consider it later.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On the motion of the Minister of Finance, an amendment was made in the Afrikaans version which did not occur in the English version.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

The remaining Clauses and the Title having been agreed to,

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill with amendments; amendments to be considered on 19th April.

I move—

Hon. members have had submitted to them a white paper which I hope has been of some value to them in studying the Bill. I am afraid it has had to be prepared somewhat hastily, it is not as full as I should like it to be but I shall be prepared to give any further information hon. members may want. That white paper deals with the Bill clause by clause. I want to deal with the Bill rather differently, I want to deal with the Bill in the natural sequence into which it falls. In the first place there are in this Bill two important provisions which give effect to some of my Budget proposals. Those are to be found in Section 44 and Section 46 of the Bill, near the end. In the second place we set out in this Bill to amend last year’s War Pensions Act. Last year we passed a War Pensions Act which was claimed as one of the most generous in the world, it was an Act which I think breathed the desire to treat as fairly as possible and as reasonably as possible those who suffer in our behalf during this war. But at that time I indicated my willingness to give further consideration to various points which were raised during the discussions of that Bill, and to other points that might crop up. And I said that after such consideration I would ask Parliament to revise that Bill of last year in such respects as might prove necessary. Now the bulk of this Bill is the result of that revision and here I refer to Clauses 10 to 43 of the Bill. That I describe as a second section of the Bill—the amendments of last year’s War Pensions Act. Then I come to the third part. As a result of last years amendment of the law and in one or two cases of changes which we are now proposing to make, certain amendments have been found necessary to bring other legislation into harmony with our War Pensions Act. I am referring now to the Defence Act and also to the old War Pensions Act of 1919. Clauses 1 to 5 of this Bill provide amendments of that nature. Those clauses need not delay us now. In essence they are really consequential to what we did last year, or propose to do this year. Finally, there are a few other clauses in this Bill. I am referring to Clauses 7, 8, 9 and 45 which amend the laws in relation to civil pensions. Hon. members will see from what I have said that this Bill deals mainly with war pensions. It mainly amends the War Pensions Act of last year, it further makes certain consequential amendments to other legislation but in addition it includes certain amendments to our laws relating to civil pensions and finally, in the two clauses to which I have referred, it gives effect to certain of my Budget proposals. Let me at this stage deal with the clause in regard to civil pensions. I referred to Clauses 7, 8, 9 and 45. 7 and 8 may be taken together. The question has been raised as to the effect of the soldier’s allotment of pay, or the dependant’s allowance on old age pensions, or blind persons’ pensions, so far as the means test is concerned, and it has been urged that such allowances and allotments which after all are of a temporary nature should not be taken into account when determining the eligibility of a person for an old age pension or a blind pension, or when determining the amount of such a pension payable under the law. These Clauses 7 and 8 are intended to exclude such allowances, or allotments, from the calculation to be made in the award of old age or blind pensions. I think that proposal will be acceptable to the House. But at the same time in Section 8 there is another provision which is new; in Paragraph (2) of Clause 8 we propose to make provision for an attendance allowance in the case of blind persons. We have such attendance allowances in our War Pensions legislation and we want to make it possible to pay attendance allowances to blind persons. I think that will also be acceptable to the House. Now, before I come to the War Pensions part of the Bill I want to dispose of the two clauses which give effect to what is the main object of this Bill. May I just be allowed to go back for a moment? I said I wanted to deal with the clauses dealing with the amendment of the laws in regard to civil pensions. I have dealt with Clauses 7 and 8, and I should also like to deal with Clauses 9 and 45. Clause 9 of the Bill merely serves to rectify an error made in the Government Service Pensions Act of 1936. Clause 45 of that Act of 1936 has been held to have taken away the powers of the Treasury to authorise gratuities in respect of temporary and other non-pensionable services. We did not intend to take away that power to give gratuities to such servants and we assumed that we had not taken away such power. The Treasury issued a circular in 1937 stating that such gratuities could be paid, but it has been pointed out that in reality that circular is in conflict with the Act of 1936 and that therefore such gratuities are illegal. To rectify that, we are proposing this amendment. It will regularise what we have been doing. And finally, under this Clause No. 45 of this Bill it is intended to validate the transfer from the Pensions point of view of officers in Colleges to the Government service. Hon. members will appreciate the point that we have a special fund for officers in University institutions, and a special fund for Technical Colleges. There are difficulties in the way of transfer when such people are appointed to posts in the Public Service. This clause will remove such difficulties. Now I come to the two clauses which will give effect to the Budget proposals, Clauses 44 and 46. In the Budget it will be remembered I announced the intention of the Government to legislate for the addition to War Veterans Pensions to the extent of one-third. Such addition to be regarded as a temporary measure pending the re-consideration of the whole matter of old age pensions. That is provided for in Clause 44. In the Budget I also dealt with the question of civil pensioners who are finding themselves in a difficult position as a result of increased living costs. I made it clear in the Budget speech that we could not possibly concede as a matter of right that such pensioners should receive a cost of living allowance, but that we were prepared to play the part of the good employer in relation to his ex-employees who found themselves in difficulties through no fault of their own. I indicated that we would deal with such cases on their merits and that a Committee would be set up to deal with such cases and that the House would be asked to make the necessary financial provisions. The financial provision is on the supplementary estimates, and steps are virtually complete in regard to the setting up of the Committee. This particular Clause 46 will empower us to set up that Committee and to confirm preliminary action taken in that regard, and also to make payments as contemplated in my Budget speech. I am now left with the amendments of the War Pensions Act of 1942. As I said that was a generous Act, and I do not consider that a further increase of the rates of pension as laid down in the schedules of that Act is necessary. I think those schedules were accepted by everyone last year as generous schedules. But there are various points in the body of the Act in respect of which we feel that amendment should be made. In view of the fact that hon. members have available the White Paper, I do not propose to touch on all those points. I want, however, to refer to the chief amendments and improvements which will be made in the War Pensions Act if this Bill is accepted. I want to deal first with perhaps the most important point of all, and that is the question of the definitions for the purpose of war pensions of “child”, “wife”, and “widow”. That is a matter, as hon. members will remember, in regard to which there was a lot of discussion last year. Let me just explain the present position. Under the law as it now stands, a child, for the purposes of allowances under the War Pensions Act, is a child born not more than 280 days after the discharge of the father, or any child regularly maintained at the date of enlistment. Only in respect of such children are allowances payable. The wife’s allowance is not payable except in the case of a wife who married a volunteer not more than two years after discharge, and a widow is not pensionable unless she married a volunteer prior to discharge. Those are the provisions of the existing law to which a certain amount of exception was taken last year. In all these cases we propose to make the period five years after discharge for the child, the wife and the widow, and we also propose to bring within the scope of the definition of “child” the child of a woman whom the volunteer married during his service, or a child whom he adopted during his service. Such children will also now be eligible for the payment of allowances. Then there is contained in this Bill, in Section 15, a proposal for the improvement of the position of the totally disabled man without earning capacity. Under the present law the position is that where no alternative award is payable, the rate laid down by the schedule for 100 per cent. disablement is £200. That may be increased, in cases where there is no earning capacity, by 50 per cent., and in addition an attendance allowance may be granted of £100. The maximum amount payable, therefore, is £400. Under the alternative award the maximum amount payable is £450. We have had a great deal of difficulty in regard to the definition of the alternative awards. I am afraid so far we have not been able to surmount those difficulties. What we propose to do, however, is to increase the present supplement from 50 per cent. to 75 per cent. so that to the £200 may be added not £100 but £150. The maximum then payable in such a case will be the same as the alternative award maximum, namely, £450. Then there are certain provisions in respect of compensation payable to the dependants of the deceased volunteer. There several important changes are proposed. At the present moment, for instance, the pension is not payable to the widow and children of a volunteer if his death was caused by his own serious misconduct. I think the House will probably agree that we should not penalise the woman or the child because of the misconduct of the volunteer. We therefore propose to delete that disqualification. I think that will be acceptable. That is done in Section 16. Then I come to Section 17. At the present moment the widow’s alternative award is reduced in respect of the child of the volunteer and of which she is not the mother; for instance, the child of a previously divorced wife. That operates hardly on the woman, and it is proposed to change that. Then there is a relatively small point. You get the case of the young widow who remarries before the pension payable to her is determined. At present she gets nothing for the period of her widowhood. There may be some delay for which she is not to blame, and we remedy that position in Section 18. Then I come to a very difficult matter. Here I draw the attention of hon. members to Section 19. I refer here to the question of pensions to parents, which is dealt with in Section 23 of the Principal Act. That clause, as hon. members are aware, provides for the award of pensions to parents of deceased volunteers on the ground either of their dependence on the volunteer or on the ground of their pecuniary need. But in Section 23 there is a proviso that if the volunteer was under 26 when he died, his parents may be granted a pension of £13, apart from dependence or pecuniary need. That provision was made with the best of intentions, but it has led to a good deal of misunderstanding. As I say, it was a well intentioned provision which has caused a good deal of pain and unhappiness. It has been suggested that we should drop it altogether. But I am loth to go back on that, and undoubtedly that £13 allowance is appreciated by many parents who do not require the money but whom it enables to commemorate their lost son in some appropriate way. It has been acceptable from that point of view. But it is a further advantage that this payment for £13 is in effect a token payment which keeps the claim alive and which enables the recipient at any time to claim a larger pension when the circumstances have changed and when for instance the financial necessity can be established. That is why I do not want to drop that provision. In order to meet, as far as one can, what I might call a psychological difficulty in regard to this matter, I propose to remove that provision from Section 23 which deals with pensions for parents, but at the same time to make a similar provision in a different clause. I propose to introduce an entirely new clause in the Act, Clause 20 bis and to deal with the same matter there in a slightly different way. I propose to drop the limitation in regard to age. I see no good reason why that allowance should be payable only in cases where the volunteer was under 26. I drop that. I propose to make it an allowance payable in all cases. I describe it not as a pension but as an allowance, and I hope it will be regarded as such. It is not an attempt to compensate people for what they have lost; it is rather a recognition of the services rendered. I hope the House will accept that as a sincere attempt to deal with a difficult position. At the same time we make it clear that the award of that allowance will still keep the door open for subsequent application under Section 23 of the Bill. Then we come to the position of the separated wife. That is dealt with in Section 20. At the present moment the wife cannot get a pension if the separation occurred more than two years before enlistment. It has been suggested that sometimes difficulties and hardships are caused by that limitation, and I propose to extend that period from two years to five years. Then I come to another chapter of the War Pensions Act in relation to which we also propose certain amendments. Last year I undertook to reconsider the provisions of Section 31 of the War Pensions Act, which deals with the dependants of native volunteers. That section was somewhat hastily drafted and some points require further consideration. I have done that, and the result is now to be found in Section 27 of this Bill. The changes which we propose to effect are these: Firstly, as in the case of non-Europeans other than natives, where there is only one widow, she is assured of the full pension payable, and the amount is subject to reduction only where there is more than one widow. So in the case of the native we propose to make it quite clear that where there is only one widow she will get the amount of £25 laid down in the law. Secondly, while in the existing law the parents can only receive a gratuity, we propose to make it possible for them instead to be awarded a pension. A gratuity is, I think, economically unsound in relation to the people we are dealing with here. And while there are administrative difficulties in regard to the payment of the pension, I think we can overcome them. Then we propose to apply certain provisions of Chapter 3 which are set forth in Paragraph 3 to natives. That was something I specially undertook to consider last year. Then I come to the position of the Special Grants Board. That was an innovation in the Act of last year. We created a Special Grants Board to deal, on a discretionary basis, with those very difficult border-line cases which cannot be helped under the Act. I think the Special Grants Board has justified itself. It has been able to provide relief in many cases which has been of an acceptable and reasonable nature. In the light of the experience gained we want to amend Clause 25 of the Principal Act which deals with the Special Grants Board, and that is to be done in Section 31 of this Act, For convenience we are setting forth the whole of Section 35. We propose to call it now the Special Pensions Board, which I think is a better term. We propose also to raise the maximum amount which the Board can award from £120 to £180. We also propose to empower it to deal with cases of injury sustained during vocational training. There are only two other clauses to which I think I need refer. In the first place there is Clause 33 which amends Section 37 of last year’s Act, a section which gave rise to a good deal of discussion. That section empowers the Minister to cancel or reduce benefits in the event of misconduct. Last year we amended the clause so as to give the beneficiary a reasonable opportunity of stating his case. Now we propose to make it clear that the allowance to the wife, children and other dependants, is not affected because the pension of the man himself is withdrawn, and also to make it possible to increase this allowance by one half of the amount which otherwise the man would have drawn. I think that is a reasonable provision.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

There are only a few more points with which I wish to deal in regard to this Bill. I want first to draw attention to Clause 42. The purport of that is an improvement in the clause in last year’s Act which dealt with the levelling up of beneficiaries under the old Act to the scale under the new Act. Last year, of course, we improved the scales and we provided generally for a levelling up of beneficiaries under the old Act to the new rates. But the old Section 63 did not go as far as we meant it to go, and we now propose to lay down that such levelling up shall take place, except in the cases laid down in the proviso. Since the Bill has been presented to the House, I have decided, in response to representations made to me, to propose certain amendments, two of which will be of such a nature as to imply further improvement, and to which I therefore want to refer now. I shall move these amendments, of course, at the Committee stage. In the first place, I propose to move that the maximum rates payable to parents under Section 23 should be improved. Last year we improved the rates generally. But we did not touch the rates of parents. They still remain at £100 where one son had been lost and £144 where more than one son had been lost. I propose that we increase it now to £210 and £180 respectively. Then, from time to time, the case has been put of the dependent husband of a 100 per cent. disabled woman volunteer, or the woman volunteer who dies as a result of military service. I think the hon. member for Parktown (Mrs. Reitz) put that case last year. We provide, of course, for the widow, but we have not hitherto provided for the case of the dependent husband. I replied last year that there had been no cases of that kind. There still have been no such cases, but I concede that as a matter of logic we should provide for the dependent husband as has been suggested; and as such cases may arise in the future, I propose that we should amend the Act accordingly. I hope that will remove one of the criticisms which was voiced last year. I have attempted to give the House a general idea of the proposals in this Bill. Obviously I cannot deal in detail with every section of it, but I think that is made unnecessary by the fact that a White Paper has been issued which purports to do so. I think the House will appreciate how we have sought to approach the problem. I suppose one can hardly expect that complete satisfaction will be given to everyone, even by the proposals in this Bill. But I can claim that this Bill does represent an honest attempt to improve the position still further, and I hope that with the adoption of this Bill we shall be able to claim that as far as War Pension legislation is concerned, South Africa has no reason to feel ashamed.

Actually at the Second Reading I merely wish to pay attention to one aspect of the Bill, and that is in so far as it affects Oudstryders. I would first of all tell the Minister that there is great disappointment among the Oudstryders, for they rightly or wrongly understood and therefore expected that considerable improvement was going to be effected in their position. I have to say candidly that I had been under the impression that the Minister eventually would come forward with a scheme in regard to the Oudstryders this Session, and that he would give them something more tangible and a more effective pension than that proposed in the Bill today. The small pension awarded the Oudstryders a few years ago was itself very meagre, it was a slender amount when one considers the circumstances of those Oudstryders. When they at the time took up arms for their freedom and independence, they did not fight for a reward, they did not receive payment, but they voluntarily sacrificed their all on the altar of their ideal of liberty. Forty years have passed. The number of Oudstryders has dwindled to a small and trifling number and the majority of them are poor. In my constituency there is hardly one who cannot be considered really poor in the genuine sense of the term, so that the Government will virtually not be applying an unsound policy if they award a decent pension in all cases, without regard to the possessions and incomes of the people. Instead of doing that, the Government comes along with a Bill in which provision is made for an increase of one-third in the pension of Oudstryders. What was the amount they had received? At most £3 10s. per month. The great majority of the Oudstryders did not even receive that. They received 10s., £1, £1 10s. and £2 10s., and only a few cases received the maximum, which was also very scanty. The increase of one-third therefore is by a very trifling amount. It is particularly disappointing to me in view of not only the remuneration being paid to coloured and native soldiers in the army today, which is much more in the case of married coloureds than the small pension the Oudstryders receive; but it is doubly disappointing when one compares the pension received by the Oudstryder at present with that given by the Government to the coloured and native soldiers. The pension of coloured soldiers, especially if they have children, is considerably more, much more than the small pension awarded to European Oudstryders. It is a matter of principle with me, and a real scandal and evil, that the Government can go along and award to the coloured soldiers and native soldiers who are married, and may be wounded or injured, a pension in excess of that of the Oudstryders. Visualise the position after the war, when the Oudstryder comes along every month and proceeds to the Post Office to collect his scanty little pension, and the coloured man and the native come to the same Post Office and each month receive a much higher pension than the white man. This conflicts directly with the basis we are upon, the principle we maintain, and in my opinion it is no less than a disgrace, it is something that is going to lower considerably the white man’s prestige in South Africa. It lowers his status in respect of the coloured man and the native. It places the coloured man who is married and who receives an allowance for his children far above the level of the Oudstryders who receive pensions. When the Minister said that this is a temporary measure, and whereas he promised inter alia, as he did last year also, to give his attention to what is contained in this Clause, and that this increase is temporary according to his discretion, we do hope that he will reconsider this Section still further. If that side of the House perhaps again comes into power, which I hope will not happen, I hope the Minister will carry out his promise this time and that he will not shelve this matter again, and that before finality is achieved he will give the matter further thought, and that he will eventually place the Oudstryders in the position that they may live their lives without a care. As regards this Section, I should just like to ask the Minister why it is provided that an Oudstryder who receives old age pension, and who wishes to convert it into an Oudstryders pension in order to receive the increase, and applies to that effect, should have to do so before 1st August, 1943. That is how I read this Clause. I refer the Minister to Clause 44, paragraph 2, which reads as follows—

In terms of this clause he will have the right to apply, but I understand this clause to mean that the Oudstryder who receives an old age pension and desires to become eligible for the increased Oudstryders pension, has to apply to have the old age pension converted into the Oudstryders pension before 1st August, 1943.

No, that is not the intention.

That is as I understand it, that he should apply before 1st August, 1943.

No, he has to apply before that date if he desires the increase to be made retrospective.

Good, let us take it like that. Now I should like to ask the Minister to extend the date somewhat, and I shall tell him why. Whereas the old age pension has thus far been equal to the Oudstryders pension; whereas the amount paid out and the conditions have been exactly alike, the Oudstryders have not taken the trouble to apply for an Oudstryders pension. Oudstryders received old age pensions, and in many cases they did not apply for the Oudstryders pension, for the two were exactly equal. I know of many cases where this is so in the case of Oudstryders. If those people wish to be eligible for the increase in so far as it is retrospective, they have to apply before 1st August, 1943, and many of them will not do that, not because they do not want to do so, but because they will for one reason or another be in default as regards applying within the fixed period. That is why I would suggest that the Minister extend the period. It is nearly 1st May already, thus only three months to 1st August. The Minister should extend this period for six months or a year, so that these people may become aware of this provision. Many of those people do not read a newspaper, and they might only come to hear of this thing after the 1st August. Then their chance of securing this benefit retrospectively will have been lost, and they will not be receiving the increase retrospectively. I hope the Minister will realise the fairness of this request, and that those people will be given at least six months or a year, for applying for the increase.

I think that the House will express its gratitude to the Minister for bringing in this measure, which is in accordance with the promise he made to the House last year. The many disadvantages which existed in regard to the Bill last year were pointed out to the Minister, who said that he would be quite willing if experience proved that amendment was necessary, to bring forward such a Bill as the present. I think it is only right to say that the gratitude not only of the House but of the people of the country generally, is due to the Government for the way in which it has tried to meet the very grave difficulties which have arisen in connection with this War Pensions Act. We know that serious feelings are aroused over cases of injustice, and there have been many criticisms of the Board which deals with these matters. Moreover, there is no doubt that there is a great feeling of sympathy for those who have suffered through the war, and who consequently have a claim on pensions or grants under the Act. The action that the Minister has taken now and the action that he took last year is indicative of the real feeling of sympathy which the Government has with all these cases, and their determination to remove, as far as possible, the anomalies and injustices which do exist. In view of the very full statement which the Minister made this morning, and in view of the fact that many amendments are going to appear on the Order Paper, it is not necessary now to go into a detailed criticism of the provisions of the Act. But there is one thing which I think is still a matter of very serious concern. That is the fact that no provision exists for paying pensions to the widows and dependants of soldiers who may be killed in the Union when off duty on leave. One realises the difficulty in which the Government was placed in differentiating between these cases and the cases of men on active service. A soldier on leave just over the border of the Union may be killed while on leave, and his dependants would be entitled to a pension. But if that accident happened inside the border his dependants would not be entitled to a pension. That is a matter which is causing very serious concern. I have heard of a hard case in this last month. A soldier was asked to take some people home after a certain function. He was returning afterwards in the dark, the car ran into a donga and he was killed, and his wife and child are not entitled to any pension. One realises the difficulty the Minister is placed in, but I think there is a general feeling with regard to all cases of soldiers, whether inside or outside the Union, that they should all receive consideration. I still feel that the omission of any provision to deal with these cases is a blot which should be removed from the pension laws of this country. I think that the extension of the period to five years is going to meet with general approval. The Minister will remember that last year very strong representations were made by a Committee of this House on this particular matter, and although requests have been made to extend the period beyond five years —I know that certain representations go as far as fifteen years—I think the Minister recognises that the extension to five years does meet, to a certain extent, the objections previously raised. There may be certain cases where that period should be extended. I think the hon. member for Parktown may very likely refer to one or two cases where there may be hardship. That matter probably can be dealt with in the Special Grants Clause, but I think as a general rule the period of extension to five years is eminently fair and reasonable. I think, also, the fact that the Minister has now removed this Clause relating to serious misconduct satisfied a demand which has been made. It is not fair to penalise the dependants of a soldier who meets his death owing to his own misconduct, and I think the provisions the Minister has made there will also meet with general approval. In regard to this question of pensions for parents and also the question of dependent husbands, it does meet a position which has been the subject of remark in the past. I do not propose to go into any detailed criticism, in view of the fact that amendments are going to be moved, but I would like to say again that the fact that this Government has brought forward this Bill, which does remove a large number of difficulties, is evidence that other grievances which may exist in the future will be dealt with in the same sympathetic manner.

I was very glad to hear the remarks of the hon. member who has just sat down (Mr. Pocock) in regard to soldiers killed while on leave, because I am hoping that his front bench rank will add weight to my humble backbencher effort, to persuade the Minister to drop this differentiation between soldiers serving outside the Union and soldiers serving inside. I would like to remind the House that in Section 17 of the War Pensions Act of last year, the widow of a man who is killed or dies on military service outside the Union during the war, gets a pension. It does not matter what the soldier is doing when he is killed, whether he is on leave or not, and whether he is on private affairs or on military duty, if he is killed outside the Union his widow gets a pension and his children are provided for. They are provided for on only one basis, and that is that the man is on service for his country, and the country, in recognition of that fact, pays a pension to his widow and children. I would remind the House also that whether a man is serving outside the Union or inside, is something over which he has no control. Where he is serving is for the military authorities to decide. The authorities decide whether his particular unit will serve the country best by staying in South Africa, or whether it will serve South Africa best by going outside. Therefore, Sir, to that extent there is no analogy between the service of a soldier and the service of a policeman. The man is a soldier fighting for his country, he has taken an oath to serve his country anywhere, and wherever he is sent he has to go. On the other hand, according to the same Act, a man who dies from wounds, injury or disease which arose out of or in the course of the discharge of military duty—note duty, not service—in the Union during the war, gets a pension, but it has been decided that military duty in the Union does not cover a period of leave. To test that position I myself took a case that had been turned town by the Pensions Board to the Pensions Appeal Board, and I was informed that seeing that the man had been killed not on military duty but on leave in the Union, no pension was payable. Now that is an anomalous situation. In this particular instance the unfortunate man was on leave in Durban. His own home town was a long way from Durban, but he was off military duty spending his period of leave in Durban. Now leave is necessary to keep a man fit for duty, and yet that man who was run down in the blackout in Durban and killed by a motorist, who was subsequently convicted of negligent driving, that man’s widow could not get a pension from the Department because he was not killed on military duty. Only a day or two ago I sent to the Minister the case of a widow which was even worse. Her husband joined up, and while on duty he contracted a heavy cold, and decided that as his leave was about due he would take his leave in order to shake off the cold. While on leave he developed pneumonia and died, and his unfortunate widow and child were not given a pension, because he died on leave in the Union. That seems to me to be a most extraordinary position, and I would like the Minister to remember that he told us last year he was introducing a Bill to meet these cases where the shoe pinches, and I think he should bear in mind that now that the First Division has returned to the Union, the vast majority of cases in which men will be killed or injured will very likely be while those men are on leave in the Union, and that will mean that many of the dependants of people who have joined up for service, will get no pensions if anything happens to them while on leave. That does seem to me to be an extraordinary state of affairs, and if it is not too late, I would ask him to reconsider the position and possibly bring in an amendment at the Committee stage. I am sure the House feels that it is not just or reasonable that the dependants of those men should suffer. The Minister has told us this morning of the change in his attitude towards the dependants of this man who is killed owing to his own misconduct. I am sure the House agrees and feels that it is not just or reasonable to make the dependants of a man who is killed because of his own serious misconduct suffer, and for that reason the Minister has deleted the provision in the Pensions Act which prevented the widow of a man who was killed through his own misconduct from getting a pension. I am sure the House welcomes the deletion of that provision, and if the Minister has rightly done this out of a sense of fairness and justice to dependants in this case surely it is at least logical to say that the unfortunate widow and dependants of a man who has been guilty of no serious misconduct, but who is killed while on leave, are at least equally worthy of the Minister’s consideration. An hon. member has interjected about accidents after hours, but there is no question of after hours when a man is on military duty, because he is liable to be called up any hour of the 24, whether on leave or not. There is no getting away from that, he is on service. Surely a man who takes his leave in order to keep fit for military service—that is the purpose of giving a man leave—surely that man is equally deserving of the consideration of his country with the man who is killed through his own misconduct. And I must add that if this position is not amended the situation will get progressively worse, because the number of men who are on service outside the Union today is comparatively small compared with those inside the Union, so it becomes urgent that the Minister reconsider his attitude in this matter. He knows I have it very much at heart, and that I have had numerous similar cases brought to my notice. The Minister promised me that he would consider this matter afresh, and I am disappointed to see that in this fresh Bill he has presented to the House no provision whatever is made for such cases. To my mind that is so grave a defect in this Bill that it almost militates against some of the concessions that he has put in even though they are considerable. There are in this Bill various ameliorations of the provisions in the last Bill, and one of them is this extension of the marriage period to five years. While that is a welcome change, I still think it is not long enough, and I should be prepared to see it extended to ten years. In any case, I hope the Minister, when this Bill is passed, as I hope it will be quite soon, will not feel that he has said his last word on this subject, but will promise the House that if and when cases of additional hardship are brought to his notice he will come to the House with a fresh amending Bill, because I do assure him that this matter of pensions is one which the country, as well as the House, is watching very seriously. We are a very small country from the point of view of population, and for the size of that, population we have built up a considerable military force, so that practically everybody in this country has a brother, a son or a husband in the army, and everybody in the country is concerned to see that the dependants of these soldiers, who are the ordinary citizens of the country, shall be fairly dealt with, so I hope the Minister will find it possible to do that. If he last word on this subject of war pensions. Finally, Sir, I would like to raise another matter, and that is the differentiation between men and women disclosed in the schedule regarding disablement. I am very sorry to see that in these amounts, which are very small, there is still differentiation in the amounts given to men and women. In G I would like to call the attention of the House to the maximum differentiation, which is in the case of a 20 per cent. disablement. The man of any rank, including major, gets £100, while the woman, up to and including the rank of warrant officer No. 1, gets £75, a difference of £25, and I am very sorry indeed to see that in the matter of so small an amount the Minister could not find it in his heart to put the sexes on an equality. I am one of those who believe that when it comes to disablement of any kind, it is very illogical to differentiate on the ground of sex, because I have yet to hear that the disabled woman needs less food, shelter or clothing than the disabled man. Here is a case where for a very small sum a disadvantage could be remedied, because the number of women who are disabled is very much less than the number of men, and for a very small sum indeed to the Treasury the Government might have made a gesture to the women of this country, and shown them that the Government feels that the women are doing at least as good a job as the men and should be treated on an equal basis. I protest very strongly against this differentiation. It is small, absurdly small, and just because it is so small the Government might have said: “Here is a case where after all it is a matter of disablement, and we will give the women a square deal.” I would like to ask the Minister whether he will hot reconsider his schedule and see whether he will not scale up this allowance to the standard of the men. It can be done with very little expense, and with enormous benefit to the country and the Government. I do believe from the remarks made round me that on this matter of difference in compensation between men and women I have the sympathy of the House, and rightly because compensation has no relation to the question of equal pay for equal work, since compensation is something which the Government gives to people because they have suffered some injury,—whether to their limbs, whether they are hurt in some other way—and when it comes to compensation there can be no question that because a woman earns less than a man she should also get less by way of compensation. It is compensation for physical injury, and in physical injury the woman who is hurt is deserving of the same consideration and the same compensation as the man who is hurt, and here in this amending Bill I hope the Minister will find it possible to do that. If he increases compensation here in this ninth schedule, and levels the rates up for women and men alike, he will be able to see the financial implications of equal compensation and bear them in mind for future and I hope extended application. This is the time to do it, and on behalf of the women I make an urgent plea to the Minister and to the House too to help in this important and pressing matter.

I want to say a few words in connection with the Oudstryders’ pensions. I think there is general disappointment in the country in that the Minister merely continues to make promises that he will go into the matter, although he has not as yet disposed of this whole matter. Last year the Minister promised to go into this matter; this year he simply comes again with the proposal that those people who receive pensions, will have their pensions increased by one-third, but the means test still remains, as a result of which only a limited portion of the Oudstryders receive pensions. I personally told many Oudstryders that the Minister had promised to go into the whole question of compensating Oudstryders, and that he would certainly keep his word. Now the Minister says that he will again go into the matter, but that he is giving them something in advance. We are very glad that the Minister has brought about this improvement, but I want to bring this to his notice: As a result of the means test there are numerous persons who lose their old age pensions. I have quite a few cases here. Let me take one as an example. A man has a small income, and he is now getting a cost of living allowance, and that means that he immediately loses his old age pension because this brings him within the limits fixed by the means test. He received only this short notification: “You are hereby notified that your old age pension has been cancelled with effect from the 1st January, 1943, owing to the cost of living allowance which you have received as from that date.” The cost of living allowance therefore means nothing to him, because he no longer gets his old age pension of, say, £1 10s. per month, but instead of that he is getting a cost of living allowance. I should like the Minister to go into this, because this constitutes a real grievance. The State adopts the opinion that he cannot get the pension because he is now getting a cost of living allowance. The Oudstryder’s pension lapses all of a sudden, and that apparently applies also to old age pensions. This simply means that the individual concerned does not get anything extra, and the cost of living allowance means absolutely nothing to him. The Minister will understand that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction amongst those people who no longer receive the pension. I would say that the cost of living allowance should not reduce or destroy a pension of this nature. I should like the Minister to consider the matter from that point of view. There are quite a number of these cases, and they should not lose their pensions as a result of the cost of living allowance. It is illogical, and it makes the award of an allowance in respect of increased cost of living nothing but nullity.

I want to associate myself with the hon. member for Jeppe (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) and the hon. member for Pretoria, Central (Mr. Pocock) in regard to the improvements in this Bill now before us, which I think should give general satisfaction. There is, however, one matter to which I want to draw attention. It is the question of men in the Public Service who go on active service and who have accumulated leave standing to their credit. I have in mind a particular case and I should like to mention this to show how hardly the present position works. This is a matter which has been covered by Treasury regulations. I may just point out that there was a Treasury circular issued in 1937 which was amended in 1942. It deals with the question of a gratuity in the ordinary way in the Public Service being paid to a man’s dependants if a man dies and he has accumulated leave due to him. If the Public Servant dies and there is accumulated leave standing to his credit the amount due is paid to his widow or minor children, or to whatever dependants he has. Now I want to deal with the position of dependants. Unfortunately dependency is not defined. When a Public Servant goes on active service I submit that he is entitled to special consideration, and any leave standing to his credit when he dies on active service should be given to his estate. I am reminded of one case to show how hardly the present, position may work out. This is the case of a young man in Natal whose parents live in the Cape Province. He was engaged in the postal service at Maritzburg, and he joined the First Royal Natal Carbineers, and was with them in their gallant fights from El Wak to Gazala. He was wounded there and taken prisoner and he died when in an Italian hospital in July last year. When he went away he gave his father a letter to say that he desired that he should draw his civil pay while he was away. The father is not a rich man, he has to work to support his wife and himself, but he did not want to take the boy’s money so he banked it during his absence, so that when the boy came back he would have something to fall back upon. Unfortunately the boy died, but the money continued to be paid to his father for some time. Afterwards it had to be refunded. I have nothing to say about that. It had to be refunded because it was payment made after his death. So an amount of about £51 15s. 11d. had to be refunded, less £41 5s. 10d. due for ration allowance. It is the principle involved which I am concerned with. Now it may be said that the father, having been told in a letter by his son to take for himself the civil pay, that to that extent the father was dependent on the son. Well, dependency is not defined. The father did not want to say that he was dependent on the son because he was putting the money in the boy’s name. He did not want to say he was dependent on the son, so the accumulated leave could not be paid to the father, with the result that the amount was confiscated. Now, a very important principle is involved. The boy could have taken advantage of his leave but he said: “No, I am going to serve my country”, so instead of asking for his leave he joined up, and now his estate is penalised because the amount he would have been entitled to in respect of the accumulated leave is lost. But that leave had been earned. I say that the least we can do is to see that the accumulated leave is credited to the estate. The father put the circumstances to the Prime Minister’s Department, which referred the matter to the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, in whose Department the boy worked.

Will the hon. member tell me how this matter comes under the Bill?

I am suggesting that in the Committee stage the Minister should insert the necessary amendment to provide for this in the Bill.

But we are dealing with pensions.

You can bring it in.

But that is not a matter of pensions.

You have allowances and gratuities in this Bill. Anyhow, I want the Minister to make provision by way of some allowance or gratuity in this Bill to the estate of deceased soldiers to cover this point. It could be met. You can call it allowance or anything else. It is only in a Bill like this that one can raise it.

When the War Pensions Bill was before the House last Session, I made two main criticisms with reference to the position of disabled native soldiers and their dependants, and also with regard to dependants of deceased native soldiers. One criticism I made was that the provisions of Chapter 3 of the Bill were not applied in the main to the descendants of deceased native soldiers, and secondly, that the widow of a deceased native soldier, if there was only one, had no right to a pension. There was only discretionary power to grant her a pension. Those were the two main criticisms I made. Now my criticisms with regard to Chapter 3 have to a certain extent been met. But with regard to the position of the widow I want to say something at a later stage. Before I go on to deal with this point I want to say something about the rates. I would not have done so if the Minister of Finance had not said that there had been general agreement in the House last Session that the rates provided were generous. That may be so with regard to European soldiers, but it certainly was not so in regard to native soldiers. I want to remind the House that what I said last Session was that I recognised that the rates laid down in the 1941 Act were an improvement so far as the native soldiers and their dependants were concerned, on the position which existed before, and for that reason we on these benches did not specifically criticise the rates. But I think the Minister knows that we feel the disparity between the rates of pension paid to African soldiers, and those paid in regard to other races.— we feel that there is too big a gap, that the disparity is too wide. We are supported in that by the South African Legion of the British Empire Service League. They have laid down that the native soldiers should not get less than two thirds of what the coloured soldiers get, and that their dependants should not get less than two thirds either. We have supported that position. I recognise that this Bill except in the case of parents does not deal with rates. But I am making our position clear lest my silence should be accepted by the Minister as agreement with what he has said. Now I want to refer to the position of the dependants of the deceased native soldier. The Minister said in introducing this Bill, if I understood him correctly, that he had now made provision to meet our objection on that point, that he had made provision that where the deceased native soldier left a widow—and only one widow—this Bill assured her a pension. Now I, of course, accept that, but what I want to submit to him is that that is not what the Bill says.

I said that the pension would not be less than £25.

I don’t quite follow the Minister’s point. Let the Minister look at Section 27 and let him read it together with Section 31 of the Principal Act. Apparently there is a misunderstanding between the Minister and myself. Our objection is to these words, “discretion of the Board”. If there is only one widow the position today is under this Bill that she need not get anything unless the Board so determines. Now, let the Minister look at Section 17 of the Principal Act, which refers to widows of European or Coloured people. There is nothing there about any discretion of the Board. Now it is these words “discretion of the board” which we have always objected to. We want the right to be established that a native widow—where there is only one widow—shall get a pension if her husband is killed in action, and we submit that that is not an unreasonable demand. The pension provisions of any country in the world say that if a man is killed in action the widow shall have a pension. Now that is what our objection has always been to the position. The Minister has in some part met our objections by saying: “It shall be such and such an amount.” That is to say there is no discretion to reduce the amount, but we want the right to a pension established where there is only one widow. And I hope the Minister will either accept an amendment in Committee, or himself propose an amendment. Now I want to deal with another aspect of this Bill under Section 27 which deals with benefits to the various classes of dependants enumerated in Chapter 3 of the Principal Act, which deals with benefits to the dependants of deceased native volunteers. This provision does apply to the most important class of native dependants and it marks an advance in this regard. I raised this point last year and the Minister then said he would consider it. I am glad the Minister has made this concession, but I do want to say this, with regard to parents—the parent is a most important dependant of a native, and I say so for this reason—that the old native people do not get old age pensions. Now, it is the rates for parents in the case of Europeans and coloured people which the Minister is increasing. He is increasing in the case of the dependant parents of the Europeans and the coloured people the pensions payable from £100 per annum to £120 per annum—that is for Europeans, and if there are two parents he is increasing the pensions up to £180. Now, I want to make this submission to the Minister. The gap between £120 per annum for the dependant parent of the deceased European volunteer and the £18 per annum for the dependant parent of the deceased native volunteer is altogether too large, even having regard to the conventional standards of living of this country. I want to make myself perfectly clear. Take the case of the coloured volunteer. I am glad that they are getting an increase. Under Section 28 of the Principal Act the dependant of a deceased coloured volunteer gets three fifths of the European’s equivalent. Under the increased provision for parents which the Minister is making in this Bill a dependant parent of a deceased coloured soldier gets £72 per annum, as against £75 for the widow of a coloured soldier. In other words, the parent of the deceased coloured volunteer and the widow of a coloured volunteer is getting very much the same. If that is necessary in the case of the coloured person it is all the more necessary in the case of the native, because as I have said the old native people do not get old age pensions where the old coloured people do. I want to ask the Minister to increase the native pension—the pension for native parents to at least to what the widows get, and I submit that that is a very reasonable demand. The pension should be higher. It is difficult to ask for anything higher because the widow’s pension is so low, but where there is more than one parent the pension should be higher. I hope the Minister will take this into consideration as he has made this generous concession to parents of deceased coloured and European soldiers. I just want to clear up one point. With regard to the separated wife of the deceased native soldier who now gets a pension, it is not quite clear to me from the provision of Section 27 whether the children of such a separated wife would be provided for. The clause as it reads is not at all clear.

I shall make that clear.

There is another point and a final point I want to raise with the Minister, and which concerns the new ninth schedule of this Bill. It makes gratuity provision for soldiers and their dependants who suffer a disability which is less than 20 per cent. In the case of both the European and the coloured soldier there is a certain rate of gratuity related to the degree of disability suffered for a single man and there is an addition to it in the case of his wife and each child. With regard to the native volunteer there is simply a gratuity payable for each degree of disability, whether he is married or whether he is single. I do want to ask the Minister to insert rates, where the man has a wife and where he has children. I submit to the Minister that it is quite illogical to make this distinction between the disabled native soldier on the one hand and the disabled coloured and European soldier on the other hand. If he were sufficiently disabled to draw a pension, his wife and each child would get an allowance in exactly the same way as the European and coloured wife and child do. Why then has he departed from that principle when it comes to these gratuities? It may be a small point in its way, but it does mean a lot to the people involved. I say it is a small point, because it is only a lump sum payment and not a pension, but the principle is important, and it seems to me that it is unjust, having regard to the general principles upon which this Bill is founded, that this particular case of discrimination should be brought in in the case of these small gratuities which are paid to soldiers who are disabled to the extent of less than 20 per cent.; and I do want to impress upon the Minister that, through force of circumstances, we had to be content with the discriminations between the European and the coloured soldier. We know in practice, we know from experience of the people we represent, that the coloured and native worker earn the same wages. I know that from the conditions in my constituency. No one can gainsay that; that is a fact, and yet when it comes to serving his country, the dependants of a native are compelled to accept far less than what is provided for in the case of the coloured people. That is something against which we have protested on principle, but the Government has persisted in provisions of that kind. But at the same time why make the position worse? The principle has been accepted with regard to pensions that the native widow and children, where their husband or father, as the case may be, is killed, have to be provided for, provided the disability is serious enough. When, hoever, the disability is less than 20 per cent., provision is made for the European soldier who has a wife and children, for the coloured soldier who has a wife and children, but there is no provision for the native soldier in respect of his wife and children. That is just the kind of discrimination which makes matters far worse from the psychological point of view of these people. There is a gap between them and the coloured soldiers in relation to military pay which is far greater than the gap which exists between them in civil occupations. That is how it strikes them. With regard to pensions the same applies. Now we have introduced another irritating and senseless discrimination, that where the European or coloured is injured in this manner and has a wife and children, special provision is made for them, but there is no provision for the native who has a wife and children, because he is a native. I hope the Minister will seriously consider the advisability of amending the ninth schedule so as to make similar provisions for the wife and children of a native soldier who is injured to the extent of less than 20 per cent.

I am very sorry that the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) has again seen fit today to refer to the Oudstryders’ pensions as a scandalous payment to those people. That type of reproach gets us no further. If we want to level the same reproaches against the other side of the House, we might say that the Nationalist Party did absolutely nothing in nine years’ time. Now that something is being done for those people we have to listen to reproaches that the amount awarded is scandalously low. The hon. member went so far—and to me that seemed to be the most reprehensible of all—as to draw a comparison between the Oudstryders’ pensions and the war pensions which the native soldiers will get under this Bill. There is no comparison whatsoever. In the one case it is a consideration in respect of work which the Oudstryders did. I do not say that what they are getting is sufficient. I should like very much more. But to compare that with war pensions which are received by men who are wounded or killed—there can be no comparison. And I think that he, as a responsible member of that Party, ought not to say such things in this House. We are very grateful for the increase of one-third which the Minister is proposing in this Bill. But it seems to me that it is only logical to infer from that that the means test should also be increased by one-third, and if that had been proposed it would have gone a long way towards satisfying these people. They are very grateful for this one-third increase, in spite of what the Opposition has said. Another matter for which I am very grateful is this. This is a matter which I have already discussed with the Minister, namely, that the allowance which sons in the army give to their parents should not be taken into consideration when applying the means test to these people. This is a very good step in the right direction. The Minister said this morning that the question of giving further attention to the pensions of the Oudstryders depended on the investigation into the old age pensions. I should very much like to know when that will take place. Must we wait another year, until next year, and will we then be informed again that the matter will be investigated and dealt with together with the old age pensions? I do hope that the Minister will expedite this matter. Generally speaking, I can only express my gratitude for the changes and amendments which are being brought about by this Bill, and which will remove all those anomalies which existed last year. The country, and especially the soldiers and their dependants, will appreciate what is being done here.

I am surprised at the remark of the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie). It would seem that he is not fully informed and that he is ignorant in connection with the pensions of ordinary soldiers. Let me say this. The maximum pension which an Oudstryder can receive is £4 10s. per month. What is the amount which an ordinary soldier can get when he is injured? If he is 20 per cent. disabled he receives £40. Even then he practically receives what the Oudstryder is getting, and he actually receives more than the Oudstryder received in the past. In the past the Oudstryders experienced very difficult times, and they did not only experience difficult times but they lost everything as a result of the war. As we all know, before the war there were well-to-do people, who were reduced to poverty after the war.

I know all about that.

When a soldier who is incapacitated to the extent of 50 per cent. applies for a pension, he receives £100. How does that compare with the Oudstryders? This person is still able to work. If he suffers 100 per cent. disability, he receives £200 and then a further £30 in respect of his wife and £30 in respect of every child until they reach the age of 18 years. If he has eight or ten children, het gets £300 in respect of his children alone, so that altogether he may get £530. And then the hon. member for Rustenburg holds it against the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) for saying that it is scandalous that the Oudstryders should receive such a paltry amount in comparison with the ordinary soldier who takes part in this war. How does this amount to which I have referred compare with the £4 10s. maximum which the Oudstryder is going to get? When we take this into consideration, it strikes me as remarkable that a representative of the Transvaal should make such a plea in this House. It only goes to show how blind he is, and how far he will go in violating the interests of his own people. I do not want to enlarge on that matter, because the hon. member for Rustenburg is so blinded that he does not want to appreciate these things. Now he is laughing about it. If one makes a comparison such as the one he drew, one must be ignorant. I just want to put a question to the Minister and to associate myself specificially with those who pleaded for it, namely whether he cannot make provision for assistance to be granted to the widow of an Oudstryder. I can only say this—and the Minister probably knows of such cases too—that there are many cases where a widow was left behind with a number of children, and she has to provide for the education of those children. That is not right, and it is not fair in comparison with the pensions which are awarded to ordinary soldiers. In the case of an ordinary soldier an allowance is paid in respect of every child, and I do not think that we should allow this discrimination against the Oudstryders who, in those days, left their homes under very difficult circumstances to go and defend their country. Such an Oudstryder has as much right as in the present case to receive adequate payment, from the Government of the day. Then I also want to ask the Minister specially whether he will not consider the question of giving us more specific information in regard to these pensions. I notice that this year an additional £88,000 is being asked for in respect of this type of pension. The total amount on the estimates is only £330,000. Bearing in mind the circumstances of the country, in view of the amount of money which is in the country, everyone will agree with me that this is a very meagre sum. The Government is paying scandalously little to those people who in the past defended their country. We must not lose sight of the fact that this £330,000 is for the Oudstryders of the war of 1900 and also the Oudstryders of the war of 1914, as well as for the soldiers who met with misfortune during this war. It will be a good thing if the Minister will set out the various amounts. This is a very paltry sum, bearing in mind the number of people who have to share it. A pension of £4 10s. means very little if we take into consideration the increased cost of living. Assistance is being granted, but it is of such a nature that you can hardly take it into consideration. The Minister has not clearly set out in the Estimates which sum is being awarded to the Oudstryders of 1900, which to the Oudstryders of 1914, and which sum is being paid at present in respect of the present war. If the Minister will give us that information we shall be able to judge more or less to what extent this sum is reasonable and what the extent of the increase is. Then I also find this with reference to this particular sum. I do not know why that should be so, but where a person on the other side takes part in the war, he more readily receives a pension when applying for it, and not only does he get a pension more quickly, but that also applies to the refund of arrear moneys. I do not know how the calculation is made, but I know of one case where a man, although he is regarded as disabled, is still earning 15s. or £1 as a builder. He received the maximum amount, while other Oudstryders are finding it extremely difficult to have the maximum amount awarded to them. One also finds that all sorts of difficulties are placed in their way. I want to ask the Minister whether it is not possible for him to make those forms somewhat less complicated, so that these poor people who are entitled to the pension will be able to complete the form themselves, and so that it will not be necessary for them to go to agents and to pay for that service. Then there is another matter which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister. He knows that from time to time conferences of Oudstryders are held. I understand that in the near future such a conference will again be held at Vereeniging or at some other place in the Transvaal. The Oudstryders of this Province would like to attend that conference, but it means a great deal of expense to them. I take it that the Minister would like to have the advice of the Oudstryders of this Province and that he would like them all to attend the conference, and I want to ask him, therefore, to consider the question of assisting them in connection with transport facilities, and if necessary to give them free conveyance. These people cannot go under present conditions, because it will cost them too much. A deputation of three or four Oudstryders came to see me. They said that they would like to go and put their experience and their views at the disposal of the Government; but it is impossible for them to attend the conference because it will cost them too much. In view of the fact that we grant concessions to other organisations who hold conferences, I should like to know from the Minister whether in these circumstances he will not come to the assistance of these people, since they are keen to attend this conference in which they have a direct interest. They will then be in a position to plead and to submit their case properly. We must not be unreasonable towards these poor people. There are sad cases amongst them, and those old people cannot live on the paltry sum which they do receive. I hope that in the future the Minister will separate these two items in the Estimates. If the Oudstryders’ pension is more than the old age pension, he should have a choice, and we should like the Minister to deal with those two pensions on a separate basis. Let these people receive the old age pension; but the Oudstryders’ pension must be determined according to the circumstances of each other. I make this request, because in the prevailing circumstances it will cause many difficulties, and it is no more than right that we should assist those people and see to it that their positions are improved.

The Minister has indicated in his speech today that the purpose of the Bill introduced by him is to overhaul the Act which came into force about twelve months ago, and to introduce amendments wherever they have been proved to be necessary. I am sorry that the most pressing amendment of all has not been included by the Minister within the scope of this Bill. When the 1942 Bill was introduced it was easily apprehended that the most pressing need was to protect volunteers against the possibility of their pension claims being rejected on the grounds that their injury or disability or death, in the case of a claim by dependants, was not due to military service or in connection with military service. Those of us who realise the widespread character of the dissatisfaction among soldiers occasioned by the rejection of claims on that ground, moved in this House for an amendment to be introduced which would satisfy every volunteer, and that was to put on the Government the onus of proving that the death of the volunteer or his total disability or his partial disability was not occasioned by military service, and to let the Government prove that his injury or disablement was not caused by military service. That distasteful clause still exists, and it has caused a great deal of ill-feeling on the part of the soldiers today. If you will permit me to refer to the number of appeals that have taken place, you will see that in less than 12 months there have been 436 appeals to the Military Pensions Appeal Board, and out of those appeals only 46 have been successful. Why is that? It is because a large majority of them are rejected on the ground that the injury or disability was not due to military service. That still remains the bulwark of the Military Pensions Board, and the Military Pensions Appeal Board, in rejecting applications. That is a very serious matter, and I hope that before this Bill becomes law the Minister will agree to the introduction of the Clause for which we have striven for a long time. It is a Clause which is embodied in the Southern Rhodesia War Pensions Act, and it operates very satisfactorily there. We suggested that a Clause should be introduced in these terms: “Provided that no injury received, disease contracted, or death occurring during full time service shall be deemed to be attributable or aggravated by service unless the contrary is clearly proved.” I maintain that in the present state of the law, a constant war on this burning question will be carried on between applicants for pensions and the Military Pensions Board. For my own part I have ceased to have any further confidence in that Board, because of the manner in which it has treated applications for pensions by parents. That is one of the worst features of their record. A parent who is able to prove that she subsisted upon the contributions of her son, which were wholly devoted to the support of herself and her daughter, is adjudicated by the Military Pension Board not to be dependent on her son, and she was given the £13 per annum pension in the first instance as evidence that she was in no way dependent on her son. I am not going to reiterate the facts of that case. There are other cases of a similar kind. But my view of the Military Pensions Board has come to be this, that no man should serve on that Board who has not during the present war served in the front line. Let us appoint men who know what the grim business of war amounts to under present conditions, and do not let us have on that Board Treasury representatives splitting hairs as to whether the dependants, the broken and impoverished families of the soldiers, are entitled to pensions or not. I maintain that before the soldiers have done with this House and have done with members of Parliament, the principle I have spoken of will be conceded. The soldiers are totally dissatisfied with the administration of this Act. We may, for electioneering purposes, as was done by the hon. member for Durban, Umbilo (Mr. Burnside), the other day, say that this is a magnificent pension law. That will convince no one, and least of all will it convince the soldiers. With regard to the administration of the Act, I have a specific complaint which I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister. I asked certain questions the other day as to the dates upon which certain pensions were granted to coloured soldiers. My question was—

I asked that question twice after printed notice in this House, and on each occasion it was purposely evaded. The only date given was the date of the award, and when I wanted the date upon which it was actually paid, the date of award was repeated, which was calculated to deceive. Twice that has occurred; the Minister has been given a statement in this House twice over which is incorrect, and for the third time I have now put the question to the Minister in another form. I now want to know the date of the warrant voucher, if one was issued, by which this pension was paid. I demand to know, Sir, what delay took place between the award of these pensions and their actual payment, and I say I am entitled to know that. An unwarrantable and unjustifiable delay took place in the cases of men who were known to be 100 per cent. disabled through tuberculosis, and that delay took place notwithstanding the instruction of the Adjudant-General, who is to be commended for his action that not a single day should elapse between the cessation of the man’s pay and the payment of his pension—the one should follow on the other without any delay. The fact is that a member of this House, on the different occasions, when he asked for information as to period of delay, was given an incorrect answer, and now for the third time I desire to know—the question has been printed on the Order Paper—how long these men, 100 per cent. disabled from T.B., waited before payment was received, while at the same time their army pay had been terminated. To my mind these are very hurtful features of the administration of this Act, and we shall get nowhere if we are not prepared to take the responsibility of our actions in connection with the administration of the War Pensions Act. We must be prepared to deal with these men fairly and faithfully, and where a mistake has been made we should confess the mistake, and let it be publicly known, because that is the best way to prevent it happening again. The Minister told us the other day in connection with the Insurance Bill, that soldiers who were killed on active service outside the Union or who died as a result of an aeroplane accident, were insufficiently protected by their insurance policies. We objected to the soldiers being loaded with a heavy rate of insurance under a policy which carried the stipulation that if they were killed while serving their country overseas, or in the air force at all, they would not receive payment of their policy. I understood the Minister to say that when the present Bill came on he would make some provision in the matter. I did not quite follow what he meant at the time. I listened this afternoon when he was explaining the provisions of the Bill, and I fail to understand how the alteration of the provisions of the £13 per annum pension would benefit soldiers who are affected by the Insurance Bill as passed in this House. I want to refer to the case of a pension which was rejected by the Pensions Board. It was not until that rejection and the attitude of the Pensions Board was brought up during the Sea Point election, that attention should be drawn to this case in such a manner as to secure redress. I refer to the case of Capt. Carter, who met his death, and whose case was rejected, as I understand, under Section 17, which requires that the death must be proved to have been within the Union, and to have arisen out of and in the course of the discharge of military duty during the war. The hon. member for Cape Town, Gardens (Mr. Long) wrote in regard to the case—

In the end, Sir, I believe Capt. Carter’s widow had recourse to an appeal to the Special Grants Board, and some kind of grant was made by that body. I think the remark of the hon. member for Cape Town, Gardens, on this case illustrates the need for giving information to the volunteers themselves in regard to the attitude of the Military Pensions Board on this vexed question. If, as I believe they do, the Board lays down a pretty hard interpretation of this Section 17, it would be only fair to those who approach the Board to let them know what they have to meet. These people, without any knowledge of the state of the law, approach the Pensions Board, they have to sign the usual forms, and they have not the slightest glimmering of an idea of the pitfalls that are in their way, and they fall into those pitfalls. And so a larger number of these people fail, a larger number than would be the case if they were aware of the attitude of the Pensions Board in regard to the interpretation of this section. Many of them would prefer to have nothing more to do with the matter, they would prefer to take other steps to call attention to their grievances, rather than take part in a long procession of unsuccessful cases, most of which are rejected on the ground that the death or injuries did not arise out of military duties. Personally, as an interested bystander in these matters, I should like to know what the attitude is that is taken up by the Board, because I judge that it is pretty difficult for any man who has suffered an injury whilst serving in the Union, to get his pension claim allowed. By far the best solution of this matter would be for the Minister now to agree to the introduction of a clause which would put the onus upon the Government of proving that the injury was not due to military duty.

I thank very much the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) for saving me at least a quarter of an hour’s talking this afternoon, because he has stated a principle that I proposed to enlarge upon, and now I will simply endorse what he has said in criticism of the Military Pensions Board. I fully support the contention that the onus of proof as to whether a man’s disability does directly or indirectly result from war service, should rest upon the Government, and not upon the unfortunate soldier concerned. It does not matter even if we are agreed that this Bill is the most generous in the world, that does not matter if it should prove that the administration of the Act is the least generous. The administration of an Act, after all, matters most, and it is the administration of the previous Act which in the past has caused so much ill feeling in our country. We passed a War Pensions Act, with a considerable banging of cymbals and sounding of trumpets in the year 1942, and already we are very busy amending it. Now that seems to suggest to me that we have been guilty of insufficiently considering legislation, that we should probably devote a good deal more time to the study of Bills in this House before we make them law. I do think that we might save some of the necessary time if we reduced the inordinately long speeches of some members. I think the chief sinners in this respect are the front benchers—they are not here to hear me say so—particularly those front benchers who do not seem able to make up their mind what it is they wish to say. If we cannot have shorter speeches, I suggest that we should have longer Sessions of this Parliament, possibly involving our sitting in this place for nine or ten months in the year; because this heartsoreness that has been rife in South Africa over the so-called “pensions” of £13 a year would never have occurred, had we taken a little longer to consider the measure and had the suggestions from these benches been adopted. Had we even chosen our words wisely in our definition of terms, and called the small grant to bereaved parents not a pension but an allowance, as is now suggested, much misunderstanding and indignation would have been avoided. I protest once more that such a Bill as this has been introduced so very late in the Session, so late that many members have no opportunity of considering it at all, and none the opportunity of considering it as we should wish to do. This last-possible-moment procedure seems to be a tradition with regard to pension legislation. The Act of 1919 was No. 42 of that year. That of 1942 was Act No. 44 of the Session. And although the hon. Minister has given us a very lucid statement of the contents of this Bill, it is not a measure which is easily understood, and a good many points are still obscure. A good many gaps are left, and must now, I suppose, remain open to cause us trouble in the future. It is very nice to be told that the Minister’s mind will also be open to fresh legislation, but this tottering on from year to year is not really satisfactory, because in the meantime there are cases of hardship, and the sooner we get down to a composite Bill that does give justice to those who are cast aside, invalided, injured, even killed in this war, the better, because in the interval there must continue to be instances of great injustice. There are two points in the Bill that I wish to mention. One is the change which is recommended in Section 5. When that change is made the result on the 1919 Act, No. 42, will be as follows. This Section 22 of the Act is to be amended. The section reads, as amended—

That Section 16, of course, has direct reference to those men who died in battle, or of wounds incontestibly connected with their war service, or sickness contracted during an active campaign. I want to ask the Minister whether I am right in assuming that this Clause, as now proposed, covers a case which I want briefly to put before him. Under this present Bill, will this case be met? A man in the last war, as the result of his service, was completely incapacitated, completely paralysed, and for 20 years totally unable to fend for himself in any way. Work of any kind was, of course, completely out of the question. He could not, unaided, turn himself in his bed, and had to be assisted by two or three persons into a chair, and practically fed by hand. This went on for 20 years, and his wife all that time devoted herself to attendance upon him. That man has just died. Under the old Act—I take it that once more the Military Pensions Board have adopted an unsympathetic attitude—it has been held that his death was not caused directly by the mischance suffered by him in the war. I want to know whether that widow will now be entitled to a pension under this Act. I strongly suggest it would be impossible for a man to be injured in any way, still less crippled and paralysed for 20 years, without the war having been a contributory factor to his death. If he were visited by any epidemic, his whole constitution and powers of resistance must have been weakened by what he suffered throughout his long years of pain. But under the old Act the interpretation of the Board was that the widow has no claim. I suggest that that is wrong, and I hope that my reading of this Clause, as amended, is correct. This woman’s husband suffered a living death for 20 years, and her own life was not much better. Will she now be held to be the widow of a soldier who gave his life for his country, and therefore entitled to a pension as laid down? A second point needs elucidation. I notice in the Bill that an amount up to £450 can be allowed to a soldier in hospital. I shall be glad if the Minister will tell us what the position is in this case. I am thinking of a chaplain of the forces who, on joining the army, was properly examined by the doctors and marked “A”, and who has served in the Union and up North. Since he has been back from the North he has been boarded, and it has been proved that he is suffering from tuberculosis. He has been gently “turfed out” of the army; he is no use to the army now, or to himself or anybody else at this particular moment; and he is in a military ward of a sanatorium, although he is no longer in the army. He is getting a hospital allowance of £260 a year. His family has to be supported on that, and he himself is, I submit, actually reduced to the condition of a pauper. I want to know if it is to meet such a case as that that this £450 referred to here is available, and I want to be assured that the Military Pensions Board will stretch a point, if stretch a point they must, in favour this time of the sufferer and not of the Treasury. We ask, and indeed we plead, that this new Act may be interpreted as generously as may be, and I am certain that it will bring back great gain to our country if it is interpreted in that way.

A great many of us are very grateful to the Minister for the greater generosity in the provisions of this amending Act which will be of great benefit, especially to children. First of all I wish to support very strongly what my hon. friend, the hon. member for Jeppe (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) said regarding the differentiation made in the disablement grant for men and women. I will not enlarge on that, as she went fully into the matter, but there are two points I would like to stress. First of all, I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that the principle has been accepted in Great Britain that where disablement has taken place there should be no differentiation. I recommend the Minister to consider this new legislation coming forward in England which recognises that women are now in the front line, and must be treated not on the basis of what they can earn but on what life may have in store for them. Then, from the human point of view, women’s natural goal is a home and children, and I think the Minister must admit that if a woman is disabled in any way her chances in the marriage market are lessened a very great deal. We must have regard to the human aspect, and I do plead with the Minister not to make this unfair discrimination against other members of my sex. The other principle I want to support is that with regard to those volunteers whose deaths were not due to military service. I do not intend to say much on that, because it has been fully dealt with by speakers on both sides of the House, but I want to add my quota of support to what has been said. There are one or two points I want to refer to, and especially to cases of disability where there is a very high percentage of disablement up to total incapacity. There the Minister has gone quite far in alleviating the position of the man who marries after discharge from military service. I am grateful to him for extending the period within which marriage may take place up to five years, but I think there is one very difficult case which needs consideration, and that is the case of a man who is very badly injured, and who has to have an attendant with him. He may want to marry his attendant or someone else whose companionship he can always look to. That man can never put aside anything for his wife, and I would ask the Minister to wipe out the five year limit in a case of that kind. That must happen again and again with men who have been seriously disabled, and you are going to deprive them always of that sense of companionship of having a woman to look after them. Quite naturally, a man like that could not marry at all unless he could feel that there was some provision going to be made for his wife in the future. These are the people whose sacrifice has been so supreme that we should be prepared to stand the extra taxation that will be necessary. There is another point. I cannot quite see why in the case of a man separated from his wife, but who is maintaining her or has an order of the court in her favour, I cannot see why her pension should be limited to £84 a year. How is she different from any other wife who becomes a widow. She is the man’s legal wife, and I fail to see how she is in any way different from an ordinary wife. There is a large and unfortunate body of women in this country who were separated from their husbands at the time of their deaths, who were not being maintained by their husbands and in whose favour there was no order of court. I am grateful that the period in their case has been extended from two to five years, but there are some very harsh circumstances in the case of a great many of these women. I do commend these cases to the Minister. The last thing we want to achieve in this country is that any dependant of a man who has made the supreme sacrifice should be in a worse position than she would have been if that man had lived. And I think that is the only criterion, that is the only method by which we can judge these cases. Will the Minister tell us whether in these cases where the women have not been maintained by the husband, they can apply … .

Yes.

I think that it should be inserted in the Bill as a matter of right. Because after all she is the legal wife—that is the law of the land; the man is liable to support her and when the State enlisted that man the State took on his liabilities in every shape and form. I do not want to press any other matters. I personally am grateful to the Minister that he has met a number of the cases which I put up last year, especially with regard to children and parents, but I do say this, that in the future wherever this Bill may be amended from time to time—as the Minister himself admits it may be special consideration shall be given to this aspect, that the dependants of men who have made the great sacrifice, who have gone through the terrible things they have gone through shall not be worse off than they would have been if the men had continued to live.

I also want to protest against the discrimination that is made between the ordinary pensioner and the Oudstryder. The Opposition does not object to the pensions that are given to soldiers. We are not opposed to war pensions. We have not opposed it in a single respect, and we want to go so far as to say that we shall in future maintain and not oppose the measures in connection with pensions for soldiers. But the reason why we are feeling aggrieved is that there is discrimination between war pensions and the pensions paid to Oudstryders. What we on this side expect from the Minister of Finance is this, that we are seeking a basis, a basis that will allow equal payments to war pensioners and Oudstryders. We are striving for an equal basis. We feel that there is at the moment not the least difference between an old age pension and an Oudstryder’s pension. We cannot see the difference. If the son of a rich man is wounded on the battlefield and he returns then he gets a pension, no matter whether he is rich or poor. No difference is made. Then why the difference towards the Oudstryders? The time must come, and we shall not be satisfied until it comes, when the Oudstryders shall be actually recognised. The Minister does not pay an Oudstryder’s pension to Oudstryders who have a small income. That is unjust an unfair, and a departure from the principle of the payment of pensions. It is not asked whether a man is wounded or not, rich or poor, and why do so in the case of the Oudstryder. There is ample proof that the Oudstryders fought for their country without salary or wage, without the least consideration. They did their bit during that period, for what they considered to be the cause of right and justice. They sacrificed everything, and they returned to find their farms, their homes, their stock and all their possessions destroyed. The houses were blown up by dynamite. There was absolute destruction on the farms, and they had to start again from scratch. They virtually devoted their lives to the State, and when they returned nothing was left to them and they had to struggle ahead de novo. They had to make a livelihood with the greatest economy. Is it fair towards the small group of Oudstryders who are still alive to compare them with old age pensioners? I do not know why the Minister calls these pensions Oudstryders’ pensions. They are not Oudstryders’ pensions, but an old age pension. They are nothing else. What kind of a pension is that? We cannot call it a pension. I feel that the time has come when it must be recognised that the Oudstryders fought for their country and that they rendered war service to their country. And if it is just that they should receive a pension for the services they rendered in the war, then let it be a fair pension. Then call it a pension and pay a pension. Pay it to rich and poor alike if they really deserve it, just as in the case of the ordinary soldier who is wounded and who is entitled to a pension. I also want to associate myself here with what the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) said, and to which exception was taken by the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie), namely that it is a veritable scandal if one thinks what the pension of a native is in comparison with that of the Oudstryder. It is verily a scandal. How many of those natives know neither A nor B and who in their locations earned only a few bags of mealies per year? They had no income when they joined up and suddenly the native woman receives a high allowance and the children also receive an allowance. If the native soldier is wounded, just think of the pension that the native will receive. The pension is higher than he has ever earned in his life. Compare that increased pension of the illiterate native who did nothing in the location, with the pension received by the Oudstryder who risked blood and property for his country in the dark days of the South African war and who often suffered wounds—compare it with what the Oudstryder receives. I want to appeal to the Minister of Finance to give better consideration to the case of the Oudstryders in the legislation which he proposes, if not now then later. This side of the House will never abide by that provision and that injustice that is being done the Oudstryders. I want to tell the Minister that we can make use of this at the forthcoming election and we can also make full use of the injustice and discrimination against the Oudstryder in comparison with the native, and I take it that the other side of the House will lose prestige and votes in consequence. It is a crying injustice, and the country must now ensure that a difference is made between the Oudstryder and the ordinary native—the high pension for the native in comparison with the pension of the Oudstryder. I say that we are going to make strong use of this. I say that we can never abide by this injustice that is being done. How many Oudstryders are there? There are only a few thousand still alive and who are having a difficult time, people who were humiliated and impoverished, and the Minister comes here with an increase of one-third. Is that now an increase? It brings the pension of £4—£5 per month at the most; £4—£5 per month for the Oudstryder, and the native who is shot through the hand and who in spite of that wound can still work—or who perhaps never before did any work—will not get only £4 per month.

He will get much less.

No, he gets much more. No, for such a little wound he will get much more in comparison with the Oudstryder, that man who did so much for the State in the past. I say it is a crying injustice. I want to warn the Minister that we are going to make full use of this matter in the future. It does not redound to the honour of him and his party, but it stands to their discredit. If this side of the House comes into power I want to say beforehand that we shall feel aggrieved, and they must expect that where we today prepared to maintain the basis of war pensions, and where we are prepared, if the Minister meets us, to take the Oudstryders by the hand and to maintain the basis of the war pensions in the future—there the other side must expect that if the Minister does not meet us in respect of the Oudstryders then we shall not abide by this basis in future. We shall definitely not abide by it, and we shall introduce legislation whereby we shall overthrow the existing basis of war pensions, and then that side of the House must not squeal when we come and say: You have done us an injustice in the past, and you have humiliated the Oudstryders and have allowed them to die in anxiety and hunger on a meagre pension! Therefore I am making an appeal not only to the Minister of Finance but also to well-disposed friends on the other side not to shut their eyes to this injustice. We want to co-operate in this country for the welfare of our fatherland. But this sort of discrimination that is going on against the Oudstryders who have done so much and who have sacrificed blood and property for their country, this discrimination against them in comparison with the native is unbearable to us. I hear remarks from the other side, and that just shows how unsympathetic that side of the House is towards the Oudstryders who sacrificed blood and property for their country, for South Africa, without salary or wage. I say they are unsympathetic and therefore they must be warned; if we get into power they must not expect sympathy from us for measures that discriminate between the Oudstryder and the present-day soldier. I say it is unjust, and therefore I make an earnest appeal to the Minister and we protest against this extremely unfair and extremely unjust basis of pensions that has been laid down, and against this extremely unreasonable discrimination between the Oudstryders and the present war pensions.

When the Minister announced last year during the course of the debate on the Pensions Bill that he would bring in an amending Bill this year for the purpose of dealing with certain suggestions put forward by various members which could not be given effect to at that time, we all welcomed that undertaking, and I am glad to say that that undertaking has been carried out to a large extent and that many points which were raised subsequently and brought to his notice by various ex-servicemen’s organisations, have now been incorporated in the Bill before the House. I personally would like to say that I think the one important thing lacking, from this Bill is the matter mentioned by the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) and by the hon. member for Durban North (The Rev. Miles-Cadman). To my mind the whole of this Bill and the whole of the goodwill behind this measure lies in the amending of that particular section where it is laid down that any soldier who is injured or contracts a disease, or dies, while on active service, must prove to the satisfaction of the Government that that illness or disability was contracted while he was rendering service to the Government. I think that is wrong, and I think that if a referendum were taken of members of this House it would be agreed that that proviso constitutes a serious blot on this Bill, which should be removed. Again I say that I do not see why there should be this precedent laid down, that a differentiation should be made in regard to men outside the Union, serving beyond our borders, and those men serving inside the Union. I see no reason why these men should be put on a different footing. A man joins the army for the purpose of serving his country. The men have not got the choice where they are going to serve—a man has to go where he is told to go—that is the soldier’s duty. And it is often very bad luck if a man, after he has joined the army, has to remain in the Union. I am convinced that all the men who join, with every few exceptions indeed, would much rather be away with the troops facing the enemy. They would much rather be on active service than be kept here to do other very essential jobs. But it is the soldier’s duty to obey. He stays behind to do his duty here. And then I cannot understand why there is this persistence in maintaining that a man on leave, or a man who is injured or killed outside the regular hours of duty, should not be covered by the provisions of this Act. A soldier is always on duty. That also seems an anomaly which should be removed. The Prime Minister said the other day that nothing was too good for our soldiers. We on this side of the House endorse those remarks. Nothing is too good, and whether the soldier serves his country here or in the field far away, he is there to do his duty. And if we are to be true to that statement then we should consider it a matter of right that every soldier who serves should be entitled to have the fullest cover for any injury or any disease he may contract, and that his dependants will receive everything they are entitled to, if he loses his life, whether he has served inside or outside the Union. The dependants should not be worse off than they woud have been if the breawwinner had lived. I hope the time will come when effect will be given to that. Then I want to express my disappointment at the fact that improved conditions have not been laid down for non-Europeans. There is far too great a discrepancy between the rates of awards between Europeans and coloureds on the one hand, and coloureds and natives on the other. I would have liked to have seen the ratio laid down under the old Act preserved—under the 1942 Act the coloured widow’s pension as laid down at £75, would be raised by 33⅓ per cent. to £100 per annum, and, in proportion I would like to see that 33⅓ per cent. should be added to all benefits alike to coloured and natives. Then I want to support the point raised by the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) that in the case of parents of natives killed, an award should be given at least equal to that given to the widow of a native soldier. I think that the hon. member has put up a good case when he said that the award is necessary, particularly in view of the fact that the natives do not get old age pensions. I have repeatedly advocated the granting of old pensions for natives. Well, those pensions have never been given, but is must be obvious that the old parents of a native soldier should have some suitable provision made for them in their declining years of life. Their son has done his duty just as nobly and just as well as the European, and some consideration should be extended to his parents for the great service the breadwinner of the family has rendered to the family There is one other point. The awards in regard to the children of coloured soldiers cease at the age of 14 in the case of boys and at the age of 16 in the case of girls. I ask the House whether they really consider it possible for a young coloured boy of 14 to go out and earn his living. He may earn a small pittance on the streets, but it is more than likely that that boy will be forced to undertake some menial task or otherwise graduate into the school of skolly boys. Another two years would make all the difference in the world, and I want to suggest that the Minister should consider raising the age from 14 to 16 in the case of coloured boys, and from 16 to 18 in the case of coloured girls. If those points are given effect to, this Bill will be justly regarded as the finest Bill of its kind in the world. As it is now, it certainly is an excellent measure, and I feel it will meet with great approval from men in the forces. I want to repeat again that there is one serious blot on this Bill, namely men having to prove that their injuries or disease are directly attributable to war service. It is that particular provision which has caused many claims in the past to be turned down. The onus of proof should rest on the Government—it should be the Government’s duty to prove that the man’s injuries or disease was not caused by his service. Apart from that I have no complaints against the Bill, and if the few points I have raised are given attention to, I feel this measure will be welcomed generally by the public outside.

I shall be very brief, but I do want to pass a few remarks in regard to this Bill. The first relates to the Oudstryders. The point which was raised by the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. C. R. Swart) is particularly important, and I am convinced that the Minister could not have issued instructions that where the Oudstryders receive a paltry sum, that must be deducted from their pensions, if they receive an allowance in respect of the increased cost of living. The cost of living allowance which every official and every person receives by virtue of the fact that the cost of living has increased, is sometimes also received by the Oudstryder when he is in the service, and this allowance is taken into account in reduction of his pension. That is so far-reaching that one cannot find words to condemn it strongly enough. I am convinced that there is a misunderstanding, and, whatever may be the explanation, I hope it will be altered. While I am talking about the Oudstryders, I may as well put a question to the Minister in connection with the means test. The means test was originally fixed at a certain amount, namely, £72. It was, of course, fixed on the basis of the cost of living at that time. Since the cost of living has risen so enormously, I hope the Minister will be prepared to augment the means test, so that when an Oudstryder receives a small sum in respect of work which he may have done, or from some other source, it will not have the effect of decreasing his pension. We must bear in mind that the Oudstryder is a person who rendered a service to his country; why should his pension be decreased when he himself is able to earn a small amount? The country will not become any poorer as a result of it. As it is, these people have to suffer sufficient humiliation in that they have to make application for a pension which they should have got as a matter of right, without any means test being applied as well. It seldom happens that all sides of the House are agreed on any question. We have witnessed that today, however, and I want to associate myself with what has been said by all sides of the House in connection with, I think, Section 11 of this Bill, which provides that when a person joins the army and loses his life this pension is only payable if his death was caused as a result of military service overseas, unless it can be proved that it was due to his misconduct. Why must there be a distinction between service overseas and service in this country? The person who enlisted and took the oath, was prepared to go overseas. It was not at his choice that he remained here. He was prepared to serve anywhere, and if something happens to him in the Union or if his health suffers here, why does he not receive his pension? In this connection I should like to refer to a particular case with which I personally dealt. This is a case from my own constituency. I want to mention his name in this House. I notice that the Commissioner of Pensions is here, and he is well acquainted with this case. May I also avail myself of this opportunity to express my gratitude to the Commissioner of Pensions and his personnel for the manner in which they tried to meet these people? I frequently had to interview the Department in connection with cases, and they did their best to meet these people. I am not blaming the Department. I refer to the case of Sergeant Mathieson. He enlisted, and when he was examined he was found to be 100 per cent. physically fit. He is a very big man, 6 ft. tall, and he was a little over 30 years. He enlisted and was on active service for 18 months or two years. He then came back and became ill in the Premier Mine Camp. He received medical attention and was in hospital for months and eventually he succumbed. Then the question of his pension arose. He has a wife and three children. The Military Pensions Board rejected it, although there must have been a considerable measure of doubt, not only because one of the doctors was in doubt, but the district surgeon granted a certificate certifying that he was of opinion that this man’s death was due to his participation in the war—or, at any rate, that his participation had been a contributory factor. One would have thought, since there was this difference of opinion and since the district surgeon expressed the opinion that this man had become ill as a result of his participation in the war, after he was 100 per cent. fit at the time of his enlistment, that his wife would in any event receive a pension. He died on military service, but his wife did not get a penny. She then had to apply to the Special Pensions Board, and a small sum of £2 10s. was then awarded to her in respect of each child. Her husband had an income of £50 per month in the form of salary, and in addition to that he drew commission. Now his wife, with three children, has to make ends meet on £7 10s. per month. She then took up employment as a typist because she could not make ends meet on that sum. They then said that in view of the fact that she could take care of herself, she personally would receive no allowance but would only receive an allowance in respect of the children. I hope that this case will be taken into review; it is still being dealt with, but I mention it only to indicate how unreasonable some cases are dealt with. This man goes on active service, he dies, and his wife gets no pension. We on this side cannot understand it. Why must there be differentiation between those who served outside the Union and who died there, and a person who does not serve outside the Union but who also dies while he is on active service? People who remain in the country are being discriminated against, although they are prepared to defend South Africa. Unless it can clearly be proved that the illness is due to participation in the war, no pension is granted. How can one prove that the illness or death is due to participation in the war, unless the person concerned was actually killed on the battle field? There is discrimination which can surely not be justified. It is most unreasonable. Here we had a person who was prepared to do his duty and to sacrifice everything, and his wife and three children are now left behind without a penny, and no provision is made for them. He contracted this disease while he was in the camp, and the district surgeon was of opinion that his illness was due to his participation in the war. But his opinion was the opinion of but one against a number of opinions. I take it that there was some doubt, but even if there was doubt, the benefit of that doubt should have been given to the person who sacrificed everything, to the person who enlisted, leaving behind his family in difficult circumstances.

I should also like to say a few words in connection with the Oudstryders’ pensions which have been discussed here. It is a pity that this Bill deals with two classes of pensions, namely people who were wounded in the war and people who were not wounded. In the case of the Oudstryders’ pensions which fall under this Bill, we are dealing with people who did not receive wounds. That difference is not accepted by the Opposition. The Opposition wants to make a comparison between pensioners of this war who were wounded or maimed directly as a result of the war, and Oudstryders’ pensions. We all know that many people suffered disabilities during the Second War of Independence and in later wars, but they were not classified by the Boards, which were appointed, as people who fall under these rules. There are people amongst the Oudstryders who are receiving pensions as a result of wounds which they suffered. That is not taken into consideration by hon. members of the Opposition. They want to suggest that everyone should receive an Oudstryder’s pension, everyone who took part in the Second War of Independence and in the previous Great War. Those people who suffered and who were wounded are all receiving pensions. The hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen) said that they have never opposed the principle of pensions, but last year when the Pensions Act was passed, which also made provision for higher pensions for people who were wounded even during the Second War of Independence and during the previous Great War, the Opposition unanimously voted against it. But today the hon. member says that nothing has been done. The hon. member spoke of hypocrisy. What is that? What does he mean by saying that? The facts are there. It is easy enough to talk, but we must admit the fact that this Government was the first to tackle the matter of Oudstryders’ pensions and later to increase the Oudstryders’ pensions, and it is due to the efforts of the present Minister of Finance that the Oudstryders are receiving a pension I agree that it is a meagre pension, that it is not sufficient to enable them to exist. That is correct. But which Government has tackled this matter in the past and done something? It has only been this Government. It is ridiculous to draw a comparison between natives and coloured people, who receive pensions under this Bill, and Oudstryders.

Have you any support for your statement that we voted against Oudstryders’ pensions at any time?

I am not referring to Oudstryders’ pensions; but last year when the Pensions Act was introduced there was a clause which also made provision for pensions in respect of pensioners of the Second War of Independence and of the last war, and those pensions were increased, very considerably increased, but at that time the Opposition voted against the clause in question.

You are talking nonsense.

The hon. member has a convenient memory. He will find it in Hansard. Those are the facts. Every member of the Opposition who was here voted against it, and again during the Committee stage when this particular clause was under discussion. They now say that they will raise this matter at the Election. We, too, will remember how they voted. I do think that there should not be a means test in relation to Oudstryders’ pensions. I am very sorry that that should be the case and that we cannot go so far as to abolish the means test altogether, and moreover that the widows of Oudstryders cannot be included on a pension basis. But this year we have got an increase of one-third and we hope to get even more in the future. The means test is the subject of serious complaint on the part of the Oudstryders. There is one further point which I want to raise and that is in connection with the sons of agriculturists. It is very difficult to determine to what extent the parents of such sons were dependent on them before they started serving in the war. It is particularly difficult in the platteland. We know what happens there. The father would say: “Look, my boy, you’re leaving, I hope everything will go smoothly.” Then the son asks how much he should give his father to assist him. The reply is usually: “Don’t worry, I’ll look after myself; you see that you do the same.” Frequently, because the son did not contribute a portion of his money to his father, although the mother and father may be in very poor circumstances, one finds that when the son dies, the parents receive no allowance. I hope the Minister will go into this matter. Then just this: The value of such a child to the father is very difficult to determine. I do not know whether the Minister is aware of the method of fixation which is adopted by the Governor General’s War Fund. They make the calculation on the basis of what it will cost to replace the person concerned by someone else. That seems to me to be a sound basis on which to assess the true value of such a son to the family. I know of cases where the sons went away. The parents could no longer obtain native labourers, and they became poor. The son was killed, and these people experienced difficult times. They can no longer keep their farm going. It is very difficult to determine what the son is worth to his parents; the mother and father are not getting pensions today, but only the £13. The farming community feels very anxious about the matter. They feel that they are not getting the support under the Pensions Act which is given to people in the cities, to whom a direct payment was made by their sons. In conclusion, on behalf of a large section of our soldiers and on behalf of a large section of the Oudstryders, I want to thank the Minister most heartily for the improvements which he is bringing about this year by means of this legislation.

Along with other members of this House, I would like to convey to the Minister my appreciation and gratitude for the various amendments he has made to the War Pensions Act of 1942. In stating this, I do not mean that I am satisfied with all that has been done, but I feel we are definitely on the right road. One point that I intended speaking on was to endorse the various views that have been put forward in this House this afternoon by hon. members in connection with death or disablement arising in the Union. I do not intend speaking on this because it has been so fully dealt with, but I must say I cannot possibly see why a man, if he dies from pneumonia or appendicitis whilst on leave in Cairo his dependants should receive a pension, while the man who dies at Durban from a similar complaint whilst on leave, no pension is paid. I do think that it would be as well if we could have that particular portion in the Act amended on similar lines to that in Rhodesia. The point I wish to make this afternoon is one dealing with pre-war earnings. I notice that the Minister has not amended that section of the Act dealing with pre-war earnings and if I may just quote one example, I think the hon. Minister will appreciate that it does require amendment. As hon. members are aware, the pre-war earnings are taken into consideration when a disabled volunteer or his dependants require or seek the alternative pension. I have a case in mind in my particular line of business where two men were on an equal rate of pay when the war broke out. They were both then receiving £300. One of them enlisted straight away, but his comrade, for certain reasons, did not enlist, and his salary has since increased to close on £400 per annum. This man has now also enlisted, but if either of them should meet with injury or death, the pension would be based on their pre-war earnings. The pension in the one case of the man who volunteered at the commencement of the war, would be smaller than the man who enlisted 3½ years later. This will go on and increase the difficulty as time goes on. I would therefore say that I do feel that there should be some amendment to that particular section of the Act. When these men rallied to the call they were not mean; they realised that it was imperative for them to defend their country, and I feel we should not be mean when dealing with their pensions. I consider therefore that we should amend that particular section of the Act so that the man who joined early in the war is treated on exactly the same lines as the man who joined at a later date.

I wish to follow up the discussion which took place a few days ago on Clause 38 of the Insurance Bill which was then before the House. My colleagues and I put forward a plea that the man who serves overseas is at a disadvantage in comparison with a man who serves in the Union, and I think any fair-minded person will regard that as an anomaly. If there should be any disparity between the two, it should be in favour of the man who is prepared to serve wherever he is required, even if it does necessitate serving overseas. When we initiated this discussion, I think the hon. Minister saw our point and he said that he would consider it when the War Pensions Bill came before the House. I bring this matter up again—it has already been referred to by the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick)—and I hope that the Minister, when he replies, will give us some indication in what way this disparity, this anomaly, can be met in the War Pensions Bill. I have considered how it could be worked into this Bill, but I am afraid that with my limited experience in draftsmanship, I have not been able to see how to do it. The suggestion I made to the Minister was that the Government might be prepared to nay the load upon the premium of a soldier going overseas, and I hone that when the hon. Minister replies he will give us an indication as to what can be done in the matter.

I am sorry that the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) is not in his seat, because he made a statement which is definitely unfounded. He alleged that last year hon. members on this side voted against the War Pensions Act and by so doing not only voted against the pensions of the people who are taking part in this war but also against the Oudstryders who receive pensions. It is true that this legislation extends certain privileges to the Oudstryders. But if the hon. member examines what happened he will find that the attitude of this side of the House was precisely the same at that time as it is today. We adopted the attitude that provision was being made for pensions for combatants in this war, but not for Oudstryders, and the hon. member for Bloemfontein, District (Mr. Haywood) then moved the following amendment—

That was the amendment of this side of the House in favour of which we voted, but we did not vote against the second reading of the Bill. It is also our standpoint today that not sufficient provision is being made for Oudstryders. When the hon. member for Potchefstroom says that this side voted against the interests of the Oudstryders and soldiers, he is not correct.

There is only one question I would like to have information upon from the hon. Minister. I do not want to traverse the many points that have been raised, but with which I want to associate myself and which will no doubt receive the Minister’s favourable consideration. But there is this question in Section 42 which seems to me, if I understand the section correctly, to involve a principle which if I am correct, I cannot accept. If I am wrong I hope the hon. Minister will say so, so that one may know that the section is not intended to cover what I think it is intended to cover. As I see it it means this, that a man who has been classified as 15 per cent. disabled or any per cent. under 20 per cent. cannot, if a gratuity has been awarded to him prior to the 1st April, 1942, be reassessed.

No, it does not mean that.

I cannot accept the position that the responsibility towards a soldier ceases at the end of a certain number of years. We know that there are men walking about the streets today with pieces of shrapnel inside them. We know that injuries have been sustained which, at the time when they were assessed, were perhaps at 10 per cent., 12 per cent., or 15 per cent., but under 20 per cent. Something happens in later years and as a result of that incident the whole trouble recurs. We have had innumerable cases at the Select Committee where there has been a deterioration which can be connected directly with the disablement at the time when he was on active service. The underlying idea is this, that because a certain lapse of time has now occurred, if the man was less than 20 per cent. disabled, the position is pegged.

That is not the intention.

If that is not the intention, I hope the Minister will tell us exactly what the position is. That is one point I wanted to raise and which I hope the Minister will be clear upon. For the rest, I want to associate myself with the remarks which have been made by hon. members on this side and to express my appreciation of the improvements made by the hon. Minister.

The country owes a debt of gratitude to the Minister for the privileges and improved benefits contained in this Bill, but there are a few extremely important points which were totally ignored and which we are in duty bound to bring to the notice of the House and which we must ask the Minister to amend during the Committee stage when amendments are moved. In the first place, this has already been raised, but it seems to me that unless a number of members draw the Minister’s attention to our views in regard to the matter, the Minister may be inclined to think that only one member is urging this, and that is the position of the man who is injured while he is on leave. I would like the Minister to take into consideration the fact that when a man is on leave and at home, he is nevertheless in uniform and on active service. He may be called upon by his officer at any time to carry out a command.

Even when he is in Parliament?

Certain cases have already been mentioned here, and we can mention other cases to show that this does take place, and the Minister must definitely give his attention to this matter. When a man is killed or injured in the performance of his duties, whether he be on leave or whilst travelling, he ought to receive these benefits. I want to point out to the Minister that the question sometimes arises as to what becomes of a man who is actually on duty, engaged in the performance of his duties, and who may be travelling home from his unit, or on the way to his headquarters, or who travels from one part of the country to another, or from one country to another, as in the case of the late Gen. Pienaar — he was travelling to South Africa, to his home, and I think everyone will agree that the world will regard him as having been on duty. The same position arises where a man travels from his military quarters to his home. He is on duty. Why should there be differentiation in such a case? He remains on active service wherever he may be. He is on duty and subject to orders day and night, and it is no more than fair that the State should say: “Because we may call you up at any time, by virtue of the fact that you are on active service, we will protect you.” We dare not take away this protection when the man is off duty for a few hours. We dare not do it. I think the general feeling is that which has already been expressed here, and there are many other members who intend supporting such an amendment. I hope that the Minister will see his way clear to accept an amendment during the Committee stage which will have the effect of remedying this position. A further important point is this, and I do not think that it has yet been submitted to the House; that is, that the number of soldiers who have been discharged since the beginning of the war because they became medically unfit, and the number who are in receipt of pensions because they became medically unfit, shows a very big difference. A large number of these soldiers were discharged for these reasons, and they do not receive pensions. A man may be A1 when he enters military service, and after a year or two in the army, this man becomes totally unfit for military service so that he has to be discharged from the army. Surely it cannot be said that he became unfit because he slept or because he was idle. He receives good food, and his disability is the result of his military service. Let us get away from the idea that it is only the person who sustained injuries in the war, who has been prejudiced by military service. Military service demands hard work of a hard nature. Look at the men in the Tank Corps. When we look at the nature of their duties, it surprises us to find that there are not more of them who become physically unfit. At first glance one is inclined to say that they contracted some disease or other in the course of years, and that therefore they cannot be considered for a pension. I want to tell the Minister, however, that, an enormously large number of our people are today suffering as result of that attitude. I am afraid that the Medical Board adopts that attitude. They say that the physical disability is not due to war service, with the result that the applications of these people are rejected. If the Minister takes into consideration the number involved, and if he takes into account that some of those people were 100 per cent. fit when they enlisted, he will realise that this is a matter which merits consideration. The Medical Board simply says that they cannot see how the physical disability can be ascribed to war service, or military service. We must also take this point into consideration. I just want to pass one comment in connection with the memorandum which the Minister gave to us. The Minister kindly gave us this memorandum in order to enlighten us. I do not know whether the Minister has read it. The language in certain portions is such that it only confuses one to a greater extent. I made a number of notes where it does not clarify the position, because the language is very vague.

It was hastily drawn up.

I do not want to take up the time of the House by enlarging on that. I just want to mention it. The Minister should take into consideration these two points which I have mentioned during the Committee stage, if he sees his way clear to do so.

Although I am the last and have very little time at my disposal, I am determined to say something on this matter. No matter what the time is I am not going to be deterred from saying this. I want to congratulate the Minister and the Committee who formulated these amendments. A large number of people Will benefit from these amendments. With regard to the Oudstryders, I am not going to leave it entirely to the other side of the House to say that they are the only people who approve of doing away with the means test. It seems to me that the policy at the present is more or less a case of “Heads I win and tails you lose,” in connection with this matter. When the Oudstryder’s pension is granted the Treasury comes along and takes away his old age pension. I understood the hon. Minister to say that in future the means test would not be applied when the old war veteran came for his old age pension. I have been put right in that matter, and I want to say how disappointed I am that that is so. The same remark applies in connection with a deserving case I mentioned the other day, the case of an ex gratia miner’s phthisis payment. I want to tell the Minister that I think both cases are very unfair. The Oudstryder is granted a pension the same at the miner is granted an ex gratia payment, and then the Treasury comes along and says: “If you get the one we will take the other away from you.” In that way they are not doing their cause any good at all. Both of them have given specific service to the State, the one as a soldier and the other as an underground worker, and in neither case are we giving them a fair deal. One thing more. I want to congratulate the Minister on the appointment of this Pensions Board, which I feel will be able to render good service in the future.

During most of the last couple of weeks I have spent my time in resisting requests for reducing taxation, and every concession I made has of course produced requests for fresh concessions. Today I am in a position to make concessions by way of amending legislation which provides for increased expenditure, and now I am in the opposite position of being asked to provide for additional expenditure. I do not take it amiss. Hon. members want to help those people who in many cases are people who have deserved well of their country, but I just want to make a point which is not always appreciated, and that is that the Minister of Finance has a dual role; he is the person responsible for expenditure and he is also the person responsible for taxation.

Make me responsible for expenditure.

It would be a very happy state of affairs for the person responsible for expenditure alone but it would be a very unhappy state of affairs for the person responsible for taxation. The hon. member for Pretoria, Central (Mr. Pocock), the hon. member for Jeppe (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) and other hon. members have made the point in regard to differentiation between service inside the country and service outside. The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) and others have made the same point really from a different point of view. They have suggested that all cases of injury, death or disablement, shall be deemed to be attributable to or aggravated by military service performed outside the Union, and on the other hand disablement which has arisen out of or in the course of military service in the Union. The point is this, if it is attributable to or aggravated by service outside the Union; even if it developed inside the Union it is compensatable without further question.

The onus of proof is on the individual.

I don’t know what that means when we talk about onus of proof; that takes us no further, the real differentiation is service outside and inside the Union. In respect of service inside the Union, we say that it must have arisen out of and in the course of military service. It is therefore not a question of leave. The point is this, that we have today an army which is quite different from the armies serving in previous wars. It not only applies to us but to other countries. We recruit today men throughout all the medical grades, from A1 to C6. We find ourselves in exactly the same position as Canada found herself and as Australia found herself; both of them found it necessary to discriminate between service outside and inside the country. People who serve inside fall within any one of these grades from Al to C6, and my difficulty is that in order to meet these points that have been raised, we would in fact be required to accept liability in respect of disease or disability of men serving in the Union, whatever their medical category. Is that not going too far? Canada thought it was going too far and Australia thought so too. Both of them made exactly the same discrimination as we make. If it is attributable to his military service then of course compensation is payable. That was the case with Gen. Pienaar. There is no difficulty, no question arises if it happens outside the Union, but if there has been no such service outside the Union then we require proof that it has arisen out of and in the course of military service.

How can he prove it if he is dead?

Surely that is a purely medical question, that is a question for the medical people to decide, whether that death arose out of or in the course of military service. It is not a question of his wife or children having to prove it.

[Inaudible.]

The difficulty is that all our volunteers are not in the Al category. There are all the groups from Al to C6, and I do not think we can fairly be expected to accept this very big liability in respect of people who have only served inside the Union, where the disability does not arise out of or in the course of military service.

Parliament will accept that.

Parliament will always vote money, but it is the painful duty of the Minister of Finance to look at both the taxation side and the expenditure side, and it does seem to me that here we are being asked to put a bigger burden on the taxpayers than they can fairly be expected to bear. Now the hon. member for Jeppe (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) and the hon. member for Parktown (Mrs. Reitz) have raised the question of the differentiation in the ninth schedule as between men and women. We discussed this whole question last year and the House then accepted the position that having regard to facts as they are we cannot put the compensation on the same scale for women as for men. I do not think we can get away from that simply by amending this ninth schedule; it would mean recasting one of the principles which underlie the present Bill. The hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) has raised one or two questions in regard to non-European pensions. I agree that these words “in the discretion of the Board” are now not necessary. As far as parents are concerned I have already said that I am proposing to move an amendment to increase the maximum, and in considering this amendment I shall consider the position of the Native parents. I shall go into the point the hon. member raised in regard to Natives in the ninth schedule but at the moment I see some difficulty in regard to meeting him there. In regard to the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) I am sorry he attacked the Military Pensions Board and I would remind him that the Military Pensions Board has not the last word, there is always the possibility of an appeal to the Military Pensions Appeal Board, and that is not a departmental body. There is undoubtedly that check on the operations of the Military Pensions Board. The hon. member has spoken about certain cases of applications for pensions in tuberculosis cases. I am sorry my hon. friend thinks that I sought to withhold from him information which he was trying to get. If there was that impression created it was due to the form in which he posed his question. And indeed I admitted that there had been delays, and in reply to a supplementary question I expressed my regret at the delays, and told the hon. member that these delays were caused by the difficulties in getting certain records. We are doing our best to get over that difficulty in the future. Then the hon. member for Stamford Hill (Mr. Acutt) has raised this question of the Insurance Bill. I think what the hon. member wants is that the State in addition to what it does by way of pensions should in effect also provide an insurance cover. But would not that mean duplication? Are we not in effect providing cover by way of pensions? Either the provision which we make in the matter of pensions is adequate or not. If it is adequate then there can be no necessity for us to provide further insurance cover. If it is inadequate we should increase the scale of pension. I cannot help feeling that my hon. friend is asking for something that we are not in a position to do in this particular way. The hon. member for Wynberg (Mr. Friedlander) raised a point in regard to Section 32. I think he has misread the section. There is no intention on our part to prevent re-examination and scaling up of awards. The proviso is meant to indicate that the person who has received a gratuity under the law shall not automatically get a higher gratuity under the new law, without any deterioration in his condition.

But he can be re-examined.

Yes. Then the hon. member for Sea Point (Mr. Abbott) has raised a point in regard to the pre-war earnings of soldiers under Section 2. Well, I admit that that section presents certain difficulties, and I have been trying to find an amendment to that section but I have not succeeded in the effort. But in any case I cannot see how we can meet a point such as the hon. member has raised. He has raised the point of a man who has waited a few years before enlisting and therefore has increased his pre-war earnings. I do not see how we can meet that. We would also have to meet the case of the man who is a little young and is therefore not so far advanced in the scale. On the question of non-Europeans, I can only repeat what I said before that I do not think it appropriate for us at this stage to change the rates of pensions which we have set forth in the schedule. We accepted those schedules last year and on the whole I think they are generous. They may be open to criticism in certain respects but I do not think it is appropriate for us to change them now.

*Then just a few words in connection with Oudstryders. I just want to repeat in general what I said on a previous occasion, that this matter cannot be divorced from old age pensions.

Why not?

I expressed that very clearly in my Budget Speech. In our country as in other countries, Oudstryders’ pensions are merely ante-dated old age pensions. We give the old age pension to the Oudstryder at an earlier age than he would have received it otherwise. That is the general practice elsewhere in the world, just as it is the practice in other countries to apply the means test in connection with Oudstryders’ pensions, as is the case in connection with old age pensions. For that reason I am of opinion that these two things are linked together, and since we have said that we will again go into the whole question of old age pensions, we can do no more at this stage than to grant a temporary concession, for which provision is made in this Bill, namely the addition of one-third of their pensions. I am very sorry that hon. members on the other side made the comparison which they did make, the comparison between the sum received by Oudstryders and the sum received by wounded persons. That is unreasonable. It is unreasonable to compare the Oudstryder who has not been wounded, with a person who may be 100 per cent. disabled. The two cases are not on the same footing. The Oudstryder who was wounded receives a pension under the War Pensions Act. His pension was increased last year, as in the case of other persons, but it is quite unreasonable to compare an Oudstryder with people who were wounded, whether those persons are Europeans or non-Europeans. It is also unreasonable to suggest that all natives are now receiving 100 per cent. disability pensions. If a person sustains on injury to his hand, he naturally does not receive a full pension, but only a percentage. I am sorry that this comparison has been made, because it puts the matter in a totally wrong light. We must not compare two things which are not comparable.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time; House to go into Committee on the Bill on 20th April.