I move—

I wish to move the following amendment—

I shall not take up much of the time of the House, but nevertheless I think that this matter should receive our attention. Through the Press the Government announced that it is going to accept the Report of the Select Committee in regard to the increase of pay and allowances to European and non-European soldiers. As far as the pay to European soldiers is concerned we have no comments to make. But in regard to the recommendations of the Select Committee—which have been accepted by the Government—in respect of the allowances and pay of non-Europeans, I think that the country as a whole will agree that the increase was unnecessary and uncalled for, for the simple reason that the pay allotted to non-European soldiers already compared very favourably with the wages and salaries those people received in the past before they joined the army. When we first of all consider the ernings which some of the coloured people had, and then look at the pay they received before the adoption of this Report, the military pay was very generous indeed. We should remember that the non-European in this country—the coloured and the native—has a standard of living which is not the same as that of the European. I think that fact is generally acknowledged in the fixing of wages. What is happening today? By allotting to them abnormally high pay and allowances, we bring those people within reach of a standard of living which they did not know in the past, a mode of living which they will not possibly be able to keep up afterwards. After the war the bulk of them will have to go back to the wages and salaries which they earned before joining the military forces. That is a fact. I now want to ask the Government: Do you want to keep the wages and allowances of the non-Europeans after the war on the same level which you are accepting now? That will be impossible. I am for instance thinking now of our rural population on the farms. It will be quite impossible for them to pay these wages to the coloured labourers, when those coloureds come back after the war. Many of them have been taken from the farms and it will not be possible to absorb them in the towns, but they will have to go back to the farms where they, although they did not receive very considerable cash wages, nevertheless could live decently because they had a free house, free water, free fire wood and in many cases also a garden plot where they could grow fresh vegetables. One must admit that the coloured person in the rural areas lives a healthy and happy life. But when this Government is going to lay down a scale of wages and allowances such as is proposed here, when such wages are going to be allotted to the coloured people in the army, it will have to keep the coloureds on that level afterwards. It will not be able to change it. If it should nevertherless do so, a reaction will set in. We on this side think that there was no reason to allot this increase to the non-European soldiers, because they already received good pay and high allowances. Virtually without any reason, the Government comes along and grants an increase on the existing scales which we can only label as an abnormal, exorbitant scale and which is bound to cause trouble, once matters are returning to normal. The aftermath of the war will be serious enough and we should not go out of our way to create more post-war problems. I should like to draw the attention of the House to a few of the particulars of the soldiers’ pay recommended by the Select Committee and accepted by the Government. The commencing pay of a coloured soldier is 2s. 6d. per day which is now to be increased by from 3d. to 6d. To that must be added the family allowances. The married person receives a family allowance for all ranks of 3s. 6d. per day where there are no children and of 4s. 6d. per day where there is at least one child. Allow me to quote a few comparative figures. The basic pay of the ordinary coloured soldier in our military camps is now to be increased by 20 per cent. Most probably the basic increase of the ordinary European soldier will be approximately 50 per cent. The increase for a European corporal is 33⅓ per cent. and that of the coloured 14 per cent. Now we come to a different, increase. In the case of a coloured sergeant the increase is to be 6 per cent. and in the case of a European sergeant the increase will be 5 per cent. Let us take a staff sergeant. For the European the increase is to be 4¾ per cent. and for the coloured man 5 per cent. In the higher ranks the increase for the coloured soldiers, expressed in percentages, is therefore higher. The difference in salary between an ordinary coloured soldier and one who is for instance a painter is £3 15s. as against £6 15s., i.e. a difference of 80 per cent. The difference in the case of a European who is not an artisan and the one who is an artisan is £10 10s. against £15, a difference of 43 per cent. The commencing pay of the ordinary unmarried coloured soldier is £3 15s. per month of 30 days after 6 months’ service. That will now become £4 10s. Then he still gets his allowances. Let us now take the case of an unmarried coloured soldier living for instance in District Six. He is in the army but not in the camp. He receives an allowance for food, boarding and cost of living. For that he used to receive £6 5s. altogether and now he will receive £7 10s. per month. Take the same coloured man who is an artisan. He also does not live in the camp and does not receive free board and lodging and is for instance also living in District Six. When he is an artisan he does not draw £6 15s., but £9 15s. and under the Government’s proposal he will now receive £10 14s. We now come to a case which perhaps causes the greatest, surprise, that of a single coloured soldier who has parents or grand-parents who are accepted to be his dependants. They need not necessarily live with him. He may live in Woodstock and the parents or grand-parents may live at Beaufort West. Under the old scale he went up to £13 1s. It is really taking one’s breath away to see that in these times a coloured man can earn so much, £13 1s. per month. That is the non-artisan who receives £13 1s. per month. That is bad enough. One obviously asks oneself where that single coloured man when he returns from the war, is going to earn £13 1s. per month? Many of them are of the type who never earned anything like that amount and not even one-fourth of that amount who perhaps earned between £1 10s. and £2 10s. per month. I am thinking particularly of the single coloured labourer who was taken away from the farm by the Prime Minister and who is now on active service. They are now spread all over the country and receive £13 1s. because they have dependants they must look after. They have never known anything of the sort. What does the Government do now? It comes along and increases this to £17 5s. for this single coloured man. He may have been the casual labourer on the farm, about 21 years old. We know the payment he received there and how well he lived there, but he never received £13 1s. not to speak of £17 5s. In that way we are creating a position in South Africa which is becoming untenable and which will be absolutely untenable after the war. Take the married coloured soldier who has a wife and at least one child. He used to get £12 12s. 6d.

Should they get no pay at all?

We do not say that; one wonders why the hon. member is drawing a double salary.

What should they get according to you?

I shall reply to the hon. member. He is such a pal of those people. My argument is that we should pay to the non-European soldiers wages which are at such a level that once the war is over, they can go back to their former standard of living and that we shall not be faced with a revolution.

They will not be satisfied with the old conditions when they return.

Not if you have a hand in it.

This coloured married soldier receives £12 12s. 6d., but the Government is not satisfied with that. The Government says: “How can a coloured man manage on £12 12s. 6d.?”, although there are many Europeans who would thank their lucky stars if they could earn £12 12s 6d. per month. I know European families in South Africa who have to live on much less per month, even Europeans in Government employment. But these coloureds received £12 12s. 6d. and the Government was not satisfied with it and increased it to £16 per month. Let us now take the case of a coloured soldier who has more than one dependant, who apart from his wife and children also has to look after parents. His income is now being increased to £22 15s. If furthermore he was an artisan, then he used to get up to £15 12s. 6d. but that was not enough for the Government. As I said, the pay of the European artisan was not increased, but for the coloured artisan it went up to £15 12s. 6d. in the past and now the Prime Minister has brought it up to £25 15s. per month. It takes one’s breath away. I want to tell the Prime Minister that the country is not going to be satisfied with it, that he is not doing the country a good turn but that he is doing it a disservice. The Prime Minister should remember that when the war is over in two or three years time, we shall have a coloured community which cannot be brought back to normal conditions. One need only look around here in Cape Town and see what the coloured people are buying at the end of the month in the tickey bazaars and the shops. They have not been taught how to spend their money and they are wasting it. If they had been taught to save, there might be something to be said for the higher wages, because in that case they would put something aside for after the war when they will again earn normal wages. Today, however, they are spending everything and are moreover buying goods on the hire-purchase system. Everything they see they simply buy. Now the Prime Minister comes along and puts them into a position which necessarily will have to be changed afterwards. Is he not able to see the disservice he is doing the country in general? The Prime Minister wants to wage his war. Let him do so, but do not saddle South Africa with conditions which will cause us endless trouble in the future. The Prime Minister is so fond of speaking of posterity and that we have to provide for posterity, but he is now busy making conditions in South Africa untenable for posterity and creating conditions, especially in the economic field, as far as European and non-European are concerned, which will become quite untenable. The Government at once accepted this report on the pay of soldiers. The ink was hardly dry when the Government announced to the country that the recommendations would be adopted. Before we in this House even had a chance to go into the report of the Select Committee and to discuss it, the Government simply accepted it. Well, that is their responsibility, but then the Prime Minister will also be held responsible by the country for this attitude. As a result of these new scales of pay endless difficulties will arise in regard to allowances and dependants. It will for instance be possible for a coloured man to insert on the form any person’s name as his dependant. Many of them are not too sure of their descent and it will be difficult or virtually impossible to determine whether the dependant they indicate is really a relation or not. The new form is very vague. Before the report was adopted, a difference was still made between a dependant who is a relation and one who is not a relation, but under the scheme the Government is accepting now, that differentiation falls away. As I read the report, a coloured soldier can name anybody as his dependant. If he has for instance lived with an unmarried coloured girl, she can obtain an allowance of £5 5s. per month, irrespective of the fact whether she was his legal wife or not. I am even doubtful whether in case a coloured man had a wife and also lived with a woman to whom he was not married, both of them are not perhaps entitled to the allowance. In virtue of this report which the Government adopted, a coloured soldier with dependants can therefore receive as much as £25 15s. per month. Most of the coloured soldiers who joined up, are married and have dependants, whereas the majority of Europeans who joined up, are young unmarried men. How does their pay compare to the £25 15s. which the coloured man receives per month? A young European in the army, under the new scales, commences with £7 10s. and after 18 months he receives £10 10s. per month. How does that compare with the coloured man? The whole relationship between the wages is wrong. I want to add a few words about the natives. Under the new scales the native commences on the scale he always had, viz. 2s. 3d. per day if he has dependants and 1s. 6d. per day if he has no dependants. After six months the native will now receive an increase of 3d. In most ranks above that of the common soldier, natives with dependants will after six months receive 9d. extra per day over and above the 2s. 3d. they used to get. We believe that this means creating a position which will induce the native not to wish to go back to normal conditions after the war. I want to say here also that the report is very involved. I did not have the opportunity to go into all the details and I have only indicated some of the outstanding facts, in order to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that he has gone too far and has created a position which will result in serious difficulties after the war. I move the amendment.

I have much pleasure in seconding the amendment. I do not wish to keep the House very long with an argument about figures. I think the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) has put forward the outstanding facts. I want, however, to give the Prime Minister the assurance that we have nothing against the native and coloured soldiers as such, and we understand that they must receive payment, for their services, although we are against the war. The man who is taken into the army must receive remuneration and he should be looked after. We have nothing against that. We find, however, on comparing the coloured soldier with the European soldier, that a disproportion in pay has been created. We should take into account that when the coloured and native soldiers return from the war, they will have to be taken back in the ordinary economic life; in many cases they will have to go back to the places they came from, and the Prime Minister is now making that virtually impossible. In the rural areas hundreds of coloureds and natives have been recruited for the army. They will not want to go back to the farms at the wages they received before the war. Now already we have cases of natives coming back and not wanting to remain on the farms and being dissatisfied there. They do not want to do their work. I am afraid that the whole position is getting out of hand. We notice every day what is happening, and we should take the mentality of the native and the coloured man into account. When a native gets out of hand, he falls back into barbarism. The other day I noticed four coloured soldiers in one of the best residential areas of Cape Town getting quite out of hand and the language they used there in public one cannot repeat. Is it not possible to do something to keep control over them? The position has indeed become alarming. Yesterday I witnessed a deplorable incident of coloured soldiers misbehaving in a tram. Is it not possible to see to the officers keeping them in check? I do not want to talk now of the case which is being investigated at present, but one notices the disturbances by coloured soldiers in uniform all over the country. They have no respect for the ordinary man who wears civilian clothing and they even have no respect for officers in uniform. That is going to have an aftermath after this war. We read the report of the Planning Council, but they only touched the fringe of the problem and do not have any actual projects for the future. The Prime Minister knows what happened in regard to the coloureds after the last war, and at that time they had not been taken into the army in such large numbers as is the case today. How can our small white population maintain itself when the coloured people get out of hand? If we think of the future we have every reason to be apprehensive. The families of the Europeans become smaller and smaller, also in our country. We shall be compelled to compensate officials and other people with large families. I am even going so far as to maintain that the time may come when we shall have to pay substantial allowances to families with four children or more, for our white race is decreasing in numbers. The other day I noticed from the newspapers that the position in England is also serious, and that they fear that the population there will be millions less in 50 years time. Here in South Africa large families are also getting scarce nowadays, but the natives are being encouraged by this high remuneration to multiply. The allowances in regard to coloureds and Europeans are quite out of proportion. I have many natives on my farm and I know how they live. I am looking after them. But those who return do not want to go back to the life on the farms. As soldiers in the army they have been drawing up to £25 per month. What is going to happen to them after the war? They will possibly come to stay in the large towns, for they will not want to go back to the farms. The coloureds and the natives should realise that the Government is the big boss and that the officers above them are also their bosses. There should be strict discipline. Today they have no respect for their officers. The other day I saw on the station that an officer went up to some coloured soldiers and talked to them. They listened, but after he had turned his back one should have heard the language they used in regard to this officer. That is happening every day. I want to ask the Prime Minister to put his foot down now and to see that practical steps be taken to keep the coloured soldiers under control. We are now parting and a new Parliament will meet here probably in a few months’ time, but when things are allowed to continue as they do now, even within a few months matters will become so critical as they have never been in the history of South Africa. The native has not the intelligence of the white man and has not the same discerning powers. He will not realise that he has to return to normal conditions. When we look at the Estimates we find that up to 31st December, 1942, £8,500,000 had already been paid out to natives, coloured soldiers and their dependants, and daily more are taken into the army. I hope that the Prime Minister will wake up and will realise that he has to do everything in his power to safeguard and maintain European civilisation in South Africa. Otherwise we shall find here in another 50 years or so a coffee-coloured population such as is to be found in the South American states.

May I say at the outset that I welcome the increases which have been made in the wages of soldiers on the recommendation of the Select Committee. I am not surprised at the speech of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) nor am I surprised at the attitude that the whole of his party have taken against any suggested increase in the pay of the non-European forces in the Union.

We are not surprised at you.

I do not suppose the hon. member will be surprised. At any rate, I run true to type, which is more than can be said of that hon. member.

Is it the colour type?

I do not care what type it is; it is the humane type. One would have thought that if the opposition of the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) or the opposition of the hon. member for Moorreesburg had been based on principle, that they would have put forward their views before the Select Committee. Not one of them ever attended the Select Committee and joined in any one of the discussions. Let me qualify that; they certainly attended but not one of them was present when any recommendation was put before the Select Committee upstairs. The whole of their attitude has been one of complete and fundamental antagonism, not only to the payment but to the appointment of any coloured man. That is probably inborn in the hon. member for Mossel Bay and the hon. member for Moorreesburg—this antagonism towards the coloured people. The hon. member for Moorreesburg has suggested that at the end of the war we will find that not one of these coloured people will go back to the farms at the wages which they were paid before they enlisted. His contention is that they will not be satisfied, and I do not blame them. Of course, they will not be satisfied: I can only express the hope that when they come back there will be an improvement in the conditions under which they have to work.

That is true to type.

It is perfectly true to type.

Thank God I do not belong to that type.

And let me tell those hon. gentlemen that the Afrikaans European section of the people who for centuries in this country have been prepared to live on the farm, have been just as dissatisfied during the last fifteen years with the conditions on the farms.

I am glad I am not a member of your party.

So am I. With the establishment of secondary industries in this country, there has been a flood of Afrikaans-speaking Europeans coming to the towns to find employment in secondary industries; and why? I welcome that. Why should they not come? But what has been the urge that his forced them to leave their lands? It has been that the towns have offered them better facilities, better educational opportunities, more sympathetic consideration and better conditions under which they can live normal, European, self-respecting and civilised lives. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) and the hon. member for Moorreesburg talk about “ons volk en ons taal”. Well “ons volk en ons taal” come to the town to get better opportunities of expressing their virility and manhood. They come here for the sympathy they could not get on the platteland.

Some people come from England to make a living here.

And some people should go to Germany for a living too.

An unfair comparison has been made between the wages paid to European and coloured troops. What has the hon. member for Moorreesburg said? Has he taken the pay of the coloured and European soldier and compared that with their respective pay in civil life?

I have taken the example of the tradesmen.

The hon. member has gone through that book with a tooth-comb, but I challenge him or any other member of this House to show that there is not equal service required of all forces who are serving in the Union, irrespective of colour. They all serve South Africa, and they are all prepared to give what they have. I say that the pay is discriminatory against the coloured man. I say quite frankly that it is the policy of this country not to pay the coloured troops the same as is paid to European troops. All right; I accept that. I do not ask for the same pay, but I would like to see it. I know I could not possibly get it. But when the hon. member for Moorreesburg is prepared to accept with both hands an increase in the European allowances—and I am with him; they are not getting too much even today—when he does that he must be prepared to say that the coloured people are also entitled to an improvement in the conditions under which they serve. When I listened to the hon. member for Moorreesburg and the hon. member for Mossel Bay, I did hope that they would draw a comparison between the European private with a wife and five children—a normal average family, I think—and the coloured soldier, to show what the European soldier can get against the coloured soldier in exactly the self-same position. If they had done that they would have found that the discrimination against the coloured person is as high as 50 per cent. The coloured man gets only half of what the European soldier is getting. However, there is an improvement, and I thank the hon. the Minister of Finance for that and I thank the Select Committee. I think that if this war lasts much longer South Africa will see that the allowances of the dependants of coloured soldiers are increased, and I hope the time will come that South Africa will recompense the coloured soldiers and their families in the same way they are recompensing the European soldiers and their families. It is true that there is probably a difference of percentages in the increases as between the European and the coloured soldier. But wherever that difference is against the European soldier, the hon. member for Moorreesburg has taken exception to it. The increase in the sergeant’s pay for a non-European is 6 per cent. The increase for a European sergeant is 5 per cent., and the hon. member makes some play of that. He forgets that there was a difference of as much as 43 per cent. in favour of the European of the lower ranks. We have to get away from this fundamental misconception of hon. members opposite that the coloured man is being sent by a benign providence to be the carrier of water and the hewer of wood. He is just as fundamentally a part of the community of South Africa as any other section in this country, as is the European section in this country. He represents very nearly half the European population of South Africa, and until the Union of South Africa give to him a fair share of the benefits and the rewards which come as a result of his services, so long will there be grievances amongst the coloured people. When marriage allowances were awarded to the families of coloured soldiers, I went into the countryside, and, to Stellenbosch, Malmesbury and Paarl, and wherever I went I found that the complaint was that the coloured troops were getting too much money, that they were getting so much money that you could not get service in the country district, and I tried to investigate those grievances on the part of housewives in Stellenbosch, Malmesbury and Paarl. I found that prior to the war it was necessary for the coloured woman, in addition to her husband who worked, to go out and work as well, that it was the invariable practice of coloured women who were married to go and work in the kitchen the whole of God’s day and half of God’s night.

Do you want the white women to work for them?

I do not want the white women to work for them, but what the hon. member for Moorreesburg claims as the natural corollary for being a mother of children in a European home, I claim as the natural corollary for a coloured mother in a coloured home. I say that the coloured mother with three or four or five children to look after ought, not to be working away from her home.

The coloured people on the farms were very happy until people like you and the Communists came along.

So were the poor whites. They were perfectly happy until they found that they could get better facilities and opportunities in the towns. Hundreds of thousands of them have gone to the towns. You do not deny the right to them to go to the towns. But he hon. member says: “Look what the coloured married man with one child can get now; he can get £13 a month! Will he be satisfied with £2 10s. a month at the end of the war?” The hon. member says: “What will be his reaction? He will not be satisfied.” Of course he will not be satisfied, and he is entitled to be dissatisfied, and so long as he remains satisfied with the conditions in the rural areas so long will we have a poor white problem in this country. We must lift the coloured people unless we want to be pulled down with them. Raise the standard of living for the coloured man and you raise the standard of living for the European; lower the standard of living for the coloured man, and you lower the standard of living for the European. The hon. member contends that the coloured people do not know how to spend this money. He says that all you have to do is to go into a tickey bazaar to find the coloured people spending their money on worthless items. The irony of it is that it takes a war to bring about the uplift of these people. There will be heart-rendings and soul searchings at the end of this war to try and maintain the standard of living which those people are used to today. I hope that the Social and Economic Council will be able to devise a scheme whereby we will be able to maintain that higher standard of living. When I listened to the hon. member decrying the pay and wages that were given to coloured serving soldiers, I was reminded of a case that was brought to my notice in this House yesterday. A coloured soldier who had served—I think his disability was blindness—was awarded an honourable discharge with a pension of £117 per annum—a terrific amount! It is unheard of that a pension of £117 should be awarded to a coloured man as a war disability pension! That is what he got until his case was taken up by the hon. member for Durban, Greyville (Mr. Derbyshire) and that man’s pension has been lifted to £318. Why has it been raised to £318? It was raised because he was earning £318 or more before he enlisted. Is he not entitled to it? Does he not carry his disability with the same handicap that anyone else does? I was thrilled not many months ago when I read of a decoration that had been awarded to a native on the North African front. He was a stretcher bearer; a shell landed in one of the gun emplacement positions, and three times that man crawled with European soldiers across No Man’s Land, carrying people to safety. Three times this native soldier was wounded. South Africa was honoured by the heroism displayed by this native, and South Africa will insist that these people shall be honoured as South African heroes, just as we honour all South Africans who are equally ready to give of their best in the service of South Africa. The pay of coloured soldiers will probably be the chief plank in the platform of hon. members opposite, but I shall be very grievously disappointed with the people of South Africa if they support hon. members opposite in this determined effort on their part to deride the services which the coloured troops are giving to South Africa. We need the loyal support of every South African, irrespective of colour or race, and those who think South Africa worth fighting for, will get a square deal irrespective of their colour, at the end of the war.

I am glad that the hon. the Prime Minister is in his seat. I am compelled to raise a matter here which is a glaring injustice to a number of Afrikaners and I should like the Prime Minister to express his opinion on the matter in public. Before I go into the details of the case I want to mention that this case has been pending since October, 1941, and at the beginning of the Session I did my very utmost to obtain relief for these people through the Department of Defence. After protracted negotiations I ultimately obtained an interview with the Secretary for Defence and his reply to me was that these people had no legal claim. I thereupon tried to obtain an interview with the Prime Minister. From time to time his secretary told me that it was impossible. Finally I wrote a letter to him and in passing he informed me that he had referred the matter back to the Secretary for Defence and the manner in which he said so led me to believe that something would be done. Now, however, I hear that the point of view of the Department of Defence is the same as that of the Secretary for Defence, viz. that they can do nothing and that the disgrace has to continue. Under these circumstances I feel compelled to submit the facts to this House. I take up the point of view that I shall fight for these people as long as I am able to do so, because I am convinced, and every upright person will agree with me, that an injustice is being done here to a group of Afrikaners and that this injustice should not be overlooked. An Imperial air school had to be built on the road from Bloemfontein to Maselspoort. The Government obtained 400 morgen of land there and they marked out the foundations for buildings just in front of the 12 plotholders there. That meant that barracks for native soldiers would be built only 50 yards in front of the houses of these people. They immediately drafted a petition and beseeched and prayed the Department of Defence to build those barracks a hundred or two hundred yards further on. The Government had at its disposal 400 morgen there and the buildings could have been constructed further away. But no, the foundations had been laid and they continued with the building in spite of the fact that these people continually tried to persuade the Department to meet their wishes. They sent letters of protest to the Department and to the City Council, and they also tried to have the thing changed, but the buildings were nevertheless completed. The natives moved into the barracks, and a sewerage system was constructed which resulted in the smell near those houses being so bad when the North-wind blows, that it is quite impossible to stay there. I want to ask the Prime Minister to imagine the position of native barracks being built in front of his house with a sewerage system which runs into the soil and gives off a most offensive smell in the vicinity. Not one of us would be prepared to live there, and I should like to hear from him now why this must happen to those twelve Afrikaners. I had some correspondence with the Department and explained the matter to the Secretary for Defence. His reply was that I forgot that there was a war on. His further reply was that the people there had no legal claim against the Government. I want to point out that we in this House introduced legislation during war-time to prevent non-Europeans from buying land in Durban. We try to prevent educated Indians from buying land under circumstances where they will not cause trouble. Here, however, the Department of Defence allows an Imperial flying school being built in front of the houses of Afrikaners, and native barracks being put there with a sewerage system which contaminates the surroundings. I went personally to have a look at the position. When I came there a dead dog was lying there which had been bayonetted through the neck by one of the soldiers, whilst on the football field Europeans and non-Europeans all mixed up were playing football and there was a terrible din and noise. The women living there have to keep their little girls indoors owing to the terrible language which one can here there. Their husbands there are frequently on night j duty and the women do not want to stay alone there. It really seems as if the Department of Defence wants to treat these Afrikaners there as the scum of the country, and that on account of a flying school of the Imperial Government. This is a most serious injustice and unfairness which these Afrikaners have to endure. I want to ask the Prime Minister whether he does not think this to be an injustice to those people. I should like to quote from a letter in regard to this position, and as I said, everything possible was done to stop this thing. This person writes in his letter—

The water is pumped out and is thereafter allowed to flow out over the land. As I said, there is only an asphalt road between the barracks and the houses of these people. The letter goes on to say—

This is a terrible state of affairs. These people warned against the construction of those barracks. The Department cannot say that they had not been warned beforehand. The argument now is that as the barracks cost £13,000, they cannot take them away now. If they had not been warnned beforehand that argument might have some justification. From the first day the Department started on the foundations, however, they had been warned and were asked to construct those buildings further away. The Secretary for Defence quotes from documents and says that, when the people made representations, they moved the buildings to a spot with which the people were satisfied. That is an untruth. Those buildings could not have been built in a worse position. They were constructed on the southern section and directly on the other side of the asphalt road are the dwelling houses of these people. The barracks could not have been built in a worse spot and that is sufficient proof that the assertion of the Department is incorrect. Three owners are particularly affected, for the others are situated slightly lower down and do not suffer so much from the stench. These three persons went to Mr. Jack Reitz and Mr. Ellenberger and asked them to valuate their properties. They are prepared to sell those places at the valuation price and to move away. I asked the Department to buy those places and to use them for war purposes during the war and to sell them again after the war so that these people could get away there. One woman flatly refused to live there any longer. That family moved away and they are trying to let the place. In one case one of these persons had had an offer of £1,800 for his property but now he cannot even get £1,300 for it. Nobody wants to live there. I told the people not to go to court about it, because it appears that under the law they have no case. I advised them to accept compensation. Ultimately they agreed to accept compensation and to find some other way out of their difficulty, but on the condition that the Government try to remove the stench as much as possible. I went to the Prime Minister and appreciated his sympathetic attitude, but much to my surprise I had to find out from officials afterwards that nothing could be done because if they paid compensation to those people, there would be other places where the people could also claim compensation. I challenge the Minister to mention another place where a flying school with native barracks has been built right in front of the houses of Europeans and where so much unpleasantness has been created as in this case. I say again that these people were done a grave injustice and the Prime Minister should not brush aside this matter so lightheartedly. I want to ask him to give his personal attention to it and to investigate who are the persons responsible for the building of the barracks at that particular spot. In reply to a leter written by those people, they received the reply that it is impossible to move the quarters further away because they would then be too far away from the water and sewerage system. Is that a sufficient reason? Could the pipes not have been extended another 100 yards to bring the water there? Is that a sufficient excuse for causing all this inconvenience to those people. I appeal to the Minister to give his personal attention to this matter. There are higher officials who wilfully showed contempt towards these people. I think the Prime Minister should reprimand his officials for a grave injustice was done in this case. Secondly I want to ask the Prime Minister to come to the assistance of these people by either purchasing their properties or by paying compensation, so that they may be able to make other arrangements until the war is over. I ask the Prime Minister to give this matter his sympathetic consideration.

I, too, have certain criticisms of the recommendations of the Soldiers’ Pay Committee. Needless to say they are not the same criticisms as those put forward by the members of the Nationalist Part. My criticism lies in the opposite direction, in the failure of the Committee to extend its recommendations adequately to include the African soldiers. The cause of the African soldier was in a particularly difficult position under the terms of reference of the Select Committee on Soldiers’ Pay. That Committee’s terms of reference laid down that the Committee should consider in what way the rates of pay of our soldiers should be revised to bring them into line with the better conditions prevailing in other parts of the Empire. We recognised early that there were practically no grounds of comparison for the African soldier, but I think it was assumed by this House and by the Committee that the essential function of the Committee was in fact to consider the rates of pay and allowances to our own soldiers in terms of the services these soldiers are rendering to this country; that is that the ultimate obligation which lay upon the Committee was to recommend rates which it considered adequate both for the soldiers’ needs and those of his family, and which would bear some relationship to the services which our soldiers are rendering to the community. I venture to suggest that it was with that object in view that most members undertook the work and approached the problem before them. In pursuance of that objective they set themselves to revise the conditions of pay and prepared to bring up proposals in respect of pay and allowances which would free all soldiers fighting for their country from any necessity to fall back on charity. I think every member of the Committee felt that there was an obligation on us to propose for our soldiers rates of pay which would do more than relieve the families of the soldiers from the most urgent problems of living. As a result they have put before the Government suggestions which involve a considerable improvement on the rates of pay which have hitherto prevailed. It is not too much to say that their proposals involve generous increases in the pay and allowances both of European and Coloured soldiers. And I, as a member of the Committee, fully endorse the proposals that have been put forward in respect of those sections of the Army. I feel that we cannot too well repay the services that are rendered to us in a war of this kind, particularly in a country whose fighting forces are volunteer forces, and I therefore fully support the proposals that have been made in respect both of the European and of the Coloured soldiers, in fact I would have been prepared to support better conditions than are now proposed for the coloured soldiers. I would have supported, and did in the Committee support, the proposal that the coloured family man should have a regular allowance for each of his children in the same way as the European family man has. But the proposals that have been made in respect of native soldiers lack any of that generosity which is characteristic of the proposals made in respect of the other two groups. In fact they lack any generosity whatever. The whole proposal made in respect of our native troops is a magnificent increase of 3d. per day on the all-in rate of 2s. 3d. per day—that 3d. to be granted after six months satisfactory service. I feel that in putting forward this recommendation the Committee has failed lamentably in its obligation to propose to the Government what would be adequate for services rendered by all groups of the army, and I feel that this failure is particularly lamentable for a variety of reasons. The first reason is that the rate of pay initially given to our African soldiers was distinctly less generous than that offered to any other section of the army. It is a fact that on all the evidence led before the Committee the rates paid to both European soldiers and coloured soldiers were inadequate to the needs of their families, but it ?s also a fact that the rates that were originally laid down, both for European and coloured soldiers were above the average rates paid to, above the average earnings of a great many of the persons who enlisted in the army. But so far as the native soldier is concerned that was not the case. The rate which was originally laid down for the African soldier could not by any stretch of imagination be regarded as above that which the man could ordinarily earn. The rate of 2s. 3d. per day all-in is at best the rate which was paid by the gold mining industry to subsidised rural labour. It provides an allowance for the native soldier’s family—that is to say, roughly £3 per month which is merely the average earning of the ordinary mine labourer and we have always contended that the average earning of a mine labourer is a totally inadequate family wage. It is, and always has been, a subsidised wage, an individual wage—it has never pretended to be a family wage. We contend that it is a wage which has only kept our rural areas afloat on poverty-stricken conditions, with health and general social conditions steadily deteriorating under it. In support of the contention that this rate is substantially adequate, I don’t know why, that we as the natives’ representatives three years ago were satisfied with the rate of 2s. 3d. per day. I deny that. It is entirely false. At no time have we, as native representatives, ever accepted this rate of 2s. 3d. per day as satisfactory. There was a time when the Defence Department proposed to reduce the rate for African soldiers to 1s. per day, and we were called in in consultation at Pretoria at a time when we were already preparing our protest to the 2s. 3d. which had already been paid to the first native recruits. At that time we were in the position of having to defend a line which we considered entirely unsatisfactory; we were forced to accept 2s. 3d. in 1940 because we could get nothing better and were threatened with something considerably worse, but we accepted it on the understanding that it was merely reasonable in the circumstances—the circumstances being the threat to the then existing standard; and we accepted it with the addedum that it was entirely unsatisfactory so far as the urban native was concerned. I repeat that we have consistently taken our stand on this fact that 2s. 3d. per day for a native soldier is not, and has never been satisfactory. That is in the records of Hansard of this House. We have raised it practically every year. That rate gives to a native family, both in town and the country, with the cost of living allowance, something in the region of £3 per month to live on, and we contend that that rate on all available evidence is not a living income for a native family, even in the Native Reserves. Now, in the circumstance, that this rate was in fact the lowest rate of pay earned by the native soldier in pre-war days, we had special reasons for anticipating that the Soldiers’ Pay Committee would make a generous recommendation in connection with native soldiers, and I venture to draw the attention of the Prime Minister to the circumstance that the weight of evidence laid before the Committee was all in favour of a generous increase to the native soldiers. Every one who came before us was satisfied that the existing rates were not adequate, and most people who came before us were convinced that they were lamentably inadequate; and whatever rates were proposed by those who gave evidence before the Committee reflected a considerable increase in the existing rates. It was with great surprise, then, that I, as a member of the Committee, heard the proposal from the Department of Defence that there should be a 3d. increase for the native soldier. I felt then and I feel now that the failure of the Committee to recommend a reasonable increase for the native soldiers unbalances the whole of their recommendations. On the recommendations, as they stand, the rates which will now be payable to European soldiers and to coloured soldiers are considerably above the best levels of pay of artisans, of the group from whom the great proportion of the army is drawn. The evidence put before the Committee was that European soldiers should at least be paid the artisan rate of pay of this country. The decision of the Committee was in fact to recommend for our European soldiers whether from town or country, a rate of pay which is better than the average earnings of the artisans in our larger towns. I do not oppose that in the least. I repeat that I feel that we cannot pay too much to those who are fighting for us, but I contend that to raise the level of the European soldier and of the coloured soldier in this way while leaving the native soldier on the bottom, is against the whole line of reasonable and sound development for this country. It has been suggested on both sides of the House that it is going to be extremely difficult to maintain the standards now fixed in war time after the war is over. It was extremely difficult before the war to maintain what was supposed to be the traditional standard of Europeans in this country, and every enquiry has shown that the reason for the difficulty was the depressed condition of the bottom of our labour market. We have had every sort of evidence put before us as legislators and we claim to be convinced that we have in fact no hope of maintaining any reasonable standard of living in South Africa for the European population unless we raise the standard of those at the bottom. And I understood that in consonance with this conviction, it was an accepted principle of this country that the people at the bottom must be raised both for their own sakes and for the sake of the country as a whole. Yet here is an opportunity to apply the principle that we have so often and so explicity adopted of raising the bottom level as the foundation on which to base the standard of the upper levels and what we have in fact done is to widen the already wide gap between the European standard and the native standard. We have in fact chosen a line which must increase the strains of our economic condition instead of reducing them, and in that respect I feel that the recommendations of the Committee are a failure, not only in respect of the native, but in respect of our national policy. And I contend that that failure is particularly serious in that the country’s interests and attention are focused on the problem of social re-adjustment. The whole electorate is anxious about the social character of the future. Indeed I believe that a great part of the electorate is so deeply concerned about the charcter of the society which has created this war that they have been prepared to make considerable sacrifices to even out some of the inequalities of that society and thereby to build up a more solid, a more safe and a more reasonable community for the future. I believe that these people will be, and I know many of them are extremely concerned at this evidence of the failure to apply the principles that we have ostensibly accepted. A great many people are saying: “What do the recommendations of our planning committee in advocating narrowing of the gap between Europeans and natives when this is the sort of thing which the Government does when it has the chance of doing something practical in that direction”; and an uneasy feeling has been created, a feeling that the only thing that matters is not the building up of a sound society but success at the General Election. It is a serious thing to say, but it is a fact that the groups of people who are going to election are all going to benefit by the recommendations of this Committee but the group which is not going to election gets practically nothing in recognition of the admittedly magnificent services which it has been rendering in the cause of freedom. We are further concerned about the recommendations of the Committee because it runs counter to the latest information available from the Native Affairs Department, itself. It is only a few months since the Native Affairs Department issued a report, the report of the Interdepartmental Committee, on the social and economic conditions of natives in towns. That Committee made a definite statement as to the financial needs of the native family in urban areas, yet here we have made no attempt to square the conditions of the native soldier in the army with the conditions there laid down as essential for the improvement of the native people. There was an attempt on the part of the Committee to consider the possibility of differentiating between the recruits from the town and of those from the country. That is a differentiation which we ourselves cannot support. We maintain that no attempt has been made to differentiate between the claims of Europeans from towns and Europeans from the country. We maintain that the rates now proposed for Europeans and coloureds alike are rates based on the demands of urban life; indeed those rates are going to give even many of the people from urban areas a financial position which they have never before enjoyed; and in the circumstances we can see no justification for differentiation in the rates for native as between country and urban areas. On the contrary we say that there was an excellent opportunity here for trying to even up the position of the rural native and the town native. There was an opportunity for trying to raise the standard of the rural worker. The recommendation which I myself put forward to the Committee was a reasonable one—it aimed at giving the native soldier at least the same proportion of the coloured rate as that which the coloured man now gets of the European rate. At present the coloured private is getting approximately half of what the European private gets. We feel it would not have been unreasonable to have given to the native private at least half of what the coloured private is now getting. On that level we would only have been getting an approximation for the urban man to the wage rates now laid down by the Wage Board for industry and commerce in the towns—and these rates are still not living rates on which a family can be efficiently maintained. In all the circumstances this recommendation of the Committee is a grievous disappointment to us, and we sincerely hope that the Prime Minister will reconsider the matter. These are, after all, only recommendations, and it is within his purview to revise these rates and to adjust them as he thinks fit. We trust that in view of all his own statements about the urgency of improving the conditions of the people lowest down, and about the determination of the Government to do this, that he will take this whole situation into consideration again, and that he will of his own goodwill revise the rates for the native soldiers and bring them into line with the others, thus extending to the native soldiers the same generosity as he has shown to others and which they have so faithfully and bravely earned.

I have listened with interest and attention, as we always do, to the speeches of the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) and she has put forward a good plea for levelling up the wages of our native soldiers. But I don’t think she has given us a correct picture of the situation, and I should like to deal with the question very briefly as I do not like a wrong impression to spread in the country, and especially among our native soldiers—an impression that they are not fairly treated by the recommendations of this Committee. I may say at the start that it was very difficult, it was practically impossible for the Government, with the recommendations of the Select Committee before them, to have differentiated, to have accepted part of these recommendations and to have rejected others. We have just had a plea from the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) who has argued that we have gone too far with regard to the coloured soldiers, and in regard to the pay and to the allowances we give them, and now the hon. member for Cape Eastern puts up the opposite plea in respect of the natives, the native soldiers. Well, I can only say this, that the House as a whole will understand that it would have been most difficult and awkward for the Government with this report as a whole before them, to have differentiated, to have accepted part of the report, rejected other parts, and made alterations—it would have been very difficult indeed to defend that. The matter came before this House on a motion from the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) and at that stage the Government took the view that this was a matter for investigation by a Select Committee, a matter for investigation not only so far as our local situation was concerned in South Africa, but also as a matter of comparison with the rates of pay by other Dominions. And therefore the whole subject was remitted to the Select Committee for investigation, and they made the investigation. I know as a fact that they gave serious consideration to all the facts and the various aspects of the pay for our various classes of troops, and they have made their report. I think in those circumstances there was only one thing for the Government to do, and that was to accept the report as a whole and we have done so, and I think in doing so we have done the right thing. Now my hon. friend comes forward and says that the natives are not properly treated, at any rate the proportion, the relative proportion between them and other portions of the community in the army, is not maintained. If I may say so with all respect to my hon. friend, I would say that there is some misunderstanding, or rather some fallacy in her argument, and it arises in this way. If you take for instance the coloured troops. The bulk of them come from the towns, the cities, the villages, they come from the Western Province where they are accustomed to high rates of pay. A large portion of our coloured people are already taken up in industry in this country. All these big centres on the Coast which have large numbers of coloured people engaged in industrial employment, have wage systems under which no differentiation is made on the ground of colour. Our Wage Act with its determinations, the Wage Board—none of those discriminate on the ground of colour, and the result is this, that for all the lower grades of employment in the towns and cities, there is no difference, and the coloured people get the same rates of pay as the whites. The result is this, that as a whole the coloured standard has been rising in consequence of our wage system very rapidly, and they are paid now on a much higher wage basis than our native people living away from those centres and not engaged in industrial employment. The natives, the Africans in our army, are recruited very largely—more than 80 per cent. of them—from the Reserves and the Locations. They are not urban. The urban natives have not joined up on any large scale. Those in the cities receive much better pay and as a result, they have not joined up largely in the Army. The natives in the Army, to the extent of nearly 80 per cent., come from the locations and the reserves. We have therefore to look at their case in a different light from that of the coloureds, who come mostly from the towns and who are largely employed under conditions very similar to those of the European. Now, sir, originally we had to see what would be a fair wage to pay to the natives in these circumstances, and the conclusion we came to originally was that we should pay them more or less on the same basis as they are paid on the gold mines in the Transvaal, that that is considered a fair and reasonable standard of pay for the native who comes from the locations and the reserves and other parts of South Africa. That is the standard we adopted, and it has not been a bad standard. There has been a general recognition that our natives on the gold mines in the Transvaal are on the whole well treated, considering their pay, considering their housing facilities, and their conditions of service. That is the standard we have adopted in the army. Now the Committee has gone somewhat further and added a small increment to that pay. But I say that we cannot compare their condition in the army and their pay in the army with those of coloured people who come from quite different conditions, and who earned quite different rates of pay. The position today is this, as regards the natives in the army: Let us take the case of dependants. With the deduction which is made from their pay, their dependent families will now get anything from £2 15s. to £3 per month. That we can take as the average rate which they will get. The wife living in the location or in the reserve with her children, will get that amount. I am talking of the natives. The husband is looked after in the army, where he gets his housing and food. A reduction is made for his family, and his family gets that amount. I say that that is a fair amount for a native family, the wife and children living under location conditions or in the reserve, and I think it could be defended. I think, therefore, that the Committee had a very good case for saying that the natives in the army were fairly treated, with the small increment they got in addition to their pay, so that on the merits I think we have a fair case. My hon. friend says that more should be done, that the native pay should have a better relation to the pay of Europeans and coloureds. Well, that is an argument which to some extent has its weight, but as against that you have to bear in mind the situation that I have described, that these natives come from location conditions where the pay which they are now getting in the army must be considered not only reasonable, but fair.

*I now come to the argument of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) who holds the exact opposite view in regard to coloured soldiers. In this case the facts are as I stated before. By far the larger majority of the coloured soldiers come from the towns and villages. It was our policy, practically from the start, not to recruit from the rural areas, so that the coloured and native labourer would not be enticed to leave the farm.

The effect was different.

We did our utmost. We took all possible precautions to draw as few recruits from the farms as possible. We even went so far that in the Western Province we did not do any recruiting simply because we did not want to allow too many farm labourers joining the army and the work on the farms being adversely affected thereby.

In spite of that the farmers are complaining about the lack of labourers.

That has always been the case. I remember having heard those complaints since my childhood days. The difference therefore is that as far as the coloureds are concerned, they mostly come from the large towns, to a great extent from industrial centres, where they received good wages and where in the lower grades they received the same pay as the Europeans, and the large number of coloureds who joined up in the large towns and villages, mostly from industrial centres, no doubt receive far less in the army, and have been receiving all the time less pay, than the wages to which they were accustomed in their civilian life. This is quite a different position and I think the Select Committee acted quite correctly in deciding to keep those aspects in view and recommending a substantial improvement in the pay of coloured soldiers. I do not attach much value to the argument the hon. member for Moorreesburg put forward. I want to ask him: why argue the point here and why did you not do so when the enquiry took place? There he had the opportunity of going into every detail of the matter and why did the hon. member not do so? Why does he come here in the House at this stage and why does he now declare that the proportions of the pay of Europeans and coloureds as determined by the Select Committee are wrong? This is not the place to argue on matters of that nature. The opportunity was given in the Select Committee when the evidence was heard there; the hon. member had the opportunity to put matters right there. But my hon. friends ran away from it and they now come here with their criticism and I do not think that under the circumstances much value can be attached to this criticism. The Government had only one way open to it and that was to either approve or disapprove of the report of the Select Committee, and under all the circumstances and in view of all the difficulties we had had, the responsibility was to a large extent put on the Select Committee which had all the various opinions before it and we thereafter adopted the report in its entirety. It is a good report. I just want to say a few words about the case which the hon. member for Bloemfontein, District (Mr. Haywood) quoted here in connection with the flying school near Bloemspruit. I want to tell you what my information is. The flying school has been erected on municipal land at Bloemspruit near Bloemfontein in 1941. Col. Clegg, the officer in command, first of all investigated the position. There was a question as to where the houses for the natives were to be built. At all air schools there are a number of natives who do the ordinary work at the school and accommodation had to be created for the native servants in connection with this school. An investigation was made where the place for those buildings should be. Objection was raised against the original plan. A further investigation was thereupon made and my information is that after that investigation a decision was taken which gave general satisfaction and the erection of the houses for the natives was thereupon proceeded with.

That is quite incorrect.

That is my information and I think it is correct. The public were satisfied. A start was thereupon made with the work and after the erection of the native barracks had reached a certain stage and expenditure had already been incurred, an objection was raised mainly by the three persons to whom the hon. member has referred. The position was then impossible. The matter had already gone to far, the expenditure had been made and with the best intentions in the world it was impossible for us to alter the plans at that stage. What I am speaking of now is what happened in 1941. All we can do now and which we shall do our best to do, is to see that the conditions as far as the natives are concerned do not become such that they form an unnecessary burden for the families living there. The hon. member for Bloemfontein District asked me why we do not buy these houses. Why should we buy them? We do not need them.

If it can be proved that your information is incorrect, will you then be willing to pay compensation?

This is not a question of compensation. Why should we buy those properties? There is no reason for doing that. The law advisers are quite clear on the point that we acted within our rights and if as a result thereof a certain amount of inconvenience has been caused to the public—well, in all such cases there is a certain amount of inconvenience.

This is not inconvenience, this is a scandal.

That is what the hon. member says it is. My information is quite the reverse.

It is easy to prove that your information is incorrect.

Under the circumstances I cannot see, in view of the fact that the money was spent after an investigation, and because this expenditure has been incurred, why we should now go back on a position which did not exist. I am sorry. After the hon. member discussed the matter with me I obtained further information and it seems to me that this is not a case where we should bind ourselves to buy the properties or to pay compensation, and under the circumstances I regret that I cannot accept his suggestion.

I do not want to go any further into the matter which has been discussed here just now. I should like to take a somewhat wider view of the position of our country now that we are standing on the brink of a General Election. The Government put the finances of the country in order, as far as that was possible, in regard to the continuation of the war and in regard to the administration of the Union. We shall shortly be called upon to sit in judgment in South Africa, especially on the question of our participation in the war. I believe that the Election which is in sight will mainly be fought on that issue. It will not be an Election where the large and unsolved problems of South Africa will be planks in the various platforms; there will not be much argument about the post-war problems. The country will be faced with the choice of continuing with the war or not. If the present Government should be returned to power, the war will be continued, also by South Africa. I think that all of us feel that if we could detach ourselves from the war we should very much like to do so, because the longer we are in it, the heavier will the burden and the greater the hardships be for our people. The question is, however, whether it will be practically possible to get out of the war. If through the Election the hon. the Leader of the Opposition should come into power, then, in my opinion, the Leader of the Opposition is tied by his public announcements, to withdraw from the war immediately. Whether that will be practically possible I have my personal doubts about. I think that the Leader of the Opposition, when he should come into the responsible position of Prime Minister of South Africa, if that could happen, would find out that it will be impossible for him in practice to negotiate now with Germany and to conclude a separate peace in order to withdraw South Africa from the war. All of us sitting here doubt whether America and England at this stage would allow such a step to be taken by South Africa. I want, however, to go somewhat further. At the Election we shall not only be dealing with our position towards the outside world in regard to the war. We also have to deal with our position in our country itself and at the Election that will not be a question between two parties or two political groups only. At the head of the two political groups there are the leaders. South Africa up till recently had had only two leaders, viz. the present Prime Minister and the late Gen. Hertzog. We lost the one leader. The other one is still the head of the present Government. I just want to elaborate this point of the two leaders, because the election will be fought on the point whether South Africa will put its fate into the hands of the present Prime Minister again or whether South Africa wants to put its fate into the hands of the present Leader of the Opposition. I want to make it clear that in comparing these two leaders I am not concerned with the politics of the two leaders, but I wish for a moment to make a few remarks in regard to the abilities of the two leaders. When I do that, I cannot help saying that the Prime Minister is first of all the leader of his party, and in that respect he stands on the same level as the Leader of the Opposition. He is a party leader and only a party leader. What is, however, the difference between these two leaders in view of what recent happenings have taught us? In the case of the Prime Minister we see that he has gathered around him an united people holding different views, whereas the Leader of the Opposition has torn apart people holding identical opinions. I emphasise again that at the moment I am only speaking of the question of ability. I want to go still further. In regard to the Leader of the Opposition I want to say that South Africa is today witnessing the sorry spectacle of an Afrikaner people which is largely dumbfounded and torn apart, and I state here with all the sincerity I call my own and with the knowledge I possess on account of the position I held that the Leader of the Opposition with certain of his followers is the cause of the Afrikaner people being divided today. First of all I still want to say this about the Leader of the Opposition, that one never knows where one is with him. The Prime Minister after the Anglo-Boer War has consistently followed a certain policy—advocated a certain policy—whether we agreed with him or not. Whether we differed from him or not, he was consistent in following a certain direction. Take against that the Leader of the Opposition and take a cardinal point in the political life of South Africa, viz. the question of a republic. We never knew where we stood with him. I want to remind you of a few happenings. I do not want to make loose statements. On 27th January, 1915— during the last war—the Leader of the Opposition stated the following—

That was in time of war and at that, time there was already a strong feeling in favour of a republic in South Africa. On the 19th November, 1915, he stated at Ceres—

At that time he was definitely against a republic. In 1919 he was chosen as a member of the freedom deputation to go to Europe and the Leader of the Opposition at that moment was prepared to break up the Union if the Transvaal and the Free State wanted a republic. He said inter alia—

I therefore maintain that a few years later the Leader of the Opposition was prepared to break up the Union in order to give back the republican freedom to the Transvaal and the Free State. Shortly afterwards, however, in 1921, when there was an election coming and when the then Nationalist Party wanted to co-operate with the Labour Party and also tried to catch the votes of the English-speaking section, he again adopted a different attitude and advocated another policy. He then said inter alia—

I need not quote any more of these examples. It is well-known that during that period from 1921 to 1936 the Leader of the Opposition was not in favour of a republic. During that same period he spoke of England as the Mother of our Freedom and used similar expressions. As late as 1936 he was not prepared to turn the Nationalist Party into a definitely republican party. There are members sitting in this House now who will agree with me that when the Federal Council sat at Cape Town and the question of a republic was discussed, I personally proposed a motion that the following words be inserted—

The present Leader of the Opposition did not want to hear of it. When we think of the fact that we are dealing with a person who may possibly get into power and when we consider how he veered round in respect of an important issue like that, we realise that this is a serious matter. Take the coloured problem. We now know what the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition is in regard to the coloured question, but there was a time when he informed a coloured congress that—

Now they can be separated. But at that time he told the coloured people that their fate and that of the European were inseparable. It was in that same period that the Leader of the Opposition got up here and advocated the granting of the vote to coloured women. I am mentioning these things to show how he veered round and tacked about with those problems. A few days ago one aspect of the Indian problem was discussed here. We know what the speech of the Leader of the Opposition amounted to. He wanted the Government to go much further in regard to the Indian question; the Government should tackle the whole Indian problem at this stage and in this time of war. He had the opportunity himself to do so. I personally sat on a Select Committee of which the Leader of the Opposition was the chairman and on which our younger Nationalists advocated segregation in that respect but the Leader of the Opposition was not willing to consider it. I want to go somewhat further still. Apart from these continual changes of opinion and of politics in regard to important problems in South Afrika, I want to say and express myself rather frankly, that what happened recently in South Africa in regard to re-union is a spectacle which the people should see, but also a spectacle which is not very enjoyable. I want to remind you that the Leader of the Opposition personally sent a letter to Groote Schuur on 2nd September, 1939. I know what I am talking about for I was a member of the commission which had to inform Gen. Hertzog, the then Prime Minister, that when a certain decision should be taken in regard to the war and such a decision would result in his party being split from top to bottom and this possibly might also result in his Cabinet falling apart, the Leader of the Opposition with his party would faithfully stand behind Gen. Hertzog to support him in spite of the differences we had with him up till that time. We know what happened on 4th September. That large, strong party so to say split from top to bottom. Gen. Hertzog stood aside and his Cabinet fell and he resigned. Gen. Hertzog thereupon was elected to be the leader in accordance with the undertaking we had given him. I was one of the members who arranged the negotiations at Pretoria. We welcomed Gen. Hertzog into the causus of the Nationalist Party. It was a moving spectacle and we chose him to be our leader. I tell South Africa now and I am prepared to say so on any platform and to prove it too, that right from the start Gen. Hertzog was being undermined as the leader of the Re-united Party. He was being undermined by the chief lieutenants of the Leader of the Opposition. I may perhaps remind you of the so-called Freemanson’s letters which were a pure fiction. Gen. Hertzog got up in the caucus and said that he had never yet set a foot within a freemasons’s lodge and that he had never yet written to a freemason as such. He frankly put the matter before the caucus. It was a falsehood and some of the chief lieutenants of the Leader of the Opposition played a large part in starting a campaign to spread that story throughout the country. One of them even went to the office of the party in the Transvaal to tell the story there. Here in the caucus of the Re-united Party a so-called Crisis Committee was called into being. The purpose of the Crisis Committee was to be able to act instantly in the case of a crisis arising. The Leader of the Opposition was the chairman of the committee, and what did that committee do during its whole existence to prevent happenings which it could have prevented? All it did was to undermine Gen. Hertzog still further. We all know the episode at the Bloemfontein Congress where Gen. Hertzog had to walk out. Why? Because he said: “I am not prepared to be leader in name only.” Allow me, however, to explain why he could say that. Some time later when the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. C. R. Swart) was the candidate for the election at Winburg, the Leader of the Opposition went to his assistance and from a public platform declared—

That is to say against Gen. Hertzog. Do you know what that really meant—that the present Leader of the Opposition at that time had drafted a tentative programme of principles which had been sent to the Federal Council by a certain committee and which was laid before the congress for acceptance. I purposely use the word “acceptance”. The chief leader, Gen. Hertzog, had also drafted a tentative programme, and he ultimately brought that to the congress at Bloemfontein and he asked to be allowed to submit his programme merely for discussion. That, however, was refused. It therefore virtually amounted to the congress having to consider the programme of principles drafted by the deputy leader, and the programme drafted by the chief leader who at the same time was the leader in the Free State was ignored. The actual leader did not obtain the right to submit his programme of principles, because the deputy leader had submitted a programme of principles for acceptance. Are you still wondering why the late Gen. Hertzog preferred to live in solitude on his farm instead of having to mix with such company? I want, however, to go still further. After Gen. Hertzog withdrew, a position of confusion arose within the Afrikaner ranks. There were quarrels and difficulties. A great confusion arose and then attempts were made to restore peace in the ranks of the Afrikaners, which ultimately resulted in the Leader of the Opposition (Dr. Malan) putting forward his idea of a so-called National Committee. That committee was supposed to negotiate on behalf of the Afrikaner people at the conference table, of course apart from the Government. Within that National Committee there would at the same time be found the nucleus or rather the whole Government, of the future republic. Dr. Malan said that the Cabinet Ministers were already to be found within the National Committee. I now ask in all seriousness why the Leader of the Opposition suggested that the Committee should consist of from fifteen to twenty members, whereas only six months ago at the Union congress at Bloemfontein he accepted the so-called Constitution out of the hands of Prof. du Plessis, and in that Constitution it had already been laid down that the Cabinet would consist of 12 members. If that should be the position, why then should the National Committee which was supposed to be the future Government of the future republic, consist of from 15 to 20 members?

With which subject is the hon. member dealing now?

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately you were not in the Chair when I commenced my speech. I said a few moments ago that the financial position had now been settled by the Government for the continuation of the administration of the country and the war, and that we were now standing on the brink of an election and therefore before the choice whether the present Government should continue in office or whether we should have the other alternative, viz. the Opposition.

I do not think hon. members are justified to discuss their personal feuds in this House unless it concerns the Government.

This is not a question of private feuds. I am busy showing that the Opposition which wants to come into power has torn asunder the ranks of the Afrikaners, and that the Committee which had already been designated as the future Government of South Africa consisted of from 15 to 20 members, according to the proposal of the Leader of the Opposition, whereas the tentative constitution which had been adopted by the Leader of the Opposition, only made provision for a Cabinet of 12 members. The fact remains that the first member who had been asked to serve on the committee at the side of the Leader of the Opposition was, I think, Dr. van Rensburg, the Leader of the Ossewa-Brandwag. I know officially that that was so.

Is the hon. member not of the opinion that it would be better to discuss that matter on a public platform and not in this House? I cannot see how it affects this House.

If that is your ruling, I shall have to remain silent on the choice which South Africa will have to make at the election. I feel that that is an important choice and that the people should know what the choice is. Before I finally leave this point I should like to point out that in this morning’s “Burger” there appeared a statement by the Leader of the Opposition in which he said inter alia that they need not stand back for anyone in attempting to preserve the unity of the Afrikaner people or in trying to restore it after it had been destroyed by others. On the contrary, he said they had been taking the lead in trying to restore unity. How the Leader of the Opposition can say such a thing after all we know has happened in South Africa, I cannot understand. I only want to say that the people outside feel that they are faced with a confused issue and the Leader of the Opposition is the cause of many of the difficulties which exist. He for instance openly attacked the Ossewa-Brandwag as an institution dangerous to the state and when accusations were made in this House he denied that he had done anything which caused people to be interned. Excuse me just quoting one instance, viz. that of the chief commandant of the Ossewa-Brandwag in Nothern Rhodesia. He was tried by a special commission and when he tried to plead not guilty and said that he had done nothing which endangered the state, the Attorney-General of Northern Rhodesia said on 4th March last year: “Your man, Dr. Malan, twice issued a warning in the Union against your movement as being a danger to the State.”

I cannot see that that matter has anything to do with the subject at present before the House. The hon. member is going quite outside the scope of the debate.

Am I not allowed to dwell on the election which is coming soon?

The hon. member may speak about the election, but may not discuss private difficulties which have arisen between him and other hon. members.

These are not private difficulties, Mr. Speaker. I have no difficulties. [Laughter]. In spite of the laughter of hon. members, I repeat that I have no difficulties.

I cannot see in what respect the remarks of somebody in Rhodesia have a bearing on the matter now before the House.

The difficulties which arose and to which I refer, have repeatedly been raised here.

That has been discussed in connection with the policy of the Government in regard to that movement. On previous occasions I have already requested hon. members to confine themselves to matters under the control of the Government in a debate of this nature, and I pointed out that it is not fair towards members to refer here to all sorts of things which have no actual bearing on the matters before the House. I am quite prepared to allow the hon. member to continue, but he should not go so far outside the scope of the business before this House.

Then I shall only refer to the Attorney-General of Northern Rhodesia having said that Dr. Malan twice warned the Government against the Ossewa-Brandwag, and he added to that, that if the leader of the Opposition in the Union branded the Ossewa-Brandwag as a dangerous organisation, he (the Attorney-General of Northern Rhodesia) could not very well shut his eyes to the movement being developed in Rhodesia. I only wanted to quote that to show that the Leader of the Opposition has created a position of confusion and estrangement among the Afrikaners in South Africa, such as we have seldom known in our country. I do not want to mention all persons concerned. That is not my intention. My idea is not to make a personal attack on any person, but I am referring here to the Leader of the Opposition as the alternative head of the Government. The position today is unfortunately that there are members sitting in this House who have also played a part in connection with these happenings in South Africa, who have said things and done things in public as a result of which a worse spirit, of enmity and estrangement is today existing than hardly ever before, and unfortunately the Opposition press has participated wholeheartedly in these quarrels and has helped to promote this condition of confusion in our country. As I said, I do not want to say much about particular persons, but I hope you will allow me to finally say a few things in regard to the position which has arisen in this country. Up till now negotiations have continually taken place in regard to our politics, and this morning we read another declaration by the Leader of the Opposition in which he states that he from his side has done everything to effect unity among the Afrikaner people. I maintain that that is not so. Only recently the principal newspaper of that party in the Transvaal declared that the Re-united Nationalist Party could not be scared or thrown into confusion. Its leaders did not want to negotiate or to come to an agreement. That paper furthermore stated that Dr. Malan put it very clearly, stated quite unequivocally, that is his opinion. We should at least be honest in our political life in South Africa. How can he declare that he stands for the unity of the people, whilst they at the same time state such things? That principal newspaper directly opposes negotiations and a compromise. I can only say that if the Opposition goes to the country with the idea, as has already been said here, of probably taking over the Government, the Opposition will find out that there is a spirit abroad amongst the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population which will not welcome them very heartily. The people have remembered certain happenings in the past. The people remember what has been said against Afrikaner organisations and that the present. Leader of the Opposition not only went on the war path against the New Order group and the Afrikaner Party, but, that he also came into difficulties with Prof. van Rooyen who was the chairman of the Commission of Enquiry and with Prof. du Plessis, the chairman of the Unity Commission, and finally also with the Commission of Twenty-One which tried to bring about unity. They will also remember the very strong language used against the people who tried to restore Afrikaner unity. I may remind you of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) stating only recently at their congress that no Afrikaner ever did the British Empire and British-Jewish capital a greater service than Dr. van Rensburg and Prof. du Plessis did. Did he mean that when he said so? Must we take that seriously? Does he really want to say that no Afrikaner ever did the British Empire and British-Jewish capitalism a greater service than Prof. du Plessis and Dr. van Rensburg? I only want to say that hon. members there will still have a surprise coming to them in respect of the reception they will have in the country. It will be quite different, from what they expect. The unrestrained and unbridled language they have been using against the organisations of the people are not so easily forgotten and their refusal to co-operate with organisations such as the Ossewa-Brandwag and the New Order will not be forgotten. The people will now have to decide in whose hands they will put the fate of the country. If one remembers that the leaders of that party have stated that no Englishman ever did so much harm to our Afrikaans culture as the Ossewa-Brandwag has done, if one sees in what manner the leader of the Opposition proceeded against Prof. van Rooyen and Prof. du Plessis, then I only want to say that the people also remember those things. If the Leader of the Opposition even goes so far as to attack the religious convictions of other leading personalities in South Africa and if he says at Beaufort West and again at his congress, speaking about the Christian-national views of the O.B., that the speech of Dr. van Rensburg at Majuba was as far removed from Christian principles as the North Pole is from the South Pole, then …

I think the hon. member is now digressing too far. This is not the place to discuss matters of that nature.

Yes, Sir, perhaps it is better that the people outside speak themselves. If these things are brought to their notice, the people will know quite well whether the truth is being spoken or not, but I say again that we are on the brink of an election and I hope that we shall be allowed in this House to say at least something to make the people outside realise too, what the choice is they have to make, and if a person goes so far as to drag in the religious convictions of other people in this manner and if it simply stated that they are traitors of their country, then the position is very serious indeed and the people will remember these things. It has already gone so far that one of the organs of the Church has stated that a stop should be put to the manner in which the Leader of the Opposition and his chief lieutenants are carrying on in the country. It insinuated that the Opposition is furthering the disintegration of the people. The manner in which they have been proceeding is not the proper manner. It has already gone so far that one of the Afrikaner Churches had to issue a warning.

Perhaps the hon. member will now return to the Estimates.

I say once more that the Government has put its financial house in order and from now onwards the people outside will sit in judgment and if it is a matter of having to choose between the Opposition and bringing it into power, or continuing with the present Government, the Afrikaners are going to sit quiet and to stay away from the polling booth. I want to tell the hon. members on the other side that the people have not yet lost their perspective in regard to this election and the few elections which will still come. The people are thinking of the future and of the new shock which the end of the war will bring, and they say that they will be prepared to lay their fate into the hands of certain persons who during difficult times have shown ability and have stood firm, but definitely not into the hands of persons who have divided the Afrikaner people and have divided them more than they have ever in our history been divided.

During the past few years the life of the hon. member for Marico (Rev. C. W. M. du Toit), in so far as politics are concerned, and also in other respects, was of such a nature that it is difficult for any decent person to take much further notice of him, and after today the Afrikanerdom will not take any further notice of him either.

I want to come back to the Budget, and I want to commence by saying that according to my opinion the nation is beginning to realise that the Prime Minister has the reins in his hands too long, and that the time has now come that a change should be made and a truly national government placed at the head of affairs. I want to express my disappointment that the Prime Minister did not reply to us in regard to the request which we directed to him through his Secretary and also in writing. On the 2nd of April we directed a letter to the Prime Minister and up to the present we have had no reply. In connection with this matter the Prime Minister gave the impression in the House that he was sympathetic towards it, i.e. the position of the prisoners of war on the farms. The Prime Minister said that he would have an immediate investigation made, and he created the impression that he was sympathetically disposed towards it. On two occasions we attempted to send a deputation to the Prime Minister, but in the first instance we were told that he was too busy and that he could not meet us, and on the second occasion, when we wrote a letter to him, we received no reply. We wrote to him as follows—

That was on the 2nd of April, and we have not yet received a reply to the letter. I think the Prime Minister should have acknowledged receipt of the letter as a matter of courtesy. He could have stated that he could not or did not want to see us, or that he did not want to take any notice of us. I do not want to go into this matter any further, but I want to deal with a few matters which concern the Government. On a previous occasion we discussed at length the attitude of the Department of Defence in regard to the erection of buildings. On the 12th of May we put questions to the hon. the Prime Minister in connection with buildings at the Dynamite Factory at Somerset West. I put the following question to the Minister of Defence—

1. (1) Whether the Government has come to any arrangement with the De Beer’s Dynamite Factory at Somerset West-Strand; if so, what arrangement;
2. (2) whether the Government has any authority over (a) the administration of the factory and (b) the employment of workers;
3. (3) whether any of the employees are paid by the Government either directly or indirectly; if so, how many, and in which departments;
4. (4) whether any of (a) the European and (b) the non-European soldiers guarding the factory are paid by the Government; and
5. (5) whether barracks or huts have been erected for (a) European or (b) non-European soldiers; if so, (i) who bore the cost thereof, (ii) who owns the land on which they were erected, (iii) whose property are the barracks or huts so erected, and (iv) what was the total cost in connection with the erection of such barracks or huts and the establishment of the camps.

The reply was—

1. (1) The Cape Explosives Works, Ltd., under an agreement with the Director-General of Supplies, manages and operates a War Supplies Factory adjacent to their own factory at Somerset West on behalf of the Government.
2. (2) The Government has no authority over the administration of the company’s own factory or over the employment of workers therein. The company, however, administers the War Supplies Factory under the direction of the Director-General of Supplies, the number and classes of workers employed being subject to the approval of the latter.
3. (3) Yes, indirectly. The pay of approximately 450 European and 1,500 non-European employees is included in the cost of the products of the War Supplies Factory.
4. (4) Yes.
5. (5) (a) and (b) Yes.
   1. (i) Union Government, (ii) The Cape Explosives Works, Ltd. (iii) Union Government. (iv) An amount of £12,672 was approved for this service. Information regarding the final cost is not yet available.

Buildings are erected on property belonging to other people. Now I want to know from the Prime Minister what the position is going to be after the war. According to the reply an amount of £12,672 has already been approved for this service, but the final cost is not yet known. Therefore buildings to the value of more than £12,672 will be erected on ground which does not belong to the Government. What does the Government intend doing when the war is over? Is it going to present the buildings to De Beers, or is it going to claim repayment of the money. Then I also asked the Prime Minister about certain arrangements which were made with the hotels at the Strand, where people who work at the factory must be accommodated. I asked the Prime Minister—

1. (1) Whether any contracts or arrangements, imposing financial obligations on the Government, have been made between Government Departments and hotels at (a) the Strand and (b) Gordon’s Bay; if so, (i) which Departments and hotels and (ii) for what purpose;
2. (2) what arrangements have been made With each such hotel;
3. (3) what was paid to each hotel from the date of making such arrangements to the end of February, 1943;
4. (4) how many persons paid for by the Government stayed at each hotel up to the end of February, 1943; and
5. (5) whether similar or other arrangements have been made at other places between the Government and hotels; if so, at which places.

I want to state here that the Prime Minister pays a certain minimum per month to the hotels. I do not want to quote the whole reply, but large amounts have been paid to the hotels. The Marine Hotel had up to that date, i.e. when I asked the question in March, received £3,615 from the Government, and the White House had received £1,925. This is not money which was paid for people who resided there, but it is a kind of goodwill which is being paid to the hotels to accommodate these people. The hotels have the right to accommodate other people as well, and the only benefit the Government gets is that if there are Government people and the hotel is full, then the hotel must provide accommodation. For that they get £3,615 and £1,925, the amounts that were already paid out in March last. The hotels are having a good time. But I also asked what the position was in connection with the hotel at Gordon’s Bay, and the reply in that connection was—

1. (b) The proprietor of the Gordon’s Bay Hotel provides sleeping accommodation only at the rate of 1s. per person per diem for soldiers entitled to free quarters. The personnel have their meals at the adjoining military camp.

They only sleep there and at the rate of 1s. per person per day for sleeping accommodation the Government, up to the 16th of March, 1943, paid to the Gordon’s Bay Hotel £1,093 10s. 0d. That was for people who slept there at the rate of 1s. per day. You can easily calculate how many people were accommodated there. Now I want to touch on another matter and that is the statement which we continually hear, that it will not be allowed that Government Departments shall exert pressure on persons in their service to enlist. That is what has been said in this House repeatedly by the Government. Now I want to bring to the notice of the Prime Minister the fact that at the Dynamite Factory, which partly manufactures war material, persons who are physically fit are not employed. If a man applies for work there, then Bull Anderson asks him: “Have you been to the Castle in Cape Town?” And unless such a person can show that he is physically unfit for military service, he is not appointed. Does this meet with the approval of the Prime Minister? I can quote cases, but I would rather not mention names, otherwise the persons concerned might get into trouble, but you can accept my word for it. This person was an Afrikaner and a well-built man. He appeared before Mr. Bull Anderson after he had travelled for a day and a half in the train in order to get here, and he exhibited a certificate by a doctor that he is medically unfit for military service. Mr. Bull Anderson, however, first sent him to The Castle. That person cannot be held responsible if the doctor gave him a faulty certificate. At The Castle they said that he was fit for military service, with the result that this company of De Beers will have nothing to do with him, and the man is struggling to find employment at Somerset West. He is poor and he had to pay for his railway ticket to get here. If it is now still said that pressure is not exerted, that people are kept out of employment and forced in this manner to enlist, then we do not know whether a man has ever been forced or not. I want to go further and say that not only is pressure applied, but even political pressure is applied at elections. Persons who are employed at this factory were taken in groups to the by-election by their heads. There are people in this factory who were granted three weeks leave to work in the United Party office. These people could have been taken to vote where they should have voted, but they had to vote by declaration, and we know that some of them asked the question: Why can other people vote without signing their names on an envelope, and why must we do it and why are our ballot papers placed in an envelope inside this envelope? I hope the Prime Minister does not know anything about this, and now that he knows about it, he will for the sake of right and righteousness, see to it that such things do not happen in future, and that everyone can vote according to law without any pressure being brought to bear upon him. I would like to bring something else to the notice of the Government, and I am glad that the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs has just come in because it concerns his department. He knows about the unfortunate position which has arisen here in the sports world. We shall not go into detail about the actions and the ambition of the person who was responsible for this trouble. The result is that politics have been dragged into rugby, and the result is that a number of sports clubs or rather rugby clubs have been formed. Now we find that on Friday evenings we are told over the radio what good football will be played on Saturday afternoon, but the names of the clubs are carefully withheld. Saturday evenings when the results are broadcast, although the country shows great interest in these new clubs, the results are carefully withheld. Only the one side is broadcast and not the other side. It is announced that the Prime Minister is going to attend a match. I have nothing against it, but why are the matches of the other clubs not announced? I am making an appeal to the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs to see that it is done. Last week I put a question to him in this connection. He was not yet in a position today to reply, and that only means that the Minister will not reply to this question during the Session. Well, he need not reply to it, if he will only see that as from next week-end, the matches of the new clubs will also be broadcast, and not only those of the one section. Let him see to it that right and righteousness is done to all clubs. I want to go further and come to the Minister of Justice. He told us here that I misunderstood him and that he does not interfere with the judgment of the court. We shall leave it at that. But I put a question to the Minister of Justice in which I drew his attention to the conduct of certain sailors on the train from Durban to Cape Town. I will not now relate what happened, because hon. members know about it. To put it mildly, there was a digraceful state of affairs on that train and I asked the Minister whether those sailors were arrested on the 10th of April, because they behaved in a riotous manner on the train from Durban to Cape Town. I put it mildly. I further asked him whether judicial steps were taken against them, and if so, what penalties were inflicted. The reply to this all was: “No”. I further asked whether those sailors were still in the Union, and if not, why they had been allowed to depart before the case was disposed of. The Minister’s reply was that they were no longer in the Union. I then asked the Minister why they were not detained in the Union, and his reply was that they were sent by rail from Durban to Cape Town, because their ship was waiting here for them to take them overseas; These sailors damaged the train, but because a ship was waiting for them in Cape Town, they were simply allowed to depart. I asked the Minister whether the same laws were applicable to people who came from overseas as those which are applicable to our own people, and he said: “Yes”. I again want to ask the Minister of Finance, and I trust he will convey it to his colleague, whether he approves of the fact that sailors can do as they please here, and damage State property, and then can simply depart for overseas because a ship is waiting for them in Cape Town? Then I want to come to internment camps. I received a letter from an internment camp. It did not come through the ordinary channel, the censor did not see this letter, and I shall under no circumstances indicate who the person is from whom I received it. I put questions in this House in regard to the treatment of internees and I want to say with all respect that the information which I obtained from the Minister of the Interior in reply to certain questions, is not correct. I may also say that I received a second letter, from another person, in which the previous letter was frankly supported, so that we are absolutely certain that it is a description of what is happening there. We all remember that an appeal was made that no cake, biltong or such like should be sent to the internees. The camp commandant said that money should preferably be sent to the people because there is a shop in the camp where they can buy all these things? But now it appears that when the money arrives there, then that money is taken to pay for taxes, fines and such like, and usually the internee does not receive a penny of the money which has been sent to him. It has often been stated in this House that the internees could not be treated as if they were in an hotel, but that they are treated in such a manner that their souls are not harmed. It has been said to us that there are places where these people can do wood-work and such things in order to occupy themselves. But they cannot obtain the wood to do the work, and if people from outside send them wood, then the wood is not allowed to enter the camp, because the camp commandant is afraid that they might manufacture weapons or instruments. If that is the policy of the Government, why does it state in reply to questions in the House, that those people have an opportunity of occupying their time. When parcels are sent there, then certain articles usually disappear, such as biltong, biscuits and sweets. I want to know whether the personnel of the censor is responsible or not. I asked the Minister why biltong was removed from these parcels. The reply of the Minister was that it was removed for health reasons. The people can, however, purchase biltong with their own money from the shop. They are deprived thereof, for health reasons, but if they obtain money, then they can purchase it at the shop, and therefore the money is apparently also withheld from them for health reasons. The relations of those people were brought under the impression that they can do something for the people by sending them foodstuffs to the camp to ease their lot, and in the meantime the people do not receive the goods.

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

When the House adjourned, I was trying to show that parcels sent to the internees disappeared. I now want to come to the provocative things which are done to the internees, and I want to come to the raids which are carried out in the camp. I asked the Minister whether these raids sometimes occurred in the middle of the night, that it sometimes happened twice a week and that the internees should have to stand in the sun for six hours at a time. The Minister said that it was not so that these people have to stand there for that length of time. I want to quote a specific case to the Minister. In November of last year there was a raid and on this occasion the internees had to stand in the sun for six hours without food, and machineguns were trained upon them. I hope that the Minister will give me his attention. I asked whether machine-guns were trained on the internees and whether people had to stand in the sun for a long time, in one case as long as six hours. In November of last year there was a raid. There were two persons over the age of sixty and they had to stand in the sun for six hours and machine-guns were trained upon them. I want to proceed. There is a hospital in the camp — and the Minister admits that it is so—in which the internees of different nationalities and political views are treated under the same roof — Italians, Germans and Communists. There were two cases where Italians suffered from venereal diseases and they used the same conveniences as the others. The reply of the Minister was to the effect that it was not contagious, but if it is so conspicuous that the other internees can notice it, then it must be in a peculiar degree if it not contagious. One person writes that the lives of the internees are in danger. The Minister denies this. He said that firing at the internees never occurred. Now I want to give the Minister the date and time. On the evening of the 17th November, 1942, and also on various other evenings, it is alleged that three shots were fired through the zinc hut in which X. was housed, and one of the bullets passed within a few inches of one of the persons, who was lying down. It is alleged that the guards were drunk and that they then fired the shots through the huts. Shots were also fired through various other huts. The declaration further reads—

The camp commandant admitted to the internees that evening that he had no control over the guards because they were under the influence of liquor—

The Minister said that there was a riot. If you are lying on a bed, then you are surely not behaving riotously. If this sort of thing happens, then it is time that the Government should make investigations. I want to ask the Minister whether the Government is prepared to appoint an impartial commission to ascertain whether those complaints are true or otherwise. There are further complaints. This person has complained that the appeal of which the Minister of the Interior speaks, and to which they are entitled, amount to a comedy. He says that he has been in the camp for fifteen months and that it took eight months before he was told what the complaint against him was. He immediately lodged an appeal and seven months after that he had not yet heard whether the appeal had succeeded or not. There are many of the internees who cannot ascertain whether their appeal was successful or not—

I want to ask the Government, in fairness to the people, to appoint a commission to investigate the complaints. It is alleged that some of these persons have already been there for twenty-four months and they do not yet know what the complaints are against them. I know that the Government denies this. But seeing that these complaints come from the internment camps, I want to ask the Minister whether he does not think that the time has arrived to make investigations. Then there is something else which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister. I have in my hand testimonials from thirteen doctors. If the Minister thinks that this is not the case, I can show him these letters, without giving the names and addresses of the persons. The Minister of Justice extends facilities to arrest Hollanders who have been conscripted. Thirteen doctors certified that this man was physically unfit, the fourteenth doctor certified that he was physically fit. The Dutch Government wanted to send this person overseas to fight and he went into hiding. Now he has received a letter from the Consul that he must again have himself examined, but in the meantime a warrant for his arrest was issued, and as soon as he appears, he will be arrested. I want to ask the Government to appoint three independent doctors, of which this person can nominate one, the Government one, and a Judge or the Speaker another, and instruct them to examine this person and to protect this man, when he comes out of hiding to be examined. Then I would like to speak about the Italian prisoners of war. The Prime Minister stated in the Committee stage of the Budget, that he was not aware that the Italian prisoners of war did not have suitable clothing and shoes. He said, however, that he would take steps. At Ceciliadrif near the Paarl two Italian prisoners of war are employed and I wish the Minister could see the state of their clothing and shoes. Their shoes are broken and their feet are full of blood blisters—it is a disgrace to a country which says that it is fighting for civilisation. I want to ask the Prime Minister to be good enough to take immediate steps to see that clothing and shoes which will not disgrace us, are given to these people. Then there is a strong feeling along the coast because Italian prisoners of war are not allowed to work within fifteen miles of the coast. The prisoners of war can work 16 miles away from the coast, but if he comes within 15 miles then it is dangerous. In the area where I live, not in my constituency, there are Italian prisoners of war, and although there is a dynamite factory nearby, nothing untoward has yet happened. Here in the House the Prime Minister gave the impression that he would take steps to assist the farmers, but now all of a sudden they are told that from a military point of view it is dangerous for the Italians to be there. I want to point out to the Minister that there are places in the Hottentots-Holland area, which are far removed from the dynamite factory. The Prime Minister actually said that coloured people were not recruited in the country. The fact is that the farmers are experiencing great difficulty in finding sufficient labour, and the Prime Minister must come to the assistance of the farmers. He further stated that the coloureds are mostly recruited in the large cities, and that the wages which they receive compare favourably with the money they would receive in the army. I would like to know from the Prime Minister whether the cost of living is higher than what it is here in South Africa. He knows that it is higher in Great Britain, and then I would like to know what salary the soldiers in Great Britain receive and how it compares with that received by the coloureds. I feel convinced that if the Select Committee had taken that aspect of the matter into consideration then they would not have been able to argue that the coloureds received less in the army than they receive for work outside, and that it was necessary to increase their pay. The Prime Minister did not even reply to the letter and he refused to receive a deputation in connection with the removal of the Italian prisoners of war. Let the farmers give a guarantee that they will personally be responsible for the conduct of these prisoners of war, and then allow them to retain these people. At Vergelegen and Grabouw there is a great number of these people, and there are many supporters of the Government. The Prime Minister need not go to the Nationalist, he can go to his own supporters and ask them what their opinion is in this matter, and if they say that there is any danger, then he can remove the people. [Time limit.]

I want to discuss briefly a few agricultural matters. The Minister of Agriculture is not here, but I see the Minister for Native Affairs is here, and he is a farmer. I hope he will pay attention to the matter, because we do not want to burden the Minister of Finance with all these difficulties. We recently found that the Wheat Control Board had fixed the price of wheat for the ensuing year. The House will now disperse and farmers in the country will begin to hold meetings and conferences in connection with the fixation of the price of mealies. Let the Minister now, before this happens, through the Maize Control Board, fix the price of mealies for the next season. This will assist the Government considerably. The election is imminent. I do not want him to abuse this matter, but the better the price which he fixes for the farmer, so much the better for himself. The price this year has been fixed at 16s. I do not now want to argue about this. We are expecting a crop of something like 22,000,000 bags, and can the price for the next year not be fixed on that basis at this stage, plus the additional production costs which will be incurred? In all sincerity I want to ask the Minister of Agriculture, before those meetings and conferences are held, to fix the price for the next year. The Prime Minister stated this morning that the Native soldiers were mostly recruited in the reserves. Numbers of people have already come to me and said that their position on the farm has become impossible, because numbers of Natives had been recruited. The other day a farmer came to me and said that I must tell the Prime Minister that he, Botha of Ribbokfontein, which is near the town, found that a Native had arrived there on leave from the army and asked his Natives: “Why do you still work for the farmers; I am in the army and have already £70 in the bank.” I want to say to the Government that it should take this sort of thing into consideration. We find it in practice on the farms that Natives have been recruited. We come into contact with it daily, and the Government should pay attention to it. Then I want to come to another matter. It has been intimated to us that those who have taken the so-called blue oath for overseas service, will not receive a distinguishing badge. I would like to know whether this is so.

They will only wear the red tab.

And nothing with it?

They will only have the badge of their division to which they belong.

But they will have the distinguishing badge of that division and it will be known that that is the division which will go overseas. I am afraid that the Government is here inclined to bluff us a bit. I would further point out that the Government promised that it would not bring pressure to bear on people to take this oath. Now it has been brought to my notice that soldiers who want to take the oath are asked to go outside and then the Commanding Officer comes and asks the others why they do not want to go, and what their reasons are. I think that indirect pressure is being brought to bear on these people to get them to enlist. I see that the Prime Minister has now come in and I would like to know from him whether the people who take the oath for overseas service will receive a distinguishing badge.

No, there is nothing of the kind. The red tab remains for all.

Do they not receive the red tab, plus a distinguishing badge on the arm?

That is a sign of the division. Each division has its own sign.

Then everyone will know that the division with that sign will go overseas. I cannot be convinced that it is not a distinguishing sign and I truly think that the Prime Minister deviated slightly from the impression that he gave us that there would be no distinguishing sign for people who are going overseas.

I want to emphasise what the hon. member said who has just sat down. The wheat farmers have been satisfied because the price of wheat has been timeously fixed for the next year. We maize farmers pleaded and begged in this House to get something from the Government, and ultimately the Minister of Agriculture announced what the price of mealies for this year would be. The farmers outside are very dissatisfied. We receive letters and telegrams that we should agitate for higher prices, because the farmers do not see their way clear to manage on 16s. The argument which could be used against this is that the consumer must be taken into consideration. We have the greatest respect for the consumer, but the Government is in a position to subsidise those people, the people who must live from mealies and mealie products. We farmers would like to know beforehand what the Government intends doing and how it is going to fix the prices in future. It will not pay the Government to wait until meetings and conferences have been called by the farmers. At the present moment transport and such things are very difficult, and that is why it will be a good thing if the Government could beforehand tell the farmers what to expect, and then the farmers will do their best to produce. We trust and hope that the Government will tell us what it intends doing. Further I want to point out that the labour question on the platteland is very acute. I received a letter in which somebody insists that we must ask the Government that the £9 which must be paid in advance for each Italian prisoner of war should not be applicable in the case of farmers. There are many of the farmers who are not in a position to pay this, with the result that they cannot avail themselves of that labour. I want to point out to the Prime Minister that labour is a great problem to the farmers, and I hope that the Government will be able to tell us what it intends doing.

I listened to the Prime Minister this morning when he said that for years he has had to listen to complaints about scarcity of labour on the farms. I addressed a request in writing to the Minister in connection with the labour position in my constituency, where the people cannot obtain farm labour. The farm hands enlistened and the farmers are without labour. Now it is suggested to the Prime Minister that he should erect a camp for Natives at Upington, so that farmers can employ them as labourers. It is wrong to say that the Western Province has always had difficulty with farm labour. I am a son of the Western Province. We have always had enough labour, but if we go to the farms now, then we notice how things have deteriorated because the farmers cannot obtain the necessary labour. Then I want to bring to the notice of the Government a matter of great importance to the North-West, where there are many state settlements and that is that boys, when they become 21 years of age, must leave the settlements, although they might do useful work for their fathers, who occupy these plots. I maintain that this is done contrary to law. The law does not give the Minister the right in such a case, to instruct that children of 21 years of age must leave the plot. The fact that the Government acts illegally towards these people, is perhaps the reason why the Minister of Lands is not here, and also why he did not avail himself of a previous opportunity to reply to this question. Then there is another matter, and that is a question of great importance to the farmers. Representations have been made to the Government that during the recess it should consider the fixation of a minimum price for farm products. The farming community cannot carry on in this manner. The farming community is uneasy about the present state of affairs. Not only supporters of this side, but also the supporters of the other side are concerned about the future. The farming community has not yet received any assurance, and that is why the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Bowen), can come here and state derisively that the farmers cannot afford a living to the poor-whites. That is because the farmers are the only section of the community which does not receive any assurances. When the retail price of meat was fixed, the price immediately rose to the maximum price. The consumer had to pay the maximum price, and the farmer did not get the benefit of it. Then I want to bring to the notice of the Prime Minister that during the week-end copious rains fell in the Western Province and other parts. The farmers want to plough but they have not feed for their draught animals and they cannot get tractors. I hope that the Government will pay attention to this. Then I want to bring something to the notice of the Minister of Education. I am sorry I was not present when his vote was dealt with. Several years ago legislation was passed in connection with our universities which empowers them to inflict punishment and fines on students who commit some or other offence. My information is that especially at the University of Cape Town liberal use is made of inflicting fines. Students are fined without a trial and if they do not pay it at once, they must vacate the hostel. I am not referring to a recent case. Students are fined £1, £3 and even £5. There is still another matter in connection with the Education Vote. I brought to the notice of the Minister of Labour the position at trades schools, and he said that he would go into the matter, in order to see how far he can assist the people in connection with apprenticeships. I would like the Minister of Education to pay attention during the recess to the trades schools, which are threatening to become nothing else but white elephants. If time permitted, I would have read a letter from the head of an industrial school to show that he is concerned about the future of the students who are educated there. He says that the Minister should call a conference of the various trades schools and technical colleges, in order to discuss means of affording students a reasonable livelihood, after their studies have been completed. This is an important matter. After the war great developments will take place, especially in the industrial world, and we shall then require people, and we cannot allow our industrial schools to disappear, or train a lesser number of students. That is why I am asking the Minister to give special attention to the industrial schools in our country.

I want to say a few words at this stage in order to enquire from the Prime Minister whether the Government has arrived at a decision in connection with the recommendations of the Select Committee on Public Accounts, concerning the compensation which the National Roads Board has to pay.

Are you referring to the question of a judicial committee?

Yes, whether the Government has already decided to carry out the recommendation of the Select Committee.

That is the intention.

Will it be done immediately?

As soon as possible.

It is a matter of great importance and where the Select Committee made this recommendation, it will be in the interests of the country if the decision of the Government could be made known as soon as possible. I am sorry that the Minister of Lands is not here, because I wanted to ask him certain questions. He made a statement here that the Kakamas Committee had been summoned in connection with a certain storage dam which they had built. I would like to know from him by whom the summons was served on the Kakamas Committee when this happened, for what amount the Committee was summoned, and out of which Court the Committee had been summoned. I shall be glad if we can receive the information as to who summoned the Church in connection with the dam which they wanted to build. Then I would like to know from the Minister of Finance whether he could make a statement in connection with the currency position. We see in the Press that very important discussions are taking place between America and the British Government in connection with this matter and that a very important conference will be held at the end of April. We see that two systems are being recommended and we would like to know to what extent our Government is being advised and whether South Africa will be represented at that conference. I notice that Sir Kingsley Wood promised the House of Commons that they would have an opportunity of discussing the matter before a final decision is taken, and I would like to know whether this House would also have the opportunity of fully discussing the matter before a final decision is taken. As we all realise, South Africa as a country which produces an enormous amount of gold, is extremely interested in the question of currency which might have enormous repercussions on us, and we would like to be kept informed. If the Minister has any information, I would like him to take us into his confidence. Then just a few words in connection with another matter. It has always been said that the cost of remaining neutral is practically just as high as to be at war. Now I have collected figures in connection with the position of certain neutral countries and these figures I want to place before the House. In the first place I have here figures in connection with the public debt since the outbreak of the war. I have here a comparative table in connection with various neutral countries and South Africa. Portugal’s public debt on the 31st December, 1939, stood at 7,141.1 million escudos, and at the end of 1941 (the last available figures), the debt was 6,614 million escudos, a reduction of 7½ per cent. in the public debt during the first two years of the war. Ireland, another neutral country, had a public debt of £61.1 million on the 31st March, 1939, and two years later, on the 31st March, 1941, it amounted to £65.1 million, an increase of 6 per cent. as far as the national debt is concerned. Denmark, which finds itself in peculiar circumstances, had on the 31st March, 1939, a national debt of 1237.7 crowns, and two years later it was 1211.6 crowns, a decrease of 2½ per cent. Mexico’s national debt on the 31st December, 1939, amounted to 3,852 million pesos and on the 31st March, 1941, it amounted to 3,460.2 million pesos, a reduction of 10 per cent. South Africa’s national debt was £278.9 million on the 31st March, 1939, and two years later, on 31st March, 1941, it was £336 million, an increase of 20.4 per cent. We had figures just now which indicated that it is expected that the national debt of our country on the 31st March, 1944, would amount to £481.7 million, an increase over the figures of 1939, of 72½ per cent. In most neutral countries, with the exception of Ireland a decrease occurred in the national debt during the war. It might perhaps be said that the additional cost was covered by increased taxation. That is why I also collected figures of the income and expenditure of these neutral countries in comparison with South Africa. Portugal’s income in 1939 amounted to 2,565 million escudos, and its expenditure to 2,421.1 million escudos. In 1942 Portugal’s income amounted to 2,851.6 million escudos, and the expenditure to 2,850.3 million escudos, an increase in the expenditure in the two years, of 17.7 per cent. That is the increase in the budget expenditure for the two years. In Ireland the expenditure for two years increased from £34,400,000 to £40,200,000, an increase also of 17 per cent. In South Africa the expenditure in the two years rose from £47,700,000 to £74,000,000, an increase of 55 per cent. up to the end of the financial year 1941-’42. If we take the new financial year 1942-’43, there is an increase in the expenditure of almost 100 per cent., viz. to £93,600,000. You will see that it is very clear that, while we are at war, our expenditure has increased tremendously, whereas the expenditure of neutral countries shows only a slight increase, i.e. 55 per cent. in our case and 17 per cent. in the case of neutral countries. What becomes of the argument of hon. members on the other side? Perhaps they will come with another point concerning the so-called affluence of our country, and they will say that if we had remained neutral, our imports and exports would have dropped considerably. Now again I produce figures in connection with imports and exports of a few neutral countries, and I want to compare them with South Africa. As regards Portugal, its export in 1939 amounted to 13.6 million escudos, and in 1941 to 2,876.2 million escudos, an increase in export during the first two years of the war of 115 per cent. The Argentine is of course in a more difficult position, because Germany was perhaps its most important client. There the export dropped from 1,573 million pesos in 1939, to 1,464 million pesos in 1941, a decrease of 7 per cent., a very small decrease.

Has not Portugal got its own ships?

Portugal is in a particularly vulnerable position, due to its proximity to the fighting countries.

But it has its own ships.

I think the Minister of Native Affairs will admit that the countries at war only transport and import what they require, and to get this they must necessarily send their own ships, and in the second place we note that the countries at war, if they can obtain goods from their allies as well as from neutrals, they usually go to the neutrals because they still have to cuddle favour from the neutral countries, whose goodwill they must still endeavour to obtain. That is why they rather go to neutral countries than to their allies. We have the example of raisins from Turkey, and meat and maize from the Argentine, all products which they can also obtain from South Africa. It is not a question of ships but requirements which they must cover, things which they require to wage war with, and we shall see in how many cases they will obtain goods from neutral countries instead of from their allies. As regards South Africa, imports have risen from £85,000,000 to £101,000,000, according to the White Paper which has been placed before us, a rise of 19 per cent., and the export rose from £24,000,000 to £33,000,000, an increase from 37½ per cent. In other words, we see that the fact that certain countries are neutral, has nothing to do with the import or export. If any influence is brought to bear, then it is in favour of the neutral countries, because the fighting countries are trying to purchase their goodwill. We find, for instance, that for a country like Portugal, export has risen by 115 per cent., as against an increase in South Africa of 37½ per cent. The point which I want to make is that import and export at a time like this is controlled by the requirements of the fighting countries and not by the goodwill towards any particular country. We have often heard that argument and in anticipation of any criticism, I might state that the figures which have been quoted here, are the official figures taken from the League of Nations Official Year Book for the period which I have mentioned. I hope that we shall not hear that argument again. We have the figures and the facts in our possession, and the country should realise what this war is costing South Africa. As regards this sham prosperity which we are experiencing, I want to recall that the Minister of Finance last year stated that it was a false prosperity, and these neutral countries, as the figures indicate, are enjoying all the benefits of this sham prosperity which is accompanying the war, without any of the actual draw-backs of the expenditure connected with the conducting of a war. The figures of the expenditure show that these countries have had no increase worth while mentioning in their expenditure, but they have received the advantages of the world conditions, and have enjoyed temporary prosperity, prosperity caused by the destruction of values.

I just want to bring one or two matters which I consider very important at the moment, to the notice of the Government, especially to the notice of the Minister of Finance. We know that often hard times are experienced by the farmer in South Africa, when it is found necessary for the Government to step in and render assistance. It so happened in times of drought. In the past these droughts caused a shortage of wheat, insufficient wheat was produced, there was not enough for local consumption, and the people in the areas which were drought-stricken were especially hard-hit, with the result that the Government found it necessary to grant seed loans, and loans for fertilizer to grant advances of that nature in order to enable the farmers to produce and thereby helping them to get back onto their feet and to rehabilitate themselves by enabling them to sow. Hon. members of this House are perhaps not aware of the fact that there are still amounts outstanding in respect of loans which were granted to farmers as far back as 1920. The Minister of Finance will know about it because he is familiar with the difficulties which his department is experiencing and the administrative costs incurred in the collection of the small outstanding amounts in respect of seed, wheat and fertiliser. I believe that it is the duty of any Government to assist in such circumstances, but I do not know whether it is also the duty of the Government when it has become almost impossible to repay such advances, whether it is then, to use a proverb, the duty of the Government under such circumstances, to attempt to squeeze blood from a stone, where the people who receive these loans are unable to repay them. I have in front of me the returns of the Office for the Recovery of State Advances, and they say that as far as 1920 loans are concerned, there is still an amount of £179 18s. 9d. outstanding. These loans bore interest, and the interest alone on the outstanding loans amounts to £283 0s. 2d„ therefore more than the amount of the outstanding capital, which is still due. Twenty-one persons are concerned in these loans. As regards 1923 there is still an amount of £45 14s. 2d. outstanding, and the arrear interest is £44 17s. 8d. For 1924 the amount outstanding is £4 7s. 6d., and the interest £3 13s. 0d., and two persons are concerned therewith. For 1925 the amount is £360 16s. 9d„ and the arrear interest is £325 17s. 10d. Altogether up to 1925 the outstanding loans amount to £580 17s. 2d., and the arrear interest on these loans, covering this period, is £657 18s. 8d. There are 97 people concerned with these loans. If we go into the matter further, if we further consider the outstanding amounts, then we find that a considerable amount in respect of 1933 is outstanding. In 1933 loans were granted for seed wheat, mealie meal, sugar etc. This shows at once that these loans were granted under exceptional circumstances, in time of stress. As far as this year is concerned, there is still an outstanding amount of £6,000. This does not bear interest, but it concerns 2,015 persons, all people who raised loans. In 1933 mealies were also issued for which loans were raised, and on this there is still an amount in arrear of £58,830 1s. 10d. This does not bear interest, but the number of persons affected thereby, amounts to not less than 6,452. So we continue. What was the position of the mealie farmers. In 1932 we had an enormous surplus of mealies, mealies were exported overseas. I am speaking subject to correction, but I am under the impression that mealies were sold at an average price of 4s. 6d. per bag. After that, in 1933, the crop was a failure and there was a shortage of mealies in the country, so that the Government of that time was compelled to import mealies, I think from the Argentine, at 17s. 6d. per bag. The farmers did not have mealies for themselves and their labourers, much less for their cattle, and the result was that they were compelled to raise loans for mealies at tremendously high prices. That is the reason why, in 1943, so many loans were raised, and why still such large a amount is outstanding. I do not want to say here that the people who can pay must not repay the loans, but the figures of 1933 are such that they indicate that these people are struggling and cannot pay. The position in 1933 was ascribed to the fact that the Government had not yet learnt what it should have known long ago, viz., that in the days of affluence provision must be made for the lean years which might follow. If they had reserved sufficient of the big crop of 1933, it would not have been necessary to import mealies at 17s. 6d. per bag, and then the position of the people who had to raise loans, would not have been so bad. But the Government of that time did not make adequate provision for the lean years. In regard to the outstanding amounts, the loans which are still outstanding, the Minister of Finance will agree that the people who still owe these amounts are people who, from that time up to today, have not yet been in a position to repay them. The people who were in a position to pay have certainly paid. I want to quote an instance. The Magistrate of Riversdale told me that in six months time, in the last three months of 1941 and the first three months of 1942 he collected in the Riversdale magisterial districts alone arrear loans to the extent of £2,900. Why did he manage to do this? It was the first year for a number of years that a farmer in this district had a normal crop, not even an extraordinary crop. They then received a little money and immediately started to liquidate their arrear debt. This is proof that the farmers, if they are in any way in a position to pay, they do pay. They want to maintain their self-respect and do not want a finger to be pointed at them as people who are spoon-fed, and who do not pay their debts. Now I want to ask whether the Minister cannot regard the long outstanding loans for seed and fertiliser as loans which cannot be repaid by the people. I earnestly appeal to him to write-off these loans an to scrap the outstanding amounts. This concerns the poorer people, small farmers who owe small amounts and who are simply not in a position to pay these amounts. I appeal to the Minister to write-off these amounts. I believe that the administration costs and the costs of collection amount to practically more than the amounts outstanding.

I shall only be a few minutes, but I received a call from a person in my constituency who put an urgent question to me. Unfortunately the hon. Minister of Lands is not present, but we trust that the Minister of Finance will be in a position to reply to the question. There are rumours that the citrus industry is being placed completely under the control of the Government, and the people would like to know whether this is so or not.

We know nothing about it.

Another matter which I would like to bring to the notice of the Minister is that when the vote “Agriculture” was under discussion I mentioned certain matters which I referred to as shortcomings in connection with the marketing of our fruit. The fact that the Government ultimately appointed a Commission to investigate the activities of the Deciduous Fruit Board, indicates, according to my mind, that our suspicions were to a great extent well founded because I presume that the investigation also extends to the marketing of fruit in South Africa. I have always adopted the attitude that there are enough people in this country who are capable of devising a scheme by which our fruit in South Africa can be marketed to greater advantage to the producer, and at the same time also to the benefit of the consumer. We tried to indicate the high prices paid by the consumers and the low prices received by the producers, and also by the Deciduous Fruit Board itself. And now I must say that, without casting any reflection on the members of the Commission which is investigating, I must say at the same time that we are deeply concerned by the fact that on the Commission which has to investigate the functions of the Deciduous Fruit Board and also marketing conditions, not a single producer has been appointed. I want to mention inter alia the name of a very capable man who is going to serve on the Commission, and whom I know well, a man of great ability, viz., Dr. M. S. du Toit. We have great confidence in him, but it is a pity that no producer has been appointed. Will the Minister not be in a position to extend the personnel of the Commission and also appoint a producer thereon? Unless this happens, the public will not have the necessary confidence in the Commission, and it is essential that the public should have confidence in the Commission so that the findings of the Commission will be received favourably by the producers, that is why I am asking that one or more producers should be appointed on the Commission.

It is customary that the Minister of Finance should confine his reply to this debate to financial matters which have been raised. With the permission of the House I shall not deal with other matters. The points raised have been noted, and will be brought to the notice of the responsible Ministers. In regard to financial matters, the most important point which has been raised here is that of the soldiers’ pay, and in connection therewith an amendment has been proposed. The Prime Minister has already replied on that point, and I need therefore not go into it again. The hon. member for Riversdale (Mr. P. M. K. le Roux) raised the point of the writing-off of certain debt. He is not here at the moment, but I just want to say this: Although we always take into consideration the general position of the farmers, I do not think that the requirements of the farmers are such that the writing-off policy is necessary. The hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) raised an important question in connection with currency. I can only say that I am not in a position at this stage to make a statement in connection therewith. I can, however, say that all the discussions which we have had so far were purely provisional, and that we are very far from finality in connection with this question. It would therefore be wholly premature on my part to express my views thereon at this stage. Then only this. Our Government will naturally always attempt to ensure that the interests of South Africa, especially in view of the fact that South Africa is a gold-producing country, will be suitably protected. I can give the hon. member the assurance that the House will have an opportunity, and perhaps more than one opportunity, of discussing this matter before any finality is arrived at. I do not want to go into the comparison which my hon. friend made between South Africa and neutral countries. There is of course the fact that he must be careful always to compare things with each other which are comparable. Therefore you must go into the circumstances of all the countries before you can draw comparisons. I have not the necessary particulars or time at my disposal to do it.

Question put: That all the words after “That”, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the motion.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—47:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Carinus, J. G.

Conradie, J. M.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Klopper, L. B.

Long, B. K.

Marwick, J. S.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Raubenheimer, L. J.

Smuts, J. C.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steyn, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter G. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Waterson, S. F.

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

Noes—26:

Bekker, G.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Bremer, K.

Brits, G. R.

Conradie. J. H.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Haywood, J. J.

Hugo. P. J.

Le Roux, P. M. K.

Loubser, S. M.

Malan, D. F.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Steyn, G. P.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, C. R.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Warren, S. E.

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard G. v. Z.

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment dropped.

Original motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee on the Bill now.

House in Committee:

Clauses, Schedules and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill without amendment.

I move as an unopposed motion—

I second.

The reply which the hon. the Prime Minister gave at the second reading to my request, is very disappointing. The Prime Minister made that reply to a very serious accusation. He said that these persons negotiated with the authorities of the Defence Force.

No, not these persons, other persons.

Then I want to ask this: The hon. the Prime Minister says that other persons negotiated with the military authorities. From the first day these persons acted immediately and they had one interview after the other with the Department of Defence and begged and pleaded and prayed that the Department should not build this place in front of their doors. I want to ask the Prime Minister why he agreed to the request by some people, while he did not do it in this case. This building could not have been erected on a more inconvenient place. You have an unhealthy position there, a position which no self-respecting white man would tolerate, and I must honestly say that I am deeply disappointed that the Prime Minister merely pulled up his shoulders and said that the people must see how best they can manage. I do not want to detain the House, but I am now compelled to go through the correspondence again in order to convince the Prime Minister that these people did their best to persuade the Department not to build the barracks there. The Minister merely shrugged his shoulders and said that they must see how best they can manage. This position cannot be tolerated. If those people had waited until this position had been created and had then come to the Department with this request, then a person could still say that there is an excuse for the attitude of the Department. The Department could then rightly ask why representations were not made in the first instance to the Department. But the people from the first day begged and pleaded that these native barracks should not be built in front of their doors. I want to ask the Prime Minister what right the Government has to build these barracks right in front of the doors of Europeans. What right has he to build that dirty sewerage right in front of the houses of these people. These people must now be satisfied with the stench. We note that when a request came from Durban to prevent the Indians from purchasing ground in the European residential areas, then the Government was only too prepared to heed the request. I wish the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) would give me a chance of speaking on this matter. This is a matter of great importance, and one which touches my constituency. I say that when the Prime Minister receives a request from Durban to prevent Indians from purchasing ground in European residential areas — and those Indians are still decent people — then the Government intervenes and the Minister introduces a Bill to stop this penetration. But when the health and the interest of twelve workmen, twelve Afrikaner workmen are at stake, then the Prime Minister comes and places the Natives right in front of their doors, and says that they must see how best they can manage. These people bought those plots on the instalment system; they are poor people and now they must tolerate this inconvenience. I took up the matter with the department. I tried to arrange an interview with the Prime Minister and I thought that if I explained the position to him, that he would at least see that a stop is put to this state of affairs. Although I disagree with him on political grounds, I expected that he would see that justice is done, and this is a crying shame on the part of the Government and on the part of the Prime Minister to shrug their shoulders in this manner and to say that they must see how best they can manage. I have already related how a woman and her daughter of 13 years must close their doors and windows so that they will not hear the cursing by the Natives. Now the Prime Minister comes and says: You must see how you can manage. If the Prime Minister allows this state of affairs to continue, and he does not meet these people, then I want to accuse him that he does not mind putting his foot on the neck of the Afrikaners, whilst he maintains the Imperial interests in South Africa. I want to accuse him of that. The Prime Minister knows that an Afrikaans-speaking person resents living near a Native, he knows that we do not allow this state of affairs. We realise that there must be a dividing line between white and black, and the Prime Minister comes and in this disgusting manner insults the Afrikaners in this way. The Prime Minister today holds a position of power in the country, and we can only protest, but I want to say this to him: I shall utilise this fact from platform to platform, to show what his actions are in regard to the Afrikaners, and I shall endeavour to show what far-reaching contempt he feels for his fellow-Afrikaners.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

I move—

During the course of the Session I put various questions to the hon. Minister of Railways and Harbours in connection with promotion on the Railways. We had an opportunity of discussing the matter. The Minister recently granted an interview to the Staff Association, and there he also explained his policy in connection with future promotions. We made very serious accusations against the Minister of Railways. We accused him that a certain group of favourites, by way of the manipulation of grades, were promoted to posts to which they were not entitled, and to do this, they make use of manipulations of grades. In other words, the post is regarded, not because the requirements of the Railways require it, but the post is graded up and down at will, because the interests of the favourites of the management required that these persons should receive seniority and promotion. The Minister in his reply set out his policy, and I now want to give him specific examples on this point and on other points, and then I want to ask him to discredit these examples in this House. I also drew the Minister’s attention to the fact that the post of the Secretary to the Railway Service Commission had been regraded. The post has been reduced to £735 per annum, with the express purpose of appointing a certain person as Secretary to the Railway Service Commission. The Minister’s reply was this: He said the Railway Board met and decided that this post was not worth more than £735. It is not a £1200 post. It was decided to reduce it to £735. It seems as though this is reasonable and acceptable explanation, but now I want to ask the Minister why he, at a later stage, increased the post to £840. Does the Minister want to tell me that this post suddenly became worth £840, after the Railway Board decided a short while ago that it was not worth more than £735? First they decided that the post was not worth more than £735, and then, two or three months later, they raise it to £840, and they move that official up to £840. If the Minister contends that this post is not worth more than £735, then I would like to know why it has been increased to £840. This is clear proof that the heads wanted a certain person in that position. First they reduce the maximum to £735, and then they increase it to £840, in order to favour that person. Let me take the case of the Superintendent (Parliamentary). The Minister also in this case gave an explanation in regard to this post. What are now the facts? I want to give the facts to the House and ask hon. members to consider the matter on its merits. Since 1919 the maximum salary attached to this post was £1,000 per annum. For more than 20 years this post has been fixed at the maximum salary of £1,000. The superintendent (Parliamentary) has eleven clerks under him and four translators. In August 1941 the management created a new post, one of Chief Superintendent (Parliamentary). The £1,000 post is retained. They create a post with the maximum salary of £1,600 per annum. Just imagine, here you have this small department with eleven clerks and four translators, who managed for forty years with one head, at a maximum salary of £1,000, and in 1941, during the war, in the time when the Minister appealed to the Railway people to make great sacrifices, he comes and moves the maximum of this post up to £1,600, he creates an additional post of £1,600. During the time when the Government sends people to fight in the North, during the time then the Minister demands overtime from his people, at this juncture he creates another post with a maximum salary of £1,600. Is this not clear proof that this post was created with the express purpose of giving this official a higher post? If for 20 years he could have done the work with an official at a salary of £1,000, why is it now all of a sudden necessary to create an extra post at £1,600? I say it is definite proof that the Administration is set upon the manipulation of posts in order to give certain persons promotion. Let me mention the case of the Superintendent (Operating) in Johannesburg, Mr. Carter. You have the same post in Cape Town and Durban. The Administration increases this post to £1,400. The question is why. The Minister might say that the work in Johannesburg is of much more important nature, and that it requires a senior official who must receive a better salary. But what happens? The moment this post was increased to £1,400, Mr. Carter leaves, and a junior official, on a salary of £840, acts all the time in the place of Mr. Carter. What is the object thereof? Why is this post increased from £1,200 to £1,400 and then a junior official is appointed to do the work. There are people in Cape Town and Durban who are senior to that official, and yet he must do the work. It is plain that the Administration is set upon favouring certain officials by regrading their posts. Let me now mention the case of Mr. du Plessis. I am glad that the Prime Minister is now in the House because I want to say something about Mr. Braine. When Mr. Chittenden was promoted over the heads of senior officials, Mr. Braine wrote to the General Manager and accused him that these people were overlooked just because they were Afrikaners. If I make the accusation, I shall be told that I am a racialist. But here the accusation now comes from an old S.A.P., who has supported the the war effort all these years, who is a loyal supporter of the Government, and he makes this accusation against the Railway Administration that they promote people just because they are English-speaking and that senior Afrikaans-speaking people are overlooked, is that racialism? No, it is a fact that the Railway Administration is doing an injustice to Afrikaners in a disgraceful manner. Discriminations are made between English-speaking South Africans and Afrikaans-speaking South Africans. What was now the excuse which the Minister offered? He got up here in the House and said that Mr. Braine wanted promotion and when he got it, he would not accept it. The Durban post carried a salary of £1,800, and the post to, which Mr. Braine was promoted also carried a salary of £1,800. He did not want to leave Durban to accept that post. It cannot be said that he was unsuitable for the post, because the Minister had just shortly before praised him for the work he had done. The next step was that Mr. Whitehead wrote a personal letter to him which I myself saw, stating that a financial increase of £200 would be added to the post to which he was supposed to have been promoted. When he refused to leave Durban the bribe of £200 was offered to him and then the Minister comes here and tells us that he promoted this official. He should know that it was not promotion. As Minister of Railways he should also know what the grade and status are of the various posts, and he ought to know that it is not promotion. Mr. Braine refused and said that he was going to remain in Durban. We know that an official has the right to refuse promotion if he does not wish to leave a place, but then he is not considered a next time. A certain Mr. Bromley here in Cape Town for years refused promotion because he did not want to leave here, and he was allowed to stay here, but he missed his further promotion. But Mr. Braine was taken away from there against his wishes and Mr. Ritchie was sent there. The senior official, however, was Mr. du Plessis. The Minister’s explanation was that he knew that there would be an opening in Johannesburg, and he did not first want to send Mr. du Plessis to Durban, and then again to Johannesburg. This is all very well, but now I have a letter from the Minister of Railways in which he gives reasons why the post of Engineer Inspector is degraded from £1,600 to £1,400. He said that he did it so that he could have a wider choice, in order that he could appoint the most efficient official to this post. I do not want to talk about dr. von Abo, who was passed over, because another hon. member will speak about that. But the Minister gave this reason, and because the regrading of this post occurred, a certain Mr. Louw was appointed. After Mr. Louw had held the post for ten weeks, he was appointed in Bloemfontein at a salary of £1,600. The degrading of the posts was expressly intended, according to the Minister, to select a capable official, and according to his own statement he then already knew that there would be a vacancy in Bloemfontein. Why was this done? Mr. Louw was pushed up to £1,400 to make it possible to appoint him to the post of £1,600, and now he is Dr. von Abo’s senior. I want to ask the Minister whether he considers that that kind of treatment is fair. I accused the Minister that he has a Gestapo on the Railway, who place a black mark behind the names of these people. These people are not told, but it simply means that they do not get promotion. The Minister tried to make it seem ridiculous, but I want to quote an example to him and I want to challenge him to get up in the House and to explain it. An engineer was interned, and we know how easily people are placed in the internment camp. His case was investigated and he was released because it was discovered that he was not guilty. The Railway Gestapo again accused him, and he was again interned. His case was again investigated, and again it was found that he was not guilty. What happened then? Then the Railway Administration took steps and dismissed the man from the service. In the Railway Administration Act it is stipulated that a permanent official cannot be dismissed from the service unless there is a serious charge against him, and then he has the right to demand an enquiry. This person claimed £8,000 from the Administration. If the Railway Administration had a complaint against him, then we would have expected that they would have defended the case. But what did they do? They offered the man damages to the extent of £2,000. Why? Because they had a weak case, they settled it, and what is more, they again appointed him in the Railway Service. Can we now have better proof of how the Railways are administered. The Afrikaners on the Railways are persecuted simply because Mr. Geffen has placed a black mark behind their names. For that reason they are regarded as inferior. I would like the Minister to reply to this and we shall again have the opportunity at the third reading of replying to him. The Minister announced here that he was going to follow a brand-new policy in connection with promotions. He says that in future they will not go according to seniority, but merit will receive the first consideration. He gives the impression that in the past people were promoted on grounds of seniority and not on merit. It is not a new policy which the Minister is going to follow. I want to read to him section 9 of the Railway Administration Act which the late Mr. C. W. Malan adopted in 1923—

That is the law of the land. Now I want to ask the Minister what his declaration in his budget speech amounts to. It is not a new policy, and if it is a new policy to the Minister, has he than during the last three years promoted people who were not suitable, but only because they had seniority; has he broken the law?

It fell into disuse.

We have seldom had a case where the Minister condemned himself so strongly. He acknowledges that during the last three and a half years, he as Minister, did not carry out the law.

Do you want the Minister to interfere in these matters?

Then it means that the Minister is accusing the Public Service Commission that they have been acting contrary to law. Now he comes here and declares a so-called new policy. In this connection I want to refer to a speech which he made to the Staff Association. From the North objection was received against the new policy, because the people say that they are up North and consequently they have no opportunity of keeping pace with the capability of the other two officials, and if it is not a question of seniority, they will be jeopardised. When the Minister heard this, he declared that in the case of those people, he would provide for them. It amounts to this, that if a man is on active service, even if he is not as capable as another official, he will yet be appointed. I want to say this to the Minister, that there is a deep unrest on the Railways. I receive any number of letters from English-speaking officials, as well as Afrikaans-speaking officials, who gave me facts which astounded me, of what is happening on the Railways. One English-speaking official compiled a whole speech for me which I should bring to the notice of the Minister here. He says inter alia that the Minister used the argument of how many people with Afrikaans names were appointed, and he quoted the Railway doctors. The Railway doctors do not belong to the Railway personnel. I want to appeal to the Minister to put an end to this scandalous state of affairs which we have on the Railways, that officials are not promoted on merit, but that they are the favourites of the heads. The Minister brags that he breaks one record after another. The greatest record which he has broken is the manipulation of grades and promotions. We had a blitz-krieg of promotions in the Railways of officials who did not deserve it, but because they were the favourites of the heads. We had a manipulation of grades and transferring of officials with the purpose of promoting certain people, as certain highly placed officials wanted it. From our side we want to protest strongly against this action.

During the course of this Session of Parliament we have brought to light certain facts in connection with the Railways which reveal a deplorable state of affairs. The hon. member for Bloemfontein, District (Mr. Haywood) has already said that these conditions are unequalled in the history of the South African Railways; in the first place, with regard to the manipulation of grades and the use of their influence by chief officials to give high posts to certain pals, and in the second place with the deliberate object of retarding the progress on the Railways of those officials who do not hold the same political views as the Government. These people are mainly Afrikaans-speaking, and I say that this manipulation and this exercise of influence was aimed at depriving certain officials of their promotion, while other officials who were their juniors, were pushed up in a round-about-way until later on they became their seniors. The result was that there came into existence in the Railways a system which can only be described as a system of profiteering. There was a certain group which was intent on manipulating matters, and they proceeded to do so. We are going to draw attention to those matters, irrespective of the consequences to this, that or the other person. If the Minister’s excuse is that he did not know these things, and if he is going to cast the blame on those officials in the Administration who must be held responsible for this, then they must bear the consequences. I just want to deal with one case, and that is the case of Dr. von Abo. This is one of the worst cases which one can find of the manipulation of posts in order to push on certain people and to hold back others. Dr. von Abo, in so far as qualifications are concerned, in so far as efficiency is concerned, and also as far as faithful services are concerned, is certainly one of the outstanding Railway officials. With regard to qualifications, he is head and shoulders above all the officials in the service. He took his B.Sc. with distinction in Civil Engineering, the M.A. degree in mathematics and applied amthematics at the University of Cape Town and the Ph.D. degree in civil engineering at the McGill University in Canada. While Dr. von Abo occupied the position of system engineer in Pretoria in 1936, he was informed that he had been nominated to the post of research engineer in the office of the chief civil engineer in Johannesburg. The salary was to have been £1,200 with increments of £50 up to £1,400. At that time this was equivalent to the salary of the majority of system managers. When he received this promotion, he was informed — and this is of interest in connection with the further discussion — that his promotion to this post would not mean that other officials who at that time were not senior to him, would gain seniority over him. That in itself was fair, and it is of interest in connection with the further development of this case. The next link in this history is a person named C. Kok. He was district engineer and when Dr. von Abo was promoted to the position of research engineer, this person was promoted to the position which Dr. von Abo had vacated. He was Dr. von Abo’s junior. To-day he is system-manager at East London, and he is now senior to Dr. von Abo. The next scene is this. When Dr. von Abo became research engineer on promotion, there were at that time, in 1936, seven officials who were junior to him, and in spite of the assurance that he would not lose his seniority, they are today his seniors. I want to give their names. These are the favourites who have been promoted. The first is Mr. E. A. Bambury who is today purchase commissioner in New York, Mr. J. Stewart who is on the Railway Service Commission. Mr. Timperley who is chief staff assistant and Col. Leverton who is the chief passenger superintendent; Mr. C. F. Kok, system manager at East London, Mr. J. Viljoen, system manager at Pretoria and Mr. P. J. Louw, system manager at Bloemfontein. These are all persons who were his juniors in 1936, and notwithstanding the fact that Dr. von Abo was told that he would not lose his seniority as a result of his promotion to the position of research engineer, people who were that time junior to him were allowed to be promoted and to become his seniors. Today they are all occupying higher posts than he. I do not know what the Minister’s excuse is or what the excuse is of the clique which is responsible for these things. If the excuse is that these people who were promoted over his head are better than he is and that they gained experience more rapidly owing to the positions they occupied, then I want to ask the Minister this: Was the promotion of Dr. von Abo to the position of research engineer not pure deceit and bad organisation then? This man was appointed in 1936 to an extremely important post. He was pegged down in that position all these years, and all these people were promoted over his head. But if the Minister’s reply is that he is not capable enough, then quite apart from what I said at the beginning in regard to his capabilities, I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that in 1937 five officials were sent overseas by the Railway Administration as a Commission to make a special study of railway matters overseas. He will agree that this was an extremely important Commission, especially if one observes who the people were who went with Dr. von Abo. There were Mr. W. A. Day, Mr. J. Greathead, the late Mr. P. D. Troskie and Mr. W. D. Mackintosh. At that time Mr. Day was chief mechanical engineer at a salary of £2,000 per annum. Shortly thereafter he was promoted to the position of assistant general manager at a salary of £2,500. Mr. Greathead was assistant chief civil engineer at a salary of £1,800. He was also promoted to assistant general manager at a salary of £2,500. Mr. Troskie was chief staff superintendent at a salary of £1,600, and before he died he was also promoted to assistant general manager at a salary of £2,500. Mr. Mackintosh was at that time production engineer at a salary of £950. What is Mr. Mackintosh’s position today? He has been promoted to a salary of £1,600 as mechanical engineer in Pretoria. At that time Dr. von Abo was senior to this man. In 1937 Dr. von Abo received £1,400, and he is still earning that salary. He is an extremely capable engineer. According to my information he is the most capable engineer on the Railways, and from 1937 up till 1943 he has been on the same salary of £1,400 and other people who were junior to him have been promoted; his fellow-members, who served on that Commission, are today receiving a salary of £2,500, and the one man who received £950 has been promoted to a position carrying a salary of £1,600. I say that this is an absolute scandal. If the Minister is not responsible for this, I say again that he should make investigations to find out who the senior officials are who are responsible for this scandalous position, and he should simply get rid of them lock, stock and barrel. They ought not to be in such an important State service as the Railways. I say again that Dr. von Abo is the most highly qualified person in the Railway service. According to statements by his fellow engineers, he has rendered invaluable services to the Railways. Now I come to the next step in this history, which appears to be the worst of all. In January, 1942, Dr. von Abo was requested temporarily to fill the place of Mr. Ritchie as inspecting engineer. When Mr. Ritchie was later appointed as system manager at Durban, in the middle of 1942, the Administration invited nominations for the post of inspecting engineer, which had been vacated by Mr. Ritchie and of which the salary commenced at £1,600 per annum. Now I come to the most scandalous part of the whole affair. Nominations were invited, and the civil engineer under whom Dr. von Abo worked as research engineer, the man who was in the best position to judge as to who should receive this post, recommended Dr. von Abo for the post of inspecting engineer. The. Minister would have had no option but to appoint Dr. von Abo. If he wanted to see elementary justice done, he would have appointed the man who was recommended by the one man in the Railway Service who could best judge as to who should fill this post. But what is the Minister doing now? Apparently on the recommendation of the general manager, what is he doing? Dr. von Abo must be held back. Recourse is again had, therefore, to the useful weapon of de-grading posts. The post is suddenly de-graded from £1,600—after nominations had been invited and Dr. von Abo had been strongly recommended by the man who could best judge—de-graded to £1,200 rising by increments of £50 to £1,400. Then nominations were invited afresh. And what was the excuse? They wanted a wider selection for the post. But Dr. von Abo was recommended by the man who was in the best position to judge. No; he was not good enough; there had to be a wider selection. The post was therefore degraded. If I, as Minister of Railways, have to be guilty of this type of thing, I would not show my face in this House again, and if I have the power in my hands and officials of mine make themselves guilty of this type of manipulation, then, upon my word, they would not remain in the service for another day. Now the post is degraded; it is reduced to £1,200, with no other purpose than to appoint other people and to keep Dr. von Abo out of this post. It stands to reason that, as far as Dr. von Abo is concerned, this post has now become worthless from the promotion point of view, because it would mean no promotion to him. Then Maj. P. J. Louw appeared on the scene. He was acting system manager at Windhoek, and he was Then appointed to the position of inspecting engineer, in the degraded post. But he could not immediately assume duty, not until the middle of November, and Dr. von Abo continued to act temporarily as inspecting engineer: One must therefore take it that he performed satisfactory work in that post, because he was retained there until a later date. But now we come to a further disturbing state of affairs. This Maj. P. J. Louw was junior to Dr. von Abo even before 1936, and his experience was primarily that of system engineer, a post which had been occupied a considerable time before that by Dr. von Abo, before the latter was promoted to the post of research engineer. But Maj. P. J. Louw is appointed in the degraded post of inspecting engineer and he is one of the favourites who must be promoted. Immediately thereafter, therefore, he is promoted to the post of system manager, Bloemfontein, at a salary of £1,600. He too, who was junior to Dr. von Ado only the other day, now passes him and is appointed over Dr. von Abo as a result of this shameless manipulation. There is no doubt about Dr. von Abo’s capabilities. He is one of the outstanding engineers in the Railway Service. I say again with emphasis that the man who was in the best position to judge, namely the Chief Civil Engineer, recommended him for this post, but from 1937 to 1943 Dr. von Abo made no advance at all, while numbers of his juniors, less efficient, were promoted over his head and are today his seniors. If the Minister is personally acquainted with the position, he ought to be ashamed. If he had nothing to do with it, and if it happened without his knowledge, and if there are a number of senior officials who are manipulating things in this way, I say the time has arrived for the Railway Service to get rid of those officials. The Railways are not a private undertaking. In a private business one can do as one pleases, and promotions can be made arbitrarily.

The Railways are not a pure State Department. There is an Act which controls these matters.

If you had acted in terms of the Act, this manipulation would not have taken place. But Dr. von Abo must be held back simply because his political views do not agree with those of the Minister, because they do not suit the Minister or because they do not suit the senior officials. The Railways belong to the State and the nation, and we have the right therefore to demand that there will be no manipulation so as to benefit favourites, but that promotion will be made strictly according to efficiency. That is what one demands of the Minister, for the sake of the Railways itself. Now just one other point. We complained in this House with regard to the manner in which unilingual people were promoted over the heads of bilingual people—at any rate, given more than they were entitled to. The Minister asked for examples. There are many, I shall give him a few. There is a certain Brown. He was formerly station master at George; he was then transferred to Worcester and from there he was again promoted. I do not know him personally and I can therefore only go on the information I received, but according to this information he is totally unilingual, in other words, he has not even passed the oral test, which they call the two-man examination—an examination which is taken before a board of two. Then there is a certain Clark, system engineer at Port Elizabeth who also received promotion. According to my information he even refused to write any language examination. If this information is not correct, then I am sorry; but I have the fullest right to accept it as being correct. There are many other cases such as this. There is the case of Paquet, station master at Maitland—the same case as that of Brown. One could mention many cases, but time does not permit. I leave it at that. There is just one other matter which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister, and that concerns the motor drivers who drive the Carrier Cobs in Johannesburg. This is a special type of motor vehicle which is used by the Government. They have one wheel in front and the engine is placed in such a position that it is practically inside, underneath the driver, and the position in connection with the Carrier Cob is that because it is inside, because the engine is not outside, but practically in the cabin of the driver, the driver must continually inhale the carbon monoxide gas which is discharged by the engine. Carbon monoxide poisoning is a very serious form of poisoning, and these people suffered great hardships. For nearly two years they made lengthy representations to the Administration to bring about an alteration. In October of last year they eventually tackled this matter intensively, after all these representations had been in vain. Notwithstanding repeated letters, the administration did not reply before the 15th March of this year. For two years they made representations in vain. This year for the first time steps were taken to go into the representations, and a reply was received to these letters from the general manager. The question which I want to put first is why there was such a delay in this case? These people have struggled for two years. Did this correspondence ever come to the notice of the Minister or to the notice of the responsible officials, or did it remain behind in some channel or other and get lost? In February of this year there were at least five of these drivers who had to go on sick leave as a result of this illness which they had contracted. I just want to mention one or two cases. There is the case of Loubser, who did not believe that one could get this disease, but, as he himself stated, he was in such a condition later on that he fainted as often as six times per day. Then there is the case of a certain Lange who has been in a sanatorium now for the past six months. It is stated that he has tuberculosis, which is the direct result of chronic asthma, which, according to medical men, is caused by this carbon monoxide poisoning. It is calculated that 98 per cent. of the 200 bus drivers are suffering from this poisoning. But when representations are made to the Administration no reply is received. These people were suffering from poisoning. Eventually they requested the Administration to lend them one of these vehicles just for one hour so that they could get an opportunity of having this gas tested with a view to furnishing the necessary proof. The Administration refused to comply with this reasonable request, but the administration nevertheless hires out the Carrier Cobs to private firms at 5/- per hour, but their own officials cannot get one for an hour in order to make a test. There was a case where such a vehicle was returned, because the poison which escaped in the street was so powerful that it affected passers-by. We could quote many of these cases. If the Minister has any doubt in regard to this matter, if he doubts what I am saying here, I just want to quote one or two medical statements for his information. I have before me various medical certificates. The first one is dated the 19th February, 1943. It is a certificate by Dr. Kok—

Then I have a comprehensive report which is signed by Dr. Schmabmann, a letter to the Sick Fund Board, which reads as follows—

I also have a very long report from a certain doctor Schneidemann, a very long report, and I shall only read the conclusion to which he comes at the end of his report—

Then he makes certain suggestions as to what should be done to improve the position. Here we are dealing with poorly paid officials in the Railway service. For two years these people had to endure this poisoning; according to my information, they had to suffer all this pain simply because unsympathetic officials took no notice of the complaints of these people. For two years they made representations to the Administration, and only thereafter notice was taken of their complaints. I should like to hear from the Minister what steps he will take to put a stop to this position and to bring about an improvement, so that these people will no longer be subject to the danger of poisoning.

The remarks which the Minister of Railways made in this House on a previous occasion force me to come back to a matter which is of interest to a certain class of railway official, namely casual artisans, on whose behalf I have particularly exerted myself latterly. When we dealt with this matter on a previous occasion, the Minister tried to make a joke about it, to pass sarcastic remarks concerning myself; but I leave it at that. What I resent, however, is that he made an unfair and unjust attack in this House on an official. In connection with the question of the underpayment of a section of the artisans at Bloemfontein for a number of years, people who did not receive the wages to which they were entitled in terms of the Wage Act, and who were only paid out by the Administration after a hard fight, the Minister said that Mr. du Plessis was the responsible system manager.

Is that wrong?

Yes, it is wrong. The Minister is trying to put the blame on Mr. du Plessis, who was the system manager at Bloemfontein. This was a side-thrust at Mr. du Plessis as if he were responsible. I want to go into the facts for a moment in order to show how unfair the Minister is. This morning he replied to a question of mine in which he said that the wages fixed in the Wage Board determination, and applicable to their trade in the area in which they are employed, were being paid to casual artisans in the railway service since the 18th February 1929. From that date this has been taking place. Las year in May I approached the Department. In May I wrote a letter to the system manager at Bloemfontein, Mr. du Plessis, in which I brought to his notice the position of a certain person, J. A. Brummer. This was a test case. I pointed out that this person had not been paid what he should have got, and that the Department of Railways had unlawfully withheld moneys from him. I immediately received an acknowledgment of receipt of the letter from Mr. du Plessis, namely on the 6th May, 1942. He informed me that he had referred the matter to the railway head office. It was therefore not a settled matter—a trivial matter. Mr. du Plessis referred the case to the head office. Then I again asked when I could expect a reply. On the 17th June I received a letter from him in which he said that the matter had been referred to the general manager, and that as soon as a decision was received he would convey it to me. That was more than a month after I had raised the matter. I waited a further month, but I received no reply. If this were such a simple matter, instructions could simply have been issued to pay these people. But that was not done. On the 14th June, two and a half months after I had raised the matter, I again wrote a letter to the general manager and explained the case, and I pointed out that the system manager of Bloemfontein had referred the matter to him. I emphasised that this was a case of great importance, and that I should like to have a reply. I received no reply from the general manager. On the 23rd July I became annoyed, and wrote to the Minister. I then explained to the Minister what had happened, and that the head office did not want to comply with my request and reply to my letter. I pointed out in my letter that they were simply leaving the matter without attempting to do justice. On the 29th July I eventually received an acknowledgment of receipt from the Secretary to the Minister, Mr. Louw. The matter was then under consideration, three months after I had raised it. On the 15th December Mr. J. H. Hofmeyr, Acting Minister of Railways, wrote and informed me that this matter had now been settled, that I was perfectly right and that these people would be paid out. Mr. du Plessis immediately referred the matter to head office in the first week of May, and in September, without my having heard in the mean time from the general manager, the Minister eventually informed me that the men would be paid out. This shows that there was something else happening all the time. If this was such an easy case, and if it was in the hands of Mr. du Plessis, as the Minister said, then this matter could have been remedied immediately. Why could the general manager not have said immediately: “This man is right, pay him out.” They waited from May until the middle of September, and then eventually they paid out. Is this in itself not proof that this matter did not rest with Mr. du Plessis? But I go further. In some cases certain men had not received their legitimate wages since 1938. Mr. du Plessis became system managar in Bloemfontein only at the beginning of 1941, I think. This unlawful withholding of wages had been taking place since 1938 already. What right has the Minister then to besmirch Mr. du Plessis, and to make the accusation against Mr. du Plessis that it was his fault, that he should have paid these people the right amount? Because two years before Mr. du Plessis arrived on the scene this system of underpayment was already in force, but as soon as I drew attention to it Mr. du Plessis referred the matter to the general manager. Is it fair, then, to make out that Mr. du Plessis is the guilty party? It is unfair and unjust. It is not Mr. du Plessis who deserves the blame, but the head office which kept me waiting for four months. That is where the guilt lies. After four months I received a letter in which I was informed that this matter had now been rectified. No excuse was advanced and no reasons given as to why the wrong wages had been paid. But what happens now? There are quite a number of men in the same position. Certain payments are being made, but these men are still completely in the dark. The Brummer case was a test case, but after it had been raised and decided, telegrams were flying all over the place, and then these people were paid out. The Minister informed us that more than £3,000 had been paid out to these people. These are poorly paid casaul artisans from whom, for a period of five years, a portion af their wages was withheld unlawfully during that period. Now I want to go a little further into the matter. I hope the Minister will get up today and withdraw the blame which he cast on Mr. du Plessis. The position today is that quite a number of deductions are being made from the amounts which are being paid out to these men. They are simply told: “Here is the cheque in respect of arrear wages.” These men do not know whether it is in order. I asked the Minister whether any deductions had been made. The reply was in the affirmative. I further asked—

The reply on the 2nd April was—

Is it fair simply to say: “Here is an amount of £296 in one case, or £200 or £150,” and then simply to state that there have been certain deductions, without saying why those amounts are deducted? These people have to guess how much has been deducted. There is no means of discovering it. I put another question to the Minister in connection with the privileges of casual artisans at Kazerne. I asked—

1. (1) What is the rate of wages paid to casual artisans in the employ of the Administration at Kazerne, Johannesburg;
2. (2) whether such rate of wages is in accordance with the rate of the wage determinations of the Department of Labour applicable to that area; if not why not; and
3. (3) What additional privileges, if any, are enjoyed by such casual artisans.

The reply was—

1. (1) 2s. 10½d. per hour.
2. (2) Yes.
3. (3) They enjoy 12 days paid leave after 12 months continuous service, and cost of living allowance granted under Wage Determinations.

I want to ask the Minister again to let these people know precisely what the deductions are. I further asked the Minister to give me a statement containing details of the privileges which are applicable throughout the country, and enjoyed by casual artisans in the service. I should like to know once and for all what these men are entitled to and what they are not entitled to. The Minister gave me a statement, and it appears from that that he makes a distinction between casual artisans remunerated at railway rates of pay, and casual artisans remunerated at outside rates of pay. He says that the casual artisans who are paid at outside rates receive no travelling concessions whatsoever. The other casual artisans who are paid at Railway rates receive certain holiday concessions. Then we come to the cost of living allowance. There he says that the casual artisan who is employed at the Railway rates of pay, receives a cost of living allowance on the fixed scale for Railway servants. Casual artisans who are remunerated at outside rates of pay receive a cost of living allowance on a basis which is set out in the statement. I put another question to him. I asked him to lay on the Table of the House a certain instruction; this instruction is known as “List 97/4 of the 1st November, 1940 (with operative effect from 1st September, 1940)”. It is laid down in connection with casual servants that the following travelling concessions, valid only on the lines of the South African Railways, can be granted to a servant who is employed in a casual capacity—

1. (1) To a servant who does work of an interrupted nature privilege tickets can be issued, provided such a servant has been in the service of the Administration more or less regularly for a period of six months, and one free pass annually after he has been in the service of the Administration more or less regularly for a period of at least four years; season tickets during any single month provided he has actually been in the service of the Administration for at least fifteen days in the preceding month.

Then we come to regular casual servants—

1. (2) To a casual servant employed on work of a regular nature, privilege tickets are issued after the servant in question has completed three months’ service; one free pass annually provided he has completed at least twelve months’ uninterrupted service.

And he gets certain residential season tickets at concession prices only in favour of himself. Here he lays down that all servants who work at intervals or who are regularly in the service receive certain concession privileges and a free pass, and in another statement he tells me their travelling concessions are nil. Will the Minister kindly explain to me what the position is. Here we have men who have been in the service since 1938. Here we now have an instruction which says that they receive certain concession tickets. The Minister issued a regulation, and he comes here and tells me that these people who received the arrear wages are not entitled to travelling concessions, and then his department proceeds to deduct this from their wages. It seems very peculiar, because here I have two replies which are totally different, and there is the reply in which the Minister says that all sorts of deductions are made from the wages of these people. I say that it is unfair that the department has not given a statement to these people to show what amounts have been deducted in respect of cost of living allowance, in respect of Railway concessions, etc. They could then have tested it and seen whether or not they were fairly treated. I hope that the Minister and the Administration will go into this matter and see that justice is done to these people. I proved, and the Administration has admitted, that these people were unfairly treated, that thousands of pounds were withheld from them, and now that they are being paid we have all these difficulties. I hope the Minister will go into this. Then there is also the question of widows and men who have already left the service. The Minister replied that they would be paid if they could be traced. I hope that the Administration will spare no efforts to ascertain where these people are, and that they will not simply sit back and wait for these people to apply. I hope the Minister will go into this matter very thoroughly, and see to it that justice is done once and for all to these people, because if this does not happen I shall continue to make representations to him until this matter is adjusted, until I have to force him and his Department to see that justice is done to the poorly paid officials. There is another complaint in connection with these casual artisans which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister. People who retired on pension are again being appointed, and the complaint is that certain men who were foremen and who are now reabsorbed, are immediately appointed as foremen Others come back and are not appointed as foremen; they have to work as ordinary artisans. Here is an opportunity for the ordinary artisan to become foreman, but a pensioner is appointed as foreman over his head, and he is deprived of his chances of promotion for years perhaps. The Minister said that the other officials would not, as a result of this, be deprived of their opportunity to receive promotion How can one understand that? If someone else is appointed, it surely interferers with my prospects of promotion, because if he had not been there I would have received the appointment. There are other cases. In Bloemfontein there is the case of the carpenter who was appointed at a rate of 3s. 3d. per hour. After three months they told him that the work was finished, and that they would now give him ordinary work at 13s. 6d. per day. But in the meantime he is doing precisely the same work. He is doing the same work, and he is getting 13s. 6d. per day instead of 3s. 3d. per hour. I hope that the department will go into that as well. These cases cause dissatisfaction amongst the people concerned, and I hope that the Minister, especially as far as Bloemfontein is concerned, will cause thorough investigations to be made into this question of casual artisans. I may tell him that since raising this matter I have received letters from all parts of the country from artisans who think that an injustice has been done to them. I do not know whether that is so or not, but in view of what happened in Bloemfontein, I want to suggest that the Administration should immediately go into the whole question of casual artisans throughout the country, and see whether these people are receiving the wages to which they are entitled. Now I want to raise another matter. The Minister may be able to give the information in regard to this, and that is the position in the workshops of the Administration. Some time ago I asked the hon. Minister of Labour whether the factory laws with reference to the conditions under which employees have to work in the factories, were also applicable to the workshops of the railways. His reply was: No, because Section 52 of that particular Act, the Factories Act, excluded the Railway Administration from the scope of the Act. But now I want to ask whether it is fair and right that the Government should compel only private employers to comply with certain conditions, while these conditions are not applied to the Government’s own workshops. The Minister of Labour replied that a committee had been appointed in this connection, and that the report and recommendations of that committee were being considered. I want to ask the Minister whether his administration had decided to apply this Act in their workshops too. There is just one other matter which I want to raise. This is a matter concerning my constituency, and in regard to which I wrote to the Minister some time ago, but his officials inform me that the necessary information is not yet available, and we cannot therefore take this matter any further. This concerns an undertaking by the Railway Administration to the town Theunissen, in connection with water supplies. The municipality erected a water scheme at that centre, and an agreement was arrived at beforehand between the municipality and the Railway Administration that the Railway Administration would take at least 3,000,000 gallons per month. The municipality could not have undertaken that scheme if they had not had that undertaking on the part of the Railway Administration, because this is a small town and the municipality had to be certain of that assistance. This scheme has been in operation since November, 1942. Unfortunately, no proper contract was drawn up. The municipality acted in good faith; the agreement was that the Railway Administration would take the water; they required it for their gardens; but the Railway Administration has not yet taken this water. Since November, the municipality has had to bear this burden by itself and unaided. They have had to pay interest and redemption on the loan, and they have received no income from the Railway Administration. The position is extremely difficult as far as the municipality is concerned. In the near future they will have to pay interest and redemption again, and they have not got the revenue on which they thought they could count. I submitted this whole matter to the department in writing, and asked that before the conclusion of this Session of Parliament, the Minister or his officials should give me an opportunity of discussing the matter with them, but yesterday I was informed that they had not yet received the necessary information from Johannesburg, and I therefore raise this matter today in the hope that the Minister will give his personal attention to it, so that the municipality will not be placed in the postion of having to suffer tremendous losses, because the Railway Administration is not taking the quantity of water which they agreed to take. The position was that they knew that the Administration would and must use this water, and the papers were unfortunately not drawn up beforehand. This matter can now be settled in this way, that the Railway Administration can pay only in respect of the minimum amount which they agreed to take; if they do this it will enable the municipality to meet its obligations, but if they do not do so, the municipality will be placed in a serious and difficult position. I hope that the Minister will let the municipality know as soon as possible what the position is, so that they will know where they stand.

I have not many complaints. My first complaint is against the Minister himself. We should like to have a railway connection between Ladismith and Calitzdorp. I am asking for this for the umpteenth time. Today may be the last occasion on which I shall have the privilege to plead in this House for a good cause. I call this a good cause, because there are so many people who will benefit, and because the Government will benefit. We want to bring Ladismith much nearer to the Cape. This is not an undeveloped part. Hundreds and thousands of people live there, and all the land is properly developed. The Minister of Lands said that he contemplated embarking on big irrigation schemes; since that is the case, he may deem it desirable to have the Bul River and Gamka dams built. Then there will be no question of the line not getting any work. As I have said, those parts are developed and all that is lacking is a railway connection and water. This may be that last opportunity I have of making this plea. We are living today in a time of war. Some time ago efforts were made to blow up the Gouritz River bridge. Assuming that bridge is blown up, what would have become of the country?’ Then the trains would have had to turn off at De Aar and go through the midlands to reach the Cape. I hope the Minister will give his attention to this matter at this late stage. Then I return to a promise which was made a long time ago. I want to ask the Minister to give us a railway motor bus between Touws River and Ladismith. Mixed trains operate between those centres a few times per week, but they go very slowly, and many people use their motor cars. I hope the Minister will also give his attention to this matter, and be prepared to give us this railway bus. It is absolutely necessary, and I do not think a great deal of extra expense will be involved. At the moment the people cannot get tyres and petrol, and in the near future, when there are no tyres or petrol to be had, these people will have to suffer great inconvenience if there is not a motor bus of which they can avail themselves.

I shall not detain the House very long. I just want to draw the attention of the hon. Minister of Railways to the Bitterfontein scheme. Bitterfontein is one of the old stations on the Klaver-Bitterfontein line. It is a very big station. The whole of Namaqualand and Bushmanland and other parts make use of this station, and there is not even a platform. We experience the greatest difficulty. There is no loading bank or platform. We find it difficult to get old people and sick people into the train. As the Minister knows, many sick people from those parts come to the Cape. It is very difficult to get a sick person into the train. It will surely not cost too much to provide Bitterfontein, as soon as possible, with a platform, a loading bank and other small facilities which are very necessary. I am grateful to the Minister for the new building which he has provided at Klaver. This meets a very great need which existed there. I want to thank the Minister for that concession. We appreciate it very much; but now there is still Vredendal. I am very glad that the Minister has allocated a new station building to Vredendal. Vredendal is a very big centre, and the station building at that centre is in an extremely miserable state. The Minister has now decided to have a building erected there. We realise that there is a shortage of building material today, but we think the Minister should go out of his way to have this station building erected. The public has to suffer a great deal of inconvenience. We should like the Minister to make a start with this as soon as possible. Then I also want to ask the Minister to provide a loading bank at the Liebendal siding. A great deal of loading is done at the Liebendal siding, and there is no loading bank. It would surely not cost very much to provide a loading bank for the convience of the farmers at that siding. We shall appreciate it if the Minister will have a loading bank made there as soon as possible.

Where is the place?

It is between Vleermuis station and Vredendal. It is ten miles north of Vredendal, on the Bitterfontein-Klaver line. The public will appreciate it very much if the Minister complies with these few requests as soon as possible.

We listened this morning to the debate in regard to increased pay for soldiers, European as well as coloured. Unless I am mistaken, the chairman of the Select Committee was the Minister of Railways. Those people were granted an increase of pay. There was a fixed scale of payment. The hon. Minister was, I believe, the chairman of that committee. Now I just want to ask the Minister whether it is not possible also to meet a few sections of his railway workers. I want to start with the mechanical people. These are skilled artisans with years and years of experience. A few days ago I gathered information in the office of the Railway Department. I find that those people are getting 2s. 7½d. per hour. If they left the railway service they would be able to earn much more than that. In the building trade the bricklayers who belong to the union are today receiving 3s. 11d. per hour and I do not think that the work of a bricklayer requires more skill than the work of these artisans. A bricklayer receives 3s. 11d. per hour while the skilled artisan on the railways gets only 2s. 7½d. I do think that those people deserve a little more consideration. Then I come to the drivers on the railways. The maximum wage which a driver receives, when he becomes a special class driver, is 21s. 6d. per day. The bus drivers in Johannesburg and Pretoria learn this work in a few months time, and then they receive the same wages and perhaps a little more than the special class drivers receive. Take the firemen, for example. When a fireman passes his examination he receives 11s. 9d. per day. I must say that that is the minimum. When he has passed the driver’s examination he receives 15s. 9d. per day. I say that those people deserve better wages than they are getting today. Then I come to our rail workers. We heard this morning how much a coloured soldier gets. When a coloured soldier occupies a fairly high rank, he receives £23 per month. Here a European worker on the Railways receives 8s. 6d., 9s. and 9s. 6d. per day. Many of those people have large families. The Minister was the chairman of this Select Committee, and he gave an increase to the coloured soldier, enabling a coloured soldier with a wife and one child to receive £23 per month, and I think these people deserve better remuneration than they are getting. The unmarried worker receives 1s. less than the married worker. I think they too receive too little, but the married man may have a large family, and he gets only 1s. more than the unmarried man. I say again that those people are entitled to better remuneration than they are getting at present. Then there is another question. Recently a man came to me and told me that he earned 12s. 8d. per day; that he receives a war bonus of £2 5s.; he is renting a house, but now they are deducting 9s. in respect of rental from this £2 5s. A man who lives in a railway house does not lose that 9s. He receives his full bonus. I feel that this man is treated worse than the man who lives in a railway house, and who can get cheaper water and light. This too, is a matter which should receive the attention of the Minister. Then there is a question in connection with train journeys. I was recently on the train, and I saw three military police travelling in a second class coupe. It sometimes happens that they have to arrest a soldier who does not behave himself, and then they have to take him into the same coupe. I think the Minister should be a little more considerate towards those people. They do not travel once in three months only; but practically every day of their lives they have to be on the train. I do not want to make propaganda in this House in the local interest, instead of in the general interest, but I do think that Klerksdorp is being neglected with regard to its station. I do not want to ask for a new station now because I know I shall not get it, but there is a great deal of traffic at Klerksdorp; there is no verandah, and when it rains the people have to leave the train in the rain. I believe that the position is a difficult one, and I do not want to ask here for all sorts of expansions, but I do think that we should get this small concession.

When the Minister became Minister of Railways on the 9th September, it was a sweet drop in the bitter cup of the people of South Africa—the bitter cup that the Government on the other side had to come into power. That Government was intent on making war, but there was an expectation on the part of the people that the Minister of Railways would act honestly and fairly, and as a businessman, in connection with the management of the railways. I must admit that even outside, amongst the people who were bitterly opposed to the Government, there were high expectations of the Minister, perhaps too high. It was broadcast that the Minister was a businessman, and many things were said to his credit. I was not one of those people who was so enthusiastic about the Minister, and I think that the manner in which he is today managing the railways clearly shows that my pessimism at that time was justified. I do not want to go into the poor treatment which is meted out to certain railway officials with regard to promotion. Other hon. members have emphasised that sufficiently. I want to refer to other aspects of the railway management, and I am not doing so in a spirit of criticism as much as in a spirit of despair. Take the position at the Cape Town station. When one goes there in the evening at 7 o’clock, 8 o’clock or 9 o’clock, one sees that the station is in a critical condition because there is a chaotic state at the station. What is more, one finds that approximately 50 per cent. of the people at that station do not belong to the travelling public. It is a remarkable phenomenon in Cape Town that as soon as a person is under the influence of liquor, he apparently goes to the station to sober up there. I am surprised that the health authorities do not take more stringent steps. When we look at the floor we notice that people have spat all over the place, that there is filth everywhere, and one is almost afraid to go over it to meet one’s train. Platforms Nos. 10 to 14 are on the one side of the station, and one has to struggle through the crowds to get to those platforms. The other evening there were certain persons who were somewhat late for the train which leaves Platform 13 at 7.15. Three of the porters’ carriers got into such a position in the rush that they could not get out of one another’s way, and while they were arguing as to who should make way, the public had to stand and wait. They could not make way for one another, because there was such a mix-up at the station. The Minister must not tell me again in connection with these matters that they are being considered. I want to say this to the Minister with all respect, that if we get that reply from the Minister, we shall know that this matter has been shelved, and that we shall not hear more about it until the next Session. I want to know from him whether it is not possible to close that section of the station except to the travelling public? I am making this suggestion. There is a small shop there, but that is meant for the travelling public, and not for the people coming from the street to buy. Then there is another matter. There is a train leaving at 7.30 for the Strand. This train is express as far as Parow, and then again as far as Bellville. But it so happens that an electric train leaves exactly five minutes prior to that express train, and the result is that when the express stops at Parow, it has to stop between the stations, because the electric train is right in front. I want to ask the Minister whether it is not possible to change the time of departure of those two trains, for at present it is an impossible position. I want to come back to something for which I really do blame the Minister. I am afraid this is a case of wheels within wheels. It concerns the matter of railway advertising in newspapers. We find that people employed on the railways cannot get an increase in wages or salaries, but on the other hand we find that money from the railways is being wasted on advertisements in all sorts of small local papers. One of these papers has an editor who has not even passed Standard 2. I have here the advertisements appearing in one of these small papers. The advertisement takes up three-quarters of a page, and you can therefore understand what kind of newspaper this is. Let us have a look at the type of advertisement appearing in this paper. At the top it says—

After that all sorts of information is given—

Do not travel unless you must.

The following further information is given in the advertisement—

Surely everybody knows that—

They tell the people how many meals have been served on the trains—

What on earth does that mean? Then it continues—

That is the advertisement occupying three-quarters of a page in this little newspaper. In it the public is told that the trains are full of military and civilians persons, that there are too few railway engines, and that the railways will do their utmost to serve the people. Is the Minister perhaps in a position to tell us how much money is being spent on these advertisements. These little newspapers in which he advertises do not reach one-thousandth of the public. They do not receive the attention of the public.

But they drew your attention.

If someone falls on his head we look at him, no matter how ugly his face may be. I must say that these attempts at advertising by the Minister are really very poor. That advertisement is certainly not worth the money which is being spent on it. I will leave it at that, and now come to a petition which was sent to the Minister on the 23rd July, 1942. On the 15th March, 1943, the petitioners had not yet received a reply to their petition, and they again wrote to the Minister. It was a petition of the detectives and the stokers working in the docks, and on the 15th March, 1943, they again addressed a polite letter to the Minister stating that as far back as the 23rd July, 1942, they had addressed a petition to him to which they had not yet received a reply. The receipt of the petition was not even acknowledged. One would have thought that as the Minister is so keen to further the war effort, he should, where people are serving in connection with the war and therefore assisting the war effort to the best of their ability, and they send a petition to him—he should at least have tried to give attention to it. I shall not read out the petition, because we have no time now. This petition comes from ship workers in Table Bay. These are the people who have to go out to assist in case a ship has been sunk. Their lives are endangered all the time. They have to go out to try and save the lives of other people, and when they send a petition to the Minister, one would have thought that he would immediately have given his attention to their request, and would at once have agreed to it. I now should like to know from the Minister whether he has already sent a reply to those people, and whether it is his intention to comply with their request. I think the Minister will admit that their request to him was a very reasonable one, and also that their request is justified by the type of work they have to do. The Minister should not think that because they do the work of stokers and because they are poor, he should simply ignore them. I want to ask the Minister to state here in this House whether he intends to meet the wishes of those people or not. I now briefly want to make a few requests to the Minister. Lately it has happened very frequently that trains are late in leaving the station. That especially happens in Cape Town. If a train is scheduled to leave at 6 o’clock, it leaves at 6.15 or 6.30, and so it goes on. Surely nothing should go wrong with the departure of the train. Then there is a further matter. When we travel by train we like to arrive at our destination as soon as possible. Now, however, we find that at places such as Stellenbosch, Paarl and Wellington the trains are stationary for a long time, whether passengers are getting in or not. It seems as if the conductors talk away the time, and the train has to wait for them. It appears sometimes as if the train waits at such places just for the sake of waiting. We can understand that the train has to run according to a time table, but is it not possible for the general manger to shorten the unnecessarily long delays occasioned by trains standing at the stations? Let us take the case of the train to Port Elizabeth. It arrives at Heidelberg, Riversdale and similar places, and one would swear that it is not going any further. I think the Minister should give his attention to this matter. The Minister knows that there is a shortage of trains to transport people. If one asks for a special train, the reply invariably is that there is a shortage of special trains, and that it cannot be done. Last Monday seven special trains were run to the Strand. I have no objection to that. I am glad the Minister is granting this concession, but those trains were practically full of coloured people, with the exception of two first class coaches. People with third class tickets were even to be found in the first class compartments. This in itself is deplorable enough, but I can understand that we cannot throw the people out of the train if there is no other room. I now come to the following point. I understand that the Boy Scouts held a jamboree at the Strand, and that they asked for a special train, but the administration did not see its way clear to grant them that request. Why was it not possible to reserve a few coaches for them? I do not ask this because I am so terribly fond of the Boy Scouts, but I want to point out to the administration that it should in such cases make available special trains, or special coaches, when our boys want to attend functions of this nature. It seems to me there is something fishy about it, and that there was some favouritism in regard to these special trains. At present the administration is always using the war as a scapegoat. On every opportunity it is said that there is a war on, and that they are very sorry but there is a shortage of staff and rolling stock, and that we have to be satisfied, although our wishes cannot be met. In other cases, however, certain persons do receive concessions. I want to ask the Minister to see to it, when Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking boys want to attend meetings of the Voortrekkers or the Boy Scouts or school functions, and similar things, that those young people belonging to these movements receive the facilities to travel to such places—for these things develop a fine spirit in them, which is so necessary in life. Then there is a further point affecting my own constituency, which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister. I want to ask the Minister to expand the bus route between Herbertsdale and Mossel Bay. That bus runs twice or three times a week, and I want to ask him to allow the bus to be run between Herbertsdale and Albertinia on such days as it does not run between Herbertsdale and Mossel Bay. Albertinia is much nearer, and the people in that area go to Albertinia more frequently than they go to Mossel Bay. I do not think it will pay them less to run such bus services than is usually the case with bus services. [Time limit.]

Before coming to another matter, I just want to mention one case which I have already brought to the attention of the Minister’s department. It is the case of a young man who worked in the Salt River workshops and was discharged for certain reasons. I took up the matter with the Minister’s department, and I understood that the Minister said he would be prepared to give his personal attention to the matter. If that is so, I shall leave it at that, and await the Minister’s reply.

Yes, I am prepared to do so.

When the Minister started as Minister of Railways, he was a good Minister who held his own views about certain things, and we understood that he was not easily to be persuaded. Afterwards, however, we had an unfortunate experience in this regard. He banned the Spoorbond, and recently we were able to notice what his attitude is in regard to bilingualism. I am afraid that the Minister did not remain firm enough, and that he allowed himself to be persuaded, and veered round. The Minister also changed his attitude in regard to a tax on railway passengers. At the beginning of the Session the Minister held the view that the railways should not be taxed for war purposes.

I am afraid I cannot allow the hon. member to go into that matter now, for it has already been disposed of during a previous debate.

I do not want to discuss the taxation itself. I only want to show that the Minister adopted a certain attitude in the past, and afterwards changed his mind.

The hon. member may mention that in passing, but he cannot discuss the taxation now.

I bow to your ruling, Mr. Speaker. The point I wish to make is the following. The Minister is now easily changing his opinions. On a previous occasion he said that we could not use the railways as a taxing machine for war purposes. Now, however, the Minister does allow that. What is more, I want to express my astonishment that the Minister was not present in the House when that taxation was proposed by the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance piloted that Bill through, but the Minister of Railways did not put in an appearance. I think the Minister is taking a wrong course when he allows another Minister to virtually take over his department. The Minister of Finance piloted this measure through the House on his behalf. If the Minister continues in that way he will once more become the Minister without Portfolio.

That is too good to be true.

Another Minister put a tax on railway passengers, but this Minister allowed discrimination to be made between the passengers making use of the railways. How on earth can the Minister allow third class passengers … .

The hon. member may not discuss that now.

I leave it at that. I only want to point out that the Minister of Railways was not even present when the Minister of Finance put a tax on railway passengers. Before dealing with another matter, I just want to refer again to the preference given to English-speaking people in the service. We hear many complaints about that. What the position of Afrikaans in the service is, is best illustrated by the following example of a minor matter. Some time ago we were invited by the General Manager of the South African Railways to a picture called: “The servant of the nation.” The General Manager knows who we are, but all the invitations were in English. The Minister may think this is a trifle, but there are hundreds of these trifles. Supposing the General Manager had issued the invitations in Afrikaans only? What a storm that would have caused! It is continual pin-pricks like that to which we are being subjected. According to the advertisement, this picture was meant for showing overseas, for propaganda purposes. One would have expected this to be a picture showing the people abroad what the facilities are which the South African Railways are able to offer. What did we see, however? Only propaganda from the beginning to the end. The title should have been: “The servant of the British Empire.” That would have been more correct. This picture was undiluted war propaganda. When this picture is shown overseas, the people there will also come under the impression that there are only English-speaking people in our country, for that is the impression the whole picture creates. There is nothing of an Afrikaans character in it, not the title. It shows how Livingstone discovered the Falls, and how the history of South Africa ended with the death of Cecil Rhodes. It is, of course, historically incorrect that Livingstone discovered the Falls. According to the historians Carl Trichardt was the man who discovered them. In any case, there was nothing, not even a trace of an Afrikaans nature in it. I would rather not say anything about the wonderful waterfalls in Namaqualand, which are shown there. I know those parts very well. I shall leave it at that. I now want to come to the enormous surplus of £4,000,000 which the Minister achieved. When the staff of the Railways considers that, and when the Minister realises how he obtained it, he will have no reason to be proud of it. How did he achieve this enormous surplus? I just want to quote a few instances, for example, of what happened at the workshops in Salt River. There you find cases of people acting in positions which are higher than those they actually occupy, and for which they are paid. A railway worker temporarily holds the appointment as a coach-repairer without receiving any increments. A man who is a railway worker in the workshops receives a wage of from 7s. 6d. to 10s. 6d. per day. At 10s. 6d. it works out at 1s. 4d. per hour. They now take such a railway worker and make him do the work of a coach-repairer. What happens then? For the first year in which he does this work the railway worker receives the salary of a coach repairer, but his pay is only raised once. A person in this position starts at 1s. 7¼d., but thereafter when he does that work for a second year, he does not receive any further increments. When such a person has to be graded and to be passed out, his position is that when he has received his increment during the first year, he is now put on the scale of 1s. 10¼d. per hour, which is the salary of a first-grade coach-maker, and he would be able to attain that, but he is kept in an acting capacity and receives the lower scale of payment. In reply to the hon. member for Bloemfontein, South (Mr. Haywood) the Minister at the beginning of the Session said that he was prepared to challenge the hon. member. He mentioned one case where persons had been employed in an acting capacity, without receiving the higher rate of pay. I have now mentioned a few cases. In do not like to mention names, because these people may be victimised when they bring complaints to me, but if the Minister is prepared to undertake that they will not be victimised, I am prepared to hand him the name of one person, and there are others in the same position, and that person whose name I am going to hand in, will be able to give their names. That is the way in which the Minister gets a surplus of £4,000,000. Then I also want to draw the attention to the position of signalmen in the South African Railways, particularly on the Rand. I have a letter here from these men in which they write, inter alia, that though there is much work, and they are kept very busy, though their work is very strenuous, so strenuous that many of them suffer from heart disease and nerves — and they mention a number of cases — they do not get leave. They refer to a number of cases. In 1939, so they say, a man died of heart failure; in 1941 two men were dismissed as medically unfit; in 1942 there were also some cases; there were cases of heart disease and nervous breakdowns. In the letter they say that their work has been increased by 10 per cent. to 20 per cent., but they contend that only after twenty years service they get a yearly holiday of 21 days. I put the case as it has been submitted to me. I can scarcely believe it to be true, but they say that that is their position. They also said that they were in receipt of a housing allowance, but since the outbreak of the war this allowance is used to cover increased cost of living. They say that the relief man often arrives at his work at 12 o’clock on a Saturday night, and he works till the next afternoon 4 o’clock or 6 o’clock. I cannot believe that these people have to work such long hours. I would like to know whether that is correct. They say that they have sent deputations to the assistant manager, and that they have submitted a request for more holidays in view of the strenuousness of their work. Subsequently they signed a petition, and brought their position to the notice of the authorities, and they write further that they directed another letter to the authorities in March of this year, but that up to date they have not yet received a reply. If this information is correct, then I must say that I do not think the Minister can boast of his large surplus of £4,000,000. There is another matter I want to refer to. Mention has already been made of the payment of stewards in the service of the railways. During this Session I referred to my experience of a train with over 400 passengers and only four stewards. The Minister promised an investigation into the matter, and informed me that he would send me a reply administratively. I remember that the Secretary for Railways saw me on one occasion. Apparently there was some misunderstanding. I was supposed to have said that a member of the catering personnel had applied to the Minister for an increase, and that he had been dismissed, and they argued that that was a matter for the administration. I think there was a misunderstanding, but subsequently I received a letter from the Secretary for Railways informing me that after my discussion with him concerning a complaint and representations of the catering personnel, he went through Hansard and found that I had not raised the matter. The point was that I had said that I had complained about the position of the stewards, and his reply was that according to Hansard I had not raised the matter at all. I must say that I am really surprised. I looked up Hansard and found that I made a long speech about stewards who have to work such a lot of overtime, having sometimes to work 17 hours without a break, and I asked the Minister if he could not grant an increase, in any case to introduce shorter working hours for these men. The Secretary wrote to me that he did not find any representations I had made in that connection. Now, I would like to read from the speech to which the secretary also referred—

That is one sentence from that speech, which I think is very clear. I could not have put it better. Now I want to repeat my request. Is it not possible to effect an improvement in the position of the stewards? Trains are very full, and their working hours are impossibly long. Those people have to be met. I want to come to another matter, and I want to ask the Minister to go into it. I have been told that conductors have to work half an hour more than other officials in the railway service, falling in the same grade. I am speaking under correction, but I believe they say that they have to work 8½ hours, while other personnel of the same grade only work 8 hours. I hope the Minister will also give attention to this matter. Furthermore, I want to ask that the workers employed on the railway tracks, will get more leave. The Minister knows all about it. Is it not possible to give those employees a longer holiday at the end of the year? One final point. For some years already, I understand, a certain amount has been set aside for a railway station at De Aar. This year the amount has once more been set aside, and I want to know from the Minister whether it is his intention to build the station, and whether it has to stand over until after the war? If I get a reply from the Minister I will know what the position is and I need not worry him any more. Yesterday the Minister made a speech in connection with Navy Week. I do not want to discuss what he has said, but it has been brought to my notice that today already letters have been out to the heads of all the departments, asking that the railway personnel should contribute towards the Navy Week funds. I cannot understand the Minister and the General Manager. They continually say that the personnel should keep away from politics, but surely they must realise in what position they place the personnel. There are members of the personnel who have conscientious objections to the war. They are placed in an impossible position when documents are placed before them asking for contributions towards Navy Week. In what position are they placed when not contributing? We have heard of the Gestapo in the railway service. If there is the least indication that they do not agree with the Minister’s policy, if they refuse to contribute, they are under suspicion. I want to ask the Minister for heaven’s sake to stop this kind of thing. If railwaymen who are in favour of the war desire to contribute, well and good. Let them even go and fight. We do not object to that. But do not place in an impossible position those who do not want to have anything to do with the war. Before sitting down, there is yet a small matter which I want to bring to the Minister’s notice. Two years ago increases were granted to various grades of workers. It has been brought to my notice that coppersmith foremen at Salt River did not get an increment when these increases were announced. They made representations to the Administration, and the reply was that no increases had been granted to this class of men. I would like the Minister to give me a reply to this question also, and I would like to have an explanation from his department why these men did not receive an increment.

I realise that at this late hour we cannot go deeply into Railway matters, but I want to mention a few points, and I hope that the Minister, who should be au fait with these matters, will give these points his attention. The first point is that you still find many corrugated iron cottages in the country where Europeans have to live. Along the railways one can observe beautiful stone houses in which coloured employees are living, and it is heart-rending to think that European labourers have to live in these corrugated iron cottages in the North-Western Districts and also in the Free State. I hope that the Minister will effect a change without delay. Then a second point. There are station foremen at a number of places who have not had leave for two or three years. Can arrangements not be made to grant them the leave they are entitled to? A third question: A few days ago I was at the Cape Town railway station when a train was pulling out. I can give the Minister the assurance that men were busy helping ladies to get into the compartments through the windows because the doors were blocked, and nobody could get in through the doors. The ticket examiner was holding fast to the back of the train, like a bird, when the train was pulling out. I am not exaggerating. The number of motor-cars is dwindling, and people have to make use of the trains. Can better provision not be made? A fourth point: As the number of motor-cars decreases more and more people have to travel by train, and in proportion the work of the personnel is increasing. Our trains in South Africa are known throughout the world for the facilities offered, and their excellent service, but at the present time the position is unsatisfactory. The number of passengers is increasing, but we have not got a sufficient number of stewards. The people are overworked. They have to remain on duty for long hours, and I want to ask the Minister seriously to consider relieving the position. Then a matter of local interest. Stations for Britstown and Williston have been on the estimates for a number of years. The position is very unsatisfactory, and I hope the Minister is going to see to it that these stations are built.

I have a number of matters which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister, but some of them I will bring to his notice in writing. There are, however, one or two matters of great importance which I desire to mention here. On the 27th February, I brought to the Minister’s notice the facts that on a train between here and Kimberley a coloured passenger was booked in the same compartment as European ladies. She was asleep, and when they got up in the morning these ladies found that they were in the same compartment with a coloured person. I got a ’phone call from a highly-placed official in the Railway service here in Cape Town, and he asked me to supply him with the names of the ladies. I did so. On the 6th April I received a letter signed by the Minister informing me that they could not trace the case, and whether I would be prepared to hand the names of the ladies to the Minister. I did not go to the trouble to do so again. I can only say that one feels disappointed, because there is such a lot of confusion. Or is it an attempt to evade this important issue? This case does not stand alone, and we would like to know what the policy of the department is. On Sunday, the 18th April, a lady was travelling by train between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. I met her at Paarl station, and she told me that between Cape Town and Paarl three English ladies boarded the train for Port Elizabeth. When they got to their compartment they found that they would have to travel with two coloureds. They were booked in the same compartment. The ladies state that the conductor told them that he could not move the two coloured passengers, but subsequently he found seats elsewhere for these three European ladies. This matter should receive the attention of the Minister. This is a serious matter, and for that reason I am raising the matter here in the House. It may happen once by accident. One can understand such an accident happening. But the evidence of the three English ladies was to the effect that accommodation has been reserved for coloureds on two occasions in that coach between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, whilst English ladies had also been booked in the same compartment. It is bad enough that these things are happening on the suburban lines, but the matter is now becoming serious.

Were these coloured men or women?

No, they were female passengers,

Oh.

Now you are satisfied.

No, but it makes a lot of difference.

When the Minister built the station at Huguenot, the difficulty arose to separate Europeans and non-Europeans, and the Minister told us about his difficulties, which were understandable to some extent, but even there things are getting bad now, and I am sorry to say that at this late stage in the Session I have to mention this unpleasant matter. But it is a serious matter. The station at Huguenot has a first class and a second class coloured waiting room in the same building next to each other. Difficulties would be avoided as far as these waiting rooms are concerned. That was the promise the Minister gave us. Over the coloured waiting room there was a notice “Non-European passengers”, and on the door of the waiting room for Europeans there was a notice “For European passengers”. I want to ask the Minister whether he is aware of the fact that the words “non-European” over the entrance of the waiting room for coloured passengers has been removed, that it has been painted over, and that there is a possibility that the people who do not know Huguenot enter the waiting room of the non-Europeans. We do not know on whose responsibility this notice was painted over; one can only think that the Department is responsible. I do not know whether such is the case. Then one other matter. Is it correct that conditions at the stations at Paarl and Huguenot are such that there is such congestion caused by non-Europeans near the entrance where one has to take out tickets, that even the municipality has interfered and written to the Department—or possibly to the station master, I am riot sure—that the position has become so bad that an improvement has to be effected. I personally use Paarl station, and always go through the entrance where third class tickets are obtainable, because it is easier to get through there without being pushed by non-Europeans. One simply cannot get through where the first and second class passengers are served. The position is becoming worse and worse, and unless steps are taken to improve the position, dissatisfaction will increase.

The Whips have told me that I must be very brief, and I am going to be brief. I have been told that in the Salt River Works there are men who are in possession of certificates testifying to their knowledge of Afrikaans, and according to my information, there are quite a few who hardly know a word of Afrikaans, but who are in possession of these certificates. Now I want to know how these things are regulated. How are these people examined? Then I want to ask the Minister to see to it that proper tests are applied, so that people to whom certificates are issued have a real knowledge of Afrikaans. I also want to add my request to that of the hon. member for Aliwal (Capt. G. H. F. Strydom), to grant relief to the ticket examiners on our trains. They are definitely overworked. The same applies to employees on our stations. Is it not possible to relieve these officials to some extent? Things are happening at our stations which are not desirable, and it is not the fault of the personnel. They are overtaxed; they have too much work on their shoulders.

Mr. Speaker, I believe I should really take it as a compliment that the questions that have been asked of me this evening cover the whole field of railway activity, and apparently I am expected to try to answer them, but of course there are quite a number of questions that have been brought up that is quite impossible for me to answer off-hand. There are a number of questions that will have to be investigated and looked into. However, I shall do my best to satisfy hon. members in regard to the few matters that I really can reply to off-hand. If the last speaker will give me the name of the gentleman who has a certificate which he is not justified in having, I will have the matter looked into. I have heard nothing from the municipality of Paarl in regard to overcrowding at the station there, but now that the hon. member called my attention to the fact, the position will be looked into. There seems to have been some misunderstanding about a question that the hon. member asked, and I am very sorry that it was one which one of my officers could have replied to. I am sure the hon. member will appreciate that in a large service like ours, it is not always possible for the Minister to know who has the information, but I can assure the hon. member that no discourtesy was intended. In regard to the question of booking, the hon. member also knows that when you are booking people it is not always easy to tell what their colour may be. Many coloured people have white names, and I can only conclude that the conductor was trying to do the best he could in a very difficult situation. In regard to the question raised by the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen), I see he is not in his seat, and I will leave that over. I will look into this question of the coppersmiths, because at the moment I do not know what the position is in regard to them. Now in regard to the question of staffs on the dining saloons, I think I have indicated before what we have done there, but I will repeat it in a few words. We have decided at a cost of £22,000 a year to increase the staffs in the dining saloons, so as to give the men an easier time. We are also giving extra time off at the out stations, so that the men may have a longer period of rest, and as soon as the manpower position eases a little bit, we hope to do even more for our stewards who, it is recognised, do work very hard under present conditions. I do not want here to deal with the question of the passenger tax, but I will say that I do not regard that tax as a tax upon railway revenue. Then as to the cinema invitation, that invitation was printed on the one side in English and on the other in Afrikaans. I am sorry the hon. member received his written on the English side, but he will realise possibly that he also posesses a name which might be regarded as coming from Lancashire, and it is possible that a genuine mistake was made. I come now to the question of the films, and the one which featured Rhodes and Livingstone was not a South African film. It was an American film which was shown as a matter of interest. It is a Fitzpatric film, and has nothing to do with the South African Railways. In connection with the complaints of various servants of the Railways, I would ask the hon. member to get the servants who have legitimate camplaints to put them through the usual channels. There are provisions made in the regulations of the railway service, that is to say machinery is provided for hearing complaints and if the men will only approach the matter in that way, any questions of that sort can go finally right up to the Minister himself, if the complainant can get no satisfaction otherwise. It would be much better if these matters were brought up in that way where they can be dealt with intelligently rather than in this House, where I cannot possibly reply to individual cases. I do not know the facts, and it is quite impossible to get the facts within the extremely short time at one’s disposal. The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) also asked me a few technical questions, one being why trains stop at stations when there are no passengers. I do not know why trains stop at stations, but there are quite a number of reasons which would occur to me. Trains have to take in water, other trains have to cross them, and so on.

I did not ask why they stopped, but why they stopped for such a long time at certain stations.

Well, they don’t stop for a long time merely to look at the scenery. I assure the hon. member there is probably some very good reason for not getting away more quickly. In regard to the question of non-European passengers at the Cape, the hon. member knows that that is a very difficult question on the Cape suburban line, and I think I can say safely that the railway station staffs in very difficult circumstances do, generally speaking, exercise all the tact, consideration and helpfulness that they can.

I was not speaking about the suburban line, but about Somerset West.

I may be doing Somerset West an injustice, but I was regarding it as one of the local lines. I will look into the question of the quarters available to servants, but at the moment it is not very easy to do much in that direction. The hon. member, I am glad to see, is one member of the Opposition at any rate I have not disappointed, I knew I had not disappointed him, because very early in his career he spent some time in Edinburgh, he knew Scotsmen, and therefore he never put much faith in me, or counted on me very much. I am only sorry the hon. member carries such an unfortunate impression away from Scotland, but I think really the trouble is that the political virus of South Africa entered into his blood as soon as he left Scotland. The hon. member brought up the question of the Cape Town railway station the last time he spoke. I personally have inspected the station two or three times since then, and there are one or two improvements which I have suggested in the way of keeping luggage rather further out of the way of the passengers, and the police have been instructed to see that loafers do not stand about the station—they must be moved on. The real trouble about the Cape Town station is that it is hopelessly inadequate for the work it has to do. It is time we had a new station, and as soon as possible that new station will be gone on with. In the meantime everything will be done to try to help the situation. A railway station has endless exits; everybody comes in and you cannot stop people at the gate and ask them whether they are going to buy a paper, or this or that. They simply say they are going to see someone off. There are certain technical difficulties about a number of suggestions, which when they were explained to me I found to be very real. Regarding advertising policy, I am not an advertising expert. Hon. members know that I cannot even advertise myself, let alone my services, and I cannot deal at great length with that particular matter. With regard to the petition of the stokers, I told the hon. member at the beginning of April that the matter was receiving attention, and I have asked them to hurry up with it. I hope it will soon be brought to finality. The hon. member referred to soldiers’ pay and compared it with railway rates of pay, and he also raised the question of the Factories Act and its application to the railways. That I think was also raised by another speaker. I have offered to apply the Factories Act conditions in respect to hours of labour, but the difficulty of applying the Factories Act as a whole lies in the fact that the Act only deals with artisans. There are many more categories of workers on the railways than artisans, and it is quite obvions that the Railway Administration cannot deal unilaterally with one section of workers without it having some effect on all the others. I have taken the stand that nothing must be done that does not effect all the workers, everybody must get his share, and if the Act is to be applied to the railways then it must be applied to every worker on the railways. I have offered to do this, and at the present moment the Conciliation Board is considering a scheme for the application of certain provisions of the Act to all railway workers, including those workers for whom the hon. member put up a special plea. The hon. member will see that we are moving in that direction. The Conciliation Board is sitting on the problem now, but it is a very big matter. It involves millions of money, and it is not a thing which you can achieve with the stroke of a pen. I shall look into that question of the three policemen in the coupe, and also the matter of Klerksdorp station. The hon. member for Ceres raised the question of the Calitzdorp-Ladismith line. I am afraid there is no hope of giving him that before he leaves on this occasion. I am also very sorry to hear that there is no prospect of the hon. member returning to Parliament, but I shall not forget his needs even though he is not present. After the war we shall certainly go into the question of motor services in the district he has mentioned. Now I would like to deal, Mr. Speaker, with matters brought up by the hon. member for Bloemfontein, District (Mr. Haywood). I have been accused of manipulating appointments and various illustrations were brought up much the same as were brought up previously. With one or two exceptions they follow on the same lines. I must say it is quite obvious that I and the hon. member for Bloemfontein, District, will never agree about this matter. What I do for the sake of efficiency he alleges I do as a piece of manipulation. Well, we will just have to agree to differ on that particular matter. I am not going to assure him again that I do not go in for manipulation. What I would like to impress upon him is this, that when an appointment has to be made it starts with the senior officer of the department. It goes from there to the system manager, and then the Railway Service Commission and the General Manager. Then it comes possibly to me, if it is an appointment of sufficient importance. I only get it when it has been through all that regulating machinery. I get recommendations put up to me; I do not appoint people on my own without recommendations. I think with all these checks, we must secure that men are appointed who are suitable for their jobs.

You are only the victim of all this machinery.

No, I am not the victim. I trust my officers. I know they are doing their job honestly and well, and I am not a victim. I only stress that point to show that this is not a matter of appointing a fellow because you like the look of him, or for some reason you want to do him a favour. I come now to the case of Dr. von Abo. I must say I object to dragging personalities across the floor of the House, and it is extremely difficult for me to explain to hon. members opposite the particular qualifications which any individual may have; it is very unpleasant. In the case of Dr. von Abo, I am advised that while he is a first rate research engineer, he is not so suitable for executive work. Research work is a very important branch of our service. Dr. von Abo has not complained about promotion, he has got on very rapidly and stands very high, having regard to the service he has had. In these circumstances we appoint people who are suitable for a particular job. Dr. von Abo has specialised in research, and I understand he is a first rate man at that work, and naturally we want to keep him in it if we can. He is not so suitable for certain executive appointments. The hon. member shakes his head, and I know he will go on shaking his head, but that is my explanation of the situation.

He was one of the outstanding students at the university.

I will not go on with the speeches I went over before. In them I am at one moment accused of interfering too much, and at another of not interfering enough. Then the hon. member for Waterberg, he also dealt with the question of Dr. von Abo. In this connection I would point out that he was sent to England to study research work, and he went with Mr. Day and Mr. Greathead, who is now our senior technical officer on the railways, to whom all these appointments go. Mr. Day is a member of the Railway Service Commission, and it is quite obvious that these gentlemen who went to England with Dr. von Abo know all about him, know what his qualifications are, and can be counted on to do them justice. In the case of Brown at Worcester and Clark in Port Elizabeth, Brown is just on the point of retiring; he is unlingual and has not been promoted from Worcester. Mr. Clark has been standing in his present position for many years because he is unilingual. I did not quite grasp what the complaint was about. In regard to the question of Carrier Cobs raised by the hon. member for Waterberg, that matter is being looked into but strangely enough the experts whom we put on to the question find that it was not carbon monoxide poisoning in the case of these men, but something else. There are drawbacks to these cobs, which are being investigated, and alterations are being made in the cabins, so that the trouble will not occur again. The hon. member also referred to Mr. du Plessis, and alleged that I was to blame for what happened in regard to pay. Well, I appointed Mr. du Plessis to Bloemfontein on January 1st, 1940, and according to the hon. member he only wrote about this matter in May, 1942. In any case he should have known what the position was, as instructions were given to all system managers. I do not wish to blame him unnecessarily, but the point I made was really this; we had a good system manager at Bloemfontein, but in spite of that this delay occurred. It shows how easily these things will occur in a big service. In any case the matter has now more or less been put right. In regard to the cost of living allowance, that does not apply to back pay.

Can you explain why your administration took four months to see this thing right?

In a big administration it takes a long time to get these things straightened out. Then with regard to the question of privilege, it is quite impossible for me to go into all the answers I have given during the year on various points, and try to sort them out. I will say this with regard to answering questions, that it is not always clear what the hon. member means us to answer, and an answer may be given in a narrow sense in one case, and in a wider sense in another. I suggest if the hon. member has any real problem in regard to these matters, that he should come to see me in my office and we will get the experts there and will go into it.

Your replies are contradictory.

Well, I do not admit that for one moment, but if we can get down to details of these replies, I will be quite prepared to admit they are contradictory if it is proved to be so.

Give us an assurance that you will go into this whole matter of the casuals at Bloemfontein. There is something radically wrong. Why do you not give a statement of what you did pay them?

I will look into that. The hon. member raised that point, and I have taken a note of that. He also raised the question of the re-employment of pensioners. We only re-employ pensioners to take the place of men on active service, and no man may be appointed permanently in place of a man on active service. Therefore the appointment of pensioners in that category means that nobody is held up for promotion. I have already dealt with the Factories Act; we are now moving in the direction of applying it to the railways, and the Conciliation Board at the present moment is considering the matter. It would be premature for me to say very much about that, except that I anticipate that it will cost the administration not less than £1,500,000 in this coming year, if it can be so arranged. I will go into the question of water at Theunissen and I think that seems to cover all the main questions that were asked, all the questions at any rate, that I am competent to answer, in the short time available, and in these circumstances I hope hon. members opposite will now allow this measure to proceed.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee on the Bill now.

House in Committee:

Clauses, Schedules and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

The Chairman reported the Bill without amendment.

I move as an unopposed motion—

I second.

I have raised several matters, inter alia, the case of men at Salt River, who for three years have been acting as signalmen and foremen coppersmiths, etc., and I would like the Minister to give us an assurance on that point. Where he has not replied to our questions, I hope he will reply in writing. I want to ask the Minister specifically whether he will undertake to have our questions replied to by letter.

I listened with interest to the remarks of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) in connection with Dr. von Abo, and I was surprised to hear that Dr. von Abo did not get his due from the Department which the Minister of Railways is responsible for. I may say that Dr. von Abo is one of the ablest South Africans I know.

I said so.

I was at the University with him and he has a record at the Cape Town University that no other student has ever attained, and we were all very pleased when we heard that he was in the Railway Administration. And to hear from the Minister that he has not got the ability to be a good Administrator is something we cannot understand. As a student he was outstanding and we were surprised to hear that he is only a sort of research expert. I hope the Minister will go into the matter again and give Dr. von Abo his due.

I want to endorse the remarks of the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie). I was a student with Dr. von Abo, he was my senior by a couple of years, and he was one of the best students which the Cape Town University produced. He was not only a brilliant student as far as his academic qualifications went, but he was one of the leaders among the students, he was one of the best organisers we had. He was a man of irreproachable character, and he was a man of whom the Cape Town University was always proud. If the Minister were to ask the Cape Town University for a report on his academic qualifications he would get to know all about him. Year after year he was presented with the gold medal in the Department of Engineering. But one’s academic qualifications are not always the same thing as one’s common sense and leadership, one’s ability to accommodate oneself with one’s fellow students. He was able to do all these things. We looked upon him as a man with a brilliant future before him. I have not seen him lately, I have not seen him for many years, but I know what his qualities are and I know what he can do if he is given a chance. I know that in the Railway Administration, if given the opportunity, he would be able to do great things. I therefore hope the Minister will take these matters into consideration in dealing with him in future.

The Minister really does not deserve that the third reading should go through, and it applies in particular in respect of the way he dealt with the case of Dr. von Abo. His reply was that his officials had informed him that Dr. von Abo, notwithstanding his brilliant record, is not suited for an administrative post.

That is sheer nonsense.

I have drawn the Minister’s attention to the fact that Dr. von Abo, notwithstanding the fact that he is a brilliant engineer, has for seven years occupied the same post without getting an increment, and the Minister did not even promise an investigation. He simply retorted that his officials have told him this and that. My complaint is that highly placed officials tried to push their own friends, and to keep back others. I sincerely hope that the Minister will pay attention to this question, and I would once more stress that when nominations were asked for the post of inspection engineer, the chief civil engineer recommended Dr. von Abo. I ask again, what official in the Minister’s department can be in a better position to know whom to recommend than the chief civil engineer? But after making this recommendation, other officials do their utmost to prevent this promotion, and the grading is interfered with. I leave it at that. Does the Minister not realise how unfairly this official has been treated?

I want to put a question to the Minister, namely, whether during the coming election placards will be allowed at the railway stations. In 1929 the different parties were permitted to place placards on the various stations at the ordinary rate. I want to appeal to the Government to allow the same privilege in the coming election. I do not know whether the Minister has already come to a decision in the matter, but it is convenient for the different parties, and they will make use of their opportunities if the Minister will allow them, to do so. Mr. C. W. Malan, in 1929, made that concession, and the various political parties put up their placards on railway premises. I should like to hear from the Minister whether he is also going to give that privilege to the different parties during the forthcoming election.

In regard to the question of political posters — that matter has not really been considered at all. I shall go into the question and see what the position is, but I am rather reluctant to introduce anything of a political nature into the Railways, but if it has been done before I shall consider it. But this I can assure hon. members of — if one Party gets it, all Parties will get it.

Will you let the Parties know?

Yes, we shall let the Party Organisations know. Now, in regard to the question of Dr. von Abo, I hope I did not imply that I questioned his technical attainments; I have seen his qualifications — the whole list of them — and I understand he is a very able and brilliant man. I would be very sorry if anything I said created another impression. I have been impressed with what has been said about Dr. von Abo by his friends, and I shall take the matter into consideration and look into it more closely. As a rule I do not interfere with appointments; I am guided by the Senior Officers whose business it is to make recommendations, but I shall give some personal attention to this matter and if it is so, that Dr. von Abo has other abilities, which can fit him into other positions, I shall see that nothing stands in his way. In regard to the question raised by the hon. member for Albert-Colesberg (Mr. Boltman) I shall see that every hon. member is written to about any point which I have not replied to — that is points which call for a reply.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

I move—

This resolution is simply to extend for a further twelve months the agreement come to last year whereby the Union Government agreed to suspend for twelve months the preference on crawfish imported into the United Kingdom. At that time we were assured by the United Kingdom Government that the Union interests would not suffer, and in fact, the whole of the crawfish output was sold last year. Now the United Kingdom Government have requested us to extend the arrangement for another twelve months and they have assured us again that the crawfish interests will not suffer. In the circumstances as our interests are being safeguarded it has been decided that the 10 per cent. preference on crawfish which we enjoy shall be extended for a further 12 months from the 1st April.

I second.

Agreed to.

I move as an unopposed motion—

It is customary at the termination of a Parliament—and in the normal course we are now approaching the end of this Parliament—to move a motion of thanks to the Speaker. I move this motion now, not only for that reason, not only because it is customary, but because in this case there are many special reasons for doing so, reasons which are set out in the motion which I have moved. You, Mr. Speaker, have presided for 15 years over our deliberations, and during that long period, not only during the Eighth Parliament, but during the long period of 15 years, you have given a lead and you have given advice and presided in a manner which deserves the praise and thanks of all parties on all sides of the House, and not only on this side of the House. We feel that the manner in which you have discharged your duties during all these years has largely contributed to the fact that the dignity of this House has been maintained, and that this body has been in a position to perform its duties in a worthy and proper manner. We express the feelings of all members when we express our gratitude and also our indebtedness for the services which you have rendered during all these years you have been Speaker.

In seconding this motion I not only discharge a duty on my own behalf and on behalf of the members who sit behind me in this House, but at the same time I regard it an honour and a privilege to do so. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister commenced by saying that it was the practice at the end of the life of every Parliament to pass a motion of this nature in the officiating Speaker, and that that was not the only reason why it was being done in this case. I want to endorse that most heartily, and I want to give you the assurance, on behalf of this side of the House, that this motion is most certainly not merely a formal motion, but that it gives expression to the genuine feelings, as the Prime Minister has assured you, of his side of the House, and I can give you the assurance that it also gives expression to the feelings of this side of the House. Reference has been made in the motion to impartiality. There is nothing in Parliament which is so greatly appreciated as the impartiality of the Speaker. It is linked up with his dignity and with the dignity of the House. If there is one side of the House which more particularly notices impartiality, when it exists, and which appreciates it, then it is the Opposition; it appreciates it because it is the duty of the Opposition to put everything which the Government does under the magnifying glass and to examine it carefully, and to exercise criticism which they deem to be in the interests of the country. For that reason, because the criticising portion of the House is the Opposition, it is perhaps that portion of the House which is inclined to go somewhat too far and possibly to contravene the rules of the House in exercising criticism; and if the Opposition notices the impartiality of the Speaker and expresses its appreciation, then I think it is worth even more when it comes from their side than when it is coming from any other side of the House. I can give you the assurance, Mr. Speaker, that your impartiality has never been doubted on this side. Furthermore, I should like to point out that it has not only been your impartiality which has been observed, and greatly appreciated on this side, but there has also been confidence in your rulings in this House, because of your knowledge and capability. I have been a member of this House for 24 years, and I do not know whether there has ever been a time when members of this House have so seldom opened their drawers and consulted this little book which contains the Standing Rules and Orders, as during this time in which you have been Speaker. I think that it has had this detrimental effect, that members of the House have latterly not known the Standing Rules and Orders as well as they did previously, and I do not exclude myself and the Prime Minister. The reason was that we had a Speaker in the Chair whose knowledge of the Standing Rules and Orders was unique, and who had the ability to interpret them and to apply them, and on all sides we have felt that we could safely and with confidence leave in your hands the arrangement of the business of the House. There is something else to which I think I should draw attention, and that is the work which you have done not only while you have been in the Speaker’s Chair, but which you did outside the House, and for the very reason that in your capacity as Speaker of the House of Assembly you occupied a particular position. The Speaker has frequently been called upon to take part in all sorts of national movements, national causes outside party politics, and for which someone was necessary who would give a lead, and often preside, and who would give colour and character to that movement, and maintain it. There was no competition during your time to connect you with such national causes. I have in mind the centenary celebrations. I am thinking of the erection of the Voortrekker monument. I am thinking of a movement such as we had recently, where a conference was held to ensure better living conditions to the people in the future. You were called upon to devote your power and your capability to that cause. You performed this work with dignity, and you kept it out of the party political arena. Your action has always been irreproachable. I think in that capacity you were also a credit to this House, not only to yourself, but also to this House. I just want to conclude by saying that if for any reason during your lifetime you vacate this Chair, whoever may be your successor, and however capable he may be, you will be missed by all sections of this House. I have the honour to second.

I desire to say a few words on this motion. What has been said by the Leader of the House, and by the Leader of the Opposition, sets the seal to the opinion in which you are held by all sides of the House, and the appreciation which we all have of the manner in which you have discharged for so long a time the very high duties pertaining to your high office. To maintain the Rules of debate, the observation on all occasions of the rules of the House, is not always easy, but it has been done by you during this long time with the dignity and ease which is indicative altogether of the mastery which you have over the procedure of Parliament, and the confidence which your action has commanded on all sides of the House. The office which you hold is one of very high dignity—the preservations of the rules of debate is by no means the only function which pertains to your office. There is the preservation of the privileges of this House which are not so much the privileges of individual members as the privilege of the whole nation; in preserving the rights appertaining to the House of Assembly you preserve the privileges and the rights of the nation, and it means setting the seal upon the importance which attaches to maintaining the position of the House of Parliament, and this House of Assembly. Throughout the whole of your career you have filled to the entire satisfaction of members on all sides of the House these different functions which pertain to your office, and I wish especially on my own behalf and on behalf of the Party I represent, to express our thanks, to express the admiration which we have, for the way in which you have discharged these, offices. I hope that this expression, coming as it does from all sides, will be accepted by you as being something which at all times you will like to preserve. It is no light thing at all for any nation to obtain someone to discharge the duties of the office in the manner which you have done. Sir, may the expression of these views be not only a record of the House’s confidence in you, but of our desire that we shall continue to enjoy the discharge of these duties by yourself.

Motion put and agreed to.

I wish to thank hon. members for the resolution and the generous spirit in which they have adopted it. I also wish to thank the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Minister of Mines for their generous and flattering remarks regarding myself. I hardly think that I deserved them. The regard of members of all parties is something which I value very highly and upon which I will always look back with pride. If I have had any measure of success in carrying out the duties of Speaker, I attribute it to the generous goodwill of hon. members, who have always been careful to maintain the dignity and authority of the Chair. The task of Mr. Speaker can sometimes become very difficult. There are times when, in the party-political clashes, which sometimes can become very bitter, he must decide against one side or the other and it is only natural that at times there must be a feeling of dissatisfaction. It would indeed be possible for members to make it very difficult, if not impossible, for the Speaker to maintain order. It is therefore with the greatest appreciation and gratitude that I am able to say that I have never experienced anything but the greatest courtesy and goodwill from members of all parties. We may well be proud of the order generally maintained by hon. members of this House. It has very seldom been necessary to make use of the very wide powers of the Speaker, and during the 15 years I have occupied the Chair, it has never been necessary for me to name a member, which would have meant suspension. That shows the general feeling of hon. members that order must be maintained in the House. Whoever occupies the high office of Speaker in future, I trust that he will experience the same goodwill from hon. members that I have had the honour to enjoy all these years. And now we have apparently come to the end of this Parliament and a General Election is in prospect. There are members who are not standing for re-election and there are others who may not come back. Whatever may be their further career, I wish them all good luck for the future. There is always an element of sadness at all partings, but I trust that everyone who has been a member of this House will feel that he or she has contributed something to the building up of our country and people. We are often divided by sharp differences of opinion and outlook but we should be big enough to believe that each one of us tries in his own way to act in what he considers to be the best interest of our common fatherland. I would like to express my appreciation of the help, advice and support I have always received from the Clerk of the House, the Assistant Clerks and other members of the Staff and to thank them all for their diligence and devotion to their work. I also wish to thank members of the Staff who have at all times been so willing, even outside the scope of their duties, to assist me in the difficult time I have passed through. In Mr. Kilpin the House has an able and devoted officer who is an expert on Parliamentary Procedure and whose services to the House cannot be valued too highly. I shall always look back with appreciation on the friendship which both he and his predecessor, the late Mr. Visser, consistently showed me and the manner in which they assited me by word and by deed. I also wish to thank the Deputy-Speaker, Mr. van Coller, and his predecessor, Major van Zyl, as well as the Deputy-Chairman of Committees, Mr. du Plessis, for having relieved me on many occasions and having made my task easier. I again thank you all for your courtesy, kind consideration and goodwill. May everything go well with you all.