I move—

This is a very simple Bill, but it is a Bill behind which stands every woman in this country. And it is as their mouthpiece that I am introducing it today. Every post has brought to members convincing evidence of that. Every post has brought to members of this House the demand that they shall support the principle of this Bill and shall endeavour to see to it that this Bill is accepted and passed by this House. That demand and that fact prove the awareness of the women of this country to the position in which they stand in relation to their children in the eyes of the law. Every post has proved that the women of this country overwhelmingly — and I use the word advisedly—want equal rights of control over their children with the fathers of them, and so this Bill which I am introducing today sets out just to establish that simple principle. The basic point of it is contained in clause 2 which lays down that the father and mother of a child shall be equally entitled to the guardianship of such child, and shall have equal rights, responsibilities and obligations in respect of such child. That is the principle of the Bill. But the Bill further provides that in the event of dispute the courts shall have jurisdiction to decide, and the test shall be what is in the best interests of the child; not whether the father has prior rights of guardianship, or the mother has, but the simple test of what is in the best interests of the child. And I cannot believe that this House which is the guardian of the rights of the citizens to be, can deny to the country and to the children of this country the fact that their interests shall be considered paramount by the courts. Looked at objectively it seems to me that the principle of my Bill is a very fair and just one; it takes nothing from the father which he has now, but it seeks to give the mother equal rights. It is a principle which is fair and just to both parties. It is not a new principle, either in this or in any other civilised country, but it is a principle which the law in this country has hitherto denied to the women of this country. Not because cur law is less humane than the laws of other countries, but simply because the law which governs these matters has not been revised for centuries. It is because the law which governs the relations of persons in marriage is still the same as it was when Van Riebeeck brought it to this country nearly 300 years ago. And however right and just that law might have been in the Holland of the early 17th century, there is no doubt that the status of the matter as set out in that law does not accord in any shape or form with the economic and social position of the women of today in regard to their families. It is because of that lack of revision, that lack of any attempt by the Parliament of this country hitherto to bring the position of women in relation to their children into some kind of line with the economic circumstances of the country, that this Bill is being introduced today. And to begin with I would like the House for a moment to consider the position that exists. I want the House to remember that according to the law as it stands at present, the mother who brings a child into the world has, as long as the father lives, no equal rights of guardianship or custody or control over that child, and even after the death of the father she is not necessarily the guardian of her child. She only becomes the guardian if the father does not appoint another guardian by will. So absolute is this right that I desire to quote to the House a case—an extreme case I admit—but a case that has fallen within my own experience, where a man who had been separated, not judicially, but had simply left his wife and had taken a mistress, by his will appointed that mistress the guardian of his three legitimate children. He took, in other words, by his will the guardianship of her own children from the woman he had married, and handed them over to the guardianship of his mistress, and that man was enabled to do so by the law of this country as it stands. It sounds almost incredible, but I do assure the House that it is so, and any practising lawyer will confirm every word I have said on that point. Now when you have a law that goes to such extremes in denying to the mother any human rights over her own children, then I say, and say as strongly as I can, that this House cannot any longer tolerate such a position, that this House must alter that position and raise the mother from the position in which she stands, simply because of the lack of revision in our law. The facts I have given are the facts of the law today, and this Bill, let me repeat again, simply seeks to remedy that position. It does so not in any feminist spirit, but by fairly and justly apportioning equal rights to both parents, and, sir, if that Bill is accepted by this House, as I hope it will be, it will also put an end to the present evil whereby husbands, in many instances, use their prior rights of guardianship over their children as a means of blackmail, and I use the word advisedly, as a means of blackmailing the mothers of their children to fall in with their wishes. To show I am not exaggerating, there is not a single social agency in this country that deals with children, there is not a single social agency in this country that deals with soldiers and their dependants, which has not hundreds of cases on its books in which the father’s rights of guardianship have been exercised in a way that has been disastrous to the best interests of the children. Not only must the women of this country be helped by this House out of their evil position, but I say this House must rescue the children of this country from the position in which they stand, as a result of the prior rights of guardianship of the father being a basic factor of the law of the land. I would like to remind this House that we have a considerable machinery of social welfare in this country. We have a Children’s Act and a Children’s Court, we have children’s societies, committees looking after soldiers and their dependants, and with one voice all these agencies declare that the father’s prior rights of guardianship over his children are an almost unmixed evil. And of the absurd difficulties that the present position of the law inflicts on the mothers of the country, those agencies have also given convincing evidence. To take an example, as the House is aware, many men of an age old enough to have daughters who desire to marry, have gone North. The mothers of the daughters living here desire to enter into ante-nuptial contracts on their behalf when they marry, but because they have no rights of guardianship or control over their children, then cannot either consent to their marriage or sign ante-nuptial contracts on their behalf, and in many instances the fathers are not able to be reached in time to give their consent. One result of that is that there have been dozens of applications to our courts, an expensive business, to give the mother a special standing, so that, for this particular purpose she may have a special right of guardianship and sign the ante-nuptial contract. Another result is many girls have married without an ante-nuptial contract. Then there is another point, whilst the courts as upper guardians of all children have the right once a divorce or judicial separation has been granted, basing their appointment on the best interests of the children, to award the custody of the children to the parent they consider best qualified to look after them, the position is that it is only when a judicial separation or a divorce order has been granted, that the courts, even though they are the upper guardians of the children in theory, have the right to base their order on that ground. Let me quote the most recent decision of the Appellate Division on that point, a decision which I may say has mainly motivated this Bill. It is the case of Calitz v. Calitz and the facts in that case briefly were as follows: A man and his wife had an unfortunate marriage, and as the outcome of that marriage there was a child of two. The mother left the father as she could no longer live with him. Later she sued the husband for a judicial separation on the ground of ill treatment. The Cape Court in the first instance decided that though the husband had a bad temper, and was rather intemperate, the amount of ill treatment that had been proved did not justify a judicial separation, so the mother lost her action. But inasmuch as the mother declared nevertheless that she could not live with the father and refused to go back to him, the Court, considering the best interests of a girl of two, awarded the custody of that child to the mother considering, very rightly, that it was in the best interests of the child that the mother should have it. The father then appealed to the Appellate Division, and the Appellate Division ruled that it had no jurisdiction, until a divorce or judicial separation order had been granted, to consider as the sole basis of its decision what was the best interests of the child. It said that in such circumstances as Calitz it could not exercise its jurisdiction as upper guardian of the children of this country and take a child from its father unless the father was so hopelessly unfit that if the guardianship of the child were vested in him the health or the moral interests of the child would suffer. Nothing short of that. That was the Roman Dutch Law. As a result the Appellate Division reversed the decision of the Cape Court and gave the child to the father, and it went on to point out that since it could not base its decision on the best interests of the child alone, but had to consider the prior rights of the father, if the mother who had unlawfully left the father, desired to consider the best interests of the child, she always had the option of returning to the father. In other words, the decision of the Appellate Division has, in fact, legalised the father’s power in any quarrel to use the guardianship of the child as a means, of making the mother return to him, even when she does not want to do so. That seems to mean an intolerable and indefensible position. It seems to me that if the law is such that the Appellate Division cannot accept as the sole test as regards children not the father’s right of guardianship, or any rights the mother has, but simply what is best for the children, I say that if our law is in that condition it is high time for this court, the highest in the country, to come to the rescue of our courts of justice and give them that right. It is for that that this Bill, I say once more, is being introduced. I am convinced and the country is convinced, that the only real and adequate criterion for a decision as to who should be guardian of the child is who is best fitted to look after that child. And it seems to me that a special duty rests upon this House, to see to it that it is so laid down, because the greatest concern of any country must, and should be the welfare of the children, the citizens of tomorrow. So it is this House sitting as a court of equity, that should rescue the children of the country and the mothers of the country from the impasse to which our ancient and venerable Roman Dutch law has driven it. It seems to me that to allow a condition of affairs to continue in which not the best interests of the children but the father’s prior right is the criterion, is to perpetuate an injury to the children, is to perpetuate an injury to the helpless. And I am quite sure that neither the country at large nor the mothers of the country are prepared longer to tolerate that position. Certainly the women are aware today, as perhaps they have never been before, how they stand in the eyes of the law. Many of them have had bitter experiences owing to war conditions. Many of them, owing to war conditions, have gone out into the world for the first time and for the first time have realised some of the indignities and some of the inequalities that our present law imposes on them. And the women of this country have made up their minds that they will no longer endure this. The women of the country have worked and laboured and suffered and in many instances died in the war for the making of a better world. They are entitled to share in that better world. They are entitled to ask this House to consider them too. They are entitled to demand as they do demand that this House will give them equal rights and equal control with the fathers of their children; equal obligations have always been there. The law has always been that the mothers of the children have equal responsibility with the fathers to look after them—to feed them, to clothe them, and go out and earn money for their maintenance if need be. But till now they have had no rights of guardianship. This Bill in the name of the women of this country, asks that this House in justice and equity will remedy that position. It demands that the mother’s human rights over her children be recognised equally with the father’s. It asks that this country grant to its women that standing and status in the eyes of the law with regard to their children that the women of other countries of the Commonwealth have enjoyed for a very long time. I quite realise that our Roman Dutch law is an old and venerable structure, but when an old and venerable structure breaks down, it is for this House to recognise that fact and mend it by amending the law. That is the right and just thing, and I cannot believe that at this day and now this Government, this House, will reject that claim.

I should like to support this Bill, and my first reason for wishing to do so is a natural inclination to accede to the wishes of the women of South Africa. As the hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) has pointed out there has been ample evidence that the women of South Africa desire this Bill to be passed, and earnestly desire it to be passed. It has not been possible during the last few days to go into the Lobby without finding at least half a dozen members busily engaged in reading the latest message from the women’s front. Sir, I think we can take it that the women are very solidly behind this Bill, and that alone is one very good reason why this House should adopt it. On the other hand, the attitude of the men of South Africa is not so clear. If there is such a body as the Federation of Fathers, we have not heard of it. They have not made their voice heard in connection with this Bill in any way. The men of South Africa have remained silent, but that, Sir, is not without significance. One may, I think, assume, if the men of South Africa are silent, that, if they are not definitely in favour of the Bill, they are at all events not opposed to it. However, Mr. Speaker, before we draw conclusions with regard to the attitude of the men; before we draw conclusions from their silence, I think it is as well to remember man’s natural timidity in expressing his views on matters of this kind, where they may run counter to the wishes of the women; that we must take into account, and not pay too much attention to the fact that the men of this country have been silent. Despite their silence one feels there may be some men, both inside and outside this House, who have some misgivings about the possible consequences of passing this Bill. There may be certain feelings of uneasiness that if this Bill becomes law the men will find that they have made a tremendous sacrifice of their authority in the matter of guardianship of children. It is that uneasiness and those misgivings that I should like this afternoon to try to allay in some way. It seems to me that the plain fact is this, that the Bill introduced by the hon. member for Jeppes will not effect any profound, radical or revolutionary changes in the common law of South Africa as it stands today. It will effect changes; it will effect important changes, but they cannot be described, as I hope to show in a moment, as either radical or revolutionary. What this Bill will do, I think, is to eliminate some of the anomalies and some of the weaknesses which do exist. It will tidy up the position, clarify it, and put it on a satisfactory basis, and that is very necessary and very desirable. As the law stands today, there is no doubt that in certain circumstances—by no means in all circumstances—the law operates very unjustly, not only towards the mother but also towards the children themselves. I would like to explain more what I mean when I say that the Bill will not really produce any very radical or revolutionary changes. Let me take first the position that arises where the husband and wife are divorced or judicially separated, and both of them claim the guardianship of the child or children. As the law stands at present, if such a situation arises, the courts can intervene at the instance of either party and can award guardianship of the child to either parent, and in doing so they can be guided, as a main consideration, by the welfare of the child. As far as I understand the law, Mr. Speaker, when divorce has taken place, or judicial separation, the father, despite the fact that he is the natural guardian of the child, does not stand in a superior position to the mother. I say I think that is the common law, and I say “I think” advisedly, because although I can quote various passages from judgments which justify such a statement, there may well be, indeed there are, other passages in other judgments which throw some doubt on it. I think it only fair to say that one cannot be quite dogmatic about it. But if the law is as I have just stated, this Bill will serve the very excellent purpose of putting the matter beyond any doubt for the future. Although as I see it, the Bill will not effect any considerable change, if any change at all, in the circumstances I have mentioned, it will at all events serve the purpose of putting the matter beyond doubt and putting the law on a satisfactory footing. So much for the position where the husband and wife are either divorced or judicially separated. I would like now to come to the position where they are not, where no order of divorce or separation exists. There, if there is a dispute between the parents regarding the guardianship of the child, the jurisdiction of the courts is by no means so wide. It is by no means so comprehensive, and it would appear very definitely that in such a situation, where no divorce or separation order exists, the courts are bound to pay attention to the superior rights of the father as natural guardian. The hon. member for Jeppes has drawn particular attention to that and has cited a number of examples from her experience where that position has given rise to very serious injustice, not only injustice to the mothers but injustice, hardship and unhappiness to the children. It does strike me, Mr. Speaker, as a singular and unfortunate anomaly that the law should be different where the parties are separated or divorced from the law where they are not divorced or separated. It seems anomalous that the jurisdiction of the courts should be complete in one case and limited in the other, bearing in mind, of course, that the main objective which one considers the law of the land should aim at, is to provide some machinery by which the happiness and the welfare of the children can in all circumstances be safeguarded. I should explain that the position as I have just outlined it, namely, with regard to proceedings between parties who are neither divorced or separated, has been to some extent mitigated by section 58 of the Children’s Act of 1937. That section makes certain provision for depriving the father of the guardianship of children when he has proved himself to be an utterly unsatisfactory and incompetent person to look after the child. I hope the House will accept my assurance that that section deals with only very exceptional cases; it certainly does not cover the whole ground. It leaves the position that many instances may arise such as those outlined by the hon. member for Jeppes, where the position of the father is predominant, and where the courts are powerless to intervene. So, in short, all the Bill sets out to do is first of all to set the position beyond all question where divorce or separation is in existence, and secondly to abolish a serious anomaly, a grave injustice, where the parties are not divorced or separated; in other words, to bring the law in those two respects into harmony. And as the hon. member for Jeppes has said, one asks for support for this Bill not only because it puts the position of women on a more equitable basis, but because it is the only way in which the welfare and happiness of the children can be amply safeguarded. In conclusion, I have, in supporting the Bill, referred only to its main clauses, in other words to the clauses which bring about equality between husband and wife. The Bill has certain subsidiary clauses which deal with the machinery which it will be necessary to set up if that principle is accepted. I do not propose to deal with these subsidiary clauses. I think it may well be when the Bill goes into Committee, that those clauses may have to be modified in certain minor respects. I think therefore it would be premature to deal with them at this stage. I confine myself, therefore, to the main clauses, to the principles of the Bill, and for the reasons I have given, I ask the House to support it.

The hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) in her eloquent speech here today, ably supported as she was by the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Stratford), has stated that this is a very simple Bill. I do not want to dispute that, but it raises questions of very grave importance, and I think that these questions and these issues should be thoroughly examined before the House is asked to express an opinion on them. The Government is not opposed to the principle of the Bill, but I wish to move an amendment to this effect, as follows—

I second.

I very rarely agree with the hon. the Minister of Justice but on this occasion I agree with him a hundred per cent. We are dealing here with a very important principle of law which the hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) is tampering with. This principle of law which has existed for many centuries, especially among the Germanic people, and it is to this effect, that the father is the guardian of his family. And now the hon. member wants to interfere and she wants to alter this important principle by dividing the guardianship which would bring about a divided responsibility. If we look at what Grotius said about this matter we must realise how ill advised it will be to bring about such a division. I have here an English translation of Grotius’ work and in it we find, among other things, that he said this—

Now, that principle has prevailed for many centuries. The hon. member for Jeppes has referred the House to a few cases which were tried in our courts. Those are cases which could be solved under the ordinary Common Law in accordance with existing principles. She told the House of a father who in his will provided that the woman with whom he had been living in sin was to be the guardian of his children. The mother was entitled to object to that, and to go to court and put forth reasons to show why in that case effect should not be given to the conditions of the will. In 1939 there was the case of Calitz vs. Calitz in the Appeal Court, and the judgment in that case contained the following—

If the hon. member for Jeppes had devised some procedure or other under which there would not have been so many applications to court, so that the power could have been given to some other party — which could not have been a good principle — we could still have considered the proposition, but we find at the moment that the position is such that in every instance where difficulty arises and the parent is anxious about the welfare of the child, the court is there for the parent to appeal to. Under the Roman Dutch Law the court is the supreme guardian, and if the mother thinks that the child’s morals will be adversely influenced by the guardian appointed by the father, she can apply to court. That is the principle contained in the judgment in the case of Calitz vs. Calitz from which I have just quoted. There are other cases as well. We come across the same principle in the matter of Cook vs. Cook in the Appeal Court in 1937. In that case it was also laid down that wherever circumstances arose as a result of which the parent became anxious about the welfare of the child, or wherever there were influences adverse to the wellbeing of the child, the parent could apply to court. The hon. member for Jeppes also gave the House to understand that South Africa was the only country in the world where this particular problem had to be dealt with; she gave the House to understand that the mothers in this country were the only mothers in the world who were placed in such a subordinate position. If the hon. member will read the case of Calitz vs. Calitz she will find that the appeal judge, Mr. Justice Tindall, mentioned that the law which was in force in South Africa, was also in force in Scotland, and the hon. member will find that in the matter of Cook vs. Cook the very same thing was said as regards the law in England. There the law is no different from what it is here. Legislation was introduced but even there the court is the supreme guardian of the child. The hon. member, however, thinks that quite possibly there is no remedy in a case where the mother’s life is made so unpleasant that she is forced to leave the father, and to take her children with her, and the father in such a case refuses to maintain the children. We have the Children’s Act, Act No. 31 of 1937, and I think the hon. member should read Clause 58 of that Act which lays down the procedure in regard to depriving the father of his authority as a father. The mother has a right to lay the facts before the court, and she has the right to tell the court that the father is neglecting the children, that he is not supporting them, and that conditions are such that she is unable to support the children, but that she and the children are unable to stay with the father. If she satisfies the court that the position is as she states it to be she is not only given the custody of the children but the father has to contribute to the support of the children. This Bill, therefore, is quite unnecessary, and I again want to emphasise that the mothers in South Africa are not the only ones who are in a subordinate position. There are other nations in Western Europe where we find an exactly similar position. Now, touching on the Bill itself I want to say that it will be a paradise for the lawyers, because the parents who are living together today and who are carrying on may quarrel about something; say, for instance, about the education of the children, and they will at once apply to the courts. The one parent will sue the other. Take the appointment of guardians. Both will have the right of appointing guardians in their wills. The father has the right and the mother has the right. Assuming both parents die, there will then be two guardians for the minor children, and if they quarrel we shall again have this whole procedure of their having to apply to court to put an end to their differences. No, the hon. member should rather go into the history of the whole case and she should carefully study the complications and the implications of this Bill, and if she does so she will find that it is an impracticable proposition. Our community has been built up on the system which has prevailed over the last two or three hundred years, and the supreme guardianship which rests with the Court acts to the protection of the child. That is the safety valve which exists to see to it that the rights of the parents are not unnecessarily interfered with. That being so, I want to appeal to the hon. member to accept the Minister’s amendment.

I have heard with a great deal of pleasure that the Government is not against the principle of the Bill. Therefore, I am going to accept the Minister’s amendment. I would have preferred that the House should first accept the principle of the Bill and then the details might well have been settled in Select Committee. But nevertheless I am prepared to accept the amendment because the Government has made the statement, which I am sure the women of this country will hear with pleasure, that it is not against the principle of my Bill. For these reasons I do not think that I need deal with the arguments put forward by the hon. member who has just spoken.

At any rate you cannot do so at, this stage.

No, I shall leave him to put those points in Select Committee.

I am supporting the second reading of this Bill on behalf of my party, not merely because of the personal charm of the mover or because of her forensic ability and persuasiveness.…

A guilty conscience needs no accuser.

Though these are factors which must influence any person of proper sensibility. Nor am I supporting this Bill just because it is a women’s Bill. I definitely do not subscribe to the fact that women are infallibly right at all times. I dare not, being a married man, and self-preservation being a primitive law of nature. We have also in memory the classic and ancient case of Eve’s misdemeanour in the Garden of Eden, which indirectly occasioned Adam to don his first austerity apparel. In the interests of historical accuracy perhaps I may be allowed gently to deprecate the opening lines of Mr. Milton’s Paradise Lost: “Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit of that forbidden tree.” In point of fact, of course, and quite clearly, the original disobedience was woman’s, though she did not hold the record very long. Now, our first reason for supporting this Bill is that it is in the nature of a children’s charter, and as such it is long overdue. The main consideration, as the mover of the second reading has shown, is the welfare of the children, and we see in the carfeul cultivation of that welfare the fortune and the happiness of the future citizens of this country, and the strength of our nation in the years to come. I have recently been reading a book by Mr. Willcox, who was Chief Inspector of Schools in England until 1942, and he had this to say, that the very calves in the stalls of that great country were better cared for and better fed than the mass of the children of the British Isles. He bewailed the fact that property still occupied, in many minds, a higher place than human life. And so we on these benches welcome thoroughly this piece of legislation, which calls our attention to the fact that the child is the father of the man, and in safeguarding the young we are conserving our truest wealth. We support this Bill again because the existing South African law is disgracefully unfair towards women. They are discriminated against as women; they are penalised, no matter how high their character and intellect may be, simply and solely on account of their sex. It is maybe not altogether and always a safe thing for members to quote in this place the letters they have received from women, but I have a communication here from a lady which sums up the position and it should be in Hansard. It is from the chairman of the S.A. League of Women Voters and she has summarised the disabilities of women in this way—

“Warring” upon her feelings, Sir, would surely have been a more true and exact description of this procedure, but the choice of words was not, unfortunately, left to me. I would only comment on this state of affairs, that such arrangements might perhaps be tolerable in a society of Bushmen—and Bushwomen; but certainly not in any country which, like South Africa, claims to be a modern civilised state. And finally we support this Bill because it is a good thing, it is obviously fair and right, that the custody and guardianship of a child should be evenly divided between the two, the mother and the father, and that the rights and the responsibility should be shared equally as well. That is an obvious truth. Admittedly, the truth is sometimes overlooked, even by lawyers. This is a matter which we have overlooked in our law for more than 300 years, and the argument of the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) really tells in favour of the Bill; the fact that it has gone on for so long is the strongest reason for its now being changed. The most important thing is that the welfare of the child is to be the main consideration, and that the Courts are to be, in some sense, trustees for the happiness of orphaned children. While we approve on the whole of paragraph 8 of this Bill, my party is not at all certain that the concluding portion of section (2) would be acceptable or likely to work smoothly; but this will no doubt come under full and careful examination by the Select Committee. We have pleasure in expressing our support of this Bill, and in complimenting the hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Solomon) on introducing a very useful, timely, and patriotic measure.

Even without the assistance and the able presentation of the case for the Bill by the mover and seconder, to whom I am sure the House listened with extreme pleasure, I should have been prepared to give the Bill wholehearted support. If the mover is prepared, however, to accept the amendment then I for my part am satisfied. Listening to the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) one could not but help wonder whether in these days the correct approach to an important social problem was what Grotius said some centuries ago, or whether is was to consider the matter in the light of realities born of experience. Perhaps it would be as well if this matter did go, even before the acceptance of the principle, to a Select Committee, because it does touch not merely on a legal but on a social problem. Those who see an anomaly in the relationship in love of a mother and her children see in it a reflection of the unjustifiable inferior status of married women. That is but one aspect of the problem. The issue is a very much wider one. If this Bill goes to a Select Committee I hope it will be possible for the Select Committee to report to the House that the matter goes very much further than the question of guardianship. One of the dangers of dealing with a question of this kind piecemeal is the conflict which often does arise. We have it in this case, where the mover has been obliged, because it was inevitable to stumble over something which is part of another Bill which we are going to have introduced in due course, touching on the property rights of married women. I have already said that as to the principle of this Bill. I am wholeheartedly in accord with it. I hope if this Bill goes to a Select Committee, that that Committee will be able to give consideration to the wider aspect, and in turn give consideration to an aspect of the matter which troubles so many of us, and that is the question of costs in these cases. The Bill which we have before us bristles with potential applications to court. If the matter is examined in the light of its wider aspect it may be possible for the Select Committee also to give consideration to what is a real difficulty for women when they have, in seeking justice, to make application to court, namely the question of costs.

Had it not been for the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) the House would probably have been prepared to let the matter go. The Minister has suggested an amendment which obviously was going to be accepted, and was accepted by the hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon). But I would like to say a few words on this occasion in view of what the hon. member for Gordonia said. He gave us a number of interesting readings from cases and at one time he seemed to indicate that there was no necessity for this Bill because the principles of the Bill were being carried out by the judges now. At another time he based himself on the slogan that this Bill is a revolutionary measure which seeks to upset the usages and practices of some hundreds of years. These two points of view did not seem to me to be very consistent. We have had the presentation of the Bill in a very able form, both by the mover and the seconder, and I agree with what the seconder indicated, that this Bill was not as revolutionary as some people think, and here I commend one thing that the hon. member for Gordonia said, namely, that we have our Children’s Act which protects our children, but what I would draw the hon. member’s attention to is this. He spoke of the law in Scotland and of our law, but the hon. member should remember that both the law of Scotland and the Roman Dutch Law are based on the Roman Law, and the hon. member for Jeppes I think did not go far enough in her remarks because the principles which are sought to be amended are not the principles of Van Riebeeck—those principles go much further back, they are the principles of the old Roman Law, that is, the Patria potestas, under which the father has the right of life and death over his children and wife. This particular principle which the hon. member for Jeppes seeks to alter is entirely based on the old Patria potestas. That law gives the father the right over his wife and children. The father was the absolute ruler —he was the Fuehrer of the household. Now, it is the old Roman Law which the hon. member for Gordonia really supports. In practice you will find that in most cases the courts, as the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Stratford) so ably pointed out, have followed a certain course which has acted very well. Although the father may be entitled to custody no court will give the father custody of a child below the age of four years unless the mother for special reasons is totally unfit to look after her child. That is the usual practice. Where there is a contest between the father and the mother—in a case of separation or divorce—and the child is of tender years, the court almost invariably gives the mother custody. I agree with the hon. member for Parktown that it is very difficult to say what the law is. The statement of the law sometimes refers to children up to four years, and sometimes to children of three years of age. But the fact is that the court considers the paramount position today, namely, what are the interests of the children? There are cases in respect of which the law makes no provision, and where the court in actions where there is no divorce or separation, has to give possession to the father, because it is only in exceptional cases that the law will interfere with the old Roman principles. That being the position I contend that there is sound reason for the introduction of this Bill. It is not an unnecessary Bill. I look upon this as a piece of social justice for women. To some members it may appear theoretical, but after all, when people are suffering under a sense of injustice they want to see the law put right, and they want to be treated on a basis of absolute equality. Now, this Bill is simply due to the provisions of the old law under which women were regarded as inferior beings, and under which they had no rights of their own. So far we have been giving justice to women in South Africa by instalments. One would like to see a comprehensive measure introduced, but in the absence of a comprehensive measure, members are not only entitled but deserve commendation for taking steps to the best of their ability, and for bringing forward bills to remedy an injustice. We have another hon. member bringing forward another instalment of social justice for women. I was very glad to hear from the Minister that the Government is in favour of the principle. In the ordinary way when you are in favour of the principle of a bill you agree to the second reading being taken before sending it to a Select Committee. But I can quite see that in a case like this it might be more helpful to the women of South Africa to move, as the Minister has done, that the Bill go to a select committee before the second reading, because we are rigidly bound by rules and orders, and it is very difficult sometimes to get amendments into a bill once the second reading has been agreed to. But as the Minister of Justice has stated, that he is not opposed to the principle, I think the hon. member for Jeppes was well advised in accepting the amendment so that after the select committee has dealt with the matter a new bill may be placed before this House. It took a long time for the women of South Africa to be given equal rights; South Africa was one of the last countries in the world to give the vote to women, and then only to some of the women, not all of the women of South Africa. But they have given it to a substantial portion of the women of South Africa. They were very slow in giving it, but once they granted equal rights as far as the vote was concerned, and recognised that woman was on an absolute equality with all the other citzens of South Africa, then I say they should have taken steps to see that all the laws which contained any sort of differentiation against women, and laws which contained any sort of inequality against women, were altered so as to make the women of South Africa complete and equal citizens. And as this Bill tries to do that by giving them one particular instalment and removing one injustice, I think it deserves the support of all sections of the House.

Amendment proposed by the Minister of Justice, put and agreed to.

The motion now before the House is the consequence of the famous speech made in London by the Prime Minister. When I read that speech in the newspaper I felt that it was the most outstanding speech the Prime Minister had made in his whole life. At that stage, when darkness prevailed in the world, when the world was passing through one of its most difficult periods, our Prime Minister made that speech which gave us the feeling that he was really acting as a guiding star in the darkness. That speech brought hope. That speech inspired many people who had become despondent.

It was a star which exploded.

We saw the difficulties in which the world found itself, and that speech of our Prime Minister gave a lead to a world which was in deep darkness, and it caused mankind to think, and in the thoughts which the speech inspired many new things were born. Our Prime Minister, on the occasion of that speech in London, only wanted to put some tentative thoughts before the world, thoughts which would lead to cogitation and discussion, so that a joint policy might come forth. But in those tentative thoughts we find for the first time a possibility of the solution of the burning problems of the world. That speech delivered by our Prime Minister in London could only have been delivered by a man such as our Prime Minister—a Statesman able to look ahead, a Statesmen who has passed through the turmoil, through the agony and the throes of the birth of a nation.

Why are you stumbling such a lot?

You know you are not allowed to read your speech.

Such a speech could only have been delivered by a farseeing Statesman who has passed through the throes of a great battle. In that speech we do not find any sign of vindictiveness towards the enemy, but only the ideology of Nazism and Fascism, and immediately that ideology is unconditionally abandoned the people of Germany and Italy will again assume their rightful places among the nations of the world. That speech was a compresenhive one. In that speech we could all see a ray of light and hope after the long struggle through the morass of despair. We all find in that speech an inspiration once again to strive for a better life. We in South Africa are grateful that we have a Leader who is able to make such a speech at the most critical period in the history of the nations of the world. We are grateful for the lead he has given, but the hon. the Leader of the Opposition now asks that we should secede from the Commonwealth of Nations and establish our own Republic.

Hear, hear.

My hon. friends opposite say “hear, hear”. I wonder whether they have forgotten that not so very long ago those same people who now say “hear, hear,” said: “Republicanism cannot bring us any greater freedom than we already have”. I say that this motion for the foundation of a Republic is not seriously intended. This motion is nothing but propaganda for party political purposes. This motion is intended to exploit the feelings of one section of our people for party political purposes, and it is that exploitation of the National sentiment of South Africa which is the cause of the Opposition sitting where it is today. It is the reason why the number of Opposition members is as small as it is today. It is that exploitation which is the cause of it.

Are you opposed to a Republic?

I entirely agree with what the Leader of the Opposition said in 1926, namely that we cannot achieve any greater freedom under a republican form of government.

In other words you don’t want a Republic?

We are not going to quarrel about that. The Leader of the Opposition has come before this House, and he has stated that the proposal of this Party means that we should secede from the Commonwealth and establish a Republic in South Africa. I want to remind the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition and hon. members opposite that at one time, not so very long ago, many of them thought that Hitler had the world at his feet. And when Hitler thought that he had achieved his ideal of world domination. But what happened? The British Commonwealth of Nations in that hour came to the fore and for a solid year stood alone against the most powerful assaults of armoured powers the world had ever seen. There was a time when the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition and hon. members opposite openly cheered what was happening. They said that the war was over. Britain had unconditionally lost the war, and they said we should make a separate peace. The great Commonwealth of Nations stood alone that whole year and opposed the most powerful assaults from armoured forces. This Commonwealth of Nations, of which we are a member, by its action, has assured the freedom of mankind for hundreds of years. And now hon. members opposite ask us to secede from that Commonwealth, and they want us to establish a Republic! They ask us today to say farewell to our friends, and to the members of the Commonwealth, and they ask us to establish a Republic here in South Africa at a time when the world finds itself in this precarious position. Fortunately on the 4th September we followed the lead, not of the Leader of the Opposition but of our present Prime Minister.

You did not follow the lead of the late General Hertzog.

We did not follow the lead of General Hertzog, nor did we follow the lead of the Leader of the Opposition. We followed the lead of our Prime Minister, and if we think of all that has happened in the last four years we must own to a sense of gratitude that on the 4th September we followed the lead of the Prime Minister.

Are you now talking about the coloured people in your constituency?

For four years they challenged us to allow the people to decide and to say whether we had the support of the people, and on the 7th July we went to the polls, and what was the people’s verdict? Never before in the history of this country has the policy of the Government been approved of by such an overwhelming majority. On the 7th July the people of South Africa rejected the Republic of the Opposition. But now they come here and ask us to establish a Republic. It seems to me that the Opposition has nothing that it can offer this country. The Opposition is incompetent and unable to deal with social and economic problems such as those which have to be solved. There are a great many social and economic problems, yet the first proposal they place before the House is this one. They ask us to establish a Republic. If we had followed the lead of the Leader of the Opposition on the 4th September, if we had followed his lead after the fall of Tobruk —I wonder what the condition of the people of this country would have been today. I am convinced that we would have gone through all the turmoil and difficulties which the countries of Europe have to pass through today. Everyone who beholds what is going on in Europe today must be animated by a feeling of sorrow for those people. After all the dangers that have been threatening us we are here in South Africa today safe and secure. The dark clouds which threatened us have vanished. Here we have freedom—here we meet together and under a condition of democratic freedom the Opposition has the right to come here and introduce a ridiculous proposal such as the one now before us. I am convinced that the people of South Africa owe a debt of gratitude to the Prime Minister for the lead he has given. I listened to the speech coming from the Leader of the Opposition and I listened to the speech of the hon. member for Ceres (Dr. Stals), and I observed a very great change in the tone of those speeches. One no longer notices that bitterness which we used to notice two or three years ago. There is a great improvement.

Could not you improve as well?

There is more friendship.

But you are still embittered.

That bitterness of the past is disappointing because the people have rejected the hon. members opposite. They realise that it is no use being embittered.

If you live long enough you may yet become a Nationalist.

I shall have something to say to the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) very shortly. In the four years that have passed, in the four years during which our young Afrikaners have been defending the freedom of their people, certain things have occurred which we deplore. It is no pleasure to me to remind hon. members over there of what the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition have been doing in those four years. No, it is no pleasure to me. I am a Dutch speaking Afrikaner, just the same as they are.

Only you are on the wrong side.

It is no pleasure to me to remind them of those things, but I feel I would be lacking in my duty if I did not remind them and the people of what they have been doing in those years of difficulty. I remember only too well how the Leader of the Opposition at the time Italy declared war thought that England was finished.

Your Prime Minister also says that England is finished.

What happened in this House when we remained loyal and faithful to the agreement we had entered into? When we loyally stood by the Commonwealth of Nations as a member of that Commonwealth, and when we declared war against Italy? Let me remind the hon. member for Waterberg of what he said. He got up here and said: “We shall refuse to fight against Italy because because Italy is too strong for us”. I think the hon. member himself must be ashamed when he remembers it.

No, I would only be ashamed if I were to proclaim an untruth, such as the hon. member has just proclaimed.

Naturally, we shall have to forget those things afterwards.

Quote it from Hansard.

It is in Hansard.

Then why don’t you quote it?

You don’t know Afrikaans.

I shall prove it. Hon. members opposite declared: “All you people have done is to bring in the Italians to come and shoot us”, but what happened? The Italians are here today as prisoners-of-war— they did not come here as victors to shoot us. The Italians today are working for hon. members opposite, and all this we owe to the lead by the Prime Minister. We do not owe it to the lead or the guidance of the Leader of the Opposition. Just let me remind hon. members opposite of facts. When we entered the war against Italy there was a demonstrataion and a great many women and young girls asked for permission to march, in Voortrekker clothes, to the Union Buildings so that they might request the Prime Minister to make an unconditional peace with Italy. They talk of love of South Africa! The Hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Ceres spoke about loyalty to South Africa, and the love we should bear South Africa. Is that love of South Africa? Is it love of South Africa when our country has declared war against another country, and when—as everyone has to admit today, our freedom was threatened— to ask that we should unconditionally make peace? The late General Hertzog often said when Mussolini had conquered Abyssinia that we were in danger. But what did they do then? They organised a demonstration to march up to Union Buildings to request the Prime Minister unconditionally to make peace.

You know that that is untrue.

I know that they are ashamed of it. I am sorry for them, but I prefer to see some of those hon. members suffering today rather than that the whole nation should suffer.

The deputation was a spontaneous one.

They are ashamed of that now; that is why there are so many interruptions. What happened? When South Africa suffered a serious defeat at Tobruk— did hon. members opposite sympathise with us? These are matters I want to remind them of now, and I want to remind the people of South Africa of these things. When South Africa suffered a defeat they cheered. I was at Burghersdorp on the 15th August, 1942.

And they chucked you out.

The Leader of the Opposition was there and they cheered the defeat which we had suffered. They said that England had hopelessly lost the war, and that they had only one option and that was a separate peace, and the only man who could conclude this separate peace was the Leader of the Opposition because he was friendly disposed towards Mussolini and Hitler. I wonder whether hon. members opposite feel ashamed when they are reminded of these things. But what did the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister say? When hon. members over there shouted that everything was hopelessly lost our Prime Minister spoke over the wireless and said: “Tobruk must be avenged”, he asked for 7,000 volunteers; and what happened? He got not 7,000 but 21,000 volunteers.

You should not disclose any military secrets here. “Don’t talk about ships or shipping.”

And what happened when our safety was threatened by Japan?

Where?

I quite appreciate why the Leader of the Opposition is not in his seat today. It would not be very pleasant for him to have to listen to these things. What happened when Japan menaced us? The Leader of the Opposition made a speech and we heard how the Prime Minister of Japan praised him and held him up as a great statesman. He sought the friendship of Japan. For many years hon. members opposite talked contemptuously about the British Navy. Time and again they asked: “Where is the British Navy”? Had it not been for the work of the British Navy and the American Navy at Ceylon—I wonder what would have happened to South Africa. And now that we are able to breathe in safety, now they come forward and ask for secession and for the establishment of a Republic! Are they in earnest? No, it is nothing but party exploitation—that is all it is. I want to come back for a moment to the hon. member for Waterberg. We know what he said here. He tells us now that he did not say it. Of course, it is quite easy to deny everything. The hon. members for Ceres told us the other day that we should create a common patriotism. I quite agree with him, because if we can create a common patriotism many of our troubles will disappear. The hon. member for Waterberg visited my constituency at the time of the elections. I put the question to him, “Are you not proud of the acts of heroism of our young Afrikaners up North, of the Acts of heroism of our young Afrikaners in assisting to drive the Germans out of Africa?” And do you know what his answer was? He said: “It is not the Englishman or the Afrikaners who have driven the Germans out of Africa, it is the Americans.”

That’s quite correct.

The hon. member will deny it now.

I do not deny it, I say it is quite correct.

He made that statement before a large meeting of 400 to 500 people. He said it was not the English or the Afrikaners who had driven the Germans out of Africa but the Americans. I could go on and remind the House of all these things. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition stood up here the other day, and with a cry of despair asked where South Africa was going to be after this war. Let me answer his question and let me tell him where we are going to be. As far as I can see this country is going to be a free sovereign country after the war. We are going to be stronger than ever before. Our history has become all the richer. We shall be able to look the world in the face. The hon. member asked where are we going to be. Let me ask again, where would we have been if we had followed the lead of the Opposition. It is because we have followed the lead and the guidance of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister that after this war we shall be a free sovereign state.

Are you not free yet?

We are free, but our freedom was threatened, and the hon. member was not man enough to come forward to help in the defence of our country.

Where were you and the people who voted for war?

We defended our freedom. After this war we shall be a free country; we shall have retained our self-respect; we shall be Afrikaners who will be able to look the people of any other country in the face. We have stood our man. We have not hidden behind neutrality. Our men have gone forth to defend our freedom, and we shall have the right to take our place among the free nations. A worthy place, because we have made our contribution to victory. They ask where we shall be. We shall have the right to look any other country in the face. When our freedom was threatened our sons went up North. We think of that brave man, Dan Pienaar. We think of our brave young men and what they did at El Alamein when they rescued the world from Nazism. And when we were threatened, what did the hon. member for Waterberg say? He said that if the Italians threatened us he was not going to fight, but Dan Pienaar and our young Afrikaners went forth and defended our freedom. On that 16th December, a great day in the history of South Africa, they struck the first blow to score a victory over the modern barbarism of Nazism and Fascism. Yes, the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (General Kemp) sits there and smiles but these are things which will count in the history of our Afrikaner nation. Where will South Africa be? South Africa has forced the world to respect her; it has enriched its history by the acts of heroism of its sons who fought side by side with the citizens of other members of the Commonwealth of Nations. All I can say is this: We can breathe freely once again. The dangers are past. We are proud of being Afrikaners, and we thank General Smuts for the lead he has given the people.

I wish to move an amendment—

It is almost inconceivable that on the very eve of the, most, awful crisis of this war— when the lives of hundreds of thousands of the fighting men of the Empire and our Allies will be exposed to the most deadly risks in breaching the Fortress of Europe— that a motion of the kind introduced by the Leader of the Opposition, defeatist in form, discouraging to the spirit of all our troops and calculated to hearten the enemy as continued proof of the existence of a Fifth Column in this country, should be tabled in this House. The speech delivered on Saturday from the Throne by His Excellency the Acting Governor-General, stressed the immensity of the task still before us and our thanks and gratitude to our soldiers, sailors and airmen and all on the home front: and this record of appreciation is a true echo of the feelings held by the vast majority of the people of South Africa, as the results of the recent elections show beyond all cavil or question. It can well be imagined with what a shock all these devoted men and women will read of the views entertained by the Opposition in this House of the purpose of their great efforts and sacrifices. They have left their homes to fight for truth and freedom, for the overthrow of a vile and hateful regime intent on dominating the world and reducing Africa and its inhabitants to the status of serfs, toiling for the benefit of a self-styled “Herren Volk.” To overthrow these aims thousands have already given their lives: thousands are willing still to make the supreme sacrifice for the benefit of their country: but according to the terms of the motion all their efforts and valour are to be frustrated and rendered futile by treachery on the home front—by the overthrow of the Constitution for which they have been fighting and for the destruction of a vital link in the constitutional structure of the great Empire which they are helping to protect and maintain. The hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) will, by his motion, earn, as he has so often done, the plaudits of Zeesen, he will earn the curses of every soldier who sees the prospect of all his work undone and in place of a peaceful home to which he can return, a land torn by internal strife, bitterness and hatred brought about by this latest manifestation of support for the ultimate purposes for which Hitler and his minions plunged the world in war. The plain duty of this House, at this awful moment of the war, is to repudiate this Nazi-inspired and defeatist attitude by an expression of appreciation, in conformity with His Excellency’s speech of all that has been done by our brave defenders and it is on that note that my amendment opens. I am confident that this House cannot fail to endorse it. But I go further, I stigmatise the motion as unlawful and revolutionary. It is to those of us who have spent many years in this House the same old barren cry of the so-called right to secession that, at any rate from. 1910 to 1934, was always repudiated by the House. I know that hon. gentlemen opposite, in what I shall always hold to be a misguided moment when they submitted to the leadership of Gen. Hertzog, committed themselves, in their programme of principles, to the acknowledgment of the right to advocate the legitimacy of republicanism. My friends and I have always, and will always, repudiate this so-called right. Secession (or republicanism—the terms are synonymous) is not constitutional but revolutionary. So was it described by the late Sir Patrick Duncan (before he became Governor-General) on the 9th April, 1934, when counselling hon. members to support the Status Bill: and so indeed has it been held by the Court of Appeal in England in the highly significant case of Murray vs. Parkes decided just two years ago, and still holding the field as an authoritative repudiation of the distorted so-called right, of secession which has been the occasion of so much misery and ill-feeling in this country. The hon. member for Piquetberg seeks by his motion to overthrow the very basis of the Act of Union, without which that great constitutional Act would never have come into being. I repeat the substance of the words of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister in the City Hall in Cape Town in 1941, when he declared that the people of this Union would never tolerate any attempt to overthrow or destroy that great compact. On that occasion he said—

He went on—

I would remind this House that in 1942, when the hon. member for Piquetberg attempted to carry a motion similar in effect to the present one, that this House emphatically rejected it and on the contrary affirmed its determination to retain its membership of the British Empire, a resolution which can be taken to have been irrevocably endorsed by the people of the Union in the magnificent demonstration of loyalty and allegiance evinced at the General Election in July 1943. The slogan on which that election was won still rings out clear and true: “Remember your loyalty and honour your duty.” Thousands of election advertisements throughout the Union made this appeal. Here and in Natal in particular, for which I can claim to speak, 99 per cent. of the voters supported it, and repudiated, as we asked them to do, republicanism and all its works, as treasonable and treacherous and destructive of the future of the Union. The Leader of the Opposition has attempted to gild the pill by some suave references to “the principles of democracy and the equal language and cultural rights of both sections of the white population. He very subtly makes no reference to their political rights, and I may remind the House of a very illuminating index of his real intentions in this respect by referring to the draft constitution published on the 3rd July, 1941 (when he believed Germany was bound to win the war) published, I may say, under the imprimatur of the German eagle and under which it was proposed that after the overthrow of the Constitution, political power should for an indefinite time be exercised by a small junta of generals (or gauleiters) whose job it would be to extirpate all so-called “unnational elements”—meaning his opponents; persons would be divided into two classes, “burgers” and “a subject class,” the latter having no votes. A Volksleier—not responsible to Parliament—would direct the Executive Government. All political opposition would be eliminated. (In fact when the hon. gentleman today talks of freedom to form political parties, he means I suppose that one party only would be in power and all others in prison). “Parasites” and “unnational elements” would be deprived of their businesses and (if not expelled) relegated to unreserved occupations. Indeed, Sir, the scheme then sponsored was indistinguishable from its Nazi prototype and so behind the present facade of simulated conciliation is the republic of which his motion speaks. I turn away from this scheme of calculated duplicity to the great practical question of imperial politics now in course of active and practical discussion in every part of the Empire and elsewhere. I refer to the steps to be taken to ensure complete Empire unity on defence, foreign policy and economic development. The Dominions’ have had in the last few years a most expensive lesson in the realities of international politics. South Africa has had a particularly painful one. From December, 1941, until quite recently our eastern coasts lay unprotected and practically at the mercy of the Japanese fleet. We know now of the dangerous situation in the Mediterranean in the first few months of 1942 when as Mr. Morrison pointed out recently we had not a single capital ship available in that area. We have learnt what the country had never before realised that new and powerful forces have arisen in the East, forces we shall surely destroy before the end of this war, but forces brought into being by events and circumstances which might conceivably recur in the next generation. From these terrible dangers we were eventually saved by the Royal Navy, which, thanks to the goodness of providence, has kept watch and ward over this country and brought us hitherto through with safety and without local loss. On the whole indifference to naval and air defence has disappeared. Australia and New Zealand have shown by the proceedings of the Canberra Conference last week and the discussions that preceded them in their respective Parliaments that they are determined to be associated in a scheme of common defence with the rest of the Empire. Canada has done the same, and in all the Parliaments of the Empire men’s minds are turning over plans to secure that never again shall the Empire be found unprepared, as it was so largely in September, 1939. Our own case in South Africa at that time was the worst of all. We had a Department of Defence, without plan or preparation, under the guidance of a man who, as events showed, was a broken reed, upon who, no dependence could be placed.

On a point of order, is the hon. member permitted to read his speech?

I think the hon. member is refreshing his memory from copious notes.

I hope the day will not be long deferred when a full investigation will be made into the state into which that Department had then fallen. I have no time today to point to that fearful example of official neglect and dissimulation. The lesson so plain and obvious is that we we must revert to the agreements for common defence South Africa accepted in 1923, 1926 and 1930 at the Imperial Conferences then held. The Conference shortly to be held will be as important as any ever convened since 1887. All these great questions will again come up, under the pressure of great and terrible events. No room now remains for ambiguous and evasive formulae. South Africa, in particular, has declared, through her voters, her determination to see this Empire war through to a victorious end: and to establish peace on such sure and sound foundations that we and our children and our children’s children will never be called on again to face so dreadful a threat to our very existence. No better means of ensuring that the Empire, into which we were born, and in which we hope to die, will continue to exist than to provide for its common defence, for a common policy in foreign affairs and for great schemes of common economic development by which we can help to avoid the causes of war, by which we can avert mass unemployment, we can increase our national income by expanding trade and ever-extending development. Monday’s cable news after I had already framed my amendment brought us a thoughtful speech from Lord Halifax, the British Ambassador to the United States on this very question, speaking to Canada. And he said this, if I may be allowed to quote from his remarks—

And he goes on to say—

These are the great practical question of the day, after we have helped to fulfil the paramount task of winning the war, and by my amendment I seek to direct the attention of the Government to them in the hope that they will receive its immediate and earnest attention.

In seconding the amendment of the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) I wish to draw the attention of the House to a most extraordinary occurence which took place on Saturday last. In this House before the Chief Justice the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) subscribed to the following affirmation—

That was an affirmation taken by the hon. member. Some two hours later, or less, we had the hon. member for Piquetberg moving a motion in which these words occur—

Mark those words “the loyal maintenance” and on his own words he was absolutely disloyal at the time he moved his motion. Now the world will look with horror upon this, and the just retribution that would have been meted out to the hon. member in many countries, particularly in enemy countries, is not “shot at dawn” but shot in five minutes. A thing like this could only have happened in South Africa. I know of no other country in the world where such a thing could have been tolerated or even suggested, and if I am correct in my recollection of Mr. Carson’s definition of treason in a celebrated trial in England during the last war, his definition of treason was “Words or actions which comfort the King’s enemies.” If those words used in the motion of the hon. member for Piquetberg do not fall within that definition, then I am unintelligent! I contend that the amendment of the hon. member for Pinetown is a more worthy motion to be considered by the House than that of the hon. member for Piquetberg. During the delivery of the hon. member’s speech I heard a very pertinent remark from the hon. member for Hospital Hill (Mr. Barlow). It was an interjection, but I think it correctly describes exactly what the hon. member for Piquetberg meant. The hon. member for Hospital Hill said: “Why don’t you move a vote of no confidence in the people of South Africa?” That, I think, summed up the case very intelligently indeed. For years past at the beginning of every session with the exception of last year, we have had this motion regarding the declaration in South Africa of a republican constitution; and the House has wasted days, and I may say nights and all-night sessions, discussing this matter of a republic. I think that after the verdict of the country in the last election that the hon. member for Piquetberg would be very well advised not to bring a motion such as this on the floor of the House on any future occasion. Let him be content that he has accomplished a most extraordinary feat in proposing a motion of this sort in a dominion of the British Crown. And may I say that I hope that the people of South Africa will properly vlaue …

You mean the people of Natal.

No, I am saying that I hope the people of the Union of South Africa will appreciate the purpose and the efficacy of a motion such as has been presented to us by the hon. member for Piquetberg. I think that there is little to be said in furtherance of the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Pinetown. It has covered the ground very extensively, and he has dealt with the component parts of his amendment most adequately. I feel it is a good amendment, and it is one that expresses the will and the pleasure of the majority not only of the members of this House, but of the great majority of the people of South Africa.

Having listened to the last two speeches we can only come to this conclusion, that it is useless for us on this side of the House to try and explain to such members and those who think as they do in South Africa, what this side of the House really stands for, because the position so far as they are concerned is, as the old saying goes, “None so blind as those who will not see”. So far as the other part of their amendment is concerned—I do not want to go into the question of a Republic—I propose in the course of my remarks to reply to that through the mouths of their own people. When we come to the Government side we can say that we have had only two contributions to the debate, namely the speech by the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister and a speech by the hon. member for Kimberley District (Mr. Steytler)—who is usually not in his seat. In regard to the hon. member for Kimberley District I want to remind the House that he spoke of a dark and sinister world, and he said that suddenly certain stars had arisen to show us the light. While listening to him we got the impression that the hon. member was still in a state of pitch darkness, that he had not seen any light yet, and that he was totally unable to cast any light on the difficult problems facing the world today. He made us think of a star, but it was a falling star. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister the other day, in his reply to the motion of the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition, admitted that the motion proposed by this side of the House raised some of the most important and greatest problems with which the world was faced at the moment. But what was the contribution made by the Prime Minister in this House towards the solution of those important problems occupying the attention of the world today? The Prime Minister tried to ridicule this side of the House. He tried, I might almost say, to treat problems which he himself described as being of the utmost importance in a frivolous manner and he accused the Leader of the Opposition of having come here to move a resolution which had as its basis a very narrow point of view, the point of view of a political party in South Africa. This side of the House and the Leader of the Opposition informed the House what the policy was which we were pursuing in regard to world conditions affecting South Africa, affecting South Africa as a whole, as the Leader of the Opposition said—the policy of small nations. If that attitude is a narrow one, then I ask how narrow was the attitude adopted by the Prime Minister himself? He looked at those problems solely from the narrow point of view of Great Britain and of Great Britain alone. He did not take the whole world or the position of the whole world into contemplation. As I have said, he repeatedly said in reply to interjections, “Yes, I am coming to that”, but we are still waiting for him to come to it. He never said a word about those matters. No, all we had from the Prime Minister was that he treated this House to one of the best egg dances he has ever performed in the course of his career.

That’s saying a lot.

And further, so far as the great problems are concerned, using the words of the Prime Minister himself, on those he kept dead quiet. Perhaps we can understand it, we on this side of the House can understand it if the Prime Minister resents the fact of the Leader of the Opposition reproaching him because he went to make a most important statement in another part of the world instead of in his own mother country; we can appreciate the Prime Minister replying to that and asking whether we expected him to make such an important declaration in the backveld. If South Africa has now become the backveld of Great Britain, then we can quite understand the Prime Minister trying to dispose of such important affairs by means of an egg dance in this House. But the question arises in our minds, why does the Prime Minister discuss the matter in the way he has done here? Why does he deal with it in that way when the motion proposed by the Leader of the Opposition concerns, the greatest and most difficult problems with which Great Britain and the other Allies, with the exception of Russia, have ever had to contend with. I should like to approach these matters raised by the Leader of the Opposition from this point of view, namely what is going to be the position of South Africa in the economic sphere and especially in the industrial sphere if the policy pursued by this Government has to be continued in South Africa, and if the “shocking” statement made by the Prime Minister to the members of Parliament in London, is correct, that after the war, if the Allies win, Britain will come out of the war an economically weakened country. In regard to the other part of the Prime Minister’s prophecy, that certain countries in the world would disappear, I do not know whether we can attach much value to that, because let us see what the Prime Minister said in the speech he made in October, 1918, in the British House of Commons. If one shuts one’s eyes one can almost imagine again hearing the Prime Minister when he last spoke in London.

What year was that?

That hon. member anyhow will not understand these things.

I know that I won’t understand them but I should like to know in what year that was?

The Prime Minister, in October, 1918, used these words in the British House of Commons:

It is because of that that I say we cannot attach much value to the Prime Minister as a prophet. When he talks of certain countries which will disappear in the future, we cannot attach much value to his prophecy except this, that in the interest of Great Britain that opinion which the Prime Minister expressed there is perhaps nothing but that the wish is the father of the thought. And by that he meant the disappearance of France. The war in which we are now involved is supposed to be fought for the protection of small nations. That is why it will be so easy for the Prime Minister and for Great Britain, now that France has been defeated, to say: “Yes, we are fighting for the protection of small nations.” France has shown herself too weak to govern her own Empire, and for that reason Britain has to act as the protector, not because Britain loves France so much but because Britain so badly needs France’s colonies on the Continent of Africa for the economic maintenance of Britain when this war is over. This fact becomes all the clearer when one follows the further course of ideas of the Prime Minister, when he started saying that the British terriories in South Africa should all come together. There is not the slightest doubt that all the plans devised in London, and for which the Prime Minister of South Africa was employed to make his “shocking” announcement, are nothing but a hysterical effort to try and save what still could be saved for the British Empire in the economic sphere after this war. He further said that together with the Allies we were marching forward to the greatest victory in history. That may be so, but unquestionably it is not England which is marching forward to this greatest victory in history; it is those bewiskered mountebanks. Is it not the same Russia which the Prime Minister a short while ago declared was not worth taking any notice of, which is now so powerful that it can even slap America’s face, and can say to America that it does not require its assistance and can manage her own affairs. There is one nation which is going to gain if the Allies win the war, and that is Russia. The next nation which is going to gain, if the Allies win, is America, because America in the economic sphere is putting England entirely into the background. Is it true that economically Britain has become so weak and is becoming more and more weak? Yes, there we agree with the Prime Minister, that after this war Britain will be economically weakened, and that is what this side of the House has been saying for years. We now have the Prime Minister himself testifying to that fact. The Prime Minister who, by the Imperialists and by their Press, has been described as the greatest Imperialist of the century. He has got to the stage now of saying the very same thing that this side Of the House has been saying for a long time, namely, that England has lost this war. England may win this war, together with Russia, from a military point of view, but economically England has lost the war.

Go and tell that story at Jacobs kraal.

Don’t you believe it?

The second bit of evidence which we can adduce to show that England economically has long since been going backward in the world is that as far back as the beginning of 1940 a conservative newspaper in England like the “Daily Chronicle” wrote the following—

Where do you get that from?

He is not quoting from “Arthur Barlow’s Weekly.”

That is the statement made by a conservative paper like the “Daily Chronicle,” but what is the evidence and what are the grounds on which these statements of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister, and the Conservative Press in England, are based on? If we study the facts we find that Great Britain entered the first world war as an Empire with the greatest financial credit. In those days Great Britain had about £4,000,000,000 invested abroad in long term loans. In those days America—and I have just said that America will gain in this war if the Allies win—did not have one eighth of that amount of capital invested in long term loans abroad. As a result of the first world war England was forced to liquidate a large proportion of her foreign loans. The result was that American capital took the place of English capital and that was the first time that America distributed its capital beyond the borders of America and Canada in all those countries where British capital had held supremacy in the past. Let me give an example. America succeeded in forcing Britain out of the loans which Britain used to have in the American Railways amounting to something like £623,000,000. That process continued and there was a steady but sure deterioration of the British Empire in the economic sphere so that in 1939 we had this position, that America and Britain were practically equal in regard to foreign investments. This steady, but sure process of deterioration of Great Britain caused a good deal of uneasiness to Great Britain, because this is what a man like Prof. Kindersley stated in 1930, when he uttered a word of warning. This is what he said among other things—

Did Lord Haw-Haw say that?

That hon. member himself will one of these days be a Lord Haw-Haw if he does not take more notice of what his own people in his own country are saying. What is making America’s position in relation to England’s position, so much stronger economically is this: At the time when Prof. Kindersley uttered his warning in 1930 America’s foreign loans represented 4 per cent. of its national wealth, as against which England had foreign loans which represented no less than 18 per cent. of Britain’s national wealth. Further proof of Britain’s economic deterioration is to be found in the increasing displacement of British goods by American goods on the world market. Take the position here in South Africa. In 1934 we had this position, that Britain had 48 per cent. of the market of South Africa under her control, and America only 16 per cent. In 1940 the position had changed so that Britain only had 37.6 per cent. as against America’s 25 per cent. But if we include Canada which for all practical purposes is part of America, then in 1940 America had no less than 34 per cent.

Those are braaivleisaandstories.

Yes, to those people who know that their downfall is assured and to hear these things from their own people, of course it is nonsense. There is no need for me to produce any further evidence. What the Prime Minister told the members of parliament in London, and what, according to the hon. member over there is nonsense, is proved by all these facts—these facts prove that England has economically been weakened, and even if the Allies should be victorious it’s not going to mean a victory for Great Britain. England is not going to win the peace. Let hon. members listen to what prominent Americans and Englishmen have said in this connection. The Naval Affairs Committee last year made it clear that the United States Navy would be bigger than the combined navies of the rest of the world. Colliers spoke about the mercantile fleet of the United States and this is what he said, inter alia—

At a conference at Detroit Mr. J. O. Downey, Policy Research Expert to the Brains Trust of General Motors Corporation, gave some flashes of insight into the mental apparatus of American big business. And this is what he said, among other things—

Here we have the testimony of people who are not sitting on this side of the House, but on the other side.

What are you trying to tell us?

That is what those people say, and if one takes all these facts even the strongest Imperialist has to admit, even if it is against his wishes, that Great Britain’s downfall economically, is an established fact. We as Nationalists on this side of the House are not mourning that fact because the fall of the British. Empire may quite possibly mean the release of South Africa. Yet in the downfall of Great Britain there, is a great danger to South Africa as such. That is why the Leader of the Opposition has come forward and has laid it down as our policy that we in South Africa want to be able to speak for ourselves. We want to be an independent nation, able to stand on our own feet, not only constitutionally but economically as well. We have to be a Republic, free and separate from any other nation. We no longer have this condtion of affairs, that England, as before the war, was able only to maintain one-third of her population, while the other two-thirds had to be kept alive by means of commerce carried on by her fleet—a fleet which she no longer has. I refer to the testimony of the Americans. We know that according to the testimony of those experts England after this war will have to export three times, four times and ten times as much as she did before the war in order to be able to exist. I am not even speaking of the position of England’s public debt. England will have to find markets for her products if she wants to exist, and that is why England is being supported by the Prime Minister in the Atlantic Charter. America is a joint signatory of the. Atlantic Charter, America with its tremendous economic development. Both these countries have their own settled factories, old settled factories and they have their up-to-date manufacturing processes which in the shortest possible time can be converted from war production to peace production. In addition to that, those two countries are still backed up by their own Governments—which is not the case here in South Africa. Industries in South Africa receive no protection whatever from the present Government of South Africa, but in America and England the industries are protected by their Governments. A further advantage which industries in those countries enjoy is that they have a tremendous immediate purchasing power at their doors in their own populations. In America the experts believe that by 1948 there will be an accumulated surplus purchasing power among the population of £600,000,000,000. That gives us some idea of the American industries and of how they can immediately be converted into peace production and how they will be able to dump their surplus production into countries like South Africa. Unfortunately that is not the position in South Africa and we are powerless against those two countries. After the war we shall be faced with the problem of providing work for hundreds of thousands of people. We only have to think for a moment of the 150,000 people who are in the Army. We have no shipping for South Africa; we have young industries which have to be protected, but which this Government, with its well-known policy, will not protect. We have the unfortunate position here that the Chamber of Mines is the only net baby of the present Government. We need only look at the journeys which the Prime Minister has made to Europe. He always has a faithful companion on those journeys in the person of a certain Mr. John Martin. They travel all over the world in the same aeroplane. It is in the interest of the Chamber of Mines that importations into South Africa shall remain as large as possible, and wages as low as possible, but the day will come and that day perhaps is much nearer than people realise, when the industrialists in South Africa will discover that their present friends, this Government, with its Atlantic Charter, and the Chamber of Mines as its pet baby, are not their real friend, but in reality their greatest enemy. The day will dawn when the bogey with which the Prime Minister the other day tried to scare a part of the population and with which the members of the Dominion Party by their amendment are trying to scare people, will no longer make baby tremble. The day will dawn when all of those who have made South Africa their home will recognise that in South Africa there can only be one form of government, and that is the form of government which, as I said earlier on, will enable us to enjoy our nationhood to the full, and under which we shall be a free and independent republic, separated from the rest of the world. It is only a Nationalist Government which then, under the independent Republic, will see to it that South Africa will break the agreement which it had entered into under the Atlantic Charter. It is only a sound Nationalist Government which will see to it that industry in South Africa will receive its rightful protection, so that they will be able not only to make a just and fair existence, but they will also be able to supply work on a large scale to thousands and thousands of the young men and women of this country, and to pay them wages which will enable them to live decent and dignified lives. We know that in the past the old South African Party, and particularly the Prime Minister, has been very strongly opposed to the development of industries in South Africa, and the Prime Minister has again shown his attitude in that regard by signing the Atlantic Charter. The Nationalist Party on the other hand has proved in the past that it is the only friend of the industrialists in South Africa, and so it will also prove in days to come that it is its aim and ambition to place industries in South Africa on a sound basis, and to enable them to make an existence. We are seeking a Republic free from any other nation in the world. Let us say to the members of the Dominion Party that so far as a Republic is concerned, on this side of the House, we on this side of the House can certainly never compromise with them. We not only want to be free from all other powers in regard to constitutional matters, but we also want to be free in regard to economic matters. We do not just want to have a President instead of a Governor-General; we want a republic in which everyman and woman in this country will be happy and will be entitled to work at a living wage, a wage worthy of a human being. We want to create here in South Africa a position entirely free from the despicable system under which we are living today, a system under which on the one hand one finds the greatest wealth and luxury, and on the other hand the deepest misery and poverty prevail. These things will be ended. We are no longer going to tolerate a position under which the big capital of the country, and especially the Chamber of Mines, puts its heel on the rest of the population. We want to see the country free in every respect, also in economic respects. That constitutional freedom and economic freedom, and in addition to that, racial cooperation in South Africa, can only be achieved if a Republic is proclaimed here in South Africa.

The hon. member who has just sat down will remember that just before the English war there were quite a number of people who made the same type of speech as he has made today about Great Britain, but when the war came we found that they were sitting under the Union Jack. The hon. member will remember that and he will know who I am talking about. We have heard a great deal about Communism in this House since the hon. the Leader of the Opposition made his speech, but we all know that Communism is just a bogey and that Communism in Europe today is dead.

Are you really serious?

If the hon. member doubts that statement let him read the last book of Harold Lasky. He will tell you that Communism is dead. Read the last book of Walter Lipman. He says Communism is dead. No, sir, it is a bogey which my hon. friends are putting before the unfortunate people of the platteland, but they forget that the Hon. Leader of the Opposition was the first man to say in South Africa that the teachings of Communism were just like the teachings of Christ, that the teachings of Marxism were synonymous with the teachings of Christ. That was said by the Rev. Daniel Francois Malan from his pulpit in Graaff-Reinet, and it stands recorded today. You cannot get away from it; it is there for everyone to see. He was the man who said that the teachings of Marxism were synonymous with the teachings of Christ. Will any of you deny it? No, sir, Communism is a bogey and as far as Communism in South Africa is concerned it is a bogey. Communism in South Africa has been dead for some time; the Communist Party in South Africa is dead, but they won’t lie down. But the strange thing about Communism in South Africa is this, that at the last election no Communist fought a Nationalist. All the communists fought our Party. If we are so pro-Communist, why should the Communists fight our Party, and why is it that in the case of some seats where the Nationalists put up candidates, it was done to assist the Communists to split our vote. No, sir, Communism is dead. The Leader of the Opposition has asked us, on foreign affairs, to choose between him and the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister. Well, on foreign affairs I am prepared to follow the Prime Minister. I have listened with a good deal of interest to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, and I found a great change in him. He has certainly become very long-winded, and I think even his own side, except when he spoke on Republicanism, were bored to tears. He is an extinct volcano and his dream of reproducing the career of General Hertzog— the man whom the Opposition politically murdered—as the leader of Afrikanerdom will never be accomplished.

Order, Order!

It is quite parliamentary. You cannot teach me the rules. I know more about the rules of procedure than any of you.

Order, Order!

Sir, I am not going.…

On a point of order, has the hon. gentleman not got to address the Chair?

Every moment I say “Sir” and that definitely means you, Mr. Speaker. I am not going into the intricacies of foreign affairs. Frankly, like every other member of the House, with the exception of the Prime Minister, I do not understand them. In South Africa we have not been trained to discuss foreign affairs. The Prime Minister is the only man who has risen above the Parish Pump. His name is known all over the world. I admit that the name of Malan is also known all over the world, but that has nothing to do with the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition; it is the name of “Sailor” Malan, the great South African Air Ace. As I have said, I am prepared to follow the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister blindly.…

For how long?

He is a soldier statesman, an advocate of peace. At the Peace Conference Count Carlo Sforza described him as “one of the rare original brains of the Peace Conference,” and it was due to his characteristic foresight that Rommel’s Afrika Korps was driven out of Africa and history will yet tell that it is probably due to the Prime Minister of South Africa that, we did not lose Egypt and probably the war. That is good enough for me; let him do the thinking and construction of our foreign affairs. I shall follow him blindly on the question of foreign affairs.

You are always blind.

The Opposition are asking me to choose between following the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister. I have followed the Prime Minister ….

You have practically followed everyone at some time or other.

For a long time the Leader of the Opposition has been licking the jack-boot of Hitler. Now he wants the country to follow him. Why should we? He has proved to be hopelessly wrong in the past. When our sons went to the war—and some of them are lying dead in the Desert today, joined together in that last embrace with Afrikaans-speaking soldiers which is going to make South Africa—hon. members opposite called them Hanskakies, Rooilussies, John Bull ….

We have never said that they are skunks.

They called these boys who saved them and their homes every name they could think of.

Except skunks.

They even insulted the women in the Army who were wearing uniform. They came down to the lowest dregs, the lowest level of the skollies in Cape Town.

I suppose that is parliamentary language?

I want my Nationalist friends to remember what happened at the time of the English War. When my country went to war against the wishes of the English-speaking people in the Free State, nearly every English-speaking man in that State stood by the Boer Republic. They felt that a mistake had been made, and when President Steyn got to Kroonstad every man on his staff was an English-speaking Free-Stater, and you Opposition members ask us English-speaking Free-Staters to join hands with you. My answer is that we look upon you with the most absolute contempt.

And vice versa.

These things have got to be said and they are going to be said. We have still to protect our boys Up North, and we still do not know how near the Opposition are to Germany.

Order, Order!

The Leader of the Opposition comes here and invites me to come into his republic. He says: “I want you to come in because on the other side the people are all capitalistic.” What is this anti-capitalism of his? Let us examine the economic workings of his organisation and then we might find out.

Are you reading your speech?

No, I have made copious notes. During the Great Trek Centenary a very old and dear friend of mine, a man for whom I had the greatest respect, one of the finest men that ever lived in South Africa, the late Rev. Father Kestell, conceived the idea of doing something for the poor Afrikaner, for the kind of man we see every day along Bushveld roads driving his donkey wagon loaded with wood to sell in the towns with his whole family living in the tattered tent of that wagon; for the aged father and mother we can find in every Johannesburg slum hovel; for the “deelsaaier” and “bywoner”; for the “padwerker” and “boswerker”. The Reddingsdaad, said old Dr. Kestell, would bring new hope and salvation to these people. The Reddingsdaad would save the poor Afrikaner. But what, has happened? The Reddingsdaadbond has now become part of the Broederbond-Nationalist anti-capitalist machine. From being a deed of salvation it has become the world’s queerest stock exchange. I’ll tell you how it works. Throughout the Union today about 285 branches of the Reddingsdaadbond are busy collecting money. Impassioned appeals are made to the patriotic sentiment of the poor Afrikaner. Then they give money to the Reddingsdaad. Even the very poor—even that old father driving the donkey wagon—give their sixpences and shillings to this so-called deed of salvation. Will the Leader of the Opposition tell us what happens to this money from the pockets of the poor Afrikaner? Will the arch-enemy of capitalism tell us what they are doing with the tens of thousands of pounds pouring into the coffers of the Reddingsdaad? I’ll tell him. Most of that money is administered by Federale Volksbelegging. When an Afrikaner, who wants to start a business, is approved by the local representatives of the Broederbond, he goes to Volksbelegging, not with a scheme for saving the poor but with a business proposition. And if Volksbelegging are satisfied that he can make sufficient profit they advance him the necessary capital to sell boots and shoes and shirts and groceries at a profit to those very poor Afrikaners who originally subscribed the money thinking that they were saving themselves from capitalist exploitation. The whole thing is the most vicious circle of capitalist exploitation ever conceived by the cunning, money-grubbing minds of Keerom Street. Instead of using the stock exchange to get their venture capital, they use those 285 Reddingsdaadbond branches to collect the money. In a stock exchange transaction you at least get your share script in exchange, but these poor misguided Afrikaners “give” the money thinking that they are making a contribution to noble Afrikaner charity. Will the Leader of the Opposition tell us who the shareholders are in Federale Volksbelegging?

The names are available.

Will he tell us who the shareholders are in Federale Volksbelegging —the finance house of his anti-capitalist society, the firm which underwrites the new ventures whose principals have been duly approved by the Broederbond? The money they are using is the money of the Reddingsdaadbond, but the principal shareholders are the Keerom Streeet Hoggenheimers.

What has that to do with the war?

That is not what was meant by my old friend, the Rev. Father Kestell. This is the worst form of capitalism South Africa has even seen—preying on the pockets of the poor and using that money for business out of which they take profits.

What’s the matter; wouldn’t they give you a loan?

My hon. friend knows that I have never applied to him for a loan. Can he say the same to me as far as he is concerned?

On a matter of personal explanation. I believe the hon. member has asked if I can say that I have never applied to him for a loan. No, I never have—I only apply for loans to someone who has something to lend me.

If he will look through his diary.…

What’s that.

Oh, never mind, we shall discuss that outside. I know the time is short and I know members want to get home, so I had better cut my speech short now.

Shame!

As a political journalist I have put something into verse in a political prayer book. I should like to read it—but my time is very short. My friend, the Leader of the Opposition, the hon. member for— he changes about so much—he is chased out of so many places that it is really difficult to know which constituency he represents now.

He can always get a constituency but you cannot.

The hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) wants a republic. Well, I could quite understand the hon. member, General Kemp, wanting a republic.

Order, Order!

I am perfectly in order— Mr. Speaker will call me to order if I am not.

The hon. member must refer to hon. members by their constituencies.

I said the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (General Kemp). That is in order, I think.

The rule distinctly provides that members shall only be referred to by the names of their constituencies.

Very well, I shall say the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, — one of the bravest soldiers of the English war — I can understand him asking for a Republic. I can understand the hon. member for Aliwal (Mr. G. H. F. Strydom) who is a decorated soldier, asking for a Republic, I can understand the hon. member for Frankfort (Mr. Dohne) asking for a Republic, and I can understand the hon. member for Klerksdorp (Mr. Wilkens) asking for a Republic. But I cannot understand the hon. member for Piketberg asking for a Republic. Will he cast his mind back to the days of the English war when the present Prime Minister in that extraordinary ride of his from the Magaliesberg right down to where the hon. member was living, took the forces under his command. The hon. member was the Prime Minister’s greatest friend, he had been to school with him. Why did he not come out then and join the Prime Minister? No, he was busy writing a book on the life of a British Bishop. And let me remind the hon. member for Wolmaransstad of something. Does he remember how annoyed he was when the hon. member for Piketberg came to Pretoria and in order to make himself great endeavoured to ride in the sacred car which belonged to General Delarey, that old car which still had a bullet hole in it. The car in which he was killed. Yes, he was going to ride in it surrounded by Voortrekker Meisies. What does he know about Voortrekker Meisies? I remember how annoyed the hon. member for Wolmaransstad was because General Delarey was his greatest leader in the English War. And I remember how annoytd the hon. member for Piketberg was when he went to ride in that car, and he find that some old stryders had removed the wheels—

You know perfectly well that that is not true.

Oh, no, it’s perfectly true, and a slogan had been put inside that car which read, “Walk on you own flat feet — don’t ride on the people’s past.” And may I ask the hon. Leader of the Opposition what flag we are going to have? Yes, sir, he knows a great deal about flags. When I was in Parliament last he wanted a flag, he was always agitating for a flag, and General Hertzog said, “All right, you make the flag.” He made a flag and he brought it before the House. And what was it? It was a cross of St. George of England.

What has that to do with the motion?

I am talking about Republicanism because I want to know what flag I am going to have. It was the St. George’s Cross of England on a green background. And let me just remind the House of this — the hon. member made a remarkable speech. He said that we must go hand in hand with England; he told about England’s wars — the wars of the Roses — and he told us what wonderful people the English were. He admired the English people so much in that speech of his that I walked across to Mr. Tielman Roos and said: “Tielman ons moet nou keer—nou word die ou te rooi.” Well, the House did not like the flag, so he took it away and produced a new flag, like a rabbit out of a hat. And now we have that flag, and let me tell you it is a great flag, it has been rendered sacred by the blood of the Afrikaners who have died in the Desert. But what respect does the hon. member show for that flag? Does he clothe himself in that flag? No, he clothes himself in the Vierkleur, in our old flag, for which he never fired a shot.

Have you ever fired a shot for a flag?

The hon. member says he wants a Republic.

What you want is an Asylum

Now this is what the hon. member said only a few years ago: “South Africa now realises that the British Empire is the freest country in the world.” “We are absolutely free,” “and that position has not been obtained by bloodshed. The British statesmen are today our friends.” And then the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, after reading what the hon. member had said, said this: “Dr. Malan is prepared to sell ideals for anything. Dr. Malan is a political liar, a betrayer of trusts.” That is what the hon. member for Wolmaransstad said about the hon. member for Piketberg. Mr. Speaker, do you think he was wrong? No man in this country has done more harm to the good feelings between the English-speaking people and the Afrikaans-speaking people than.…

Arthur Barlow.

Than the Leader of the Opposition. General Hertzog—where is he today?

You said the same about him.

I saw him just before he died.

You fought against him all the time.

And he never forgave the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. Yes, he was always friendly towards the Prime Minister—one great man respecting another, but he never forgave the stab in the back given to him by the Leader of the Opposition.

Did he forgive you?

When the F.A.K. Congress held its meeting in Bloemfontein the other day—a Congress supposed to be a Congress of the Afrikaner people—General Hertzog’s name was not mentioned once. The man who has done more than anyone for the Afrikaans language—his name was never mentioned. These people who claim to be the supporters of the Afrikaans language never mentioned his name once. Sir, I speak as an old Free Stater and I say that was one of the worst scandals that has ever happened in this country.

The. Free State does not want you.

Take a man like Senator Brebner and ask him what he thinks of the hon. member for Piketberg; ask him what he thinks of the hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. C. R. Swart), the man who was brought up by General Hertzog and then bit the hand which fed him. General Hertzog went to his grave a broken-hearted man because he had been stabbed in the back by these men. A book has just been published containing General Hertzog’s reminiscences. There is not a word against the Prime Minister in that book—there is nothing against the United Party. It is a book containing the wailings of a broken-hearted man against Afrikanerdom sitting in those places occupied by the official Opposition today.

I move—

I second.

I want to ask the Prime Minister whether he is prepared to give further facilities?

No, it will not be possible to do so. I would advise the hon. member to put down his motion for next Friday, and we shall then be able to see what other opportunity may be created.

I am sorry the Prime Minister cannot give us an earlier date but in the circumstances I would ask for the resumption to be set down for next Friday.

Motion put and agreed to.

Debate adjourned; to be resumed on 4th February.