I have been asked by the Select Committee on Internal Arrangements to draw attention to Standing Order No. 257 which deals with the exclusion of strangers. This Standing Order was adopted by the House for the maintenance of its dignity and to secure the privacy of members.

There has, however, been an increasing tendency among members during recent sessions to conduct strangers into many parts of the buildings (including the Debating Chamber itself) which are appropriated for the use of members only, and I hope that attention having been drawn to the purpose of the rule, members will assist the officers of the House by observing it. Mr. Speaker will, of course, continue to exercise his discretion in the application of the rule under special circumstances and every opportunity will be given to strangers to inspect the buildings during a Parliamentary recess.

I know that it is quite unusual to oppose a motion for the introduction of a Bill, but I feel that in this case there are several special circumstances which compel me to do so. At the outset may I for the information of new members of the House mention that this is probably one of the few occasions during a session of Parliament when they will be allowed to exercise their vote irrespective of party considerations. I therefore ask them to weigh up the merits of the case put forward by the mover and the objectors, before casting their vote. In order to prove my first objection it will be necessary to give a very short history of the attempted legislation on this important subject. In 1933 a savings bank clause was inserted in the general ordinance of the Natal Province, but a Select Committee disapproved of it. In 1934 such a clause was again inserted in the Natal Provincial Ordinance, but was withdrawn on objection from the Union Treasury. In 1936 a clause was again inserted in the Natal Provincial Ordinance, but was withdrawn due to official circles being against it. In 1937 a separate ordinance was promoted in the Natal Provincial Council. This was approved by the Provincial Council by 12 votes to 11, but the Select Committee reported that the preamble was not proved. The Select Committee rejected the argument that the Ordinance was ultra vires the Provincial Council. In 1938 the Durban Municipal Council negatived a motion to promote a similar ordinance by 12 votes to 10. In 1939 the City Council of Durban approved a proposal to promote a similar ordinance by 15 votes to 4 (an election had taken place). In 1939, an ordinance was duly introduced into the Provincial Council of Natal and approved by the Select Committee, but was rejected by the Provincial Council. In 1940 the Durban City Council made application to the Natal Division of the Supreme Court for a declaratory order under Section 102 of Act 46 of 1939, and prayed for an order that it was within the powers of the Provincial Council to pass such an ordinance. In the course of the hearing the Durban City Council amended the form of the application and asked for an order declaring that such an ordinance, if passed by the Provincial Council, would be intra vires. There was judgment against the City Council. The City Council appealed to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, and the judgment was that it was not a case falling within Section 102 of the Act. The Press summary was to the effect that the court could not make an order compelling the Provincial Council to pass the ordinance, and that the court was not asked to decide whether the ordinance was intra vires the Provincial Council. In 1941, the Municipal Savings Bank Bill was introduced to this House by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside), then the member for Umbilo. It sought to give power to thirteen of the largest cities in the Union to establish savings banks, but was withdrawn during the second reading debate. In 1942, the City of Durban Savings Bank (Private) Bill was introduced by the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Dr. V. L. Shearer). The Select Committee found the preamble proved, with one dissentient, myself, the only Natal member on the committee, and brought up an amended Bill. The hon. the Minister of Finance tabled a considerable number of amendments to it, but these were not considered in their entirety owing to lack of time. In 1943, the Bill was taken up at the point it was left in the 1942 session, and the Minister of Finance again tabled some 32 amendments, deleting whole clauses and inserting others. The Bill was amongst the slaughtered innocents of 1943. Now we come to 1944. It is now sought to have the leave of this House to introduce a private member’s Bill giving powers to certain municipalities to conduct savings banks and establish housing departments. I have given this short history to demonstrate to the House that a considerable amount of time and money has been expended by the Provincial Council of Natal, and in the Union Parliament in considering Bills which might well have been spent on more important legislation.

Do you deprecate the waste of time and expenditure?

Yes, exceedingly.

Then why do it?

The House could be spending time on more important legislation. The Durban City Council has spent thousands of pounds in promoting an ordinance such as this, and my information is that they will not spend one penny more. So much time and money has been spent ineffectually in promoting this ordinance, that I feel the House should reject the motion. My second objection is that from the notice of motion given by the hon. member for Point, it is apparent that the powers sought for are for municipalities in addition to Durban, and the Bill is practically a replica of that introduced by the hon. member for Fordsburg. So far as Durban is concerned, I have been informed by a city councillor that the council will not spend one penny more on this legislation, and I doubt that the Bill has been promoted at the request of the Durban City Council. During a meeting of council representatives with Durban representatives of Parliament just before this session, no mention was made of this Bill, and I have no information that other municipalities have asked for or desire these powers. So this measure is an unwanted one, and therefore on that ground also I ask the House to reject the motion. My third objection is that the subject matter of such a Bill is one for the respective provincial councils to deal with. If this Bill is to apply to local authorities other than Durban, then we must conclude that all provinces are concerned, and that therefore every member of this House should be concerned with the preservation of the rights of their provincial councils. The relevant section of the South Africa Act is Section 85, which reads—

This proposed banking scheme and housing scheme is a municipal institution, unless I have misread the Act of Union. There was a certain letter from the Secretary for the Interior in 1939 stating that the establishment of financial institutions is a matter for the Union Government. In 1941 it was the Minister of Finance who expressed a different opinion, and with your permission and the permission of the House, Mr. Speaker, I would like to read what he said, on the 14th February, 1941—

Further on the Minister of Finance said—

Further he said—

Further on the Minister of Finance said—

Mr. Speaker, need I go further on that subject? The Minister of Finance is definitely of opinion, not as a lawyer, but as one who speaks with authority on the financial institutions of this country, that this is a matter for provincial councils, and the powers conferred on them by the Act of Union, and we should take due cognisance of that. Since the Natal Provincial Division of the Supreme Court and the Appellate Division were not called upon to decide whether the legislation was intra vires the Provincial Council, the matter has never been decided by the courts, and the Minister’s opinion given in 1939 is in accordance with my own, and that of many others who have given thought to it.

I feel reinforced.

A fourth objection was very fully dealt with by the Minister of Mines last year. The establishment of municipal savings banks will take away money that at present goes to the post office savings bank, and the City Treasurer confirmed this view before the Select Committee of 1942. Post office savings bank funds are at the disposal of the Union Treasury for war purposes, and I feel that it would be wrong to allow such money to be diverted to local authorities at such a time as this, and in such a way. To recapitulate: I submit to the House that too much time has been devoted to such contentious measures, and we have much more important work before us this session for consideration. The Bill is a measure unwanted by any municipality. Such powers as are asked for are within the powers of the provincial councils and should properly be dealt with by those bodies. Money urgently needed for war purposes will be lost to the Government and go to the municipalities. There is another feature. When the Durban Savings Bank (Private) Bill was before the House last year, the Minister of Finance thought it reasonable to insert an amendment on the Order Paper to this effect—

The Minister did not consider that the ordinary laws of the country were adequate to deal with bribery and corruption. The Minister thought fit to introduce a special clause in the Bill to provide a fine of £100 for contravention of these sections. Mr. Speaker, I think I have given the House sufficient reason for their declining to pass this motion allowing this Bill to be introduced into the House. I feel sure that the reasons I have given are cogent reasons, and I hope everyone will weigh them up and vote against the motion.

The subject matter of the Bill which the hon. member has asked leave to introduce was before this House in previous sessions. It was referred at the time to a Select Committee and the Select Committee then went into the objections raised and unanimously decided that it was necessary to introduce such a Bill, especially for Durban, in view of the fact, that at that time there was a need there for more houses for the inhabitants of Durban. In addition to that the Bill also created the opportunity for the taxpayer of Durban to save his money for a specific purpose, namely housing. Under the Bill which was before us at the time it was the intention to set up a department in which the money was to be invested, and houses were to be built with that money, while the Municipality of Durban would also add a certain amount for that purpose. The main objection to the Bill as it was drafted then was that it would grant this privilege to only one specific town, namely Durban. We objected to that privilege being given to one town only, and we told the sponsor of the Bill that he must introduce a general measure, and that if he did so we would give him our support. Why should Durban alone be selected? The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Dr. V. L. Shearer) has complied with the wish the House expressed at that time, and he has now come here with a motion asking for leave to introduce a Bill which will give any local authority the power to establish a savings bank department, and establish a housing department. If one studies conditions in various parts of the country on the matter of housing one finds that the situation is deplorable, and wherever there is a local authority and a local community which realises that the Central Government has not got the money, or is unable to introduce a scheme sufficiently comprehensive—why should not such a local community be given the privilege of undertaking the matter itself? I am very pleased that the Minister in charge of housing is here today. The request made here, not only by Durban, but by the country as a whole, is that the local authorities be given the right to act on their own initiative, especially where the Government has failed to do its duty. Our experience goes to show that there is a tendency to look upon various kinds of duties as national duties, and to hold the Central Government responsible. There may, however, be other matters which the Central Government prefers to deal with first, and the result is that such an important subject is then neglected. I have in my hands the report of the Urban Housing Board, the Cape Town Utility Company, of which Mr. Charles te Water is the Chairman, and I should like to quote rather fully from that report because it shows the need for more houses. If there is a Municipality like Durban which has the courage to tackle this matter then I say give it the right to do so. Now, I want to quote from the report—

That is one of the objects the hon. member for Durban (Point) is aiming at to provide for people in receipt of small salaries. There is a clause in the Bill, too, laying it down that a house is not to cost more than £1,500. Now, let me quote further from the report—

These are the very things which the hon. member for Durban (Point) wants to prevent. He does not want to have anything to do with the Department’s red tape. A local board will do everything and control everything. A local committee of management can determine where it wants the new suburbs to be, it can work out plans, and it can decide about the comforts and conveniences it wants to provide for the people—

In any case, there is a shortage of material now, but the main charge is that the Minister’s Department has done nothing yet for housing, and we cannot afford to wait any longer. May I remind the House of the fact that in one of our suburbs, Kuils River, a family, a mother with four children, recently had to live beneath the branches of a tree for eight days because they could not get a house. It is a disgraceful state of affairs, and here we have local authorities now which want to be given the power to put an end to such conditions. Yet there are hon. members who oppose this proposal. One of their reasons is that it is a Provincial matter. Any lawyer knows, especially since the decision given by the Appeal Court, that it is not exclusively a Provincial matter but a matter in respect of which this House can pass legislation. There is nothing to stop this House giving these powers to local authorities. This is what I mean—it is not a Provincial matter but a national question, and if there is a local authority which wants to take it up, give it the opportunity to do so. I am convinced that the opposition to this Bill is nothing but opposition from vested interests which want to prevent the local authorities undertaking housing on a large scale, because if the local authorities do so, the houses belonging to slum owners will stand empty. Unfortunately those slum owners are often strongly represented on the local authorities, and they are often in the majority, but once the taxpayers know that the local authority has the power to use the money for housing they will demand their doing so. They are not going to tolerate private interests standing in the way. I think this House should accept this Bill with both hands. Scandalous conditions prevail today, conditions under which a number of people are packed into one small room—two or three families sometimes in one house. The last speaker said that the money was needed for the war. The war is coming to an end, and today already a section of the population is anxious to find good investments for its money. Give them an opportunity of investing their money, especially where it will be used for the housing of the people. We should thank the hon. member for Durban (Point) for again having directed the attention of the House to the importance of housing in this country; we should thank him for wanting to encourage private initiative, or the initiative of local bodies, in order to bring about better housing conditions in their areas. I hope the House will look upon this Bill in that light and I hope we are not going to allow this Bill to be wrecked by vested interests, or by people who try to protect vested interests. The Government is engaged on other plans but I doubt whether even after the war the Government will make adequate provision for this great housing problem. If there are local bodies or municipal councils which want to tackle this question, we should not discourage them, but give them the power to do these things by extending these facilities to the local authorities.

I think five minutes will be enough for me. It appears to me that the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate) did enough harm to his own cause, and what he did not do has been excellently done by the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie). I was reminded of my childhood days by the way this opposition to the motion for leave to introduce this Savings and Housing Bill was handled. Years ago, when I was very very young, I went from’ Winchester to a place called Abbot’s Ann. There was to be a day’s village cricket there, and the players were very keen. Too keen. It was a league match, and neither side wanted to drop the points. Well, the cove batting at the top end hit almost everything for six, and the chap at the bowler’s end was a good backer-up—he was out of his crease before the ball left the bowler’s hand. The bowler noticed this, strongly disapproved, and proceeded to cause a sensation. Without a word of warning he suddenly stopped short in his run, bowled into the near wicket, and said “How’s that”? The over-thrustful batsman said, “It’s a dirty trick”; but the umpire said “Out” There ensued a general and rather jolly fight among the spectators, because it was held by many of the populace that although the bowler’s expedient was within the rules of the game, it still was not cricket. That is what I suggest about the intervention of the hon. member for South Coast. It is within the rules—just within the rules, but still it is not quite cricket.

What is cricket?

It is a game in which since time immemorial there have been elementary principles of decency, and respect for the rights of the opposing side. Now, Mr. Speaker, if it were not within the rules you would not have allowed any discussion at all, but my suggestion is that this provision in parliamentary rules for intervention—the possibility of intervention at this stage—was intended for the purpose of meeting emergency occasions rather than a humdrum instance such as this. If leave to introduce is granted by this House the Bill automatically goes through the formal first reading, and in the second reading all its implications come before the House for consideration.

The hon. member must not question the motives of another hon. member.

I really did not intend to do that at all—you will accept my apologies for clumsiness, I did not mean to do that. My point is that the hon. member has, probably inadvertently, used an instrument which was only meant for a dangerous occasion. If, for instance, this Bill had in it something essentially damaging to the State, then I feel it might have been the right thing to prevent discussion on it. But this is a completely harmless little Bill, and therefore I consider the intervention is absolutely unnecessary. Now, there is another point. I consider this intervention indiscreet in this way. This is a Private Members Bill. We have few privileges as it is in this House, and it seems to me unwise and bad tactics to tamper with any of the privileges which we still do possess. It is very hard to get such a Bill as this on the Statute Book, and it is a privilege to be able to attempt it. If we treat this privilege with any levity I think we deserve to lose it. Further, it seems to me ungracious towards this House as a whole—this intervention by the hon. member for South Coast. We do not really know anything about this Bill at the moment, we do not know whether it is good or bad.

Like the curate’s egg.

But the House is quite competent to settle that question for itself, and I do not think it is necessary or wise for any individual member to attempt to prevent the House from giving its own judgment. I commend to the hon. member the dictum of Joubert, that it is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle it without debate. Now, here is yet another point, almost of disrespect, once more I say probably not intended, and this time it is to the Corporation of Durban. This Bill was entrusted to the hon. member for Point (Dr. V. L. Shearer) by the Corporation of a very great and progressive City. It becomes this Parliament, and each one of us as individual members of it, to show respect to another democratic governing body.

What about the Bill?

The Bill is not before us. We are considering an objection to its introduction. I repeat that it is for us to show proper respect to the duly elected representatives of so progressive and up-to-date a city as Durban.

What about the Provincial Council?

The Provincial Council’s opinion is contaminated by the unrealistic views of representatives of places other than Durban. Sir, let me immediately say I regret the word “contaminated”, which involves an unpleasant suggestion which I neither like nor mean, and I unreservedly withdraw the word. My attitude is merely that the Provincial Council is necessarily influenced, perhaps unwisely so far as purely city matters are concerned, by those who come from remote parts and do not know exactly what the needs of Durban are. Another reason why I object to this intervention is that the subject matter of this Bill has been under consideration for so long. That was advanced as a reason against it. But since 1924, when the first report was made by the Town Treasurer to the Borough Council of that year, from that time up to now this matter has been under consideration. It has been bandied about from Parliament to the Provincial Council, from the Provincial Council to Parliament, and back again, for the best part of 25 years. And the suggestion that we should now interpose a further delay seems to me absolutely and entirely beside the point. Durban wants the Bill and wants it now.

Who says so?

The City of Durban says so.

It does not.

Well, I cannot agree with the hon. member—I cannot agree that the hon. member who represents South Coast so ably is also able to express in his own person what is the opinion of the City of Durban. Now, the question of cost has also been brought up. Surely, since so much has been spent it would be better to reap the harvest and get something done than throw the money away. This long-continued effort to establish a Savings and Housing Department has cost the Corporation of Durban quite a lot of money already. The Union has found it expensive, too—one Select Committee report cost over £315, and much more than that we lost by the weeks of labour of several of the most intelligent members of this House, among whom was the hon. member for South Coast. If there was no other good thing about the Bill—as the hon. member for Gordonia has pointed out—than the inclusion in its title of the word “housing”, it should be sufficient to persuade this House to give the leave that is requested, and pass this motion so that the House may give its free judgment on it. The present need for additional houses is so acute, and so widespread, that it is hard indeed to understand opposition to any measure which makes an honest attempt to solve a portion of this national problem.

I rise to support the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate) in his objection to this House granting leave to the hon. member for Point (Dr. V. L. Shearer) in connection with this motion before the House today.

What Durban seat did you represent?

The hon. member for South Coast has given the House a fairly reasoned and detailed survey of the story of this movement, which has extended over the past 20 to 25 years. The movement had its origin in Natal, and it appears that in Natal it has been consistently opposed. At no stage in the Natal Provincial Council, in the Select Committee of the Provincial Council, in the Appellate Court, or in the subsequent efforts to bring this type of legislation before this House, has it yet succeeded. In no case has it met with success. Now, I agree with the hon. member for South Coast when he says that opposing a motion for leave to introduce raises difficulties, and I would not do so in the ordinary course, except for the fact that we have had this measure before the House for the last three years. One speaks today under a disability, not having had the opportunity of hearing the mover of the motion, because quite correctly he moved his motion in a forma! manner; but we hope he will rise and give a reply to our points—give us the information, which this House is surely entitled to have.

With what object?

I disagree entirely with the hon. member for Durban (North) (The Rev. Miles-Cadman) with his cricket analogy. This is a free House. Is it not correct that we should debate an issue here? I see no reason why we should not debate it.

The Rev. MILES-CADMAN. But that is exactly what he is preventing us from doing.

There is no reason why we should not debate this question of leave to introduce. There are a large number of new members in this House, who are not necessarily familiar with the past measures, which we have had before us in 1941, 1942 and 1943. I have pointed out that it is difficult to speak because the mover has not outlined his scheme.

Why not give me a chance?

We shall give the hon. member a chance in his reply. We hope the mover will take his chance in replying to this debate.

I shall reply on the second reading.

I submit this, the hon. member for Umbilo—now the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside)—brought in a Bill in 1941, which he called the Municipal Savings Bank Bill.

A jolly good Bill.

That Bill had a very short life, because an amendment was moved during the second reading debate to refer it to a Select Committee. The hon. member for Umbilo apparently lacked the confidence to face the Select Committee with his Bill, or to face this House, and later he asked the leave of the House to withdraw his Bill. That was the fate of the 1941 Bill.

Why don’t you tell the House why?

Well, it was because you did not face up to it.

The hon. member must address the Chair.

The hon. member himself said that if his Bill was to go to a Select Committee he would be in Doomsday before it was passed. I believe speaking from memory that was his reason. That was the fate of the 1941 Bill. Now, in 1942 the hon. member for Point came forward with his Bill. I have both these Bills before me today, and it is significant that the Bill brought forward by the hon. member for Point, which at that stage was a private measure introduced by a private member, and not a public measure, such as the hon. member for Umbilo had introduced in the preceding year. It is significant that, if one consults these two Bills, one will find that they are almost identical clause for clause.

There you are wrong again.

Well, the wording is the same.

And the opposition seems to be the same.

No.

It’s the same thing all over again.

Therefore I take it we are quite justified in criticising this motion for leave to introduce, and to base our criticisms on the Bills, which have been before the House for the last three years. I think that is perfectly reasonable. Now, when the hon. member for Point brought up his Bill in 1942 it was called the City of Durban Savings and Housing Department Bill. We have the introduction of a housing section. Now, the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) has raised this question of the importance of housing.

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

Afternoon Sitting.

When we adjourned for lunch I was dealing with the question of our opposing leave to introduce this Bill. I was supporting my hon. friend, the member for South Coast (Mr. Neate) in his opposition and I had given certain reasons and certain of the difficulties with which we were faced. The hon. member for Durban North had taken objection on ethical grounds to our opposition. He seemed to object to our having any say—to our opposing the granting of leave. Well, we extended to him a courteous hearing, and I hope I shall be extended the same consideration. The mover of this motion has of course moved formally for leave, but we want him in his reply to give us his reasons for introducing this motion in view of the fact that it has been before this House without any success for the last three years. I was dealing with the remarks of the hon. member for Gordonia, who stressed the need for housing, and the importance of housing, and I showed that the first Bill was called the Municipal Savings Bank Bill. Then the next year’s Bill was a private measure and it was called the City of Durban Savings and Housing Department Bill. I think we are all favourably disposed towards any measure intended to improve housing, and I should think that there would be universal approval of any such project, and in that respect I do not oppose any reasonable measure. I do submit, however, that the bigger aspect of the Bill is to be found in the savings bank aspect and not on the housing aspect, and I support that statement with these contentions, that in the two Bills we have had before this House—that is the 1941 Bill and the 1942 Bill, there was never any obligation on the local authority to establish a housing section. When an attempt was made—I was responsible for moving an amendment—my amendment was not accepted and was rejected by the hon. the mover. My idea was that if the municipality established a savings bank it should be compelled to establish the housing section. But the Bill stated: “It may establish a housing section”—there was nothing obligatory in it. Now, let us see to what extent housing has been provided for in these measures. In the first Bill it was provided that not more than 25 per cent. of the funds were to be invested in housing. In the next Bill it was provided that not more than 20 per cent. would be invested in housing, and the Select Committee, which sat on the Durban Bill, saw fit to amend that provision drastically, and this House was asked to give its consideration to a Bill, which contained a permissive condition about establishing a housing section. The Bill provided initially that if they did establish the housing section they were not to invest more than 20 or 25 per cent. for that purpose. I submit that that is not a housing Bill, and I submit that the primary object of the Bill was to make it a savings bank Bill. The main emphasis is on matters other than housing, and that was the tenor of both those Bills. The hon. member for Point interjected earlier by asking what Durban seat I represented. The hon. member knows full well that I represent no Durban seat, and I want to ask the hon. member to tell us what that remark has to do with his motion, because his motion is to cover “local authorities,” not a local authority but local authorities. In the 1941 Bill provision was made that any local authority with a rateable value of over £4,000,000 would be entitled to the benefits of the Bill. Now, I want the hon. member to tell us, to what local authorities or local authority he wants the Bill to apply. Now, this matter has been before the Provincial Council of Natal for 20 odd years. It has been to the Appeal Court and before this House. I want to know what call or demand there is for a measure of this nature. I know that in certain large towns there is no call or demand whatever. I have made enquiries in Pretoria. I am a Johannesburg member and I know a good deal about conditions there, and there is no demand there. I have made enquiries here in Cape Town and there is no demand here, no demand anywhere.

From whom did you make enquiries?

From people interested in the matter.

From the savings banks?

The hon. member for South Coast has told us that in Durban there appears to be no demand for this measure, except I suggest on the part of a very persistent and small minority, who have been prosecuting this matter now for 20 odd years. They are a die-hard minority. Let us look beyond South Africa. What Municipalities in the world go in for savings bank schemes, except perhaps the classic example quoted by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) who instanced the City of Birmingham.

A very good example.

Oh, yes, there are other places too, but Birmingham is one of them.

What about Glasgow?

I believe there is a town in Wales too which has a savings bank, but this particular Bill undoubtedly has its origin in Durban.

What’s wrong with that?

I don’t say there is anything wrong with that, I am simply mentioning it.

I suppose there are building societies in Durban.

Oh, yes, of course there are. I daresay they have done very good service and built many houses.

Yes, I know they have.

In connection with Durban and housing, I submit that the case of the Durban Corporation is a weak one in itself, because we have a Central Housing Board, which was established by Parliament some years ago, and if one considers the report of that Central Housing Board and looks at the record of loans made it is rather illuminating. I have the list here of loans made up to December, 1940. It is in the report for that year, and there are no fewer than 21 individual towns listed, and Durban does not figure among those 21. The last town mentioned is Glencoe. Now I submit if Durban is so insistent on housing—and I am not decrying Durban’s efforts in that direction, I am applauding them—Durban has the means at its disposal, means established by this House; and I submit that Durban has failed to make use of these facilities in the past, and the source of my information is the Central Housing Board’s report.

How many applications are still outstanding?

This does not say for 1940, but I only say this, that there are 21 municipalities listed in this report, and amongst those 21 we find Glencoe, Ficksburg, Mafeking and places like those, but the great city of Durban does not figure in it, and that tells the story.

That, is the very reason why the town council should have these rights.

The rights to establish a savings bank?

Yes.

That is the principle I object to in this Bill. I do not object to the housing aspect, but. I do feel that the principle of giving the local authority the right to establish a savings bank is not a sound one.

Why?

I do not feel that this falls within the scope of the local authority. In what parts of the world do the local authorities operate savings banks outside the classic example of Birmingham?

I have an open mind; I want to be convinced.

You can convince yourself. I want to get certain points clear, and I would like the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Dr. V. L. Shearer) when replying, to give the information as to where the call for the Bill comes from.

Give him the opportunity to introduce the Bill. He can do it on the second reading.

I think the hon. member should do so now. Let us hear from him, where the call comes from for a Bill of this kind. I ask because this House is engaged on much very important work this session. I am sure we all agree that a subject like the one that is next on the Order Paper on Social Security is of paramount importance, and one in which the country is interested from "one end to the other. I do not think the country is in any way interested in a Bill to enable local authorities to establish savings banks, except for a little minority in one city in the Union. I think it is very important this session to devote our time—and it is limited—to those more important measures. I am not talking to waste time—

The hon. member must not repeat his arguments.

This Bill, if it is introduced, will presumably have to be referred to a Select Committee. It is likely that it would be so dealt with, and it would be correct to do so. We already have a very large number of Select Committees sitting, and a very short time in the mornings in which to do the work. I am speaking in this way because we have had this measure before us for a considerable time. I consider that the arguments that have been advanced by the hon. member for Natal South Coast (Mr. Neate) are fair and reasonable arguments, but it is for the House to decide. I am only voicing my feelings in the matter, and I hope the hon. member for Durban (Point) will reply to the points I have raised against the motion.

I should like to say a few words on this subject. From my physical proximity to the hon. member who raised the objection it might be assumed that I am by virtue of the influence which radiates about me, in sympathy with the objection that has been taken by the hon. member. Let me say at once that I am utterly and entirely opposed to it. I listened to the last speaker, and I found, Mr. Speaker, that there was at least this distinction between the hon. member who took the objection and the last speaker, namely that the hon. member who was the objector at least appeared to be relevant, and that cannot be said regarding the contribution of the last speaker. My hon. and learned friend who raised the objection conceded very properly that this was a most unusual procedure. It is, Mr. Speaker, most unusual, and it is particularly unusual when an objection of this kind is founded upon arguments which have no foundation. The issue at the moment before us is an exceedingly simple and limited one and it is whether the freedom of Parliament to debate any matter brought forward is to be negatived for reasons such as those advanced by the objector. I am sure you will agree, Mr. Speaker, that Parliament will rarely deny itself the opportunity to debate freely and in an unrestricted manner the import of any matter brought befort it. And if it is required to consider a matter at the instance of any hon. member, there would have to be not only special circumstances, but exceptional circumstances which would justify our rejecting the matter in toto without debate; it would be because there was something inherently and fundamentally bad which entitled us to say we did not even want to debate it. What the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) has done is to debate the merits of the Bill which neither he nor I have seen. That is not a valid objection to the introduction of a Bill. I was very glad to hear the hon. member say how anxious he was to have this question debated. We know there is a process that is indulged in sometimes of talking out a measure. I wondered whether it had occurred to the hon. member that one of the results—he may not have foreseen it—of his attitude might be that by virtue of it the Bill might be talked out. I am sure that if he had foreseen it, he might have paid some regard to that position. There is in everything I heard so far, no justification not only for the House not deciding that the Bill ought not to be introduced, but there is in fact no justification whatsoever for the point having been raised. I do not say I am going to support the Bill on its second reading. I do not know what the Bill says; I am not gifted with second sight. But I say this, Mr. Speaker, that I am anxious to see what the Bill does want. It may be a bad principle, in which case I am prepared to say so on the floor of the House, and to vote against it; if it is a good principle it will have my support. What the hon. member, the objector to the motion has in effect done is this. He has attempted to argue that the merits of the Bill are such that he can say in advance that it will not pass the second reading. What right has any member to pre-judge the decision of the House on any matter? That surely is not a ground for saying that we should not agree to the introduction of the measure—because the probabilities are that the House will not receive the Bill kindly. The authority of the Provincial Council has been introduced into this argument with much the same validity that it was introduced in previous debates on the same subject. I am a great believer in our maintaining the authority and status of the Provincial Council, but I am not prepared to allow a specious argument of that kind to deny us the exercise of our proper functions. For us to give leave for the introduction of the Bill in no way derogates from the authority of the Provincial Council; and the proper time to decide whether we are doing anything in conflict with the authority of the council is when we know what the Bill asks for. My hon. friend fell back on a decision in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on the application of the City Council when the declaratory order was asked for, that the Bill proposed was intra vires the powers of the Provincial Council. That authority in respect of the question with which the court was then concerned is entirely irrelevant to a consideration of the merits of this Bill, and it is a reflection on the method of approach of those who see eye to eye with the hon. member, the objector to the motion, that he should first of all be impressed with the point that he does not want leave to be granted for the introduction of the Bill, and that he should then go in search of a justification for his objection and find it in a case which is absolutely and entirely irrelevant. It is not a case that provides any basis for the objection; the objection came first, and the authority for it followed afterwards. If one of the result of this prolonged discussion on the question whether leave should be granted is that the general discussion will have to be adjourned to another date, with the probable result that the motion will not be reached again, I commend to the Minister the suggestion that he should indicate to the House that he will find time for it, so that the House will have the opportunity at least of debating the merits of the Bill.

I do not know whether the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) and the hon. member for Natal (South Coast) (Mr. Neate) are suffering from defective memory, or whether they deliberately neglected to tell the House one very important incident in connection with the Bill which I myself introduced some years ago. This argument with reference to the Provincial Council, as far as I am aware, has been technically and finally settled.

That is not so.

Allow me to tell you what happened in connection with these Bills, because you have been obstructing them long enough.

The hon. member must address the Chair.

When I introduced the Municipal Banking Bill the hon. Minister of Finance gave his own personal opinion, as I was reminded this morning by the hon.

member for South Coast. As a result of further discussion in connection with the Bill I introduced, I deliberately, in defence to the opinion expressed by the Minister of Finance, withdrew the Bill from the House in order that it could be again introduced into the Natal Provincial Council. The Bill or Ordinance was then re-introduced in the Natal Provincial Council, and the Council was informed officially by the Government that the law advisers of the Crown held it to be ultra vires of the Provincial Council.

What date was that?

I cannot say the date; I was at the Provincial Council session. As a result of that communication from the Government the Select Committee who were considering the Municipal Banking Ordinance immediately threw the ordinance out. It was conveyed to them that even if the Natal Provincial Council did pass the ordinance the Government would, in duty bound, have to refuse to give assent to the ordinance. That would have been a waste of time, to have gone on with an ordinance that the Government would have to eliminate. I contend that quite apart from the opinion of the Minister of Finance—he has his opinion, though his opinions are not always correct—in which he made it very clear that he was speaking as a layman and not as a lawyer, that the Bill was not ultra vires to the Provincial Council; and we who were responsible for the Bill took the proper course by withdrawing it from the House to test whether the Provincial Council has powers to pass such an ordinance. It has now been definitely decided that the Provincial Council has no such power. It seemed to me to be the height of futility for the constitutional experts of the Dominion Party to continue to raise this constitutional point after it had been finally settled. We had to stand it for many years when they raised the constitutional question, and it appears now that we have to stand up against a constitutional point on the Banking Bill. But that point has been settled, I should imagine that the hon. members representing the Dominion Party should, of all people, be the people who are prepared to accept the final decision of the Minister. The law is a very sacred thing to these constitutional experts, and if it has been finally decided that the Bill cannot be introduced into the Provincial Council, surely one would expect that the members of the Dominion Party would be prepared to accept that as a final decision.

Are the Government law advisers responsible for the final decision?

My hon. friends do not seem to know how their own country is governed. I think they ought to have a political lecture. Surely the hon. member knows that if the law advisers lay something down as their opinion, the Government is in duty bound to carry it out. Otherwise where are you going to get to? There is no provision in our law where a decision of this kind may be made, and the next best thing is the decision of the law advisers. If they said so to the Government, the Government would, in duty bound, have to refuse to assent to the ordinance when it was passed by the Provincial Council. We are not really concerned here with constitutional points. We are concerned with the introduction of the Municipal Housing and Banking Bill, and all their constitutional stuff is mere quibbling. The hon. members representing the Dominion Party have prevented the passage of this Bill for two Sessions. You will not, Mr. Speaker, allow me to use the word “obstruct” but the fact remains that a small coterie of members of this House have been responsible in the last two years for the holding up of a very necessary and progressive piece of legislation. The hon. member for Houghton tries to make out a case because the Bill has not so far managed to get through the House, but he knows that in every case where a vote has been taken on any provision of this Bill, the supporters of the Bill have had a very large majority, and the actual opponents of the Bill, at least in the last Parliament, numbered 10 or 12 out of 153.

Many members did not vote on it.

The Dominion Party have also at times abstained from voting. But a large number of members of this House are in favour of the Bill, and have voted for provisions of the Bill, and the mere vapourings of the Dominion Party have lasted long enough, they have vapoured long enough to prevent its passing. The Bill has not been turned down by the House, but talked out, in two successive Sessions, and now we have today the spectacle of these suave apologies made by the hon. member for South Coast. We have here clearly before us another deliberate attempt to prevent the passage of this Bill by opposing it today.

The hon. member must not use the words “deliberate attempt.”

It is an attempt; I withdraw the word “deliberate.” It looks to me as if the hon. member for South Coast, and in a lesser degree the hon. member for Houghton, had some kind of intention of preventing the passage of the Bill. They have said so quite openly.

You are suggesting a motive.

Surely you must have some motive, or else you have no brains. Surely to goodness an hon. member does not get up here and make any speech without having some motive behind it. Otherwise he is absolutely brainless. And the motive of the objection is, I understand from the hon. member himself, to prevent the passage of the Bill; and his point as to why it should not be passed is this question of the Provincial Council. I want to deal with another alarming argument put forward by the hon. member for South Coast, that is, if we proceed to institute municipal banks in South Africa so much money will be put into these banks by the people generally, that the Minister of Finance will not be able to get enough money to run the war. That was a suggestion made by the hon. member for South Coast. It shows how ridiculous is the opposition to this particular Bill—the Minister of Finance won’t be able to get sufficient money to run the war if we institute municipal banks through the Bill.

Why don’t you exaggerate?

I will try in a minute; it would be very difficult to exaggerate in connection with the irrational arguments put forward by you. That is, in my opinion, a nonsensical argument. The hon. member for South Coast knows that in any case the Minister of Finance will probably not be affected by the amount of money that can be put into the bank, and he knows very well too that the deposit in the municipal banks, even if they were started tomorrow, will never reach those vast proportions that would interfere with the raising of the money required to run the war.

You asked for £7,500,000.

Seven and a half million pounds would not go very far in building houses, and I am sure the Minister of Finance is not going to be frightened because we asked for £7,500,000. The hon. member for South Coast and the hon. member for Houghton have investigated this Bill, for which they say there is no demand. I do not know quite on what lines we are proceeding to argue in Parliament. My recollection of Parliament is this, and you can see it on the Order Paper today, that many Bills are introduced into Parliament for which there is no popular clamour, but merely because there is no particular clamour for a Bill is no reason why we should refuse to accept a Bill. It should be considered on its merits. If it is a good Bill and will provide the public with facilities for the building of houses, and if the working of municipal banks will tend to reduce the interest at present charged in respect of people who borrow money to build houses—if these things are true of the Bill it is a good Bill and should be supported. The crowning argument, as I gathered from the hon. member for Houghton, is that only in Birmingham and in one or two other places, are there municipal banks. That does not appear to me to be a very sound argument; because a thing has never been done before that is no particular reason why we should not do it now. There is no particular reason why the Union of South Africa should wait before municipalities in New Zealand and Australia and other countries take action. We are sufficiently progressive to take the lead. In some instances South Africa has taken the lead, and I am hopeful that in respect of municipal banks we will take the lead. South Africa compared with Great Britain, is much further advanced on the question of working people owning their own houses, and this is a Bill which seeks to give adequate facilities for the extension of the ownership of houses by the ordinary working people of the country. That being so, we must pay no attention to the circumstances whether municipal banks have been instituted in other parts of the world. We are dealing with the Union of South Africa. This is a thoroughly good Bill. I am going to appeal to the House, because I believe that the attitude of a small coterie towards this Bill has tended somewhat to bring Parliament itself into disrepute. Parliament is a debating chamber which makes a decision after discussions and eventually comes to a vote, and it is not part and should not be part of the policy of any Parliament to allow a small minority—never mind how vocal they may be—by the mere exercising of their vocal chords to prevent the passage of a very necessary piece of legislation. I trust that the House is going to see that permission is going to be given to the hon. member for Point to introduce the Bill, and I must add my word to the suggestion made by the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Goldberg) that if it does appear that the small group of members sitting behind me are going to oppose this Bill tooth and nail, that time should be granted for the passage of the Bill, which is being awaited with considerable interest by the public.

After listening to the speech of the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Goldberg) one would think that the country had never heard of the Bill or the provisions of it; but as the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate) has pointed out, this measure has been before the country in one form or another ever since 1933. It has been before the Provincial Council and it has been argued in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. For three Sessions it has been before this House, and it has got nowhere. It is merely wasting the time of the House and of those bodies who have had to deal with it. I should like to associate myself with the hon. member for South Coast in opposing the introduction of this Bill again this Session. I do not think we want to waste any more time over it. My chief reason for opposing the measure is that it has a tendency to encroach on the prerogatives of the Provincial Councils. I do not think anybody can deny that. We in Natal are very jealous of the rights of the Provincial Council, and we object to Parliament or any other body encroaching on those powers. This Bill, after wasting a considerable amount of time during last Session, was in due course thrown out, and when I got back to Durban I expected some people to say they were disappointed that the Bill had been thrown out, or some people to say they were pleased the Bill had been thrown out, but not a single person ever mentioned the Bill to me. The people of Durban are not interested one way or the other, whether the Bill is passed or not passed. I say that with all truth, and yet this Bill has been put before various authorities ever since 1933. It is a waste of time. Of course, one is naturally suspicious why some people want to get it through. But as for the general public, they are not interested in the slightest degree. In Natal we have a Natal Municipal Association which is representative of all the Municipalities of Natal. They meet from time to time. As far as I am aware, they have never passed any resolution in favour of a measure of this sort. Surely before bringing this measure before the House of Assembly, the Municipal Association should have been consulted, and their opinion sought before wasting our time on the matter. Various opinions have been expressed by members as to why the Provincial Council has thrown this measure out from time to time, I shall tell the House what a member of the Provincial Council told me, as to why it was thrown out on the last occasion. The reason was this, that the Central Housing Board had been in existence for some years and had many millions of Government money at its disposal for loan to Municipalities. They even had the right to lend money to Municipalities on a sub-economic basis. They had the right to lend the money at ¾ per cent. per annum and yet the Durban Municipality throughout all these years when they had these facilities to obtain money, never availed themselves of it, and why therefore should they come to the Provincial Councils and ask for the establishment of a Savings Bank. The whole position is not consistent. That is the reason why, according to the member of the Provincial Council who spoke to me, the Provincial Council had thrown out the measure. Quite recently during January this year, before Members came down for the Session, the Durban City Council called a meeting and invited members of the Senate, Members of Parliament, and Members of the Provincial Council to meet them in Committee to discuss various matters of public interest in which the Durban City Council was interested. They wanted to get the members of the other bodies also interested in these projects, so that when we discussed the matter in this House, we would know what the Durban City Council was aiming at. This meeting was well attended, and the City Council had drawn up a very elaborate programme for discussion. The hon. member for Durban (Central) (Mr. Derbyshire) said he was very pleased to be present at this meeting and he hoped the City Council would give us an idea of what measures they wanted us to introduce and support, and he went so far as to say that we in the House did not know what the Durban City Council wanted, and that we would very much like an expression of opinion from the City Council. We sat there all day, and no one raised the question of the Savings Bank Bill at all. The hon. member for Durban (Point) (Dr. V. L. Shearer), now comes here and introduces a Bill when the City Council does not even mention it, when they had all the members of Parliament present. If that is not sufficient proof that Durban does not want this Bill then nothing will prove it.

Poor old Durban!

The hon. member for Durban (Point) may not realise that there is a war on at the present time.

How do you know there is a war on?

We have a long Session before us and the hon. member persists in bringing up this Bill time and again, and wasting our time. I think the sooner we close this subject which is not wanted, the better it will be for all concerned. I would like to mention one other point. The point has been raised before, that we do not know the provisions of this Bill. We do not know what this Bill is. We debated it ad nauseam last Session. I put up several points to the hon. member for Durban (Point) and one point was that the Municipality could not pay more than 3½ per cent. to subscribers to the Savings Bank. That being the case, I asked the hon. member what would happen if the general rate of interest increased in the country; whether the people would not then withdraw their money from the Savings Bank, and what would they do. The hon. member did not reply to that question, nor did he reply to any of the other questions I put to him. He had ample opportunity to answer the questions, but he did not do so for the simple reason that there was no satisfactory reply which he could give. I move—

In supporting the amendment for the adjournment of the debate I would like to draw the attention of the House to the next motion on the Order Paper. One would have thought that the hon. member for Durban (Point), with the experience which he has had in Durban during the past few months, would not attempt to take up the time of the House with a measure of this kind. He has attempted, with a certain amount of success, to demonstrate to the people of Durban his keenness. He has addressed meetings in connection with social security. I know I may be travelling just a little beyond the scope of the motion, but if we are going to make some reasonable attempt to meet the wishes of the public of South Africa, if we are going to carry out the pledges that the hon. member for Durban (Point) made in the past, then this House must assist him to carry out the duty to which he has pledged himself in Durban. We will not be able to do that until we have disposed of this particular motion, and I would like to tell the House that what the hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) (Mr. Acutt) stated in connection with the meeting which was called by the Durban City Council, was perfectly correct. I said to the Mayor: “Sir, we members of Parliament would have liked an expression of opinion from the Council in connection with the Housing Bill. We in Cape Town were placed in such a position that we were unaware whether you members of the City Council wanted this Housing Bill or this Savings Bank Bill.” Heaven only knows what the Bill will be called when it reaches this House again, because the name has been changed so often in the past. I said that I would like the members of the City Council to tell us what their opinion was in connection with the Bill.

The hon. member must confine himself to the reasons for the adjournment of the debate.

In a moment or two I shall come to the reason why this Bill should not further take up the time of the House. If an hon. member introduces a Bill in this House and he claims that that Bill is wanted by the people, then it is up to him to prove it to this House. I want to tell the House exactly what happened before the City Council of Durban. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) has told us that we must not attempt in any way, whether the Bill is bad, good or indifferent, to prevent the Bill being debated. I think the hon. member for Fordsburg has a record in this House for defeating the Bills of private members.

The hon. member must confine himself to the reasons for the adjournment of the debate.

I say that the municipalities of South Africa would in some manner have informed the members that they were desirous of having this Bill considered if that really was the case. We have received no instructions from anyone and since when has the hon. member for Durban (Point) decided to take the responsibility on his own shoulders? That is the point. Because in the past they have failed with this Bill, because they have confined it to Durban, they are now attempting to extend the scope of the Bill. Let me tell hon. members that this Bill is not wanted in Durban or anywhere else. We are told that this Bill is wanted for the purpose of building houses for soldiers when they return. I remember that in 1934 through the Housing Act, millions of pounds were made available for the municipalities.

Will the hon. member come back to the question before the House?

I do feel that in view of the decision that has been taken in the Provincial Council, where it has been tested out on a number of occasions—I do not think a Bill of this nature has ever been to the Provincial Council of the Cape or to the Provincial Council of the Transvaal or the Provincial Council of the Free State—but is has been tried on a number of occasions in Natal and it has failed dismally, and you will probably remember that in 1933 one of the chief reasons for the change of Government at that time was that the Government of the day endeavoured to make, and did make, certain statements that it was prepared to interfere with the rights of the Provincial Councils, and it was said that the Provincial Councils may be abolished.

I must again ask the hon. member to come back to the motion for the adjournment of the debate.

Is it not a fact that we ought to be able to leave measures of this kind to a body which is capable of dealing with them? The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) has stated that the law advisers have ruled that the Provincial Council is the only body which can deal with the matter. I am prepared to accept the statement of the Minister of Finance where he stated that the Provincial Council was the body which could deal with this, and as the hon. the Minister of Finance is in charge of the House he ought to be able to guide us in these matters. I think the House would therefore be justified in refusing the first reading of this Bill and allow it to go to the Provincial Council once more. Since it was last before the Provincial Council there has been a change in the Provincial Council of Natal, in that certain Durban City Councillors have now gone to the Provincial Council and they may be able to bring about the passing of this Bill. For these reasons I second the amendment of the hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) that this debate be now adjourned.

Motion for the adjournment of the debate put and negatived.

At the outset I want to congratulate the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Mr. Derbyshire) on the speech which he has just made, and after having listened to his speech I would like to remind hon. members of a speech which he made when a similar Bill was discussed during the last session of Parliament. The hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) (Mr. Acutt) has also told the House that this Bill is exactly similar to the last Bill. Now, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Durban (Central) said on a similar Bill during the last Session of the Eighth Parliament—

I think that the remarks of the hon. member are therefore difficult to understand. Secondly, the hon. member refers to my association with a particular movement. I would like to say that this Bill can in effect be described as one of the blue prints of that movement, i.e. Social Security. That, I think, is the reply in regard to the point raised by the hon. member for Durban (Central). Thirdly, the hon. member for Durban (Central) says that he has had no instructions to support this Bill. I would ask the hon. member when the Durban City Council approached me by resolution to introduce that Bill, whether it was, in effect an instruction or not, and if it was, did he support it? Hon. members of this House will remember I was asked by official resolution of the City Council to sponsor that. Bill. I want to refer now, if I may, to the hon. member for Durban (Musgrave). The hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) said: “We are very jealous of our rights in the Provincial Council.” Can the hon. member tell me where on one occasion, during the two years, when the Durban City Savings Bank and Housing Bill was considered in this House, the Provincial Council lodged any objection? Because I contend that if that question of provincial rights was an issue, then the body to raise it in this House was the Provincial Council. What is more, did not the Provincial Council refuse to consider that Bill on the grounds that it was ultra vires. The second point raised by the hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) was that there was a conference between members of the Provincial Council, members of Parliament and members of the City Council to discuss the Council’s post-war reconstruction programme. I would like the hon. member to tell me if I am wrong, I gathered from his remarks, that the City Council never raised this question of the Housing Bill. The hon. member tells me that they never raised it, and on that assumption he says that the Council does not want this Bill. If the City Council did not raise the matter, since I had given a great deal of publicity to it in the Press one month before, then I claim that my assumption that they had no objection to it is the correct one, because they did not object to it. If they had objected very strongly to it, then obviously they would have opposed it, and this they did not do. I claim that assumption is the logical one. Now let me come to the four objections raised by the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate). The first one is that the Council does not want the Bill. I want to put this to the House, in all sincerity, that the hon. member for South Coast in surveying in chronological order the attempts made by the Durban City Council over a long period of years, has shown without a shadow of doubt the clear fact that there was a genuine desire on behalf of the City Council that such a Bill or ordinance should be introduced. That, I think, Mr. Speaker, is the inference that hon. members should draw from the survey in chronological order of the history of this Bill.

The members of the City Council have all been unseated.

The hon. member says that they have all been unseated. I cannot agree with him, but in any case let me say, irrespective of what views the Durban City Council may have, the Bill is now a local authority savings Bill and applies to every local authority in this country which, in the opinion of the Minister of Finance, is capable of conducting such an institution, and I beg to submit that the two main provisions of the Bill, namely savings and housing, are principles which the House must rightly consider; and if, at a later stage, any municipality wishes to avail itself of those rights, it is up to the municipality to apply for those facilities. But at the moment this House is concerned mainly with principles.

Is it going to be a fruit salad instead of a banana split.

Secondly the hon. member says the Council will waste no more money on this Bill. I contend that if that statement is correct, then the hon. member’s promises for such a statement is quite unsuitable to be accepted in this debate. I say that it is not a fair statement to make, because one Councillor out of twenty five made the statement to him. Let us assume it is correct. Then I would ask this House who was responsible for the wasting of the £9,000 that has been expended by the City Council in trying to get this Bill passed?

I am not Parliament; I am only a member.

Yes, but the hon. member knows and this House knows to what extent the privileges of this House can be used by one member with the help of three or four others and they have used those privileges to good effect. I think I have dealt with that point. The third objection is where the hon. member for South Coast says this matter was not discussed at the conference. I have already dealt with this. The fourth objection he raised was this: He said this was a matter to be dealt with by the Provincial Council. Apart from the fact that the legal advisers to the Crown have indicated this is a matter ultra vires to the Provincial Council, the hon. member for South Coast knows that this House has already accepted the principle of this Bill through the adoption of the second reading which took place last year. In a democratic institution such as we have, this House has already not only accepted the opinion of the legal advisers, but has approved of the principle involved in this Bill.

How many members voted for that second reading?

That is an old story. I contend that if the hon. member has strong convictions against this Bill then if he does not come and vote against it, then it must be assumed that he is in favour of it. I doubt if there is a round dozen against this Bill. Now I come to the last objection, namely, that it would deprive the post offices of this country of certain sums of money. I have made enquiries and I find that the Union Government has at the moment, in trust, including funds from savings account, and Union Loan Certificates, an amount of £70,000,000. The money is coming in so fast that the postal officials are finding it difficult to handle. So, if the post office section has an amount of £70,000,000 on hand, then I fail to see that a few thousand pounds will make any difference.

Are you disclosing budget secrets?

In regard to the amount of £70,000,000 I can quite appreciate, having listened to the arguments of the hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) (Mr. Acutt) that he thinks of the Budget in terms of £70,000,000 only. Furthermore, has the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs or his staff objected to that Bill either before the Select Committee or at any time during the passage of that Bill in the House? In conclusion, I would say that I deeply regret the action that some hon. members are taking in opposing this motion for leave to introduce. Most of them are trying to fight for the constitutional rights under the South Africa Act. I want to charge those hon. members with this fact, that in adopting the attitude that they have done in this debate, they are depriving 53 new members of the House of the right to see the provisions of this Bill. I would just say further that I hope that the House will give me leave to introduce this Bill, and from then onwards the House will accept not only the second reading but will go on to place this Bill on the Statute Book as perhaps one of the most important pieces of progressive social legislation that has been brought before the House.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill brought up and read a first time; second reading on 25th February.

Before the House adjourned the other day I tried to explain that just as the Renaissance movement developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, or just as the Nationalist movement developed at the beginning of the twentieth century, social security has today not merely become an idea but has practically developed into a philosophy—one can almost say into an ideology. I also said that as the social security philosophy has taken a hold among the people one has to be particularly careful how one deals with it. I pointed out that in Germany and Italy it has led to national socialism and fascism; in that way it found expression to satisfy these ideas, and I pointed out that in Russia it is communism which has given expression to these ideas, but I also pointed out that although those systems may be beneficial or detrimental so far as we are concerned, they are un-Afrikaans, because we believe in the maintenance of a democratic structure in our national life. We believe for instance that we should preserve the rights and claims of the individual, of the family, and of domestic life. But if democracy, to which we are accustomed, does not satisfy the new demands of the community, then we shall have to look for something which will satisfy those demands. Those demands made by the community consequent upon the course of events, as a result of war, as a result of education, as a result of culture, as a result of evolution, must be satisfied if we want to preserve the democratic structure, because we have learned to realise that there are two main factors in particular which we have to guard against in our democratic national life. The first and perhaps the most important is unemployment, with its resultant poverty, which in turn leads to privation and subsequent starvation. If we remove this, we at the same time remove another important factor which is now connected with it, and that is fear—not the fear of death, but the fear of the uncertainty of tomorrow—the fear of an old age without any income, the fear of a long illness with its impossible doctors’ accounts, the fear of losing one’s parents, the fear of widowhood—that is the real fear. And then we come back to the first group—the fear of unemployment, poverty, want and hunger—because we realise that under our present structure these are the factors which cause many people to abandon their noblest intentions and ambitions and sacrifice them on the altar of fate. As we all know, and as the hon. member for Sunnyside (Mr. Pocock) has told us, we have institutions in this country which attempt to relieve distress by means of charitable work, but nobody will say that those efforts at charity, those efforts at relief of distress, have the effect of preventing distress—it is only after conditions of distress have arisen that charity steps in to save what can be saved. Beyond that our efforts at charity undertaken by the State and by private concerns are loose, disjointed and consequently expensive and wasteful. We have a large number of State, private and semi-official charitable institutions, all doing outstanding work, but there is no co-ordination, with the result that there is a great ideal of waste of time and energy. Beyond that those institutions do their duty in accordance with what our religion teaches us, but they take us no further, although it costs us nearly £40,000,000, and not £25,000,000 as stated in the White Paper. In spite of this great expenditure they do not touch the root of the evil, the root of poverty, of social degradation and of times of social ruin, and it is no wonder therefore that in this country of ours, owing to the lack of co-ordination, we have such a high figure in infantile mortality, namely 57 per 1,000, not to mention the native figure which so far as infantile mortality is concerned, is about 400 per 1,000, in comparison with 33 per 1,000 in New Zealand and 39 per 1,000 in Australia. And 70 per cent. of these cases of infantile mortality could be prevented if in this country we had an effective social security system which could prevent a repetition of these conditions year after year and century after century. The hon. member for Sunnyside yesterday said that South Africa’s charitable efforts were practically speaking equal to those of New Zealand under the social security legislation in existence there. If that is so I must say I am sorry for New Zealand, but I am also infinitely sorry for ourselves. After he had made that statement I looked up the food analysis of the Department of Public Health for 1941 to see what was actually being done and what was the result of what was being done, what benefits we were receiving from the charitable efforts of the State and the public. One may conclude from what I read there that 20,000 white children had to go without their breakfast this morning, that there were 116,000 white children this morning whose parents could not afford to give them any milk, that there were more than 200,000 white children this morning whose parents could not afford to buy them fruit. It appears from this that 40.3 per cent. of our boys between the age of 6 and 16, and 32.9 per cent. of our girls between the age of 6 and 16, are being so badly fed that they need treatment and supervision. That is to say, 88,660 boys and 69,090 girls are suffering physically and mentally. It is estimated that there are 11,000 widows in this country who are neglected, not by widowers, but by the State as such, and that those 11,000 widows and their children are dependent for their living on charity and alms, and we know that as a result of this condition many of them go under. In this country we have almost 140,000 old age people, coloured as well as white, excluding natives, who should receive old age pensions. Of those fewer than 100,000 receive old age pensions—and we know the precarious pensions they receive. How these old people can exist on these precarious pensions and make a living is often beyond my comprehension, and one knows that the standard of living of a nation is determined by the extent to which the nation looks after its poor and its less privileged classes. We have 40,000 men in this country doing unskilled work and not earning enough to live above the breadline; 45 per cent. of our men are earning just enough to be one day ahead of an empty stomach, and if that is the result of the social security efforts which we are acquainted with at the moment, then I think hon. members will agree that it is high time we did away with the system which we have now. That is why we find that the people in the first place demand a guarantee that they will be given work, and if we provide work it will not be necessary to estimate, as the White Paper does, that we are going to spend more than £2,000,000 on unemployment. We ask for a guarantee that work will be supplied. In addition we demand that at all times deserving people, men and women, shall have incomes which will enable them to live above the breadline. Secondly, the people demand a guarantee for a decent standard of living for their old age, in times of sickness, for those who have no parents, in the event of widowhood, and invalidity. Thirdly, the people demand free hospital service, free medical services, free dispensing and dental services—and they want these services without the abominable means test. Fourthly, the nation demands the subsidising of families who through economic or other circumstances are obliged to adopt a low standard of living, because we know that if the family suffers—and the family is the unit out of which the nation is built up—then the nation as a whole suffers. Finally, the people demand free education so that the children can be educated to fit in to the difficult conditions of modern life. The people in other words demand social security and the necessary legislation to that effect. It will cost a lot of money. It is tremendously complicated. We admit that, but I am also convinced that South Africa can afford it, that South Africa is willing to bear the expense, and that those who are more privileged are willing to bear the expense. I also think that it will not cost as much as the White Paper intimates. The Estimate according to the White Paper for instance is that the natives, so far as pensions are concerned, in comparison with the Europeans will get 24—60, but if we take the Estimate of the Commission itself of 1—4, then surely the relation must be as 15—60 or 24—96. I am in favour of our giving the native whatever we can to uplift him to a higher level. I want to be fair, but I sometimes wonder whether we are not going to endanger the whole Social Security Code and the proposals placed before us by extending the entire system to the natives, and by giving them the same benefits—naturally, in proportion. But Social Security will not cost so much as that, because the income of the people will be more evenly divided, and as a result of that the purchasing power of the people will be increased. This will have a beneficial effect on our markets, and on the provision of employment. The workers spend money, the dealer banks his money, and this creates bank credits. The banks use the money for financing of businesses and industries. We find therefore that the proposed changes will by no means cost us as much as we are sometimes led to believe. So often, however, we are asked: “What is the machinery, what do you propose, how is it to be established?” I want to say very briefly that the machinery which can be used, to a large extent already exists, but it is necessary that the machinery be co-ordinated—it is necessary for us to have a unit plan. Secondly, we want a comprehensive insurance scheme, the main object of which must be to secure the population against poverty, invalidity, and old age. In addition to that we want a National Rehabilitation Board which will occupy itself with the rehabilitation of soldiers when they come back and also of people who lose their jobs. Further, we want an extension of the Department of Public Health, and a Health Board to give the Department advice. Further, we want a Permanent Planning and Economic Council, to advise the Minister in regard to Social Security. That, more or less, in brief, is the system, the machinery, required to put Social Security into operation. It would seem to me therefore that all we require as legislators of this country who fully realise the responsibility resting upon us, is courage, energy, and the will and ability to see things through in order to pass legislation within the scope and the demands of the democratic structure in which we live, which will make it possible to do away with the stigma of charity, and which will enable us to pass legislation which once and for all will provide for the 500,000 and more unemployed who are compelled by economic conditions to live below the bread line. This is a great and most important matter, and I therefore very definitely feel that we should refer it to a Select Committee. Before I sit down I want to express my confidence that the Prime Minister will see that this matter is not delayed any longer, because if we put it off we are in danger of losing the democratic structure in our national life, and if we lose that it will be our own fault. I have confidence in him, however, and I know that he will have legislation passed as soon as possible for the welfare of the nation as a whole.

Like other hon. members of the House, I welcome the White Paper which the Government has issued in connection with social security, and in giving it that welcome I must say at the outset that the scales and rates embodied in that White Paper are insufficient, and will be a source of disappointment to the vast majority of the whole people of South Africa. At the beginning of the discussion, one of the earliest speakers made a suggestion that the Labour Party were not clear in their attitude on the requirements for social security, an allegation which to my mind is perfectly erroneous and unjust because if there is any political organisation which does understand the requirements of social security, it must be the Labour Party, which by its work and activities is engaged in working among the very people who are the class that suffer most from insecurity; and as the Minister of Labour said it was that, and that alone, which gave rise to the need for the establishment of the Labour Party in South Africa. It is perhaps due to the early intervention of the Prime Minister and his recognition of the very important fundamental fact embodied in the Labour Party resolution, that the important thing in regard to social security was employment which led in its turn to an amendment which I have no doubt the hon. member for Germiston (South) (Mr. J. G. N. Strauss) will accept as an alteration to his amendment to this particular motion, and that a Select Committee will be asked to include in its investigation the most important subject of unemployment, because employment is the basis of social security, and without full employment for everyone in South Africa there can be no such thing as social security. The hon. member for Roodepoort (Mr. Allen) took up the other point which is linked up with unemployment in the Labour Party motion, and that is the need for having a living wage, and I hope when the Select Committee investigates the question of work creation, it will also bear in mind that it is the feeling of the House, as I hope it is, that work should be created at living rates of pay so that people can enjoy decent standards of living, and thereby social security. I now want to ask the House to consider carefully the second portion of the Labour Party’s resolution, that is the financing of social security through a state bank, and I would ask members to allow their minds to go back to the years of 1931, 1932 and 1933, when South Africa was in the throes of a depression not felt previously, and not felt since, the depth of which shook the whole of our South African economy, and members will realise that there was only one reason and only one explanation for that economic depression during the years of 1932 and 1933, that it solely centred round the whole question of state credit and the gold standard, and the shortening usage of money which brought about the depression which was felt so much in those years. I want to remind hon. members also of another thing round about the same time—in the years 1934 and 1935—I want to remind them that with the advent of Hitlerism it was forecast throughout the world that Germany was spending so much money on armaments that it was only a matter of time before Hitler would crash and Germany would be insolvent. Germany not only went through the pre-war years, but she has gone through four years of war without having had an internal crash. The fact is that we can spend money so long as we are creating wealth with it, without harm to the nation. If social security is to become a reality, and if social security is to meet the needs of the people of South Africa and the scales and schedules embodied in any legislation in this House are to be what the people of South Africa expect, then it will be necessary for South Africa to realise that greater amounts have to be provided and can be provided than those set down in the White Paper; and those things can be done if the House is only wise enough to realise that by the wise utilisation of the credit of South Africa work can be created—and only be created if we effectively use the credit of South Africa. I want to indicate to this House my experiences since 1932, and show how one particular section of the community was affected. The shop assistances and distributive workers were given a wage determination based on an investigation which took place in 1932 when we were at the height of the depression, and naturally, and as a consequence of that investigation, the rates of wages laid down for the distributive workers were rates of pay based on a depression year. Subsequently, in 1937, a further investigation took place, and after the many years which had passed in the interim a new determination was made, and considerable improvements were given to the shop assistants and distributive workers of South Africa; and I particularly recall it because I happened to be the general secretary of the distributive workers at the time. With the final passing of the recommendations of the Wage Board in 1937, which embodied a considerable improvement to shop assistants and distributive workers, they issued a pamphlet which on the frontispiece had a scroll indicating that this determination was the charter for the shop assistants and distributive workers of South Africa. I use that point because we are now speaking of the White Paper, and the proposals embodied therein being made part of a Bill which will be a charter for the people of South Africa. As the shop assistants in 1937 were satisfied with the wage improvements which came to them then, and were prepared to describe them as a charter of the shop assistants, so at present the schedules of scales laid down in the White Paper may for the moment be described as the charter for the people of South Africa, but in exactly the same way as the shop assistants between 1937 and 1943 looked for something better, and demanded something better, and the shop assistants have made good their demands for an effective improvement in 1943, so the people of South Africa will be unsatisfied and remain unsatisfied with the scales embodied in the White Paper, and those scales will remain unsatisfactory to the people of South Africa in future years, and they can only be improved if South Africa is prepared and Parliament is prepared to consider the second important phase of the Labour Party motion, and that is the necessity of setting up a State bank in order to control the credit of South Africa and use it in the interests of the mass of the population of South Africa, and not leave it in the hands of monopolists who use South African credit for their own interest and gain. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister used these particular words, which are given expression to in a news letter which I have with me, and which carries the authority of the Prime Minister. It says—

The safeguarding of the interests of the dependants of soldiers is parallel with the interest of the soldiers themselves, and whatever social security code may be cast by this House, which makes provision for the people of South Africa, those people can be classified as dependants of soldiers, and whatever is good for them is looked forward to by the soldiers themselves. What I see in South Africa is this. I see in it a parallel war aim, that is prosecuting the war with certain major objectives. We must take into consideration the need to provide social security which is part of our war aim, and if both these things must be met, the needs of the returned soldiers have to be met, I say—and my party submits—that you can only meet the requirements of the people of South Africa—you will only be able to satisfy their requirements—if you are prepared to set up a State bank in South Africa in order to utilise our credit to the fullest advantage, and if that is not done I want to conclude with one final forecast and that is that in the post-war period the issue will be matter of the returned soldiers versus the banks, and I hope that issue will be raised in future years.

I want to deal with a particular factor which must contribute greatly to social security in South Africa—the factor of the establishment, extension and protection of the industries in this country, which not only contribute to our national income, but also by the creating of employment contribute greatly to the solution of our unemployment and poor white problem. In my opinion therefore—and I think in the opinion of many other members of this House—this question of the establishment and extension and proper protection of our industries is one of the most important matters we have to tackle if we want to arrive at a proper solution of our economic problems in South Africa. It is hardly necessary for me again to say what has been said so often in the past—it is not necessary to repeat the various arguments in favour of the expansion and protection of our industries—the fact, for instance, that by such protection and expansion we shall get a market for our locally produced products, expansion of our agricultural products, and as a result more employment for those who are concerned with the agricultural industry. And then naturally it is self evident that a properly extended industrial policy must unquestionably lead to a large proportion of the unemployed in the country being absorbed in industry. That in turn leads to an improvement of our national revenue, and what is also an important factor, as our trade balance improves, a proportionate contribution is made to the country’s economic security. It is encouraging to notice from the speeches already made from the other side of the House—the speech of the hon. member for Sunnyside (Mr. Pocock) and even the speech of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister—that a realisation of the value of industrial development in South Africa has been awakened in the minds of those hon. members led by the Prime Minister. That has not always been the case. I remember in 1925, when the Nationalist Party sat on that side of the House, we had to fight for the establishment of the Iron and Steel Industry in South Africa. Fortunately hon. members opposite have today also realised the necessity of this industry. We also rejoice at the fact that it is admitted by the Prime Minister that in order to assure our industries in South Africa of an existence, in order to make it possible for new industries to be created, we must have a proper protective policy, be it protective by means of dumping duties, import tariffs or any other method which can be applied. I think it is generally realised today that without proper protection it will be almost impossible to establish and keep going new industries in South Africa. If that is so—and I assume that our friends opposite realise it today—that they also accept the policy which we introduced in 1925, the policy in regard to the establishment and the protection of industries—then I think that it is necessary now to draw their attention to certain recent happenings and to certain statements made, inter alia, by the Prime Minister himself, statements which give cause for anxiety about the future of our industries in South Africa. Some time ago, towards the end of last year, the Prime Minister made that famous, or infamous speech, or as he himself called it, that explosive speech, before the members of the British House of Commons in London. The Prime Minister, among other things, in the course of that speech discussed the question of the relationship between the British Commonwealth of Nations and the Colonies, and the whole question of Empire relations, and the conclusion the Prime Minister arrived at in that speech was that it would be necessary to consolidate the British Commonwealth of Nations, including also the British Colonies. He spoke about there being two directions—one direction of centralisation and the other of decentralisation, and he came to the conclusion that it was necessary to consolidate. It was clear the Prime Minister was very much concerned about England’s position in the future, and the Prime Minister used the following expression there—

At 4.10 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1944, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 14th February.

The House thereupon proceeded to the consideration of Government business.

When the Hon. the Minister of Mines replied to my hon. friend, the hon. member for Johannesburg (Mayfair) (Mr. H. J. Cilliers) he treated the very serious appeal made by the hon. member to introduce legislation to deal with the miners’ phthisis this year with very scant courtesy indeed. It was to my mind a very important and a very serious matter which the hon. member brought up, I felt rather disappointed in the Minister, that he descended to a system of making debating points on other matters that the hon. member brought up. The hon. member raised points which, in my opinion, are very important. I am not in a position to express any opinion as to who is right, whether it is the Minister or the hon. member for Mayfair. But I do think what was of paramount importance was the fact that the hon. member’s speech was dismissed with very scant courtesy by the Minister. I want to return to the point he made because the mineworkers on the Reef, their dependants and the miners’ phthisis pensioners, are today very seriously concerned about this question. Is it necessary for me to point out to the Minister that conditions are very much worse today than they were three years ago when he promised to set up a Commission. The cost of living has gone up and conditions generally speaking are very much worse. It took the Hon. Minister six months to get that Commission going. Now the Commission has reported, and we have a majority and a minority report, and in his speech the Minister gave us no indication as to whether he is giving consideration to both or any one of these reports. The workers on the Reef cannot help being disappointed at the action taken by the Minister. The Hon. Minister promised to introduce legislation next year, and all he has done has been to say that he has every sympathy with the workers. Well, I can assure the Hon. Minister that it is not sympathy that the mineworkers want. They believe that they have a good case. They believe that on the examination of either of the reports it will be found that there is a good deal to justify their claim. I would like to remind the Hon. the Minister of the old saying that sympathy without relief is like mustard without beef; it is warming but it is not filling. There will be great disappointment on the Reef as a result of the statement on the part of the Minister, and I am going to appeal to him and to the Minister of Finance, and indeed the whole Cabinet, to reconsider this question because it is of pressing importance, and it will create a good deal of dissatisfaction if this thing is set aside for another year. In effect, if that is done, it will be another 18 months before legislation can be introduced. Why the Minister is adamant in this respect is beyond me. The Minister seems to have the obsession that there is no necessity for anything to be done, and I have yet to meet anyone in this House, or anyone on the Reef, who agrees with him in that contention, and therefore I want to throw the responsibility not only on the Minister but on the whole Cabinet to deal with this matter. It is a matter which is too serious to be left to one Minister to flout what I believe to be the rights of the mineworkers in such a lighthearted manner as he has done. Another point I should like to bring to the notice of the Hon. the Minister is this. I want to point out to the Minister that the application of the means test operates unfairly. I am now referring to the gratuity fund. The Minister understands that fund, which has done a great deal of good, where, under normal circumstances there would have been no claim on the Miners’ Phthisis Fund in the ordinary legal way. This money is paid out in sums ranging from £2 up to a matter of about £6 or £7 per month, according to a scale that has been laid down. I want to point out to the Minister that the application of the means test is leading to a good deal of dissatisfaction. Recently I had occasion to put up to the Phthisis Board the case of a widow. She discovered that her next door neighbour was receiving £5 per month from the Gratuity Fund. When she applied she was granted £2 per month. I was approached and took the matter up with the Phthisis Board, and the Board informed me that the grant was made in accordance with fixed regulations. They stated that Mrs. So-and-So’s allowance could not be increased as £2 per month was the maximum laid down in such a case. If Mrs. Cook—that was the lady in question—should cease to be employed, she may approach the Board for an increased grant. Here we have this case. The one widow goes out and works and because she works she is penalised, and the other one is not penalised. I think it is entirely unfair. Then, as hon. members will know, other factors are taken into consideration too. Take this case. A widow is left a small property, which the husband procured after years and years of careful saving. Because she is the owner of that property, the widow finds that she is granted the minimum allowance when her husband dies. In effect this system penalises thrift. If this woman had squandered her money she would have got the maximum allowance. It seems to me that this sort of thing is highly unfair. I do hope that the Minister will go into this matter. I take it he has the power to do so. It creates a feeling of unfairness and injustice, and, as I have said, it penalises thrift. I want to say a word or two in regard to the position of the Controllers. As far as the Controller of flour is concerned, I would like the Minister of Agriculture to reconsider this question of allowances to firms which started their business in 1939. I had a case put to me of a baker who actually started in 1939 before the war broke out, and when the permit system came into operation he found that they allowed him for his small business 800 lbs. of rye flour per month. On the first of this year he decided to apply for an increased allowance. He asked that instead of 800 lbs. of flour he should be given an increased allowance. In considering this application the Controller did not take into consideration the fact that he had been in business for practically two years before the permit system was introduced. Let me tell the House what happened. He received a reply to say that they had decreased his allowance from 800 to 400 lbs. That, to my way of thinking, is carrying things to absurdity. If one applies to the Controller for an explanation as to why he has taken a certain course of action he shelters behind the common rule that is laid down, namely that he need not give any explantion. That applies to all Controllers. As hon. members are aware, the Controllers need not give any explanations, but most of the Controllers apparently interpret that proviso to mean that because they have a permissive right, they shall refuse to give an explanation. The Controller simply refuses to give any explanations at all. He refers the people to the Government Gazette Regulation and that is the end of it. Then I have another case which happened in Cape Town a few weeks ago. I am now referring to the Controller of Rubber. The Controller of Rubber was approached for a permit by a certain individual to get 3 retreads for his motor car tyres. The permit was duly issued. In the meantime this person takes out his licence. He had decided that if he could not get retreads he would not use his car. He takes out his licence and his insurance, and to show how public spirited he is, he joins the Lift Club. Everything appears to be in order. He then takes his permit along to the firm that is going to do the retreading, only to be told that the permit had been cancelled. After he has gone to the expense of taking out his licence and paying for his insurance he discovers that his permit has been cancelled, and he cannot get any explanation from the Controller. Surely there is something wrong with our Controllers when they take up an attitude like that. The trouble is that the bulk of the Controllers are not trained civil servants. The trained civil servants do, at any rate, know how to deal with the public. They deal sympathetically with the public.

Do you want a Controller for the Controllers.

I am concerned with the attitude taken up sometimes by controllers in so far as letting the public realise that they are sympathetically applying the power given to them by the Government. I realise that they have not been trained to meet the public as civil servants have been, but at least they must be told they have to treat the public with consideration, with discretion and with commonsense. I want to deal with what I think is another serious matter, and that is that I feel that in this country we are drifting into a system known as the cartel system. That has been brought very forcibly to my notice recently, over the last eight or nine months. I have a specific case here. I do not wish to give the name of the firm at the moment. The Minister is in possession of that information, and I am prepared to hand it over to him. But I do not want, at this stage, to make that firm think that one has treated them unfairly. It can, however, apply to other firms, and that is why I want to put it forward. Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, certain conditions are laid down where the Custodian of Enemy Property has certain rights and powers, and he has to look after and receive the income that would normally have gone to an enemy company or an enemy subject. In the case of the registration of patents, as applied to the pharmaceutical manufacturing of certain types of medicines, I want hon. members not to confuse this matter of registration with patent medicines. A patent medicine is simply a registered copyright. I am now speaking of the registration of a patent, of a process in the manufacture of a certain finished chemical or product. It is something that has been dicovered by research, and having got that, they register the process as a patent process. That, of course, gives them the sole right for 14 years to carry on the manufacture of that particular product; and, to that extent, no one grudges them the right to get what advantage they can as a result of their research and energy. But we have under the regulations dealing with trading with the enemy a regulation 4 (1) which says—

That was the original regulation. Some time ago, actually by Proclamation No. 30 of 1942, on the 23rd January, 1942, these words were prefaced to the regulation—

These people who held 26 licences, this particular firm, did not have the registration then of these particular licences in this country, but they had an agreement with an overseas firm, 50 per cent. of the ownership of that overseas company being held by the German company, and the other half by an overseas company. So the local company is purely a company of nominees. They applied to the Supreme Court, having this agreement in order, to get an order of court for the Registrar of Patents to register these patents. For eight or nine years they had not troubled to do so but as soon as they realised the position they did so. The High Court agreed to it; it was unopposed, and the Registrar then grants these licences. When he grants them he, in effect, puts, this firm in a better position than other firms holding licences, because as the Custodian of Enemy Property is interested the Registrar cannot give these licences to other people who can put a corresponding product on the market. So the enemy concern is in a stronger position than the other companies. What happens then is this: As a result of that the firm concerned deals with certain other firms who have received a corresponding product, such as for instance these various vitamins, B1 and B2. These have been received; they have been placed on the market at prices considerably lower than the product originating from the firm I have just spoken of. And what is the first step taken by this particular firm, 50 per cent. of which is owned by a German company? They send out lawyers letters to these other South African companies, warning them; but of course they claim it is not a warning to these firms. It had been suggested—it was raised publicly—that if the original firm could not supply sufficient of the medicaments required they were embarrassing and penalising the people of South Africa. They said: “It is not true; we are offering other people the sale, and giving them permission to sell their products, although they violated our patent”; and this is what they proposed, and this is where I say the cartel system is seriously threatening us. This is from a letter from a firm of solicitors—

we note with interest the suggestion regarding the licence contained in the final paragraph of your letter …

They had written asking on what conditions they could carry on—

And here are two points I want you to follow carefully—

Now, Mr. Speaker, I think you will realise, and I am sure the House will realise what a serious position we are arriving at, that is, from now until the end of the war the people of South Africa are going to be restricted to an undue extent in the purchase of these medicaments; and let me tell you they are freely prescribed by the medical profession and greatly in demand. They are products of high quality, and they are required by the people of South Africa. The position is different overseas, because if it was not different the corresponding products could be got there and shipped to South Africa, but when they arrive in South Africa they are not allowed to be sold by the importer unless they have a permit under the licence and agree to sell it at the same price as the other people, which is a high price. I want the Minister to consider the amending of the regulation, bringing it back to its original state; that is, to take out that point which says that where the Custodian of Enemy Property is interested no licence shall be granted. If that were taken out and the clause put back to its original position, then the Registrar could grant licences to other people to handle the same article, and without any 5 per cent. in addition, and without having the condition of having to sell at the same price as a registered owner. Or we can, and I suggest we do both, consider amending our law to the extent that we might come into line with other countries. I have got here a statement taken from a book written by Dr. Jan Vojacek and published in 1936, entitled “A Survey of National Patent Systems.” In this he refers particularly to chemical processes and products, particularly those affecting pharmaceutical products, medicines and foodstuffs, and he says that monopolies for medicines and foodstuffs are against the public interest. Further on he says in regard to new methods of manufacture of these three categories of articles, that they should be allowed to freely prepare the same product without any infringement of patent rights. He goes on to tell us that in so far as medicines and foodstuffs are concerned, new methods of manufacture are allowed, and that in some cases also even the same process is allowed for a corresponding article or the same article. Now amongst the countries in which this has been adopted are Austria, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Yugoslavia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland and Soviet Russia. A step in this direction was taken by Great Britain in 1932, and in Canada in 1935, where claims for chemical products are allowed on specification, and where furthermore the controller may grant licences to any persons applying for same. That shows, Mr. Speaker, how we are simply at the moment filling the pockets of the Custodian of Enemy Property on behalf of an enemy firm. What the position will be after the war I do not know, but nevertheless it is wrong, that the people of South Africa have to pay excessive amounts for these products.

Are all the proceeds paid into the Custodian of Enemy Property?

Who else gets them?

I heard they were not paid; I am told they were not paid in.

The position is this, in respect of the South African company 50 per cent. of the shares are owned by the German company. The South African company receives the total amount. The licences are in the name of the South African company, but the Custodian of Enemy Property is interested to the extent of 50 per cent. on behalf of German companies. That is the point I am trying to make. I am sorry you did not catch that point.

I did. I only questioned whether they really paid.

I am quite sure the money is not going to Germany, and I am quite sure this South African company cannot use that money, as it does not belong to them. So who gets it? I should say that the Custodian of Enemy Property is the only person who could handle it in the meantime. I think so, but of course I do not know. It seems to me commonsense. There is just one point more, and that is that the same appeal that I made to the Minister of Mines I make to the Minister of Finance with regard to old age pensions. This question of a means test is causing great distress, great bitterness, and all the points I made with regard to miners’ phthisis gratuity pensioners applies equally to the old age pensioners. I hope the Minister of Finance will get rid of this unfair and unjust means test, which as I say, penalises thrift and causes a great deal of distress and a great deal of unhappiness amongst the old people of our country.

I want to say again what I have repeated in the House on many occasions, only in a different manner, how much I regret that the hon. the Minister of Mines does not see it possible for the House to deal with this Phthisis Commission’s report. Sir, I have read that report and, living in a mining district as I do, I would like to tell the House that I regret very much that the report will not go to Select Committee and be passed into legislation during this session of Parliament.

Which report is it?

The majority report. And I with many other members of this House waited on the Minister recently to see whether it is possible for that report to be applied; and Mr. Speaker, I can say this, that after listening to the advocates of Social Security, whom we have been listening to for some time, I want to tell the House that if I had my way that Commission’s report would take preference over any Social Security Scheme I mentioned in this House up to today. There is no more deserving body of men than the underground miners who are largely responsible for the wealth of the country, and the way they have carried on during the last three or four years deserves every tribute and everything we can do for them. They are working to depths of 6,000, 7,000 and 8,000 feet, depths unheard of before in mining operations. They have gone far to ruin their health, and it will possibly be too late for some of them to realise any benefits arising out of this report when it is brought into operation. I must say again that I do regret that it has not been possible to bring it into operation. I have voiced my views on many occasions on behalf of the miners, and I could not let this opportunity pass unless I voiced my opinion again in connection with this very deserving matter. I am glad that the Minister of Economic Development is here, because when the Prime Minister addressed this House last Monday he mentioned a very important matter. One of the first matters he mentioned was our industrial development in this country. When we come to realise how our industries have developed during the war period, it has been a most amazing thing. I, as one of a body of members who paid a visit of inspection to these industries some little time ago, was most agreeably surprised, and I think the greatest of tributes is due to the promoters of these industries which have come nobly forward and assisted in the war effort. One only needs to remind the House of the fact that the country was in a state of unpreparedness when the war started, and the promoters of industries got to work in a very noble way, and helped to make it possible to get the Italians out of Abyssinia, to surprise not only South Africa but to surprise the world. The asset furnished by our industries in the form of our war materials and war supplies, which have been manufactured in South Africa, will be remembered and appreciated for many years to come, not only for its value in helping to get the Italians out of Abyssinia, but in clearing the enemy completely out of Africa. I say that they have played a great and noble part in South Africa, and no words of mine could adequately convey appreciation of their efforts. I want to deal with the matter from another point of view, and that is this, that I realised that our great industries today are engaged in the furtherance of war supplies, and my point is this; I want to ask the Minister of Economic Development if he can tell us what the Government intends to do to see that these industries are carried on and developed in the future. In my division, Mr. Speaker, there are several of these industrial concerns which are largely engaged in war production at the present time, and I think I can safely say that about 1,000 men and women are employed in these particular industries, and I am concerned for their welfare. If the war finishes this year, as we hope it will, I would like the Minister to tell us in what form of employment—if these industries are closed down—will the people at present engaged in these industries be absorbed. But, Mr. Speaker, I do not want to dwell only on the pessimistic side. As I have said, our industries have developed in an amazing way. The question was put to me at a meeting some time ago as to what was going to happen after the war. I replied that I thought the Government would still encourage our industries, still stand by them, and see them developed to a far greater extent. I said that I thought we were in a position to do so, because the war, after all, has given us a golden opportunity to develop our industries, an opportunity which would never have come our way if the war had not occurred. I hope that the Government will not miss this golden opportunity for further development. When we come to consider the expansion of industry, we have to remember that we have available practically every kind of raw material which is necessary for the production of almost every conceivable thing. We have the iron, the copper, tin, and best of all, we have got almost limitless coal supplies, which is absolutely necessary in the development of industry. So my reply to my questioner was this, that I hope the time is not far distant when the Union would become one great industrial and manufacturing centre from one end to the other, and that our manufacturers would not only be able to supply all the manufactured goods needed for the Union but for the whole of the African continent. I hope the Minister will take notice of what I have said, and also do something to extend our coastal shipping facilities in order to assist the transport of our manufactured products to every part of the African continent. In regard to unemployment I wish to say that we have to bear in mind the suggestion made by the Prime Minister the other day, that we shall have to look around not only for avenues of employment for our returned soldiers, but that we shall have to take measures to keep in employment those that are at present engaged in industry producing War supplies.

We are very anxious this afternoon to discuss agricultural affairs, but before I proceed to do so may I be allowed to avail myself of this opportunity to express our appreciation of the fact that the Minister, even though it is somewhat late, has given in to the requests which we have made to him. I want to express my appreciation that after the debate which was conducted here on the subject of the internees, the hon. the Minister of Justice told the House that he was going to release the internees practically en masse. May I be allowed to say that I appreciate the fact that he is going to do justice to them in that way. That is the only way to act at this period. May I also say that to me, as a comparatively new member, the way in which the debate was carried on has increased the prestige of our Parliamentary institution. The Minister of Justice said, however, that there are certain people who will have to remain in the internment camp. Among those are first of all the police and then the people who have committed acts of sabotage. I do not want to raise a further debate on that point, but I just want to ask the Minister this: As we are now going to release internees on a large scale I would urge upon him to do the right thing to those other people as well—and I want to say that those who have not had a trial should be brought to court and if they are found not guilty they should also be allowed to leave the internment camp. I further want to say that I am in full sympathy with the hon. member for Mayfair (Mr. H. J. Cilliers). I also feel that where people have sacrificed their lives to get riches out of the bowels of the earth, either for the State or for individuals, where they have laboured and sweated, proper provision must be made for them after they have sacrificed their health. It is no more than fair that they should be cared for. This side of the House in all the agricultural debates this year has tried to bring the producer and consumer together, or to bring them as close together as possible. We have always felt that there is a tremendous gap between the price which the producer gets for his products and the price which the consumer has to pay for them. For that reason we have made repeated attempts to assist in finding a solution for this problem, so that the producer and the consumer may be brought closer together. We have particularly urged three things. The first is the fixing of prices. We realise that if prices are not fixed, and if prices fluctuate, if they are high today and low tomorrow, it means playing into the hands of the middleman. The speculator can only get rich and can only do well out of the difference in price levels. We have had the example in the past that when prices go down the consumers usually do not get the benefit of the drop in prices. That is why this side of the House has always attempted to find a solution by doing away with the difference in price levels. We have further done our best to see that production costs shall be carefully considered when prices are fixed. Thirdly, we have done our best to get the whole marketing system revised. Now, let me elaborate my third point: We really feel that there cannot be any sound control of our agricultural produce so long as the Government does not take control of our markets. The Minister knows, and we know, that if that is done, we come into conflict with the provincial administrations, but many things have already been done in this country where the rights of provincial councils have been curtailed, and where sources of taxation have been taken away from the provinces. So far as the Free State is concerned this undoubtedly is a source of revenue to the provincial administration, and if it is taken away we want to suggest that the provinces should be given a new source of taxation, or that the provinces should be directly compensated for the losses they are going to suffer. But we do feel that this is not a matter beyond the wit of man—that it is not beyond the wit of man to find a way out of the difficulty. We must make an attempt to see to it that the markets are brought under the control of the Central Government. This side of the House further advocates provision of proper storage accommodation. I fail to see how we can properly control our agricultural products unless steps are taken to provide for storage facilities in this country. We appreciate the efforts which are being made for the control of agricultural products, but we are convinced that whatever may happen it will have to remain a half-baked effort so long as no provision is made for storage facilities. I do not want to elaborate on that point because other speakers will do so, but I want to emphasise again that we on this side of the House are in favour of full control of agricultural products. For that reason, as the provincial administrations would lose a source of revenue, if the Government should take over the control of markets they must be compensated. We find that there is a tendency today to control the sale of agricultural products, and a tendency—perhaps a serious tendency—to fix the price of agricultural products. We on this side of the House feel, however, that it should not stop at a fixation of prices of products for the duration of the war. Our farming community asks—and it is a question which worries us: “What will the position of the farming community be after the war?”, We are anxious to know the opinion of the Minister of Agriculture on the point. It cannot be denied that farmers have very lean years from time to time. We have had some excessively lean years—a series of lean years—when the farmers had to sell their products at less than it cost them to produce. We know that it is a fact that the lean years do come, and all the farmer can do is to hope for better years to make up for the lean years. That is why the price of agricultural products and production costs can never be calculated except over a long period of years. We now have the opportunity, while the war is on, to compensate the farmers for the lean years they have had, but as the producers do not want to exploit the consumers they are quite satisfied to see control exercised over agricultural products. Not only are they satisfied, but they have even advocated it. Now, if we take the Atlantic Charter and we read Clause 4 we find that it is stated there that they will try, with full observance of their existing obligations, to give the nations, large or small, victor or vanquished, access on an equal footing, to the commerce and raw materials of the world, which are necessary for their economic prosperity—and if we read that we feel somewhat alarmed. If I am to interpret that Clause, I can only interpret it as meaning that we are reverting to absolute free trade. It is true that we in South Africa have certain agricultural products which, standing on their own feet, cannot compete with the prices at which those products are produced in other countries, and now the question which arises is this: “What are we, as agriculturists, to expect if it is clear that we are going to revert to free trade?” We want to ask the Minister to make a clear statement. What are we, as agriculturists, to expect in regard to Clause 4 of the Atlantic Charter? You cannot blame us if we, as agriculturists, are nervous if we see these things. We want to ask the Government to tell us what exactly that Clause is going to mean to us, seeing that our agricultural industry in many respects is unable to compete on an equal basis with other countries? Are we going to allow those branches of agriculture to be destroyed in South Africa? It is unnecessary for instance to say that if there is going to be free trade in regard to wheat, our wheat farmers in South Africa will be unable to make a living. What is the Government going to do to prevent this in days to come? I am prepared to assume that the dairy farmers to a certain extent will carry on as they are doing today. Certain branches of our agriculture will have to go under if my interpretation of Clause 4 of the Atlantic Charter is correct. I have in front of me a speech which the Minister of Commerce and Industries made in Johannesburg, in which he said that the period between the two wars was characterised by irregularities in employment on the one hand, and excess production, even up to destruction, on the other hand. He said that this state of affairs could only be prevented in future by far-reaching international co-operation which in certain respects might perhaps mean a curtailment of our sovereign rights, and he added that it might, perhaps be necessary after the war to proceed with the establishment of an international organisation and of codes to which we would have to adhere. If one reads that in conjunction with the Atlantic Charter one gets all the more nervous, and if in addition to that one reads the report of the Economic and Planning Council of 1942, clause 2, in which it is stated that after the war we shall have to contend, agriculturally with the competition of other countries, hon. members will see that we have reason to feel alarmed. We don’t produce anything like enough to provide for the needs of the people of this country, and if we do not protect our agriculture at all, the major portion of the food consumed in South Africa will have to be imported. We fully realise that we can import some of our food products more cheaply into South Africa than we can produce it today, but is that going to be to the benefit of the country as a whole? What is better for the country—to spend £5,000,000 which will be circulated in the country, or to spend £4,000,000 which will be exported out of this country? I fail to see how we can do anything but one of the two things. If Clause 4 of the Atlantic Charter is to be put into effect, also in respect of agriculture, then I really do not know what is going to become of our farming population in the Union. All I can say is that one of the two things will have to be done. We shall either have to get a system under which certain branches of agriculture will be protected—protected necessarily by tariff walls. I want to ask the Minister whether the Government, after the war, will still be prepared to protect those branches of agriculture, which require it, by means of tariff walls? I also want to ask the Minister what the Government’s policy is in regard to the subsidising of locally manufactured food products after the war. We on this side of the House feel that it is a positive scandal that there should be so many hungry people in South Africa and that, as is said every day, 300,000 of our white people are living below the breadline. It is nothing short of a scandal. Furthermore, we are told that 50 per cent. of the coloured population of this country are living below the breadline, to say nothing of the 300,000 white people. On the other hand, we hear talk every day of over production. While people are living below the breadline tons and tons of precious food are destroyed almost every year in our own Mother country. But the question is, what plans have the Government to prevent the waste of food in future? What plans have the Government to see to it that every man, woman and child who wants to work will be able to get adequate and proper food after the war. We on this side of the House suggest that a proper system must be worked out under which the consumption of our local products in this country will be subsidised. The man who is able to pay for his food must pay, but the man who cannot afford to buy the necessary food must be subsidised, either directly or indirectly. Complaints, of course, will be raised that that means the subsidisation of consumption, but that is the only way to achieve real social security. We say that the price of agricultural products must be fixed, and the cost of production must be taken into account, and if that is done the people will have adequate food and good food. The argument we hear every day, and which we heard only a few days ago, is, “But you farmers are unnecessarily pushing up the costs of production”. Is that a justifiable allegation? Is the farmer as such guilty of doing these things? Can the farmer always be held responsible for the costs of production being high? I am prepared to admit at once that farming methods in South Africa can be improved. It would be ridiculous for me as an agriculturalist to say that farming methods in South Africa are sufficiently up to date, progressive and scientific, but may I also say that it is not the farmer alone who should be indicted in that respect. The blame must also be laid at the door of the Government which has closed down our agricultural schools where our young men should be educated to become progressive farmers. But the Government is also responsible in a different sense for the increased costs of production. When the war started it was clear to everyone that South Africa was not manufacturing enough agricultural machinery, and that we should import the requisite implements. It was the Government’s duty to see to it that adequate machinery and spare parts were available in this country to meet the needs of the farmers. And what has our experience been this year again? In my own area the shortage of agricultural machinery, of parts of agricultural machinery, and the shortage of grease for agricultural machinery, has delayed the crop for weeks. The position was such that when I got to Rouxville there was a great commotion because not one of the companies could supply 1 lb. of grease. And the result was that it took 5 or 6 weeks longer to get the crops in. After that we had heavy rains, and the Southern Free State very definitely suffered a loss of at least 30 per cent. so far as the yield of wheat was concerned. Hon. members know that it has been proved that if the production drops by one bag per morgen the costs of production are 3s. per bag higher. In the Southern Free State it was estimated that we would have a yield of at least 8 bags per morgen. If we have six bags—which we have not got—no, if we have 5½ bags, we can be grateful. Hon. members will therefore see at once that the costs of production have been raised by 7s. 6d., and surely the agriculturalists cannot be held responsible for the invisible rise in the costs of production. But a further cause for the rise in the costs of production is the shortage of farm labour. The Minister said the other day that there had always been a shortage, and that there was nothing new about this. He admitted there had always been a shortage, but since the beginning of the war the shortage of farm labour has become abnormal. I don’t want to say too much about that because other hon. members want to speak on that question, but let me say at once that the Government is directly responsible for the bad feeling prevailing between employers and the coloured farm labourers. I think every farmer in this House will agree that there is a tremendous agitation going on throughout the country to put up, to stir up, farm labourers against the farmers. We know that the Communistic system has selected the land owner in this country as its enemy No. 1, and if hon. members go to the Free State and other parts of the country today they will find numbers of people going about among the natives. They visit the farms at night and create unpleasantness between the employers and the employees. I want to mention the instance of a farmer at Rouxville. That man pays his labour better than anyone in the Southern Free State. He puts himself out specially to treat his servants well. He pays his labourers well, and he provides them with everything, in such a way that the farmers round about him are beginning to feel that he is doing too much for his people, but that farmer, who pays his labour so well and who treats them so well, has not got a single native on his farm today—he has no coloured labour whatever on his farm. The farmers round about him still have a few labourers, but that man’s servants who do not complain of their treatment simply say they no longer want to work for the white man. They tell him that Russia is going to win the war and then their day will come—they won’t work for the white man any more. What we ask is that the Government shall see to it that this agitation among our labourers is stopped. Now I want to refer to something else. We have heard complaints about the cost of living going up tremendously; we are told that the prices of stock have also gone up and that there is not enough stock and cattle for our markets today. A short while ago an area survey was made. Thirty districts of the Free State were surveyed and it was found that in those thirty districts, where there were about 4,000,000 sheep, the mortality figure in some parts went up as high as 30 per cent. It must be clear that a mortality figure of 30 per cent. means a Joss of 1,200,000 sheep in one year, and a loss to the farmers of about £1,800,000—and that means a tremendous loss so far as the people’s food is concerned. I therefore fail to understand why the Minister of Agriculture does not see to it that better veterinary services are provided for the platteland. It is impossible for a country year after year to bear this draining of its wealth, year after year to lose hundreds of thousands of sheep. We of the Southern Free State are in this position, that it is practically impossible for us today to get medicine for our stock, we cannot get any bonemeal, serums and other medicine for horses are no longer obtainable. I cannot understand how the Department of Agriculture can allow these tremendous losses to continue under present circumstances and why the Department does not listen to the demand by farmers for better veterinary service. There are veterinary surgeons in a few centres but they cannot possibly serve these large areas falling under them. Another matter I wish to raise briefly is that of the tenants. We know that the budget is to be introduced shortly, and that being so it is necessary for us again to plead for something to be done for the farm tenants in South Africa. I want to ask the Minister whether he will not give the country the assurance that something will be done for these people. There is hardly a single class of tenant in this country—except the farm tenants—who are not protected by legislation. The time has now come to also extend protection to those tenants—the men who are making a living out of the soil. These tenants have passed through years of depression; they have had practically no financial assistance; they have struggled through their difficulties, and they remain on the land as farmers—a credit to the agricultural community, but their position is now becoming totally impossible. In my own area one tenant after another is being forced off the land. What are those people to do under present conditions? Are they to sell their cattle and drift to the towns? If that happens I fail to see how we are ever going to turn these men into farmers again. And some of them are among the best farmers in the country. They have the mentality for farming. But what do we find today? In order to evade the excess profits tax rich people invest their money in land, and buy up one farm after another, or they rent one farm after another, and then they buy cattle and stock to stock the land they have bought or rented, and in that way they evade the excess profits duty. They can afford to pay 30, 40, 50 and even 75 per cent. over the economic value because even then it is still a profitable transaction for them. But what becomes of the tenants in those circumstances?

How do you make that out? You said 75 per cent.

If a man has to pay 15s. in the £ excess profits tax and he buys cattle and is allowed to deduct the purchase price of the cattle from his taxable income, then he can afford to pay 75 per cent. more than the economic value, and it is still a profitable transaction to him, but the tenant of the land cannot pay those prices. I think the time has come for the tenants to be given assistance or help of some kind or another. Now there is another subject on which I want to say a few words—the idea of area surveys. We have been told by various sides in the course of the debate that area surveys should now be undertaken so that the farmers may be told where they should grow certain things, and where not, so that they may know that it is a payable proposition to grow wheat at a particular place, and that it is not payable to grow it somewhere else—that it is a payable proposition to grow tobacco in one area and not in another area. The question is whether conditions in the various parts of the country are such that an area survey will help very much. We had an area survey in the Southern Free State. It was found there that we should increase our cattle farming in relation to our sheep farming. It was found that the carrying power of our land was 1.5 sheep unit per morgen, but it has been found that the relationship between sheep and cattle farming today is as 27 to 1. That means that a man who has 1,000 morgen can keep 1,250 sheep on his farm, and the recommendation is that we should increase our ratio of cattle farming and bring it to 14 to 1. Land in the Free State is expensive and I ask hon. members, especially in view of the fact that in many instances the land is over capitalised, whether one can expect us to turn from sheep farming to cattle farming? If the man in our part of the country has to farm with slaughter stock, the question arises whether it will be possible for him to compete on the meat market with people producing cattle on land costing 15s. and £1 per morgen, or £1 10s. per morgen. I have an instance in that area of people pleading and begging for co-operative cheese factories to be established. Those people have underwritten the capital for the factory but they are consistently refused a licence. Let us do away with this ridiculous idea that we have too much cheese in the country and that we have too much butter in the country. It has been clearly proved that those ideas are obsolete and that in future we will have to see to it that everybody in this country is properly fed. If we make it our business to see that everybody in the country is properly fed we can increase our dairy production by 150 per cent. or even 200 per cent. I think everyone will agree with that. What is the use of an area survey, what is the use of the farmers carrying out the recommendations of the Department, if the different sections of the Department do not come together and recommend that those things be carried out?

May I crave the indulgence of the House and the patience of the Minister to make an appeal. I have listened with great care and sympathy to the request that has been made from various parts of the House to eliminate the means test from the pensions cost of living allowances. More particularly do I wish to support the plea of my colleague on my right (Mr. Molteno) in connection with assistance for the native pensioner. I do not think that people in this country can fully appreciate the condition of these people. You have to realise, in the first instance, that they are drawn from a section of the native people who have attempted to achieve a more civilised standard of life, and in doing so they have acquired certain habits which, incidentally, are of benefit to the commercial community. They have advanced ideas, about food and clothing, and in a time of stress such as this, they suffer considerably. It is an extraordinary thing that we should be prepared to accept that the standard of life such as these people have learned to enjoy can be reflected in a total income of £30 a year. That is, in effect, what we are doing in connection with this assistance to pensioners, and I must point out to you, Mr. Speaker, and through you to the House, that the cost of the articles that these people must of necessity use has risen beyond all possibility of their being able to purchase them. I have made a private survey of retail prices in the Territories, making a comparison between the prices obtaining in 1939-’42. I need not refer specifically to the increased price of mealies, which is well known. I found, however that mealie meal had risen 33 per cent.; tea in that period had gone up 18 per cent.; paraffin 50 per cent.; candles 50 per cent., and ordinary groceries had risen by 20 per cent. Such things as ready-made clothing and footwear had risen from 75 per cent. to 100 per cent., and in view of that situation how is it possible for these people to live on a meagre pension of £2 10s. a month? As my hon. friend on my right pointed out yesterday, it is not the pensioner on £30 a year who gets the assistance; the recommendations of the committee were that the total income including the pension should not exceed £30 a year. I want to ask in all sincerity, how from a human point of view, it is possible for a man to live on a civilised standard in those circumstances? It is always urged that it is necessary for us in this country to maintain the standard of life set up by the European people of this country; if the native population is to improve its cultural position and standard of life, we cannot be content to let them remain on the old basis—the blanket stage—eating a little mealie pap and sugar now and again. These people, through their positions in life, have been forced to adopt a civilised standard. Unfortunately, their pay was so low that they had no opportunity of setting aside anything for their old age. They have no old age pensions, and the only thing they can rely on today is a pension from the departments they serve. I know of hundreds of cases where no pensions at all are paid to these people. It is peculiar that such things can happen, but they have happened and are happening. Where they do have the benefit of a pension it very rarely exceeds £2 or £3 a month. These are the intelligentzia of the native races. They are going to influence the mass of the native people, and it is essential for us to deal with them equitably and make them contented with life; no man can be content when trying to maintain a civilised standard of living on a maximum income of £2 10s. a month. They are, in fact, dropping much below the starvation level in very many cases. In addition to providing for their own living, they have to maintain and educate their own children, and they have to do this on a pittance of £2 10s.! What is the basis of differentiation between the native and coloured man? I cannot see it. They eat the same things and they wear the same clothes, and in parts of the country they do the same work. I do not wish it to be understood that I am saying that the amount awarded to the coloured person or the European errs on the side of generosity, but I can discover no principle on which we can say that the wants of educated civilised natives are three times less than the wants of the coloured man, or that the wants of coloured people are three times more than those of the native. I say it is a mockery to speak of social security, and at the same time to perpetuate the state of affairs prevailing today in regard to pension payments to people who have served the country well. It may be said, and it probably will be said, that pensions are based on contract; that what the pensioner receives is based on what he originally paid in. That may be perfectly true in peace time, but we are going through a time of extraordinary difficulty when prices have risen beyond all recognition, and in the circumstances I think the Government must not fail to come to the assistance of those ill-paid pensioners.

I would like to touch this afternoon on two questions with which I have had a considerable amount to do during the last eight or ten years. The first point I should like to touch on is the question of soil conservation in the Union. I feel that this is a matter that requires very, very earnest consideration, and I do feel that this is a matter which must be tackled in the near future if we are going to prevent the country from being seriously ruined in many respects. This question of soil conservation has been discussed by the agricultural unions in South Africa over a considerable number of years, principally with the idea of focussing attention on what has taken place, the tremendous loss that has taken place in South Africa, and from that point of view a considerable amount of progress has been made. The agricultural unions have convinced their members and the farming community generally that something very drastic is necessary in order to remedy matters, but, Sir, I feel that that is not enough. I feel that this is a question that the whole community is interested in. It affects the townsman, it affects the industrialist and any part of our national life, and although I do not expect that the Government will provide huge amounts of money at this stage, while we have so many serious demands, I think it is absolutely necessary that a start must be made in preparing the plans to tackle this question on a national scale. The Government has done quite a lot. It has started various schemes, and many of these schemes have done good. But to tackle the question seriously I think requires something very much greater than we have had up to the present. I would like to draw attention to the position in a part of the country I know particularly well, and that is the Transkeian Territories. There we have a huge area in native occupation that is becoming and has been for many years, very badly eroded. In 1941, the Transkeian Territories General Council appointed a commission to investigate the question of soil erosion, and a most alarming report was put up. I should like to read one or two extracts. In one of their main conclusions the commission said—

In another paragraph the commission says—

That is in an official document which was printed as a result of investigation of the Transkeian Territories. The Native Affairs Department in those areas realised, I think, as a result of this report, that something should be done. Unfortunately they have not yet tackled the position in any serious way. It is obvious that overstocking is one of the principle causes of the trouble, and those territories are very heavily overstocked. The Native Affairs Department have tried to get the natives voluntarily to reduce their stock. They have encouraged the holding of stock sales, and in many indirect ways they have tried to help towards a solution of the problem. I was present at a meeting in Matatiele when the Secretary for Native Affairs tried to explain to a gathering of native chiefs and hundreds of natives the importance of the subject. He appealed to them to use their influence on the tribes to restrict the number of animals. One old chief after another got up and made excuses showing why it was not possible to do anything in this respect. The last chief to get up said that they had been rather hard on their father, the Government, and that something should be done. To show his willingness to help he said he was prepared to recommend to his people the restriction of stock, provided it did not apply to sheep or cattle or horses. That was the only encouragement received to this appeal. I feel that the Native Affairs Department should tackle this question seriously. I think it is essential if these areas are going to retain any value to the native people, that the amount of stock they carry should be reduced, and I think the start may well be made now. We know it is necessary to fence many of those grazing areas, and that fencing material is practically unobtainable today; but I think it might be good to impose a grazing rate on those cattle in order to build up funds to provide for fencing when the material is available, and possibly it would help to reduce the numbers to some extent. There is a very big demand for meat in the country, and there are thousands of cattle in those territories in poor condition which would, after a few months’ feeding up, become a source of profit. I see that we have with us an expert from America, a man who has made a close study of soil conservation problems. I hope we shall take advantage of his visit to try and prepare plans for a real soil conservation programme to be followed in South Africa. I hope that at any rate sufficient money will be placed on the estimates to enable us to make a start in preparing plans for this very desirable object. The other question I would like to touch on is the question of absorbing returned soldiers in agriculture. The Government, and I think every section of this House is very anxious to do all we possibly can for our soldiers when they return; and undoubtedly many of these men will think farming is a very fine open air life and will want to go farming. But I feel that this question has got to be tackled from a very realistic point of view. It is not enough to have an enthusiasm to lead an open air life. You need very much more to make a success of farming in South Africa, and if there is one thing that can break a young man’s heart, it is to try to start a farm on poor land with little capital, and often to strike bad seasons. There is no more heart-breaking thing for any man; and this question of settling returned soldiers should not be looked upon as a matter of poor relief or charity, but these men should be given a chance to make a real success in this undertaking. I suggest that we should start a number of farms where these men could start farming on a probationary system, with a director, an expert, a man who probably has been in the army for a few years, who may have been in many ways a leader, and who has got the confidence of a lot of these men; and to have them on a collective farm or a training farm where they could obtain a really good grounding under conditions that would rather resemble their life in the army. You could have groups of 20 or 30 men with a director working on the farm. They would not need much capital at the start, and as they showed real ability to make a success of farming and showed that they were prepared to put their back into it, these men could then be given assistance, which the Government, I believe, is prepared to give to many, or probably all classes of returned soldiers. To give a man a few hundred pounds immediately and let him spend it perhaps foolishly, or to lose it as a result of conditions over which he has no control, means that the man will stand a good chance of making a failure; but if he can have supervision and the best possible training, and then a little help, it will be of very much more value to him than if he had it when demobilised. Another possibility is that these men should have training in agricultural colleges. I feel that is very valuable, but I think at the same time there is no training as good as the practical training on the land, and under an experienced man. And although training at colleges may be a great help, I think the other idea would be well worth trying. These are the main points I would like to suggest at this stage. I know there are many other aspects that have been dealt with, and many other questions can be touched upon. I feel that the Government does really intend to see that farming is put on a sound basis. We do not want to have to exist on subsidies. In many of the speeches delivered in this House I have noticed a very strong tendency on the part of representatives of agriculture to suggest that we require fair marketing conditions, and at least reasonable prices for our produce instead of being spoonfed and carried by the rest of the community. Farmers, after all, do feel sensitive on these points, and if we work along these lines, to provide fair marketing conditions for our products, the old idea of £1,000,000 grants for agriculture and hon. members going back to tell the farmers in their constituencies, how successful they have been, how the Government has voted so many thousand pounds—I think those days are past, and today we are facing up to the idea that farming, like any other industry, should be self supporting and stand on its own feet, and that farmers, as the result of their own efforts, should be able to make a reasonable living. That is the attitude I have always advocated, and I feel that it is the attitude that is appreciated by every section of the House.

I agree with a great deal of what the last speaker said. On one point I do differ from him, and that is that we must wait until after the war when we have money; No, there is money today. The time is opportune today to combat erosion on a large scale. With regard to the returned soldiers, I want to tell him that after the war this side of the House will take care of those returned soldiers properly. The onus rests on the Government to take care of them, but I assure the soldiers that, if the Government does not carry out its promises, we shall assist the returned soldiers to have those promises carried out. Furthermore, we feel on this side that we must thank the Minister of Justice for his undertaking in connection with the internees. I do not want to say much with regard to the internees; I just want to say that we are very grateful for what the Minister is going to do and that we appreciate it. We also feel that he ought to extend this sympathetic attitude to those people who were released on parole, so that they may again take up employment at those places where they formerly lived. In my constituency there are two such cases. They were released on parole, and they are not allowed to work in their own town. They may take up employment in neighbouring parts, but then they have to report to the magistrate regularly. We should like the Minister to meet these people, and we also express the hope that as far as possible he will still release the other people in the camps. We are grateful for the attitude he is adopting. I must also agree with what the hon. member for Griqualand (Mr. Fawcet) said with regard to subsidies. If we have a proper marketing system and we have a proper farming policy, it will not be necessary to grant subsidies. I can also tell hon. members this, that I notice that the United States, according to the statement of President Roosevelt, is taking this matter to heart. He said that if after the war there is not a proper system to ensure that the nations of the world are fed, rehabilitation will not be possible, nor will it be possible to maintain peace. President Roosevelt gave that lead in his country. What is going to be the lead which this Government is going to give us; what is the Government going to put to us as a fixed policy to be carried out within a certain period, and not only for the duration of the war? We are not referring now to war measures. I am afraid that latterly we have become inclined to speak only of war measures, and we must now begin to think of what is going to happen after the war, when the war measures will disappear, and in regard to what we propose to do to stabilise everything. I feel that a proper marketing system of farming products in our country is one of the most important matters to which we should give our attention. We have had some experience of the system during the war. Certain work has been done, and we must now continue to build on that work. We cannot sit back and say that we are satisfied with the existing position. We must develop further, and in that connection I want to point out the great necessity which exists in the country for proper cold storage facilities. We have no cold storages belonging to the State or to the municipalities. Of if there are any, there are very few. All the cold storages are in the hands of the middleman. During the war the Government can assume control of the cold storages, but what is going to happen to us if after the war those cold storages all fall into the hands of the middlemen again; how are we going to get storage facilities for our foodstuffs, and how will we be able to feed Europe, as the Prime Minister said, if we have not got the cold storages to serve the interests of the producers? In this connection I want to put a question to the hon. Minister of Finance. We thought that the Industrial Development Corporation had bought certain shares in the Imperial Cold Storage Ltd. I should like to ask on what conditions the Industrial Development Corporation gave that money to the Imperial Cold Storage. I should like to know what say the Industrial Development Corporation has in those cold storages, or whether it was but an act on the part of the Government so to strengthen the position of these cold storages that after the war they will be in a position, when the Government control falls away, to eliminate all competition. If that is the case, then we must definitely oppose this step. If on the other hand the Government has a say which it can further extend, then we want to welcome this action. But there is one point in connection with this matter which goes against the grain, and that is that immediately after the Industrial Development Corporation took shares in the Imperial Cold Storage, the shares of that company rose in value. It seems to me to be unsound. If the shares of the middleman rise when the Government does anything of this nature, then there is something wrong, and we have the right to ask what is really happening. Originally the Government made available an amount of £5,000,000 to the Industrial Development Corporation. The object of that money was partly to establish factories in the platteland so that our sons in the platteland could get an opportunity to make a living there, and so that it would not be necessary for them to go to the big cities. The intention was to enable them to make a living in their own surroundings. We had in mind the idea of decentralisation. Now we see that there is centralisation. Everything is concentrated on the big cities. Now we should like to know, in view of the fact that this money was loaned by the Government or rather by the Industrial Development Corporation to the Imperial Cold Storage, Ltd., whether the Government will not assist us in the interior to build cold storages, cold storages in which the Government could have shares and, if necessary, a controlling interest. If there are co-operative societies which want to invest, money in anything of this kind, the Government ought to assist them through the medium of the Industrial Corporation. We feel that those cold storages ought to be in the interior. It is in those parts that the cattle are found, and if the cold storages could be situated there, it would mean less transport, less bruising and less trouble, because the animals could be slaugtered much more quickly. The meat could be graded in the first and second grades, and in every respect it will be a good thing if cold storages could be eretced in the interior. If the Minister can give us the assurance that the Industrial Development Corporation will be prepared to assist the farmers on the same basis as the Imperial Cold Storage, Ltd., then we shall be satisfied. We still adopt the attitude that farming is the backbone of our country and of the world. The whole question in the world today is one of food. If this backbone falls away, this backbone to which hon. members on the other side refer so sneeringly, then I want to give them the assurance that neither the mines, nor the industries, nor this war could continue another day. Everything will come to a standstill if the farmers do not deliver the food. I should like to ask my city friends, those friends who make all these attacks on farmers, whether the farmers have ever protested when harbours were built in the cities or when facilities were created for commerce and industries? No, we are not so narrow-minded as to do that when anything is done for commerce and industries. We know that it is a good thing for the population as a whole, and for that reason we do not oppose it. We do not oppose measures which are effected to assist the cities, because we know that the people who live there are flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood. We welcome it if the Government affords assistance to the big cities. But on the other hand we ask the Government to assist the farmers also to put their house in order. Do not continually speak of the money which is loaned to the farmers. The Minister of Finance stated here that the farmers are repaying their debts very well. The farming community is an honest community. But if they cannot make a living, it is impossible for them to keep their heads above water. We on this side of the House feel that we want hundred per cent. control in our marketing. We feel that one can have Producers’ Boards and Consumers’ Boards. It has been done in other countries with great success. The interests of the producer and the consumer must be protected by these Boards. In our country the middleman has always got away with all the profits. In the past the middleman did everything in his power to cause bad feeling between the producer and the consumer. The consumer is told that the prices are high because the producer wants to take a big profit. I do not say all of them, but to a certain extent the middleman is the parasite. The middleman must, of course, be paid for his services, but it must be within reasonable limits. The two most important persons, as far as the farmers’ product is concerned, are the man who produces it and the man who consumes it. If one has two boards—a producers’ board and a consumers’ board—representatives of those two boards could function and give advice to the Minister. Then one could come to the House and say: “We are going to pay so much to the middleman for his distribution costs.” In that way we could control his profit and protect the consumer and the producer. Another matter on which I want to say a few words is the control of our cold storages. If the cold storages are under the control of the State, one could put a stop to the overtrading which takes place today. If we have these two boards together—the producers’ board and the consumers’ board—I hope that we shall be able to understand each other better in the future, but we realise that if we have not got the cold storage facilities, which you have in other producing countries, we cannot control our marketing. The State and the municipalities in other countries exercise control over the cold storages, and not the middleman. The moment the State and the municipalities have the cold storages under their control, then and then only you can have a proper system under which the fixation of prices can take place. There is no other sphere in South Africa where as much speculation takes place as in connection with farming products. Since there is that speculation, it shows at once that there is no control over the middleman. In Australia, for example, that wild speculation has been completely eliminated. If Australia can do it, why cannot we do it? The day will again arrive when agriculture will be acknowledged as the backbone of the country. In Australia too, the people worshipped the gold mines for some time. Agriculture was pushed into the background. What happened? The gold mines were exhausted and they had to go back once again to agriculture, and that led to their rehabilitation again. If they had not had this primary industry to feed their secondary industries, it would have fared badly with Australia. That should be the position in South Africa. I do not want to suggest for a moment that we are opposed to the development of the gold mines, but we feel that we must not put all our eggs into one basket. Then we come to our factories. In the past there was a great deal of propaganda from overseas to the effect that we should not establish factories in our country. There was a time when they told us that we must not wash our wool in this country. There was so much propaganda that later on the farmers came to believe that we should not wash our wool in this country. We were told that we did not have the right water for it. But then a few of the farmers started to wash their wool, and today it is being done in this country. At the time of the establishment of Iscor we were also told that we could not compete with overseas organisations, and I would like to know what would have happened to us if we had not had Iscor today? There was a time when it was even said that the railways should not be a State undertaking. What would have happened if we had not had the railways under State control today? This type of propaganda is used by people who want to fill their own pockets at the expense of the public. Now I want to ask the hon. Minister of Agriculture what steps have been taken in connection with the wool factories which must be established in South Africa. The Industrial Development Corporation was quite prepared to give £250,000. It is true that they wanted a controlling interest, but they were prepared to give £250,000. The farmers agreed, and we are still waiting. I should like to hear from the Minister when we are going to import that machinery into the country, if we have no certainty on that point. Why does the Government not grant permits today for the importation of machinery? I should like to know why machinery was sold to private individuals at the beginning of the war and not retained for this factory. I want to ask the Minister to meet us in this matter. I know that he is sympathetic. I make this request not in the form of an attack. I hope that as soon as possible he will give the wool farmers the right to be masters of their own home. An amount of £160,000,000 has been invested in wool in South Africa, and the income of the farmers on that £160,000,000 is approximately £12,000,000 today. One so often hears that the wool farmers are making colossal profits. These figures prove that there are not immensely high profits to be made out of wool farming. Six or seven years before the outbreak of the war, wool had an index figure of 100. Since that time it has risen and today it is 124. It has not gone up very much at all. The price of wool has not risen as much as the town dweller wants to make us believe. During the second year of the war the figure was still under 100, and during the last two years the index figure rose to 124. There is still great room for an increase. Last year the wool farmers asked whether an increase could not be obtained through the British Government. We should like to know what happened in that connection. Then there is another question which I want to put to the hon. Minister. The Minister entered into this contract on behalf of the wool farmers of South Africa. As hon. members know, this contract may be terminated one day after the conclusion of the war. I hope the Minister will now satisfy us and tell us how long this contract is going to remain in force? Is it not possible for the Government to obtain an extension of that agreement? Then I want to ask in all seriousness that the Government should take over the wool when the contract is terminated. We want the Government to undertake to buy the wool for two years after the war. I cannot see any reason why the Government should not do it. It would be a safe investment. Australia is working in the same direction. We want to safeguard our position after the war. We do not want to wait until the depression comes and farming collapses. We want to secure our future at this stage. I know there are some of my friends who will remind me that I opposed certain principles in the agreement. That is quite correct; I did oppose certain principles which were embodied in that contract. Since the Government entered into that agreement, we expect the Government to assist us today. The Government entered into this contract; all our buyers were driven out of the market; for a considerable time after the war there will be no shipping facilities because the shipping space will have to be used to convey food to the conquered countries of the world. There are approximately 50,000 people who directly and indirectly, on a small scale and on a large scale, make their living out of wool, and I think we have the right to say to the Minister: “You plunged us into this war; you entered into this contract; we now ask you to give us this protection.” I think we have the right to demand that. Then I come to the question of soil erosion. Erosion is a much bigger disaster to this country than the war is. We must realise that if we do not play a very big rôle in the sphere of erosion to rebuild our land, there will be a disaster in South Africa as great as the war and more serious in its consequences. If we do not put a stop to soil erosion, the time will come when we shall not have food to feed our people; and since the Minister is talking of providing food after the war, he must assist us at this stage to increase our production. We ask only one thing. We are prepared to help, but do not expect us to produce at a price which does riot cover our costs of production. If the shopkeeper and other persons are entitled to take a profit of 33 per cent., I say that the farmer is entitled to a profit which will enable him to make a decent living and not to retrogress. We do not want money from the Government if we have a proper marketing system. If we have a proper marketing system, it will not be necessary for the Government to apply a subsidy system. If we have a proper marketing system, and the farmer is then incapable of making a living on the land, he will have to clear out. But under the system which existed in the past, there is no future for the young farmer. I want to make this statement, that the people who are today able to make a living on the farm are not the young farmers; it is the man who inherited a farm from his father; he can keep his head above water; but the young farmer who starts with a small capital cannot do it. Unless he is assisted, he must go under. There is no future for the young farmer, and unless the Government guarantees him some measure of security, he will again have to be subsidised, and I make this serious appeal to the Government: if you mean what you say, if you mean what you say to the farmer, if you meant what you promised to the returned soldier, give effect to those promises now.

I represent one of the largest cattle-breeding districts of the Union where, owing to the depth of the water, mostly from 150 to 160 feet below the surface, intensive farming is out of the question. We must, therefore, rely principally on our grass. In view of this I would like to suggest that the time has arrived when we should undertake a proper survey and analysis of our grass in the Union. In my constituency where the farmer is practically dependent on his grass, the position is that it is essential for a farmer to know what the nutritive value of that grass is. If the farmer does not know what the value of the grass is, he can very easily bump his head. Very often the good grass is eaten up and the farmer on the farm is left with the poor types. One often hears the farmer say: “I cannot understand what is wrong; there is plenty of grass on my farm but the cattle are in poor condition.” He does not realise what the nutritive value of the different types of grass is. He may have allowed all the good grass to be eaten up through over-grazing, and all that remains is the poor type of grass. It is for this reason that I make a plea for a survey and analysis of our various types of grass. If we have such a survey and analysis of the different types of grass, we could go a step further and we could try to cultivate the better types of grass and to protect them. Today the danger is that when we do cultivate grass, we may perhaps cultivate a type of grass which is of no value. I was asked recently to try to get a botanist appointed for those parts. I understand from the Minister that such officials are not available. I have now received notification, however, that the people themselves have managed to get hold of a good botanist, and I hope that the hon. Minister will not say that there is no money on the estimates for the salary of such an official. Once we know what the different types of grass are and what their nutritive value is, we shall have taken a big step forward in the combating of our problems. As a result of ignorance on the part of the farmer in regard to the nutritive value of the grass, it happens that good types of grass are destroyed, the land is impoverished and one creates a desert where fifteen years ago there may have been a paradise. As hon. members may know, I live in a sandy area. The water is approximately 150 ft. to 160 ft. below the surface. It costs one £600 to bore one hole in those parts. The result is that there are not many farmers who have more than one borehole on their farms. In the majority of cases the farmer must sink at least two boreholes before he has a water supply, and if he is fortunate and the water is not bitter, he may have one borehole, and at this one borehole from 400 to 500 cattle have to be watered. Those 400 or 500 cattle drink there every day, and you can imagine the condition of the Veld within five or six months for a distance of four to five miles around the borehole. I would now like to deal with another matter on which I should like to have advice. This question was put to me, and perhaps an hon. member here can reply to it. A man came to me and said: “My difficulty is this; my neighbour on the northern side ploughs to within 100 yards of my fence. We are jointly responsible for the maintenance of the fence, but owing to strong winds, the fence has been covered with sand to such an extent that the cattle simply walk over it, and the question is, who is responsible for putting that fence in order?” Perhaps someone in this House can tell me what the position is. I now want to make another request to the Minister of Agriculture. I want to suggest to the Minister that he should make representations to the Land Bank to assist the people in connection with the purchase of water pipes, so that water can be laid on for three of four miles. In this manner you would prevent all the cattle from drinking at one place on the farm, and the veld being tramped out around that place. Then there is just one further point which I should like to suggest. I want to put in a word on behalf of the landless farmer, the farmer who is generally known as a bywoner. I want to take you back for a moment to 1933. At that time the Government of the day did everything in its power to get the people back on the land. The Government gave these people money to buy cattle. The farmers were encouraged to build small houses for the bywoners. An amount of £50 was paid to them for this purpose, and in this way many people went back to the land. They were assisted to purchase cattle, and they were able to make a start. Since that time the economic conditions have changed considerably, and in my constituency there must be between 600 and 1,000 of these families, who are today at their wits’ end. Today nearly all of them are being driven off the farms. They cannot avail themselves of the Government’s sub-economic housing schemes, as the city dwellers can, and they are constantly driven from pillar to post. You will realise that where a man has farmed industriously and today possesses 50 or 60 cattle, it is difficult for the farmer to give him grazing on the farm. When the bywoner reaches the stage, therefore, where he has 50 or 60 cattle, he must get off the farm, and he cannot make a living because he can find no grazing. On some farms the position is so serious that one finds nine or ten families congregated around one borehole. What I want to suggest is this. In my constituency there are 600 to 1,000 of these families, and in the whole country I think there must be many thousands. I want to suggest that the Government should tackle this matter on the same lines as in the case of the natives—I refer to trust lands. Crown land ought to be set aside for these people where they can farm under supervision until they are strong enough to help themselves. It is improper to leave these people to the mercy of their fellow human beings, and the great majority of them must today live below the bread line. One has to see the conditions which exist in these parts to believe it. These people live in flat-roofed mud huts. There may be half a dozen families, consisting of husband and wife with six children, in every mud hut. They all congregate around one windmill, and the condition around that windmill later becomes critical. We have on various occasions made representations to the Minister, and I should like the Minister to see what he can do for us in connection with this matter.

I just want to say a few words about my colleague’s amendment with reference to miners’ phthisis legislation. It brings me back to a point which I have made in this House over a period of years. Here we have phthisis legislation which is one of the most important things affecting the lives of a considerable number of workers in this country. We have had a varied description of legislation introduced to deal with this particular form of disease over a long period of years. That legislation has consistently proved unsatisfactory and eventually a commission was appointed by the Government to investigate the question. The commission appointed by the Government was entrusted with a task which is really the task of the Parliament of the Union of South Africa itself, and I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the mere appointment of this commission has, I believe, retarded and obstructed the introduction of new miners’ phthisis legislation because we are confronted in the report of this commission with two entirely different and two entirely separate reports. The majority report, which is obviously very much the work of Prof. Frankel, is possibly quite a valuable document, but it is a document which is cast in phraseology so complicated that it will take a considerable number of hours for any member to understand. The minority report is a report which is signed by two members who were obviously Chamber of Mines representatives on that commission. Incidentally, it is astonishing to find that on the commission so appointed there was no representative of the people who are likely to contract phthisis, the people who come into daily contact with phthisis, and I think myself that it is rather a sad story that the Minister can appoint such a commission without there being a representative of the Mineworkers’ Union on it. However, that is by the way. I was not here myself yesterday and I do not know what particular excuse the Minister of Mines gave, but it seems obvious that the majority report in particular is so complicated and so controversial—it puts before the people of South Africa for instance for the first time several new ideas, and it brings in several new principles—that I am beginning to think that the Minister will need another six or seven months to digest the report, and it appears to me that before legislation can be introduced this report like several other reports will possibly have to be referred to a Select Committee of this House; in other words, we are geting to the stage where we continue to appoint commissions. These commissions are appointed at considerable expense to the country, they take voluminous evidence, they produce highly complicated reports and then, when the commissions have done their work the House still has to decide in the long run. I think the House could have decided on the question of miners’ phthisis legislation itself. We have discussed this question here almost ad nauseam. Since I have been here we have had at least two Miners’ Phthisis Bills and we have had any number of debates on the subject. We know what is the position of miners’ phthisis—we know what the miners’ phthisis sufferer has to put up with. The House knows and has been told precisely by the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) what are the disabilities of the miners’ phthisis sufferers under the present legislation. So the House knows the position, and I say again that there was no necessity for this complicated and voluminous report. The time has arrived, I believe, when some finality should be the aim on this question of miners’ phthisis. Some finality must be achieved, you must introduce a Bill which will settle once and for all and to the satisfaction of the sufferer—not necessarily to the satisfaction of the Chamber of Mines, because I think that in this particular instance the Chamber of Mines is not concerned at all—will settle to the satisfaction of the sufferers this miners’ phthisis question. This country and this House has a bounden duty to the man who goes down below, as the hon. member said today, to low levels previously unheard of and runs the risk below of contracting phthisis, the man who is actually selling his life. These are the only people who should really be considered. The question of the profits of the industry does not enter into the matter at all. The question of whether shares rise or fall on the stock exchange does not enter into the matter at all. All that should enter into the matter is that men who have contracted phthisis, men who are the causualties of the industry which produces most of the wealth of this country, should be on a satisfactory economic basis, and it is a standing disgrace to this country and a standing disgrace to Johannesburg that there do exist in Johannesburg and on the Reef, and right through South Africa, men who are today suffering from phthisis and who are not adequately looked after; and that there are dependants of the men who have died as a result of phthisis who are living in penury. Today they have to come out with the assistance of a paltry philanthropic award, a so-called gratuity These men have sacrificed their lives; their dependants are today living in penury, and we still say that we cannot find time to deal with this, that they will have to wait another eighteen months. If you have to starve for eighteen months, living in penury for eighteen months, it is a very important thing. Surely Parliament could concentrate and the Government could concentrate on the production of a Bill which will solve the problem of the miners’ phthisis. The Minister cannot say that the question of miners’ phthisis has descended upon him suddenly like a bombshell. The Minister appointed this commission about 2½ years ago. Commissions in these days in South Africa cannot work very fast. They cannot possibly work very fast. The members are paid £3 3s. a day and the longer they keep on the work of the Commission the longer they get their £3 3s. a day. So it is not to be expected that they should work fast. The Minister has had 24 years in which he has known that a report would be issued that would recommend some new type of miners’ phthisis legislation. The Minister tells us at this late date it is quite impossible for miners’ phthisis legislation to be introduced this session. If that is the decision, and the Government’s decision, I suppose that this democratic Assembly, we poor common private members, will have to accept it. I suppose we have nothing else to do, but there will be alarm about it on the Reef. Not only the existing sufferers from miners’ phthisis but the miners who are running the risk of contracting phthisis have been looking forward to this new legislation. They are also entitled to benefit in this brave new world, which is promised so eloquently to us by Ministers when they are travelling throughout the country addressing public meetings. They also expect a share in this brave new world, and it does seem to me that the Government is falling down very badly when in the first instance, we are told that social security can only be achieved in 1947; and in the second instance, when they say that miners’ phthisis legislation must wait for another eighteen months. What has is got to wait for? I have not seen any legislation of any importance being, introduced this Session. So far as I can gather, no legislation of any importance has been promised to us, and it is one of my criticisms of the Government, particularly of the Minister of Economic Development. The Prime Minister has told us to focus all our hopes that something in the nature of social progress in South Africa will be forthcoming, and we come here and find Bills are being put before us that are of no particular merit and no particular importance at all. They are Bills that could easily be held back in order to enable us to get on with the job of at least planning the reconstruction which is going to be so necessary after the war.

We have the Savings Bank Bill.

That is a private member’s Bill. It has nothing to do with the Government. In any case, it is just as important as some of the other Bills that the Government has produced—the Agricultural Schools Transfer Amendment Bill, a law consolidating the Land Bank, Bills on Railways and Harbours, and so forth. We have the Mental Disorders Bill; that might possibly be necessary for the Cabinet in the very near future, but it is not necessary for the country. We are fortunate, I believe, in South Africa in having had a general election last year, and the Government were particularly fortunate in any case. I do not know whether the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) will agree with me about the general election. But I think the country will agree that we were fortunate that at a stage when the war is nearing its close, or at any rate at a period when the war has reached this stage when we can more or less cease 100 per cent. concentrated on the war effort itself and spend some time on the preliminary building up of something that will enable us after the war to build up a better state of society than before the war. We have been rather fortunate in that respect in being able last year to elect a new Parliament, and although the Government decided to ignore it for seven months, it is accepted by the people of this country as being something in the nature of a reconstruction Parliament. As a matter of fact, the people of this country do say it is a reconstruction Parliament. And we find after a fortnight, after the Government had, I presume, introduced the main Bills of the session, that we have got really nothing in the form of reconstruction whatsoever. The Minister of Economic Development did introduce the Fisheries Bill. That may be a manner of training the people of South Africa, because fish is notoriously good for the brain and it may be that the hon. the Minister has ideas of producing more fish and feeding us on more fish, and possibly in the long run we might possibly get a better form of Government. It may be very necessary, but as a contribution to the real general economic development of the Union of South Africa, it does not appeal to me very much, and I think that the time has now arrived when the Minister of Economic Development should tell us something of what his plans are for the future. The people of this country are looking to this particular session of Parliament with a very great deal of interest. They are very critical about this particular Parliament. Let me tell the Leader of the House that at the moment I can assure him that possibly never was there such an unpopular government as we have at the moment.

At 6.40 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1944, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate adjourned; to be resumed on 14th February.