I move—

1. (a) in conflict with the democratic principles and values, for the maintenance of which throughout the world, the Union is participating in the present War,
2. (b) inconsistent with the healthy economic development of the Union,
3. (c) conducive to inter-racial friction and ill will, and
4. (d) inimical to the efficient and equitable administration of justice and of the penal system,

There is no necessity, Mr. Speaker, for me to labour the importance of the issue that is raised by this motion, whether it is regarded from an administrative, economic or social point of view. That importance in itself makes it necessary that any discussion of the pass system, which is called in question by this motion, should proceed on a solid factual basis. I propose, therefore, in the first instance to deal with what exactly the pass laws are and to describe just briefly the provisions on the Statute Book of the Union regarding passes. Subsequently I shall say a few words on their historical origin and growth, sketch the social and economic background against which they are administered, and in the light of the foregoing suggest to the House what exactly the functions are of the pass laws in the economic and social fabric of South Africa; and thereafter I shall attempt to show that these functions are properly described in this motion. The pass laws form a complex of legislation distributed over the Statute Book and the statutory regulations of South Africa. I propose therefore to attempt to define a pass law, by virtue of its nature, by indicating its determining characteristic. Such a definition is most conveniently made with reference to certain fundamental concepts which all nations, who adhere to the civilised tradition of the West, hold to be of value. It is a fundamental right of an individual in his own country that he should be able to do what work his opportunities and abilities suggest. that he should be able to move freely in search of that work, and that he should be able to reside with his family on the scene of such work when he succeeds in finding it. A pass law is a provision which denies to any individual those fundamental rights which I have described. It denies those rights, as rights, and vests the decision whether the individual should be permitted to exercise them in some public authority which has a discretion either to concede or to refuse such rights in particular cases and in particular circumstances, and to require an individual to carry a document—a pass— as evidence of his right to work, to move, or to reside in a particular place. The documentary evidence of such right—such document—is itself subject to discretionary power of withdrawal. Provisions of that kind, more particularly in recent years, all countries, or most countries, have exercised in relation to aliens. Even in regard to aliens provisions of this character are of comparatively recent origin, but in the last quarter of a century or so they have been widely applied by many nations. They have not been applied with any generality, except in South Africa, to any large body of citizens of any particular state. A state which imposes upon any large body of its population laws of this character is, by implication at least, denying them as an integral and constituent part of its economy and society. Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to discuss briefly what are the laws in the Union which conform to the definition to which I have referred, and as they differ from province to province, it is necessary to deal briefly with each province in turn. I commence with that province in which the system has taken the strongest hold, the Transvaal. Under the Native Administration Act No. 38 of 1927, the Governor-General has power to define pass areas and to proclaim pass regulations in such areas; they may cover any portion of the Union except scheduled native reserves. That power has been exercised in relation to the Transvaal by Proclamation No. 150 of 1934, as amended, which repeals previous pass laws and codifies the law on this subject. The main provision of the proclamation is that any native, any African citizen of the Union, who desires either to leave, enter or travel within the province, must have a document, a pass, issued to him by an officer designated by the appropriate Minister, and such officer has discretionary power whether to issue it or not. There is also provision that a native employee or a native resident on private land, before leaving such land for a temporary period must be provided with a pass from the employer or land owner. Power is given to an authorised officer—and this includes the police—to demand from any native the production of a pass or exemption certificate, and it is an offence to refuse such production on the part of the African concerned. Then there are a number of exemptions detailed in the law, ministers of religion, teachers and so on, but the exemption itself has to be evidenced by an endorsement on the poll tax receipt of the exempted native. That poll tax receipt is itself subject to production. Those are the main provisions of Proclamation 150 of 1934, framed under the Native Administration Act of 1927. There is also a law enforceable in the Transvaal rural areas, the Native Service Contract Act No. 24 of 1932, under which a native who resides on private land cannot be given employment without the production of a document, a pass, from the owner of the land where he is domiciled, to the effect that he has not a binding contract of service with such native. Those provisions are applicable to the rural areas. The urban native is controlled by the Natives (Urban Areas) Act, No. 21 of 1923, under which a number of pass laws have been framed and which covers the whole Union. Under Section 5 (bis) of that Act the Governor-General may issue a proclamation to restrict the entry of any African into an urban area without permission of the local authority; or under conditions defined by proclamation. Under Section 12 of that Act, what amount to pass areas within municipal boundaries, can be proclaimed by the Governor-General, and such proclamations may provide for the following passes: That any applicant entering an urban area must report his arrival and must be provided with documentary permission to live in that area. If he wishes to seek work therein he must get another document, a permit to seek work, for which a fee must be paid and which he must produce on demand to an authorised officer. If he gets work he must be provided with a service contract, a document, which again must be produced on demand, and for which a fee is payable not exceeding 2s. a month, this being a charge on the employment of African labour. An African female whose husband has not resided for a period of two years in an urban area must get a certificate of permission from the magistrate where she lives and from the local authority, to live in that urban area. The Act also empowers local authorities, municipalities, to prescribe by regulation the conditions of residence. The regulations I have referred to up to now have been concerned with entry and work. The Act also empowers a municipality to make regulations regarding the conditions of residence of natives in urban areas, and under the provision, regulations have been and are commonly framed by which an African who resides in an urban area must have a residential permit. If he is on a visit to an urban area he must be provided with a visitor’s permit. If he has no house of his own, and if he is living in a location set aside by the municipality with someone else, he must have a lodger’s permit. There is also provision for curfew regulations. Those are the main provisions of the law as applied to the Transvaal. The movement, work and residence of the African in urban areas is entirely subject to these discretionary powers. In rural areas his movements are subject to such discretionary powers. The Natives (Urban Areas) Act applies throughout the Union. The Native Service Contract Act, No. 24 of 1932, applies in the Transvaal and Natal. In the Free State, the position is much the same as in the Transvaal. In Natal, Law No. 4 of 1884 requires that every native entering or leaving the province shall be in possession of a pass. Apart from that regulations under the Natives (Urban Areas) Act, are applicable in Natal. In the Cape, both in the Transkei and British Bechuanaland—the districts of Taungs, Vryburg, Kuruman and Mafeking—in those two areas, the African leaving or entering must be provided with a pass. In the Cape also the Natives (Urban Areas) Act has full force. Thus to summarise, there is applied to all Africans in the urban areas throughout the Union, a comprehensive code of pass laws governing conditions of work, residence and movement—the last particularly being a matter of fundamental importance, since although the industries of this country are entirely based on African labour, some 82 per cent. of the African people live outside the urban areas and therefore from the very nature of their lives, they are constantly in a condition of movement to and fro. In the rural areas there are comprehensive provisions in the Transvaal and Free State. In Natal the position is governed on a provincial basis, and in the Cape on a regional basis, governing the Transkei and British Bechuanaland. That is an outline, necessarily brief and inadequate, of the extent of the provisions of the pass laws as they exist at the present time. I stated at the outset that I found it necessary to give some short account of the origin and growth of laws of this kind in South Africa. The causes of such origin and growth are of value—or rather some knowledge of them is of value—in determining what the functions are of the pass laws applying in South Africa. In the Cape the pass laws started frankly as a frontier measure dealing with aliens. In 1857, not long after the annexation of British Kaffraria, the Ciskei, a pass law was enacted which regulated the entry of Afri cans from British Kaffraria into the Cape Colony in search of work; and in 1864 a Government notice of that year tightened up the system. It was found, however, that the provisions of these laws were hampering the movement of labour into the Colony, and in 1865, the following year after the law had been tightened up, a commission was appointed to make recommendations as to the future of the pass laws, and that commission recommended a revision of the pass system on the ground that it caused “inconvenience” to both employer and worker. In the following year, in 1866, British Kaffraria was incorporated in the Cape Colony, and in 1867 passes were abolished with one exception, that of “Native Foreigners,” which applied in practice only to natives from the Transkei. As the Transkei was piecemeal incorporated in the Cape Colony, the pass laws would in the ordinary course have fallen away altogether. But in 1879 a proclamation was gazetted which required passes from natives from the Transkei entering the Cape Colony. In 1883, four years later, a commission on native law and custom recommended the abolition of the pass laws, and from that time on in the rural areas the pass system has fallen very largely into disuse, but it was revived in urban areas with the passage of the Urban Areas Act, 1923. In the old republics, in the Transvaal Republic and in the Orange Free State, the pass system also started fundamentally as a frontier measure, not using “frontier” in a geographical sense, but with reference to a situation in which a minority white community had established themselves surrounded by a large majority of natives, and they enacted laws of this kind at a very early date. That was in accordance with the constitutions of those republics, which did not recognise citizenship for natives. According to Dr. Van der Horst, whose book I shall have occasion to quote from, the pass laws in the early days of the republics had the effect of hampering the development of Kimberley by preventing the movement of labour to that area, but apparently it was when the gold mines were developed, from then on, that the pass law became a serious factor in the Transvaal. The same authority records that in 1895, a new pass law was enacted by the Transvaal Volksraad at the request of the Chamber of Mines, and the Chamber of Mines, in fact, actually drafted the provisions of that law. This incident indicates the type of interest that is behind pass laws. In Natal, the Law of 1883, I have already referred to. That was presumably passed in order to keep local control of the native labour force. Now, the general effect of the pass laws in the earlier days are summarised by Dr. Van der Horst in her book, in the following words—

Now that is a significant fact, significant in view of the submission which I want to make, because that is what the function of the pass laws is bound to be—it is bound to lessen in the aggregate the supply of labour—and I am going to submit also that it is bound to lessen efficiency—but to increase the supply in certain areas. That, then, is the manner in which the pass laws have developed in what is now the Union of South Africa. Their history seems to suggest that where there is competition as between various types of employers of labour, and those competitors are either not of equal economic strength, or some of them have special reasons for desiring cheap labour as a basis for industry, pass laws were enacted, for otherwise, if labour were attracted by the ordinary economic rewards, such labour would go to those employers offering the best reward. Thus, the pass laws in the Cape in the early days were found to hamper the employers here—the employers using native labour were mostly rural employers— there was little competition from powerful industrial employers—the pass laws hampered them and so they were done away with. I now propose to sketch briefly the background against which the pass laws are administered. Except in reserves and released areas natives are not allowed to own land in South Africa. The industrial colour bar has the effect of excluding them to a large extent from skilled and higher paid occupations. The land laws, more especially in urban areas except in locations and reserves, exclude them from trading and from setting up businesses of their own. And the result therefore is that the great masses of the native people are unskilled labourers— they are a proletariat with only their labour to sell. Now, this large unskilled labour force resides to an overwhelming extent in the rural areas away from the rapidly growing urban industries which depend on their labour. What then, in those circumstances, can the object of a Pass Law be which vests in public authorities the discretion as to where a man may work or go? I think the answer to that question is best given in the quotation from Dr. van der Horst’s book, to which I have referred, and that is its effect must be to increase the supply of labour in certain localities and certain occupations where the ordinary attractions of economic reward in fact do not operate to secure a supply of labour to the satisfaction of the employing interests in those particular localities or industries. It is a significant fact that in Section 5 (bis) of the Urban Areas Act under which proclamations can be issued debarring urban entry, these proclamations do not apply to natives who have come to work in the mining industry. Now, in any community, in any society, in process of industrialisation, there is always a tendency for the rural population to move townwards, and that tendency is in response to the higher wage rates which are normally offered by industry, even in its initial stages, higher than can be gained by the peasant living on the land, and it is obviously necessary that that should be so because, with a few exceptions of countries into which there have been deliberate importations of labour, that industrial labour has, all over the world, been drawn from the countryside. That was the only source from which the early industrialists could draw it, and it was necessary therefore to offer appropriate reward to a man who would give up his traditional rural way of life and move into an industrial environment. That tendency has been in force in this country for over half a century now, and in the first instance it was found that the mere economic incentive was not sufficient. It can hardly be disputed that the whole tendency of our legislation of half a century ago was to encourage or to bring pressure to bear on the native peasantry—in the days when the industrial process was in its infancy, and there was more elbow-room on the land—to encourage a move on the part of the native peasantry from the countryside into the towns. The function of the Pass Laws—the effect of the Pass Laws in such a situation can only be to prevent the proces of industrialisation of, and free competition for, native labour, by, on the one hand, limiting the number who can seek employment in industrial areas to the strict requirements of these areas at any particular time, and secondly, ensuring that as few as possible shall become what I may call an urbanised proletariat. Their homes must remain in the rural areas, although they may work periodically in the industrial areas. By these means it is possible to prevent African wages from increasing to the point to which they would have increased had free competition for African labour been permitted, and the rural earnings of the workers in question can be relied upon to subsidise such low wages. To some extent these effects are now being counteracted by Wage Board determinations, but such determinations only operate in particular occupations and particular circumstances.

I am afraid I do not quite follow you.

The policy of restrictions imposed by the Pass Laws on the permanent industrialisation of natives, forcing them to remain rural, must retard the increase of wages which free competition for their labour would otherwise bring about, and the counteracting effect of Wage Boards only applies to particular industries. This system is administered in the urban areas through the regulations under Section 12 of the Natives (Urban Areas) Act. To some extent it is capable of being enforced in the rural areas of the Transvaal and of the Free State by the provisions of the Proclamation of 1934. In other words, there is machinery in the Transvaal and the Free State to restrict the townward drift at source. In the urban areas the restriction only operates on the spot. Outside the Transvaal and the Free State it can only be administered in the urban areas themselves. The tendency, however, is wherever there is rapid industrialisation in an urban area, to broaden the basis of restrictions from the town to the countryside or in the first place to tighten up the restrictions in the urban areas itself. The area of Cape Town is a good example of that tendency. Originally, when the service contract regulations obtained here, they were very lightly enforced. Subsequently came the passage of the amending Act of 1937 which allowed the restriction of movement of natives into urban areas. In 1939 a proclamation was promulgated for this purpose and from then on the administration of these regulations became more burdensome altogether there was no production of passes to the Police enforced—only the individual workers found it more difficult to get permits. With the expansion of industry and employment opportunities in the Cape Peninsula lately there has been a demand for the whole system to be tightened up, and the official suggestion has been that no African should be allowed to be in the Cape Peninsula unless the legality of his presence here is evidenced by a document, the onus of producing which is to rest on him. In other words it has been officially recommended that the whole system of passes and production to the Police should be introduced into the Cape Peninsula. Now, I have indicated that a process of industrialisation necessarily involves a townward drift, and that townward drift is to the benefit of the economy and society as a whole, because it involves a higher degree of economic specialisation, because it leads to division of labour, because there is more specialisation than is to be found in primary agricultural industry of the peasantry in the countryside, and therefore it encourages the growth of the national income. Now, laws, such as our pass laws, which limit the growth of this specialisation by restricting the permanent urbanisation of that peasantry from the countryside means that industry is based on casual labour, to whom the benefits of specialisation cannot apply, and whose efficiency is thereby lessened. That is the damage, the essential damage, which the pass system in its entirety is doing to the economy of South Africa. And it is bound to be damaging because if producing capacity is retarded by the absence of specialisation, it means a lower rate of national production, and it is a higher rate of national production, which, we are informed on the best advice available, is an absolute essential if any system of social security is to be established in this country. Any system pegging a position which depends on migratory labour, must also retard the growth of industrialisation and economic specialisation—upon which the size of the national income depends— because mass production requires mass consuming capacity, and mass consuming capacity can only be ensured by a reasonably high rate of earning capacity. I said that these were considerations which had been urged by the best advice available. I want to substantiate that statement by one or two-quotations from the report of the Van Eck Commission, which has been appointed by the Government to lay down the fundamentals of economic policy for the Union. On page 15 of that report the following passage is to be found—

Now the point of that passage is that a mass consuming capacity is an essential for the rise of a fully developed industrial system.

What is the date of that Report?

It is the Van Eck Commission of 1941. Now, in another passage in this Report on page 63, the Commissioners state—

There is emphasised that a greater degree of industrialisation of the African labour force is necessary. And later on, on page 81, they link that up specifically with the question of urbanisation, and they say this—

I think that it is clear that it is not discouragement of urbanisation which is wanted but that the encouragement of urbanisation would be to the positive benefit, not only of the native population of the Union, but of the Union’s whole population. The demands for the retention of the Pass Laws as a system are apt to come either from those primary industries such as mining, which are dependent not on any expanding local market but on an export market, or from agriculturists who contend that they are not in a position to compete for labour with other industries. Apart from the inadvisability from the point of view of the country as a whole of listening to such arguments, I am going to submit that after half a century of restriction it is not possible for either the mining industry or the farming industry by these means to increase its proportion of workers available for employment. With regard to mining, the Farm Labour Committee which was appointed in 1939, in its report gave the figures of the number of African taxpayers on the farms, and employed in the mining industry—that refers to gold, diamond and other mining. And the figures which the Committee gave disclosed that one third of the total native taxpavers in the Union were employed in mining. Now, how is it possible by any system of regulation to increase that proportion if the report of the Van Eck Commission is to be accepted as the policy of the Government—and I understand that it is accepted, that the country should be industrialised along lines not only of mining but on a more general basis.

Mining and other industries.

According to the figures given by Professor Frankel and published in the S.A. Journal of Economics, mining only accounts for about one quarter of the total national income of South Africa, and yet mining uses the services of one third of the unskilled labour force …

And competes with agriculture.

With regard to agriculture the farm labour Committee said that out of 1,632,000 taxpayers—and that included Africans who came from outside the Union— available as a labour force in the Union, 1,145,000 were employed on the mines, in industries, in Government service etc. leaving a balance of about 450,000 males available for agricultural employment. Now, that is the position, despite the fact that the policy of stemming the drift to the towns has been so successful that 82 per cent. of the African population, according to the figures of the same Commission, still have homes in the countryside.

What report was that?

The Van Eck Commission shewed that 82 per cent. still have homes in the countryside. The only way in which two primary industries of the country can stabilise their position is by the methods suggested by the Van Eck Commission and that is by economy in the use of labour and by stabilising and improving the efficiency of their labour force. Any industry is dependent for its success on the labour supply available to it. Now, what seems to me to be the essential function of the Pass Laws is to attempt to regulate the supply of labour as between the new industries in this country and the old primary industries, and regulate it on a basis which is inimical to the growth of the local market, and on a basis which retards local industrial efficiency. Now, I want to say a few words on the subject of the Administration of the Pass Laws. The motion which I have moved in Paragraph (a) suggests that the Pass Laws are in conflict with the democratic principles of the Western world which are at present challenged in the war which is now raging. I think that point is covered by what I have said on the fundamental rights of a man, who has his home in any country, to engage on the work which his ability would suggest to him, and to reside on the scene of his work. Modem society has found it necessary to introduce legislation because the law of supply and demand has not been found adequate to protect the ordinary worker. And it has been that fact which has been the basis of the Trade Union Movement. Any law, I suggest, which even prevents a man from taking advantage of the competitive value of his labour, is quite out of tune with modern conceptions. The second paragraph of the motion refers to the economic development of the Union, and that I have just been dealing with. The third suggests that the Pass Laws are conducive to inter-racial friction and ill will. To that I can testify from personal experience. Wherever I go I find that this system is resented, but I do not expect the House to accept my opinion on that subject, I would prefer to quote the predecessor of the Minister of Native Affairs, Col. Reitz. He stated this in the Senate on the 26th March, 1942—not so very long ago—

I should like the House to note that the point was raised by the Minister himself during a debate in the Senate—not by the native representatives or anybody else, but by the then Minister of Native Affairs. The Minister went on to say—

That does not come from an irresponsible source, but from a man holding at that time the very responsible position of Minister of Native Affairs. He said later in the same debate—

And again on the same subject he said—

peans, South Africa will be a sorry country for our children and grandchildren.

These are strong words, but they are words which came from the then Minister of Native Affairs, and in my submission to the House these words are justified. Since then there has been what is termed a “relaxation” of the Pass Laws. I think it is since then that a relaxation of the Pass Laws has been introduced—which means relaxation of their administration. The police, I understand, have instructions that they are not to demand passes in certain urban areas, notably Johannesburg, unless they have reason to suspect that the individual in question has committed some crime. I want, however, in that connection to say this, that that relaxation does not touch the basic necessity under the Pass Laws of a man requiring work to seek special permission to do so, or the necessity for a man who has to move to or reside in an urban area, to get the permission of the authorities to do so; it could only do so if the relaxation were carried to the point of making the working of that system entirely ineffective because the proper officials would never know whether a man had his document or not. The motion also refers to the fact that the pass laws are—

In do not know what the position is since the relaxation has come into force, but the experience of the past has been that large numbers of the native population of the Union have been submitetd to prosecutions for the technical offence of being without a pass. On this subject I also want to quote the best authority—and I do not think that a better authority can be quoted than that of an ex-judge—Dr. Krause. Dr. Krause speaking to the Pretoria Boys’ High School Debating and Discussing Society a few weeks ago, during February, on the pass law regulations, said—

That is by an ex-judge and an ex-responsible official of the Transvaal Republic, a man who is a South African in every sense of the word, and has been punished, I believe, in an English prison for doing what he considered his duty in defence of the Transvaal Republic. He has also had great experience on the Bench in this country over many years. These are the remarks he made at this boys’ school only last month on this subject. The Minister of Native Affairs, in the same Senate speech to which I have referred to on 26th March, 1942—also dealt with this question of the administration of justice. He said on the same occasion—

I want to remind the House that it is a Minister of Native Affairs whose speech I am quoting from. Later he said—

These remarks should be read in conjunction with the remarks that I have referred to, that were made by Dr Krause. only a few weeks ago. Now, Mr. Speaker, I am going to suggest to the House that in view of the facts, in view of the trends of this country, in view of the opinions of those well competent to judge, that pass laws are proprely described as set out in this motion. In the first place, they are—

How could anyone contend that refusal to the individual of the right in his own country to work, to travel or to reside where he will, is in accordance with democratic values or principles? In the second place, they are—

That is the only implication, the only inference, that can be drawn from the report of the Van Eck Commission and the report of the Social and Economic Planning Council in connection with utilising the native labour force, in raising the economic level of the Union. Thirdly, they are—

We have the authority of the then Minister of Native Affairs for that. The fourth point in the motion is that they are—

We have the authority for that of an exjudge who, to his credit, is spending his declining years not only in attacking such evils as are referred to here, but in leading a movement for the reform of the prison system, a reform which is long overdue in this particular country. Ask anybody concerned with the administration of our prison system as to its defects, and I guarantee that the answer will be, as I found myself, that any system of prison reform is impossible so long as our gaols are filled with people who should not be there. It militates against the proper classification of prisoners. It makes for the overcrowding of prisons, and creates an impossible situation for those officials who are responsible for the administration of our prisons. Lawyers and anybody who has had experience of our courts know how the magistrates’ courts are overburdened with work on account of the number of cases of merely technical offences. I am suggesting therefore that this system should not be continued. It is necessary undoubtedly to have a system of the regulation of labour, but that should apply to all races, and should be in line with the natural forces of economic development. The kind of regulation that is required has been indicated to us by the experience of old industrialised countries, the system of labour exchanges, or employment bureaux, at which all workers should be invited to register, and the employers who require labour should be invited to apply there. In any event, if there is a serious intention of planning the future economic life of this country, some such system will have to be introduced. How is it possible to plan economic policy without knowing what the labour resources of the country are? How is it possible to plan an intelligent policy that counteracts unemployment without knowing who, and what the numbers of the people are, to be provided with work, and for whom benefits have to be provided in the event of unavoidable unemployment. There can be no proper system of unemployment insurance on a comprehensive basis, unless accompanied by a system of registration at labour exchanges. That is the type of system required, and it is required in the interests of the whole of South Africa, and more particularly of the workers of South Africa, whatever their race or colour. Mr. Speaker, I conclude by reminding the House that the present war represents a clash of principles on the basis of which it will be decided on what principles the western civilisation of the future is to be governed. The significance of that issue is obvious to all the subject peoples of the World, Asiatics as well as Africans, and there is ample evidence that they will judge the sincerity of the democratic professions of the United Nations by the manner in which these principles are applied in their governance by the democratic countries. Moreover, the Government itself has promised a new economic policy after the war, and it has been reminded by expert advisers that the policies of the past, based on the restriction of native labour, upon the enforced ruralisation of native labour, have not operated to the benefit of the economic life of South Africa. We on these benches believe that any man, whatever his colour and irrespective of his race, is not a means to an end but an end in himself. To us nothing human is alien. Those are the principles which the United Nations are championing, and I say that more particularly at this particular time the Government have an opportunity to strike a blow for harmonious race relations in this country. They have the opportunity for laying the foundations of a healthy economic development in this country. And one of the essential measures that should be taken in that direction is the repeal of the pass laws.

I second the motion. I am sure the House and the country in general will be very appreciative of the exhaustive survey which my hon. friend who has just sat down has given to us of this very difficult and possibly very dry subject. It is necessary to have that exhaustive survey, because there are large numbers of people in this country who have no knowledge of the existence of these Pass Laws, and no conception of the hardships and injustices that are imposed by them.

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

Afternoon Sitting.

When the business of the House was suspended I was remarking on the obligation we are under to my hon. friend for telling the country the meaning of that apparently innocuous word “passport.” I am quite sure there are many people in this country who have not realised its implications. It is possible that 50 or 60 years ago Pass Laws may have served a certain purpose —I do not think they did—but it is possible in view of the fact they were connected in some way with the occupation of countries which at that time had no civilisation. But I think with the passage of time that need has gone, and as has been aptly stated, the strengthening of these Pass Laws has simply followed in the wake of competition for the labour supply. In that regard, however, you find that a policy has been adopted which instead of going with the industrial stream has cut right across it. I have no doubt that those who still think the Pass Laws are essential will base their contentions on one or two lines of thought. One is that in one way the passes have served a purpose; and as one who lived in the Transkei I know that is so. Where it has been a question of following up lost relatives Pass Laws have been effective. But that is merely an individual point of view which does not touch the principle with which we are concerned today. Another line of argument will be that Pass Laws are essential in order to suppress lawlessness. I would be the last one to suggest that lawlessness does not exist in South Africa. I would also be slow to say that the Pass Laws had done anything to retard that lawlessness. I would remark also that lawlessness generally follows in the train of certain economic circumstances, because I cannot imagine except in the world of high finance, that people rob for the sake of robbing. The average individual does not indulge in crime just for the sake of committing crime, but usually because of economic pressure which he is unable to meet with the wage he is being paid. But if we remove that incentive to lawlessness and create a situation in this country where every man can live a decent life, that I submit will be a very important step. As has been aptly put by my hon. friend, the mover of this motion, the whole purpose of this Pass Law legislation has been in the past to depress the wage level of the unskilled African. I do submit very strongly to the House that the purpose is not based on sound economic lines and I have mentioned to the House the kind of economic situation that can be created to do away with the necessity for the Pass Laws. It is perfectly true that in the Transkei up to a short while ago, we virtually had no Pass Laws at all. Those that were in existence fell into disuse, and it is only in more recent years that we found the Pass Laws had come back in the wake of the Urban Areas Act. The Urban Areas Act was intended to deal with large masses of African people who congregated in the large towns. It was alleged quite erroneously, that these people were redundant, that it was necessary to prevent their entry to and remaining in the urban areas. But this Act has now been applied to every village in the Union. Places in the Transkei, where you have only 100 or so Europeans have adopted the Act; and there you find in the heart of the Transkei it is impossible for a native to reside without a permit. So in fact there has been a reintroduction in the Transkei of the Pass Law, to which people object. Today the native is being driven to industrial areas by economic conditions. What does he find there? Under the Urban Areas Act he finds obligations placed upon municipalities that cannot be fulfilled, and the result is that the native has no place in the urban areas and must find some spot to rest, in yards, under trees— anywhere. The Urban Areas Act is undoubtedly the cause of that condition. We feel that no purpose is being served by that Act or by the continuance of its provisions. That is one of the reasons we ask for legislation in regard to passes to be repealed. Irritation and depression must face the man who is driven by the urge of economic pressure to the Peninsula to work when he is faced with these conditions. It is not surprising that he should fall into the talons of the law. That is not a desirable situation. I submit we should do all we can to eliminate a situation of that kind. One of the difficulties of the country in regard to the African is the uncertainty of his life. It has been said, I think correctly, that the theory of democracy is easier than democratic government. The theory of democracy is a very fine one, but its practical application is very often faced with very great difficulties. In other countries in the world you find people for whom certain things are done with a view to improving their economic standing. A change of government in those countries may imply a change of method without a complete reversal of policy. You have not that situation in this country. A few days ago Col. Reitz referred to the fact that funds were being provided for natives in this country for various purposes, hospitals, schools, etc., and recently there has been the suggestion that this is becoming a part of a permanent policy. What guarantee have we that if there is any change of government; that if our friends on the Opposition side of the House came into power, that they would not reverse this policy and that they would not further depress the wage levels of the African people, or eliminate the participation of the African people in various facilities and amenities which have recently been opened up to them? I do appeal to my hon. friends on the Opposition side to realise the mental effect of that antagonism on the African people. There are a number of other complaints made by those people who are bound up with the future of South Africa’s economic and industrial life, and you cannot deal with those complaints merely by sweeping them aside or by regarding the people as non-existent. We must ask that there should be a permanent and progressive policy in relation to the African. The idea of trusteeship is very high-sounding, but we have a feeling and so have the African people, that although the principle of trusteeship may have imbued some of our acts in times past, today that spirit of trusteeship is turned aside, and in its place is a policy in which the trustee is saying to his ward: “It is true you have reached the stage when you are entitled to your inheritance, but all the same we are going to do all we can to keep you from your inheritance.” That is the feeling among the African people today, and it is the feeling which the country must take into account in any consideration of native policy. The implications of the Pass laws are completely at variance with modern ideas. There is a fear resting on the people, the African people, of the country, and so long as that condition prevails there will be unrest among the African population. The policy of the Pass Laws is a most irritating thing. We want that situation changed. I quite agree that it would be impossible to take 8,000,000 natives who are quite unfitted for full citizenship—at least a large proportion are unfitted for full citizenship—and regard them all as being fitted for immediate citizenship. But you have to face up to the position that of these 8,000,000 people numbers will reach from year to year the position where they will acquire the right of citizenship, have the ability to acquire that right, and it is right that you should treat these people who have earned the right to citizenship as people who have the right of free citizenship. If you do not do that you have the situation that you have people who have achieved the right of citizenship but do not get it, and it is quite likely that a feeling of deep unrest will develop. It has been said that a minority can hold down a majority for just so long as the majority pleases. That has been the position disclosed in history all over the world, and history repeats itself over and over again. Well, we do not want that situation to arise here, and let me emphasise that we are not trying to create that situation. We wish these African people, as they develop, to be absorbed into the industrial life of the country on a basis which is entirely satisfactory. Unless we do that I despair of the future of this country. My colleague, Mr. Molteno, referred just now to the effects of the Pass Laws on the relationship between the various races, and he referred to the number of arrests made under these Pass Laws. Well, if you take the Transvaal and the Free State and Natal you find that there were 345,000 arrests made and 317,000 convictions in three years. I ask the House to pause for a moment over these figures—345,000 arrested and 317,000 people convicted for not carrying a document to allow them to be in a particular place. 317,000 men who were potential labourers in this country are taken from their work and prosecuted for not having a document which they were supposed to have had. If they are fined their economic position is worse than before—that is if they paid a fine. If they have not the money to pay the fine, they go to gaol and their valuable services are lost. It is small wonder that in these circumstances we find our annual bill for prisons as high as it is. It is one of the commentaries worth considering that under stress of these Pass Laws and the like we are incurring huge expenses for prison services. Nearly £1,000,000 a year. That money could have been put to much better use. I am sure hon. members will realise that the situation is entirely unsatisfactory. I have in mind an instance at the moment which came to my knowledge under the administration of the Urban Areas Act. I have seen the possible effects of the Urban Areas Act even in my own area. I know of one case of an African who had been carrying on a bootmaker’s business for five years in a small village. For some reason he got into disfavour with certain local people who invoked the help of the Urban Areas Act, and this man was faced with ejection. So, after having carried on his business and doing useful service, he found himself suddenly pushed into the street and told to go back to the native location. The position is an impossible one, and the result is that this man is new out of employment. In this twentieth century can we visualise that kind of a situation? An instance such as I have just given could be repeated a thousand times; there are any number of instances of the same kind. It is a most dangerous thing for the peace of this country. I do not wish to detain the House too long. I do not propose to go over the economic position which the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) has effectually dealt with, but I do want to emphasise one aspect, and that is with reference to the alleged fact that industrially the working classes of this country are based on the rural areas, and the impression is that because they come from these areas they can always go back there, that they have a home in the Reserves or in these parts of the country where they come from and that by agriculture they increase their earnings. People completely overlook the fact that there has been a very large increase in the native population of those areas. In seven districts of my part of the country there are at the moment large numbers of landless natives, and in the whole of the Transkei there are from 50,000 to 60,000 natives who are unable to fall back on the land to subsidise their earnings. If hon. members would examine the economic position they would find that the whole basis is a false one, and that many of these people are forced to go into the urban areas to make a living, and that they are forced into the ordinary industrial plans of the country. I do hope that in a consideration of these facts we shall once and for all get away from the idea that the African can return to his rural area whenever he wants to, and that he only requires his employment in industry to augment his home earnings. If the removal of these Pass Laws can have the effect of removing the existing feeling of unrest; if it can assist in allowing the African to work where he likes, and how he likes, and sell his labour to the best advantage, then I should think that would outweigh any other benefits or advantage which the pass laws may have. While we have a great belief in the future of this Union I feel that that future may not be so bright unless we reach a stage of realisation and understanding of the charges which have taken place in our native economy in the last sixty years. We must see to it that the dice are not loaded against the natives who seek employment in industry. The dice must not be loaded in favour of any particular industry, primary or secondary, so as to attract to them as many labourers as they want, irrespective of the wages they pay. I have no doubt that there will be many people this afternoon who will disagree fundamentally with us on these benches, but we have during the past seven years from time to time put up reasoned arguments to support the views we hold. We have waited and we are still waiting for a reasoned reply to these arguments. It is an unfortunate fact—unfortunate for South Africa— that any approach to any economic question is through the avenue of racialism or colour. We must get away from these avenues if we are to have peace. We don’t want to see ill-feeling between black and white and if I may say so with all modesty I do not think anyone can say that we have ever tried to stir up ill-feeling. Rather have our efforts been in the opposite direction of removing ill-feeling. Our view is that these matters to which we refer are fundamental to the good of this country and we have the conviction that unless these objections are removed and the African is given his place in the economic life of this country, we may be stirring up many troubles for ourselves. We hope that aspect will not be lost sight of by any member who would speak on this motion. I would go even further and suggest that in order to reach some ground of agreement we should have a judicial commission appointed to go into the various aspects of the pass laws, and go into other laws affecting the relations between white and black, and I hope that the Government after full consideration of the matter will take that very necessary step in the interests of South Africa.

I want to move the following amendment—

1. (a) substituting for the present so-called pass system a more effective and simplified system of identification as a system of effective control over the movements of natives;
2. (b) the proper application and enforcement of this and other effective systems of control;
3. (c) the establishment of a system for licensing and rationing labour whereby different undertakings such as mining, industry, agriculture, etc., would be assured of the necessary and legitimate share of labour; and
4. (d) the proper protection of life and property against large-scale housebreaking and theft especially in cities.”

I was astonished at the motion of the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno). I have never doubted his sincerity about wanting to look after the interests of the natives. In South Africa, however, that question has been settled, and it has been settled very definitely; it has been definitely proved by the experience of the white population, by the experience not only of the Afrikaans-speaking section, but also of the settled section of the English-speaking population of this country, that if we really want to promote the interests of the natives, there is only one way of doing so, and that is to make the native hold on to his national and tribal traditions, and to protect his family life with that object in view, and to see to it that his family and tribal life are developed along natural lines. Keep him anchored to his national characteristics. In that lies the protection of the native population. However well intentioned this movement may be, it is a fact which has been clearly established in the course of time that these sort of things do not in the least promote the interests of the natives. Look what his condition in South Africa is today? We have this fact before us, that especially in latter years our legislative restrictions have been relaxed, and the pleas delivered here today have to a large extent been acted on. And what has been the result? The result is that all sections of the population are dissatisfied today. It is not only the white population which is dissatisfied, but also the natives, the coloured people and the Indians. They all feel that there is something wrong somewhere in South Africa. What is the condition of affairs in the big towns? The white population has practically no means of security in the big towns. I have a letter here which I have just received from the City Council of Pretoria, and I believe every Pretoria member of Parliament has received a similar letter, in which the City Council makes an earnest appeal to all members of Parliament to make immediate representations to the responsible Minister and to ask him to appoint the necessary police in Pretoria to protect the property and safety of the white population against the wholesale crimes which are being committed at the moment. That is not the position in Pretoria only but in Johannesburg and other towns too the same sort of thing is going on. There is a great degree of unrest among all sections of the population. The natives themselves say that this sort of thing does not satisfy them. They have no serious objection to the pass system. Some of the more educated natives object to it to a certain extent but that does not apply to the native population as a whole. We have this very clear fact that the old natives feel aggrieved and they bitterly resent the white man allowing the young children in the towns such a large degree of liberty, liberty which develops into licence. In native life we have the patriarchal system under which the children remain under the control of the older natives and have to work under that control. The native is accustomed to that, and it is in that way that they try to make their children develop and go ahead. If one goes through the Reserves one finds the patriarchal system there, but as soon as the native cuts away from the patriarchal system moral degeneration and crime on a large scale results. That is the sort of thing we get in the country today; we find these things going on among the natives, and they tend to make the native population itself dissatisfied. I say again that the old natives from the tribal areas, who are anxious for their people to advance, bitterly resent the fact that the white man simply leaves the young generation of natives to the mercy of the weather in the towns. I have said that the natives themselves have no great objection to the pass system, but a certain section of the white population—and I particularly want to mention the liberalist and the communistic elements—have systematically gone round inciting the native, thus installing in them a sense of grievance against the pass system. Let hon. members look at the number of pamphlets which have been published by Europeans about this matter, which are distributed on a large scale among the natives. The white people incite the natives by this sort of thing. If members will look at the articles in non-European journals they will find that in most cases those articles have been written by Europeans, and for the rest they have been written by natives who have been encouraged by Europeans to write those articles. It is that same element which is keeping these things going, and what is their object in doing this? Their object is threefold. In the first place that movement aims at assimilation, at severing the native from his national customs and traditions. That is what is at the back of this motion of the hon. member for Cape Western. The assimilation policy—I am speaking from the cultural and educational point of view— draws the native away from his tribal traditions, it pulls him into the pattern of Western civilisation, and then dishes him up to us as an imitation of Western civilisation. There is another object as well. The numbers of this section may be small but the section is there and its object is to bring about equality in this country. We cannot get away from the fact that there is a section of the population in this country which is being encouraged, especially by an overseas section to promote equality in this country. We admit that there are two streams in this particular regard. The one stream only aims at equality between European and non-European, but there is another section which is perfectly honest in its opinion that along that course the minimum of friction will prevail among European and non-European, although they are not in favour of bastardisation. The policy of equality is one of the most dangerous that could ever be followed. The third object is the most important and that is the source from which all the trouble of equality and assimilation flows, and that object is to make South Africa a market for the commercial goods not only of overseas countries, but also of South Africa. In other words, to make of the non-European races and the natives in particular a market. Make a market of them, and we shall have a big market then, irrespective of what will happen in future. They take no interest in white civilisation. They don’t care a rap for the future of white Christian civilisation, so long as a safe and big market is created for the manufactured products, and commercial goods, of this country. This is a very dangerous thing. It is time the influx of natives into the towns and villages was stopped, and in this connection I want to mention a few figures. In 1911 there were 410,161 native males and 97,981 native females in our towns, or a total of 508,142. In 1921 —ten years later—the figures were 459,707 males and 147,293 females, or a total of 607,000. In 1936 the figures were as follows: Males 749,768; females 356,874, making a total of 1,106,642. Those figures show a regular increase. But if we were to take today’s figures I make bold to say that I would not be far out in my calculations if I said that those figures have doubled themselves in the last seven or eight years, and in some cases even trebled themselves. It is a most unhealthy state of affairs. Let me take the nine big towns in the Union. In 1936 in the nine big towns there were a little over 900,000 Europeans, 812,000 natives, 122,000 Asiatics and 227,000 coloureds. Look at today’s figures, and especially at the figures of the Bantus, and hon. members will be astounded at the increase. Take the smaller towns. According to a calculation recently made by a very authoritative person about 70 per cent. of our towns have a white population of 2,500 and less, and in each of these towns there are an equal number, and in most cases more non-Europeans than Europeans. That kind of process must be stopped and controlled. It is in the interest not only of the white population but also in the interest of the Indian population and of the coloured population, and therefore also in the interest of the Bantu himself. There is another point I want to touch upon and that is the large scale increase in crime. It has increased on a scale unprecedented in the history of South Africa. We recently had a report about the skolly menace in Cape Town. This is a very serious danger and I hope every member of this House will read that report. It is said in that report that from 1939 to 1944 the number of murders in Cape Town have increased by 63.9 per cent., and rape cases have increased by 16.4 per cent. Serious assaults by 34.5 per cent., housebreaking and theft by 69.9 per cent. This is the kind of thing we get as a result of this chaotic condition of affairs. Now, let me mention another example. Take Durban and Pinetown, and here I want to quote the official figures. In 1923 there were 943 cases of drunkenness among natives. In 1939 that figure went up to 1,803; there were 286 kaffir beer cases in 1923 and 4,972 in 1939, and 107 alcohol cases in 1923, and 338 in 1939. The total in 1923 was 1,879 cases, and in 1939 that had increased to 7,253—an increase of 5,374, or calculated on a percentage basis, there was an increase of 286 per cent. But let me refer to the position on the Witwatersrand. According to the official figures 43,101 natives were prosecuted for drunkenness in 1933, and in 1939 the number went up to 63,728, an increase of 17,000 or 34.5 per cent. We know what the position is in Pretoria and Johannesburg today. One cannot leave a motor car standing in the street without locking it —if one does leave a car standing open everything is stolen. In Pretoria we cannot leave a house alone. No white man in Pretoria or Johannesburg dare leave his house alone for an hour or two without the place being broken into and all sorts of things being stolen. The position has become so serious that the public are not only appealing to the Minister for help but they are appealing to this House. And I want to warn the House that if things are allowed to go on as they are doing the day may come when the whites will take the law into their own hands. We have had cases in Pretoria this year, and it is high time we issued a word of warning. Do not only warn people, but take the necessary steps. I say, however, that it is in the interest also of the native population itself. Look at the conditions in the Municipal Locations today. Anyone who keeps his eyes open and sees this sort of thing must admit that the Municipal Locations are places where the native is undermined in regard to the decent habits of life, and where crimes are committed on a large scale. The native is being dragged away from his tribal associations. We have had an investigation made by experts who have told us that we already have this position in the Municipal Locations of the bigger towns, that there no longer is such a thing as native marriages—they simply cohabit—at least 50 per cent. of the native marriages which take place in the towns do not take place in church, neither do they take place under the lobola system, it is simply a case of people cohabiting, and that sort of thing is going on on a large scale. We should think of what will become of the children. Conditions in the Municipal Locations are thoroughly unsatisfactory, and the biggest exploiters of the natives are usually those people who have most to say about the interests of the natives. Who are the people charging big house rents in the big towns? If an investigation is made it will be found that the very people who advocate equality and assimilation, and who support the type of motions that have been introduced here today, are the people who are guilty of that sort of thing. It is in the interest of the natives that we should tackle this matter immediately. Another matter which we should tackle at once and which is already being done on a small scale in Pretoria and other places, is the establishment of reception dépôts in the big towns. That system should be extended, but it should take place under proper control. What is the position today? Those reception dépôts are very necessary. In Pretoria however where provision is made, in a dépôt for 510 natives, we find not 510 natives there but a great many more—one finds as many as 1,000 to 2,000 natives there. It is astonishing to see how they are packed together in their hundreds. Health conditions suffer as a result of that sort of thing. A native gets a pass to go and look for work, and after eight or six days he comes back and gets another pass, and he is safe for another six or eight days. During that week they loaf about and commit all sorts of offences. That is the position. Let us extend the system of dépôts but let us see to it that they are put under proper control. The health of the natives must be attended to. It is bad for the health of the natives, and indirectly also for the health of the white people to pack these people in those places. In order to look after their health proper control and regulations are required. I do not want to discuss this matter any further. I only want to express the hope that the House will give this matter its serious attention, not merely in the interest of the white population but also in the interest of the non-European population, and I further want to say this: we must go into the question of labour conditions. Those conditions are chaotic, as has been proved repeatedly. Just take the Free State or the Transvaal. One simply cannot get a native to work there. The farmers are at their wits’ end. We often hear the allegation made that the farmers treat their labourers badly. I deny that charge, and I state definitely that there is not a single section of the white population which treats the non-European population as fairly and as well as most of the farmers do. One can get any amount of evidence to prove that. Let hon. members go and see the native families on the farms. They would be astonished at the healthy children and the healthy native families on the farms. And that is something which one does not get in the Municipal Locations. The farmers are often slandered, but I say that the English- and Afrikaans-speaking farmers on the platteland have done more for the welfare of the natives, in the interest both of the natives and the Europeans, than any other section of the population of South Africa. We cannot concern ourselves with what people who-have no experience of the natives say. We must.be guided by experience. The people who for years and years have had to deal with natives, who have grown up among them and who will have to live alongside the natives in days to come—the people who want to build up a happy country here, for Europeans- and non-Europeans — they are the people with experience and I say that that happy state of affairs can only be achieved if legislation in the spirit suggested by us is passed and carried out. Only then will it be possible for Europeans and non-Europeans to live happily together in South Africa.

I regard it as an honour to be allowed to second the motion of the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel). We have listened attentively to the hon. member who is well known in this country as a serious student of Bantology generally. The natives owe much to the urban areas because very many of them are given the opportunity of making a living in the towns; át the same time the native has much to reproach the urban areas for. The hon. member for Wonderboom has explained the position very clearly. The reproach which the natives could make against the urban areas and not against the rural areas is that the urban areas have given them a semblance of civilisation without any principle. Those hon. members who represent the natives more directly here in Parliament have allowed themselves to be misled by Communism; hence the motion which is before us today. To come here and say that it is undemocratic for anyone to have to carry a pass is to tell countries like Holland, France and other countries that they were undemocratic before the war. In those countries, old democratic and civilised country people had to carry passes. To tell us here that it is undemocratic to have to carry an identification certificate is to accuse those old democratic countries of undemocratic tendencies. Hon. members who talk in that spirit, like the hon. member over there, have a pass in their pockets themselves. They have their Railway pass and they have to show that pass on occasions; they have their motor licence to show that they can drive a car; they have an income tax receipt in their pockets. The native also has to have his poll tax receipt. If hon. members travel from one country to another they have to have a passport, even if they want to go from South Africa to Rhodesia they have to have a passport. If the native has to come from Basutoland to Cape Town he also has to have a permit. Now, suddenly we are told that that is not democratic. One cannot approach the question from that point of view. There are some difficulties today, but those difficulties were created by the law itself. The provisions in our present legislation on this subject are the first cause of the difficulties which we are experiencing. That legislation provides that a native has to carry five or six documents on his person. It would be impossible for the white man to do so, but the native is required to comply with such regulations. If a native has to keep within the law—that is if the Minister were to apply all the existing laws the average man would have to carry from four to six documents. That is a mistake. We exaggerate by overlapping. We demand far too much from the native who has by no means reached the level of civilisation which we have reached—he is still far away from it. I think 90 per cent. and more members of this House agree that he should carry a pass, but the method of carrying passes should be altered. Let me mention briefly what a native is expected to carry. I want other members to have the opportunity of speaking on this motion so I shall be brief. The native has to have a travelling pass, to travel in the Transvaal and the Free State for instance. He cannot get his Railway ticket without a travelling pass; then he has to have a permit to look for work. He has to have a service contract. He has to have a mining pass when he is away from the mines; in urban areas, if he wants to go out, he has to have a night pass. He has to have his poll tax receipt on him. After the 1st January every year the police have the right to ask the native where his poll tax certificate is. He has to carry an identification pass if he goes from one place to another or if he leaves a place. And if he wants to live in a location in town he has to have a town location permit. I am just mentioning the various documents which natives are expected to carry. It would be impossible for Europeans to carry all these documents, so how can the natives be expected to carry them? If identification cards are carried in democratic European countries then why not here?

Still, the system should be simplified. There should be one identification certificate containing all the necessary information about the bearer. Then he will have to have a temporary pass to go from one place to another, and that would simplify matters very considerably. Make things as simple as possible and carry out the law. Apply the law. See that it is carried out. The other great difficulty is that the pass system in all four provinces are divergent, and I trust the Government will give that aspect of the matter its attention. In the Transvaal and in the Free State there is a certain amount of co-ordination. In the Free State the difficulty today is that the natives in some way or another have discovered that the employer only has a hold on the native under an old Free State Act if the native carries a pass issued by a magistrate. Now what is happening in the Free State on a large scale? The story has been spread among the natives that the master can do nothing unless the natives carry a pass issued by a magistrate. Now, the Free State natives leave the farms in large numbers and the farmers have no recourse because they simply say that they have no pass issued by a magistrate. The Free State has other difficulties too. Natives keep crossing the river into Basutoland. They are employed, they borrow money and then they go back to Basutoland and our Government says that we have no jurisdiction over Basutoland, that the jurisdiction rests with the British Government, and consequently we have no hold over the natives there. So far as the Free State and the Transvaal are concerned, however, the pass laws there have been co-ordinated more or less by the 1934 Act. But what about Natal? If a native wants to enter Natal he has to have a pass but once he is in Natal he can move about freely without a pass. In the Cape Province, too, the native has to have a pass when he enters but he does not require a pass to move about in the Province. We have very divergent pass systems in the various provinces, and that is the reason for many of our difficulties. But now there is another difficulty and that, I think, is the biggest of all. I want to accuse the Minister and his Department in all good feeling of not having done their duty under the Act of 1937. The Minister may not have been personally responsible perhaps, because he has not held his Portfolio for very long but in 1930 this House passed the Natives (Urban Areas) Act. We then found that there were certain gaps in the Act which rendered control over natives in urban areas very difficult, and consequently an amending Act was passed in 1937 under which the Government was given the power to control the natives. Now, what was the power the Government was given there? I just want to enumerate those powers and then I want to show the Minister where he has not done his duty. The object aimed at by the 1937 Act has not been achieved. Six years have passed and there is more chaos in South Africa so far as natives are concerned than ever before. That is because the Minister has neglected his duty. He has not carried out the law. In the Cape Province there are eleven or twelve thousand natives who have the franchise and they together with their families are not required to carry passes. I cannot blame the Minister for that. But our legislation is so peculiar that those 11,000 or 12,000 natives have been exempted from the provisions of the Act. Even hon. members over there need not plead for them. They don’t come under the Pass Laws, neither do their families. Now, in the first place the Minister has not given effect to the objects of the 1937 Act because he has not availed himself of his powers to bring about residential segregation of natives and Europeans under the Act. Secondly, he has not carried out the Act, because he has not controlled the drift of natives to the towns, although the 1937 Act specifically gives him the right to exercise such control. The 1937 Act instructs the municipalities every two years to take a census of the number of natives in Cape Town, Pretoria and Johannesburg, and the Minister has not seen to it that that census is taken by those municipalities. Under the Act he has power to force the municipalities to take that census; he has not availed himself of that power. Now take the position in the Cape Peninsula today. There is a tremendous influx of natives simply because the Minister is not doing his duty—an influx of 1,000 natives per week, 4,000 per month and 50,000 per year. His own papers admit it. The Minister under the Act of 1937 has the right to shut the doors of Pretoria, Johannesburg and Cape Town so far as the influx of natives is concerned. He has not done so—he has neglected his duty. He says he is powerless—he cannot do it—he puts up his hands in innocence. If the Minister asks Parliament to give him certain powers, why does he not use them? In the 1937 Act the Minister was given power to return all surplus natives in an urban area to the areas where they come from. Why does he not use those powers? There are urban areas where the native population is altogether too big for the labour market. They loaf about the streets and they do the type of things which the hon. member for Wonderboom has spoken about. Everybody knows it but the Government apparently is blind.

The Municipalities have never admitted that there is a surplus of labour.

That is a matter for the Minister. The Minister should long ago have had an investigation made whether there was a surplus of natives for Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town. Why is no census taken? The Municipalities simply refuse to take a census.

The industries will not allow you to take the natives away.

There is no need to get their consent. The Municipalities must take the census and if they don’t do so, and if the Minister does not compel them, well, then it seems that they are both too weak. The other point is this, and this perhaps constitutes the grossest form of neglect. Under the 1937 Act the Minister is given power to prevent the accumulation of natives outside urban areas. What has the Minister done to prevent that? So far as I can see, nothing. What has he done to prevent the natives from accumulating outside the Cape Peninsula? What is the position there? The position has got out of hand. Didn’t we hear that outside Pretoria a few months ago things happened which the white population had to be ashamed of? And all this is due to the fact that the Government does not carry out the law. I have a cutting here from the “Cape Times” showing what a woman has to say about these conditions. She is a certain Mrs. Abbott from Rondebosch. She wrote to the “Cape Times” a few days ago that she had received a letter from an English parson who had investigated the conditions, and this is what he said—

And then this woman goes on and describes the conditions existing in Kensington and Langa and in the area near Retreat. Are we not entitled to accuse the Minister of failing to do anything although the 1937 Act gives him the right to put a stop to the accumulation of natives outside urban areas. And finally, the police have received instructions not to demand the production of passes. Surely if there is a law it should be carried out, and there were many good reasons for passing the law in 1930, and there were good reasons for the 1937 Act, which compels the native to carry passes, identification permits. But now the police have received instructions not to demand the production of passes. The whole position has got out of hand, and a chaotic state of affairs has been created in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria and other places. It is extraordinary that the hands of the police should be tied. The police make no secret of the fact that in the daytime they are more or less able to exericse control. They are not expected to ask for passes, but at night time the position is untenable. The Minister should realise that these are abnormal times. People have drifted into South Africa who do not realise the difference between white and black as we do, and the Minister does not use his powers. What is the solution? We are suggesting two solutions which in any case should have the Government’s attention. The first solution is the institution of identification cards. They should be simplified. Certain details should be recorded on a card so as to make matters easy for the native. In addition he may perhaps have to carry a temporary permit from time to time. Once we have those identification cards they must be compulsory and the assistance of the police must be called in to carry out the law. Then, so far as the curfew in Cape Town is concerned, why is not that applied? Why is not the law carried out? I want the Government to give this matter its serious attention. If the allegation is made that taking these steps means oppressing the native—if he has to carry a pass—then I want to suggest that the Europeans should also carry an identification card. On the Continent of Europe the Europeans also carry identification cards. The hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) had to carry an identification card when he was our representative in France. Why do not we introduce a system of registration for all people in South Africa. That would have three advantages. The first advantage of a population register is that it will facilitate the registration of voters very greatly. There is ample evidence to prove that in other countries it has that effect. If a man has an identification card which is registered at the place where he lives and it contains all details about him, it will make the registration of voters so much easier. The second advantage of a population register is that it will prevent impersonation at the ballot box. There is impersonation on a large scale in South Africa, on a greater scale than hon. members realise perhaps. If we had a population register the individual would have to show his identification card and impersonation would be made practically impossible. A third advantage is that it will prevent the mixing of whites and nonEuropeans. If a coloured man is once registered as a coloured man he will continue to be registered as such. But what happens today? It is one of the most dangerous things so far as the white population is concerned. I don’t want to go into the whole question of bastardisation. It is a very big problem. On the one hand one gets it from the side of the natives, who accumulate in urban areas, and on the other hand one gets it from the flotsam and jetsam arriving on our shores. By means of a population register one can prevent the mixing of races. What happens today? Coloured people in the Cape Province try to get a white man to register their child as a white child, and once that child is registered as white it enters the labour market afterwards as white. That sort of thing is going on under our very noses today.

What kind of white people do that sort of thing?

I don’t want to go into that now, but the hon. member should know what is going on. Surely he knows that there are many voters on the Voters’ Roll of South Africa today who pass as white although they are really coloured. They were orginally registered as white, and once they have been registered as white they stay on the Voters’ Roll as white. I say that a population register will once and for all definitely establish the dividing line between white and non-white in South Africa. If the natives are made to believe by the Communists that that is repression, that it is humiliating to have to carry a pass, let us point out to them that the Europeans would also be willing to carry an identification card in the same way as people do in European countries.

I think on the whole this discussion will prove very useful to the country. It is showing the true political views and feelings of hon. members on both sides of the House in connection with one of the most difficult questions that face us today. There is no doubt that everyone interested in the native question, more especially those of us who live in the native territories, are very concerned about the trend of events in this country today. I do not think anybody will deny that the feeling of antagonism between white and black is growing daily, and I think we all realise that instead of quarrelling amongst each other as to what should be done, we should come together, and for that reason I welcome the speech of the hon. member for Moorreesburg, (Mr. F. C. Erasmus). I must say that I welcome the suggestion that he has put forward here today that we should follow the lines followed by other countries in Europe and that is that every man should carry some sort of document or identification certificate, and do away with the colour bar that exists at the present moment between white and black by making the European carry the same documents as the native. If that suggestion were followed, I think it would very largely solve this problem. It was interesting to hear the hon. member’s proposition that we should have this form of identification certificate. I cannot help wondering, however, whether the farmers in the Transvaal who today or in the past have held on to that form of pass law, will accept that suggestion.

I did not suggest that it should be the same sort of pass. The pass must not be the same for Europeans as for coloureds and natives.

I think if we consider the speech of the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) we must come to the conclusion—at any rate I feel—that he has not approached this matter from the correct angle. We must realise that when the hon. member speaks he is speaking of the natives as though they were Europeans. He is speaking from the point of view as though they had been civilised for centuries. The native, after all said and done, has only been brought into contact with civilisation during the last 30 or 40 years. The impact of civilisation on the barbarian has been too sudden. He has not been able to train his mind to think along the lines in which the European thinks, and when hon. members contend that these pass laws are disgraceful and not a credit to civilisation, they must remember that the pass laws have grown up over very many years. I do not think for one moment that the originators of the pass laws were anti-black; I do not think that the pass laws were introduced to suppress the natives. They were brought in with a very good object. This very pass law which exists in the Transkei today is not resented by the native. If you go to a meeting in the native territories and you ask the red-blanketed native whether he wants to do away with the pass law, he will tell you that it is the pass law that enables him to trace his son in Johannesburg, and that he has no desire to do away with the pass laws of the Transkei. The more educated type of natives may resent the pass laws, but the raw native certainly does not resent the principle as applied in the Transkei. I can make this assertion that the pass officers in Johannesburg have over the past few years been able to trace hunderds of sons of parents living in the native territories who have gone away. These people do not object to the pass laws.

What does the son in Johannesburg say?

The son in Johannesburg is as great a heathen as his father is. The natives themselves have never objected to carrying a pass. They may have objected to carrying a pass in the Transvaal. They object to carrying five or six passes, and if we were placed in exactly the same position we would also object. I think before we can wipe out the system of Pass Laws which prevails today as the hon. member for Cape Western suggests, we should at any rate place something in its place. This matter has been discussed on frequent occasions. The development of the natives in this country has been very sudden, and perhaps I might quote what happened recently in connection with the kaffir beer problem when we went through the country. I suppose hon. members, even on my right will admit that the shebeen question, the drink question is probably one of the greatest evils that exist in this country today. Wherever we went in the Transvaal, in the Free State and in the Cape we met chiefly what the late Gen. Hertzog would have called the intelligentsia and we put this question to them: “How would you deal with these shebeen queens?” These shebeen queens have a harem around them and they tempt the young men to spend all their money there, and then they go back to their homes having lost all their money. We put this question to the natives: “How can you punish these shebeen queens? We fine them £25 and put them in gaol for a few months and as soon as they come out, they go back to shebeening.” They said: ‘We do not know how to punish them.” And that was the reply which we got everywhere until we came to Kimberley. In Kimberley there was an old chief from Bechuanaland with his indunas sitting in the corner, and I put the same question to him: “How can we punish these women and stop this evil practice?” The intelligentsia were unable to suggest how these women should be dealt with. The old chap listened for a while and then said: “You know, you white men are funny. We have no method of punishing our women except to thrash them. I thrash my wife once, and that is enough. Thrash the shebeen queens once and if that is not enough thrash them twice.” I mention this incident in order to show the mentality of the native, and one of the greatest problems which faces us in this country is to find some method of punishing the native which will have the effect of reducing crime. I asked a Zulu up there what they did when a man got drunk, and he said: “If a man misbehaves himself at a beer drink, we put a stool in the middle of the kraal and we make him sit there and watch us drink beer. He does not get a drop.” He told us that once having gone through this experience, the native never gets drunk again. I think we should face this question from that particular point of view; how are we to punish the natives who run amock? As has been said quite correctly, we have these juveniles drifting into town. They drift away from their parents ignoring all discipline. We must not forget as Europeans that we have broken down the old tribal system. It is we who have done it. Education, civilisation, contact with the white man have brought that about. The chiefs today have not the power that they had 20 years ago. In fact they have little power. The parents have little power; they have no discipline over their children, and that is a great problem we are facing in this country, and until we solve that problem, I feel that there will continually be this danger. I think that we will have to follow, in connection with this problem of Pass Laws, the recommendation which the Native Affairs Commission made, and I would like to read that recommendation to the House.

When was that?

In 1913 this matter was considered by the South African Native Affairs Commission. I now quote from the Report of the Native Affairs Commission in respect of the years 1939-’40—

I would now like to read the recommendation of the Native Affairs Commission when we dealt with this matter some three or four years ago. These were the proposals—

1. (1) The repeal of all laws dealing with passes and their replacement by an Act of Parliament which would have effect in all the Provinces in the Union.

The hon. member for Moorreesburg suggested that we should have universal laws for the whole Union, applicable to every Province—

1. (2) The establishment of a Registration Bureau or Bureaux where records of every passport or identification certificate issued would be kept.

The hon. member suggested that we should establish these labour bureaux in order to control the labour in this country. There I agree with the hon. member. Do not let natives come to Cape Town or elsewhere where they are not wanted. There must be control. We have instances today where natives come down all the way from the Transkei to seek employment in Cape Town. Their rail fare cost them £4, and they come down here to find that there is no work. They either have to go back or are recruited for the mines at Johannesburg and meanwhile the unfortunate native has lost £4 It seems to me that we should have labour bureaux which can direct the natives to centres where they can obtain employment and good wages—

1. (3) The issue to every male native above the age of 18 years of a document on durable material in the form of the specimen attached, marked (X).
2. (4) That this document be know as a “Certificate of Identification.”
3. (5) That a distinctive colour be adopted by each Province.
4. (6) That it be encumbent on every male native to carry this document on his person at all times.
5. (7) That the document be printed in both official languages.

The suggestions made by the hon. member for Moorreesburg are in accordance with these suggestions. We know that the figures quoted by hon. members in this House are probably correct. There are huge numbers of natives who go to Johannesburg in an effort to obtain work, and because they cannot obtain work, they are hauled before the magistrate and lined or imprisoned. That is a source of considerable irritation to the natives, and I think that if we want to do away with the dangerous feeling that is arising between Europeans and natives, it is pin pricks of this kind that we should do away with as soon as possible so that the native cannot point to us and say that we are responsible if any trouble takes place in the future.

A very large number of important points have been raised on this debate, and I won’t have time to deal with them individually before the time limit is reached. The first thing that strikes me is the restrained way in which this debate has been conducted, and which, I think is a very good sign for the future that at last we are not dragging party politics into an important matter such as Native Affairs, but that it is dealt with on its merits. I hope at a later stage to be able to reply to the more important points raised by the various speakers here, but as I have not got the time at the moment, I propose to deal largely with the motion of the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno). But if I have time I shall come back to some other points later. One thing I would like to say just in passing in regard to one remark made by the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus) is this. I do not think he is quite fair in saying that the hon. members who represent the natives in this House are Communistic or that they show a tendency to incite the natives towards Communism.

I said they have been mislead by the Communists.

I do not think that is so in this case. That is my own experience. I can assure the hon. member who introduced this motion that the implications of his motion have been very carefully studied by my Department and myself ever since his motion appeared on the Order Paper. The moment his motion appeared on the Order Paper, my Department obtained all the documents that were available from Pretoria so that I am fully aware of all the facts and even the historical background from the time of Earl MacCartney’s somewhat doubtful proclamation of 1797. I do not think, however, that it is necessary to go into the historical background now. I want to say that when one listens to some speakers—and I must say that I cannot accuse the mover of the motion on that score—but when one listens to some speakers one would think that the pass laws were solely brought into operation with a view to repressing and forcing down the native and keeping him under control in an unfair way. Well, that is not so, and I think it is time that was said, whilst admitting they are irksome and for that reason I have every sympathy with the natives’ objection to them. It is also the aim of the pass laws to afford protection to a large section of the native community who are still definitely unsophisticated and who need help and guidance where they impinge on the very complicated machinery of a large modern city and where they come into contact closely and for the first time with the complicated machinery of civilisation and where they are so often imposed upon by unscrupulous employers and so frequently exploited. I think that is a point that is never brought fairly to the notice of the native, only the repressive side of this question being employed. As the hon. member for Moorreesburg said it is true that the pass laws are irksome, but they are no more irksome than the laws in the old European countries which require every person to carry some identification pass. I am not talking about the Axis countries; I am talking about old countries such as Holland and Belgium.

And Russia.

I am talking about the old Western European countries.

That is also the position in France and Italy.

That being so, I say that the pass laws are irksome to a certain extent but they are no more irksome than the laws in these countries. There is no doubt, however, that the pass laws on the other hand do play an important part in securing the right of the native. I am not suggesting that all the natives require this protection, but it is impossible to legislate for a small minority individually. I have a soft spot for the sincere well-wisher and friend of the native who genuinely desires to help him, however mistaken he may be in some of the remedies he puts forward. But the tragedy is that they will so often overstate their case by holding up the highly civilised and educated native as though he represents the whole or even the majority of the natives in this country, whereas in actual fact the highly educated natives form a very small minority of the native people as a whole. That is where hon. members overstate their case. I do not contend that all the natives require this protection which is afforded by the pass laws, and for this reason a system of exemption has been brought into being and is operative in the case of many thousands of natives. That system of exemption is gradually being extended and has removed the cause of complaints in these cases and will in time to come remove the causes of friction to a large extent. A large number of natives who are uneducated, who are completely illiterate, flock to the big cities to work there for short periods in an effort to improve their financial position, and then return once again to their homes in the territories. Once they are in the urban areas they cannot maintain contact with their families like the more educated members of the native community, and in such cases there is not the slightest doubt that the service contract and other identifications have made it possible for the Native Affairs Department to assist» the native and his family to get into contact with their menfolk in the town.

They have often deprived him of a job.

These pass laws have enabled the families in the Reserves to get in touch with the natives in the towns, and have made it possible for these families to get money which they badly needed. In 1943 no less than 831 natives were traced at the request of their families who badly needed assistance, and a sum of no less than £5,000 was sent to these families in one year alone.

If they were allowed to bring their families down here that would avoid this difficulty.

I think if these natives were consulted and asked whether they wanted to have their families with them in the town, they would not hestitate to express their opinion very strongly against such a suggestion. I do not think they would thank the hon. member if she suggested that they should bring their families down here. I do hope, however, that the hon. member will give me a chance to finish my arguments. I am talking against time. I am trying to reply to the merits of the debate, and that is why I am leaving out points which have been raised by other speakers. I repeat that if it were not for the pass laws, these 831 natives would not have been traced and the families in the reserves would not have received £5,000. Under the pass laws the relatives can easily be traced. Take the administration of deceased estates; take the money which is due to the natives under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, or money due to them under the Miners’ Pthisis Law. The fact that these monies are paid to the natives concerned, is in many cases entirely due to the machinery of the pass laws. I am not saying that the pass laws are not irksome in some ways, but there are other sides to the question, as well, which hon. members never seem to bring out in their arguments. My hon. friend has stated that the natives have lost jobs through the service contract laws, but in many cases these laws have prevented unscrupluos employers from exploiting the natives. No less than 136,000 service contracts were registered in Johannesburg last year, and out of those 136,000 service contracts, there were only 70 complaints by the natives against employers. In the case of unregistered natives no less than 2,287 made complaints in an effort to get their grievances remedied. That gives one an indication of the beneficial effect of these service contracts. Similarly natives are usually medically examined before they are registered. Last year no less than 1,366 natives were found to be suffering from venereal diseases and they were immediately sent to hospitals and given full treatment. That means that not only were those natives saved from the appalling after affects of this disease, but it probably saved their families from infection. I do not want to go further into the matter now. I am not trying to score debating points but only to show there is another side to the picture and I think I have said sufficient to show that there is definitely another side which shows that there are benefits attached to these laws, but let me add emphatically that my Department and I are fully aware of the feeling of frustration and complaint engendered by these pass laws. I am fully aware of them but at the present moment I do not see any way of dealing with it in the method suggested by the hon. member. It is admittedly hard for a native who is required to produce these various documents, to be faced with a prosecution if he does not do so. But let me say that the urban area is not the place for the native to live his customary tribal life. There is not the space necessary to do so. If the natives live their customary tribal lives in the towns, the inevitable result is that in practically every case you have overcrowding and appalling conditions. Housing and suitable conditions have to be created by the local bodies for the natives at great expense. There is therefore no place in the town for the man who does not wish to work and who does not wish to pay his way. There is no place for the man who wants to come into town and live by his wits, and in view of the difficulties of identification in regard to the average native, some documentary proof must be carried by him to show his standing in the community in order to protect the native who is doing a steady job of work and in order to protect the local authority which has to foot the bill. I feel that, however undesirable it may be from the ethical point of view, it is necessary to have these pass laws as conditions are at present. At the same time one realises the cumulative effects of these various requirements. Some of these documents are of a flimsy nature and may be destroyed or lost, and it may get the native into trouble. I say that the result of contraventions of the pass laws have always been a matter of disquiet to the department, and we have always tried to work out schemes in an endeavour to achieve a result which is considered essential and at the same time a system which is more acceptable to the native. I say that the practical difficulties after an earnest endeavour had been made by the department to find some means of alleviating this trouble, that is, the apparent oppressiveness of the pass laws, have so far prevented any alternative system from being brought into operation. And it was because of this feeling that something must be done that in 1942 it was decided as an experiment to relax the application of the Pass Laws in certain centres and thus reduce the number of natives sent to gaol for minor offences. I speak from memory, but I do not think the figures mentioned by the hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming). and by the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel) agree with mine. I think I am right in saying that no fewer than 348,000 natives in three years’ time had been arrested for pass offences, and that all but 30,000 of them had been fined or sent to gaol. It was known that in many cases the offenders were young innocent juveniles who never before had been in contact with the law. All of us know that people have a fear of the police and of the law, and once these youngsters had got into contact with the law and had been brought into the police court and been put into gaol, that respect for the law, that healthy respect for the law, disappeared. That was not the only danger, the danger was that they were brought into close contact in many cases with hardened criminals. The practical effect of the relaxation of the Pass Laws is that the police no longer indiscriminately demand the production of documents by any native concerned during their normal patrols—they still, however, demand the pass when a native is encountered under suspicious circumstances.

They are not expected to demand it.

Especially at night time they have the fullest right to do so, especially if they think that the man is doing anything wrong.

They have not the right to do it.

Yes, they are expected to do so in the circumstances. This concession has now been on trial for nearly two years, and it was hoped that it would prove an unqualified success, but unfortunately this has not proved to be the case.

Is that due to war conditions?

I have tried to allow for that when considering the reports from local authorities and the police. But it has not led to the unqualified success we had hoped for—we had hoped that we might have been able to make further concessions in future. Unfortunately such has not proved to be altogether the case. From every centre concerned, police reports indicate that while the number of petty cases have decreased there has been a very considerable and substantial increase in serious crime. Now, this matter is very largely in the hands of the natives themselves. The natives have had a chance to prove their goodwill and appreciation of this concession which would have strengthened my hand to have made further concessions. The facts given above show that not only have undue advantages been taken of this relaxation, but it has also proved the cause of a serious decrease in the amount of revenue collected. Let me give a few instances. The number of permits to seek work issued has also steadily decreased, indicating that there are more people wandering about not doing steady jobs. I shall give some figures to show what I am referring to. In 1941, the average number of natives accommodated monthly in reception depôts was 25,811. In 1943 that number dropped to 17,657. The number of permits to seek work in 1941 was 305,299. In 1943 that had gone down to 237,760. The general tax collected in 1941 was £504,784; in 1943 that had dropped to £435,875. Curfew and other pass prosecutions in 1941 produced £69,000 and in 1943—£35,900. Well, the whole result has been very unsatisfactory.

Your time is getting short; are you accepting our amendment?

I am sorry I cannot accept either the motion or the amendment. The ordinary decent self-respecting, hardworking native is most anxious to see that undesirable types of natives who are merely loafing around the urban areas are dealt with. To improve matters in this respect, and in order that the law abiding members of the native community should not suffer by a return to the system formerly in operation, a special court was opened in Johannesburg to deal with the idle, dissolute and disorderly natives in terms of Section 17 of the Natives (Urban Areas) Act. Two such courts are now functioning. In a matter of five months more than 3,000 cases were dealt with by these courts and nearly 2,000 natives concerned were warned to find work while the remainder were either returned to their homes, or committed to farm colonies. The comparative figures since the setting up of these courts will interest hon. members. In 1943, for the whole of the Witwatersrand, 4,419 cases were dealt with under that section, as against only 331 in 1941. The natives appearing before these special courts were largely the idle, disorderly and dissolute members of the community, and it is in the interest of all concerned, including the decent native, that they should be eliminated from the community, and yet one is surprised to find that certain individuals are making an outcry against the application of Section 17. The relaxation started in 1942, and has not been withdrawn —and I don’t wish to withdraw it, but I think I should warn those interested in this matter that there is a strong movement on foot for the strict re-application of the various control provisions of the law. I have been constantly bombarded by very strong representations to put this law into full operation again, and I must say that the behaviour of certain natives does not make the position any easier for me. The mover of this motion will therefore see that it is impossible to concede the request contained in this motion as things are at present—in fact, there is a strong movement in the opposite direction, and I would urge him to use all his influence to try and get the responsible natives to appreciate the benefits and to co-operate with all their strength against the lawless elements, in an endeavour to prevent our having to go back to the old system. Now I think I have dealt with this motion on its merits as far as I possibly can. There are several other points which I wanted to deal with also, particularly the points raised by the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel) and by the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus), but time will not allow me to do so.

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 17th March.

The House thereupon proceeded to the consideration of Government business.

I feel that the Bill introduced by the Minister of Lands in the form we have it before us greatly affects the citizens of this country. That is why we have put our case to the Minister in this House, because we want to promote the interests of the men and the women who are on the settlements today so that one day they may become the owners of their holdings. The position of these men and women has deteriorated as a result of circumstances. We know that these people have gone back, and the State now wants to come to their assistance again so that they can become the owners of land. But this Bill will have the effect of their becoming more and more incapable of being land owners. Poverty has overwhelmed them. Their poverty is not due to neglect or laziness. They have been unfortunate, and we are making an appeal to the Minister to give them an opportunity so that they may cultivate their holdings and eventually become the owners of the land they are working today. This Bill as proposed by the Minister is not going to improve their position, but as a matter of fact, if it is passed in the way it now reads, it will have the effect of making their position even more difficult. The Afrikaner does not like to be under compulsion, and we therefore feel that this Bill will lead to the deterioration of the Boer nation and of those people who are occupying these lands today, if they are never to be allowed to become the owners of the land. We know that nearly all these people are descendants of the Voortrekkers and we therefore expect the Minister to make concessions to them, and enable them to make a decent living. The settlers are faced with considerable difficulties even today. Not all those men have land under irrigation. In certain parts they occupy land where there is hardly any water, and they are practically dependent for their income on the cattle farming which they are carrying on today. Very often these people have very bad years; they have years of drought—this year we fortunately had a good season—but in bad seasons the farmers are not able to meet their commitments. If this Bill is to be passed in the way the Minister has proposed it, I feel these people will be placed in a very awkward position. They are now occupying their holdings and cultivating them, and they are exerting their very best efforts and doing the best they can. There are of course, some people who do not exert themselves—that I fully admit, but others very definitely do exert themselves. As a rule a settler is a man who has very little and must therefore be assisted. He has to pay from £70 to £100 in interest on his land every year. The Minister must realise the difficult position these people find themselves in if they have a bad year with their cattle and their crops. In Marico where we have irrigable areas these tenants derive great benefits from these irrigation schemes, but there are other parts where there is practically no water. These men get the land and they occupy it. They have to clear then-lands and in some areas they have to clear heavy undergrowth, bush and trees. It costs them a lot of money to clear the land. The revenue they get is just about enough, and sometimes it is not even enough, to enable them to keep their families alive. We therefore do not want the Minister to amend the existing Act because under the existing Act these men are given a better opportunity of becoming the owners of the land they occupy. The occupant, or the settler, not only has to cope with drought but there are many other things which make his position very difficult. I have received a telegram from the Tenants Association which I want to read to the Minister—

Now that wire comes from the Tenant Farmers Association of Marico. I have also received a letter from the Farmers Association of Marico, and I am told in that letter that the position in regard to the crops in that area is becoming critical. These are very wild and mountainous parts and the vermin there are becoming very troublesome. The farmers have no cartridges, no bullets, to protect themselves, and the vermin destroy their lands. They write to me to ask the responsible Minister to allow them to have ammunition so that they can protect their farms. I know those parts, and I know that all these people want to do the best they possibly can to develop their lands, and they are very anxious to become the owners of the land. We are convinced the Minister will allow himself to be persuaded to meet our requests. We want to ask him to try and arrange matters in such a way that every settler and every tenant farmer can make a proper living on his land. We know that nobody is going to occupy land if he is not anxious at some future time to become the owner of the land. I am afraid that as a result of this Bill nobody will try to own land under Section 11. For these reasons I again want to appeal to the Minister to take steps so that the tenant farmers will be treated in such a manner that they can feel happy, that they can live happily in days to come and can make a decent living for their families.

The first question one should ask in dealing with this Bill is: “What is a settlement?” A settlement is a home, and one should ask oneself whether the people who find their homes there are fit and able to appreciate those homes. And I want to ask this: “What type of people are the settlers on those settlements, in most cases?” We must frankly admit that the majority of settlers are Dutch-speaking Afrikaners. Then there is another factor which should be borne in mind in regard to the settlers. We know that a settler’s life means hard work and we also know that there are certain elements which will run away from those settlements like a lot of Bushmen because they cannot stand the hard work. We also know that whenever Afrikaners have come to those settlements and whenever they have had the necessary encouragement they have made a success of these schemes. The settlers should be regarded in the spirit of what we read in Matthew XXV: “I was hungry and you fed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink.” If we look at the settlers in that spirit we feel an even greater responsibility towards them, and we cannot push that responsibility on to others. That responsibility everyone will have to bear individually, and for that reason we want to do the best for those people so that they may lead an honest and decent life on the settlements. I do not want to deal with all the points that have already been raised by this side of the House regarding the shortcomings of this Bill. I only want to plead with the Minister to see to it that this Bill shall be applied in the spirit I have mentioned. In this Bill the Minister is asking for extensive powers. I speak subject to correction, but I feel that if there is one matter which we feel uneasy about it is that this Bill does not lay it down that only Europeans shall be permitted on the settlements. We may get a Minister at the head of affairs who wants to settle coloured people among the Europeans on these settlements. We feel uneasy about that. We have no objection to the coloured people also being given the opportunity to become settlers, but give them a separate piece of land where they can settle so that they will not be mixed up with the Europeans. We as Europeans do not want to evade the duties of our trusteeship over the coloured people; we want to see to it that they also make a living. They are entitled to this, and we want to give them an opportunity of making a living. These Settlements should be places where men can be uplifted. Now we find that heavy burdens are to be placed on the settlers—burdens which will hang round their necks like millstones, and we want to put up a plea for some alleviation; we want to see a condition of affairs created under which the settler will be able to recover his soul. What do I mean by that? We know that the process of impoverishment leads to a condition of indifference. One gets into a groove and one feels as though the whole of mankind has lost all interest. One gets into a condition where one says: “No matter how things go, nobody will do justice to me in this world.” We want to ask the Minister, whenever legislation affecting these people is introduced, to see to it that they have their souls restored to them, and that the settlers will be made to feel that somebody takes a personal interest in them. On our settlements work must be done for the purpose of uplifting our men. Not only must the settler be made to feel that somebody is taking a personal interest in him, but the opportunity must also be created for his family to be uplifted so that that inferiority complex which thousands of our poor fellow-men are suffering from today will be removed. We must admit, if we study the figures placed before us, in the Carnegie Commission Report, that 450,000 of our people are living below the bread line, and if we look at these people we find that the majority of them are Dutch-speaking Afrikaners. Consequently, they constitute the great majority of the settlers. We must see to it that those people are uplifted and that to them is returned that which they had thought they had lost for ever. Effective proof should be given to them that the Government has not lost interest in them because I am afraid that we may find in many cases that a condition of despaid has set in. We must also see to it that justice is done to those people. The other day I brought to the notice of the Minister of Lands a case where one of the probabtion tenants felt that he had been unjustly treated. Things of that kind must be avoided. The Minister knows of that case, and I do not propose going into details, but that man feels that he has been unjustly treated; he was already on his probationary land—if I may call it by that name—but another man was put in his place and no reason was given as to why he was removed from the land. That sort of thing must be avoided because it creates the idea in people’s minds that others are receiving favours because they are better disposed towards the Government. That feeling should not be encouraged. Every occupant of a holding must feel—every farmer and every tenant must feel—that the door is open to him, that he will receive fair treatment when he makes application to be placed on these settlements. I say again that if the Minister would act in the spirit of Matthew XXV and also in the spirit of Him to whom he will have to account in the final instance, he will do a great deed for the settlers; he will be able to do work to uplift and look after them, and if he does that he will restore their souls so that in days to come they will again be useful citizens of South Africa and useful members of their community.

I have the greatest sympathy with our settlers. Years ago I had the privilege of being Chairman of a Commission which travelled all over this country to enquire into the conditions of the settlers, and I then had the opportunity of getting into close touch with them and with their circumstances. I then found that the great majority of them were people who deserved our best sympathy, people who were prepared to make sacrifices—men who did not just want to get hold of a bit of land, but who wanted to keep that land. In the Transvaal and the Free State we know that many of the settlers are people who lost their land after the Anglo-Boer War as a result of economic conditions over which they had no control. They struggled on after that and eventually they again got hold of a bit of land. Things were very hard for them because these Oudstryders generally were not people who had anything —in many cases they had lost everything they had and the State eventually helped them to get a bit of land. So far as the farmers are concerned it is not just an urge to have their own bit of land, but it is also the spirit of independence of the Afrikaner which urges him to try and get a bit of land which he can call his own. These people will go through great hardships and make many sacrifices to get hold of their own bit of land, and they would rather have their own bit of land than perhaps under happier conditions live as servants or bywoners on some one else’s farm. We should encourage and foster that feeling, but I am afraid the Minister is going to kill it under this Bill, because from beginning to end it amounts to this, that these people are told : “You can be as good as you like, you can occupy your land as well as you like, but as long as you live, as long as those coming after you live, that land will be held subject to the approval of the Minister.”

But that is in the 1937 Act.

I believe the Minister has good intentions, and I appreciate his good intentions, but I am talking about the conditions which will arise as a result of this Bill.

The 1937 Act contains provisions which may create the position which you are complaining about.

Well, that is one reason why I was opposed to that Act, but the Minister is now going a great deal further. Let me admit frankly that I do not agree with the 1937 Act either. I say that if the Minister is going to impose such servitudes for the future—if he says to the people : “Look here, if you get land it will be subject to the Minister’s approval”, the people will know that when they get land it will always have that kind of servitude on it. It is a characteristic of the Afrikaner that he wants to be free and independent. I was opposed to the 1937 Act, but still under that Act once they got their Crown land title deeds the people were free. But in this Bill the Minister perpetuates the servitudes. Those servitudes remain as long as the land is there. I assume the Minister means well by the settlers and that he really believes he is acting in the interest of the settlers, but surely the settlers should have some say; surely they can think for themselves? And I can assure the Minister that if a vote were taken among the settlers 99 per cent. of them would vote against this Bill. Surely it is reasonable to ask the Minister, if he does want to lay down such provisions, only to lay them down for the future. The people will then know the conditions under which they are going to get the land. It will be their business then if they want to accept those conditions but it is not fair or just to make those conditions applicable to contracts which already exist. This matter may perhaps have been referred to already, but I regard this Bill as being so drastic that I really feel we should not set about things in a hurry and pass this in a hurry, without giving the settlers a chance of being heard. I therefore hope that the Bill will be referred to a Select Committee. But let me deal first of all with the provisions of this Bill. The first clause I want to refer to is Clause 2 (1) (a). The settler has to take occupation of the land granted to him within a certain time.

That is the old Act, it is not mine.

It is repeated here. A provision is made here which is not in the old Act and which says that land bought under Clause 11 will also come under Clause 28 of the Principal Act. Clause 2 (1) (a) says this—

You are quoting again from what also appeared in the 1937 Act.

But we are trying to improve the Act. If all these things are in the old Act why then this new Bill? The Minister should not be in such a hurry. I want to help the Minister to make a good Act. We have this position here, that the Minister even compels the man who buys his land under Clause 11 to live on his holding for eleven months. We know that the land of some of our best settlers is situated in the Low Veld, in Barberton, Zoutpansberg, Letabe and those areas. These people are now to be compelled to occupy those holdings for eleven months continuously. It is impossible in those fever stricken areas; if they are to stay there for 11 months in the year they will die. The Minister should therefore not make it compulsory that they must occupy the land for 11 months. It should be left to the discretion of the Department to grant exemption.

But that was the position already under the Act of 1912.

But we want to improve it. The Minister is not following me. I don’t say that he made that mistake originally, I only want to suggest that we should remedy the position now. It is impossible for settlers to stay on the land in the fever areas for 11 months in the year. Provision must be made under which they can be exempted. Let the inspector of lands, who knows local conditions, go into such cases. He can make a recommendation then, say for instance that a man shall occupy the land for six or seven months. But I am only saying this in passing. Let me go on to deal with the definition “useful occupation.” That is good. The land must be properly cultivated and occupied and provision must be made in regard to soil erosion. I am afraid that in many instances the settlers cannot do that on their own. They have to get assistance in regard to soil erosion, but I think it is a very good provision that they must usefully occupy the land. I only want to say that they must not be forced in some areas to occupy the land for 11 months. But now we come to Clause 2 (1) (b), which contains some of the provisions which are most strongly objected to. The provisions in this clause cannot be condemned strongly enough If that is to be our future policy, very well. People will then know what to expect, but I do say that such a provision cannot be inserted in contracts already in existence. The clause says this—

Now, what is the position which we often find? A man made application after the Boer War for a piece of land. Even at that time he was fairly old. Perhaps he got a piece of land twenty years ago when he was fifty years of age. His child shared his hardships in developing the farm. The child reaches the age of twenty-one years and the man is seventy years of age. Now, the Minister comes along and says that the son must go. The Minister quoted a letter here which he had received from a man whose son had been working for his father on a holding at a kaffir wage. What does that mean? That boy was prepared to work at a kaffir wage for his father in order to keep the bit of land and develop it. He knew that he had to put up with the hardships but he also knew that eventually he would inherit that bit of land and he would be allowed to stay there. Even if the son has to work at a kaffir’s wage, it is not fair for the Minister to say that he must leave. Where is he to go? He is 21 years of age. The mere fact that he is still there goes to prove that he has no other place to go to. Now he has to go to a town or a village and become a poor white. He is an agriculturist and nothing else. Now, he has to go to town. He has to go and work on the Railways as a white labourer, or he has to find some other job. It is cruel. I cannot believe that the Minister wants to take a step like that. Not only is it cruel, but it is a breach of contract. It was never in the original contract and nobody has the right to be so unfair as to put such a condition in the contract afterwards. But it not only prevents the father from keeping his son there, it also prevents the son from keeping his father there. In many cases the children have a bit of ground where they live, and look after their families, and they have their parents living with them. Perhaps the parents are in receipt of old age pensions, and they stay on their old bit of land. The children are now told that they must give their parents notice to go. If I were in the position of such a child I would definitely refuse to do so. I would say to the Minister that he could take whatever steps he liked to move the old people off the farm, but my conscience would not allow me to tell my parents to leave. I wonder whether the Minister has ever thought about it. There are many cases of that kind where the parents are pensioners. The law compels the child to look after its parents. The law says: “You must look after your parents,” but on the other hand the Minister says: “I am going to prevent you from looking after your parents.” The Minister will not allow the children to let their parents stay on the farm. The mere fact that those people are there as settlers proves that their incomes and their assets are small, that they are poor people. These old people draw a pension of a few pounds and they cannot live on that in the towns, they are compelled to live with their children, but the Minister is now going to prohibit that. On the one hand we have the law which orders the child to look after its parents, and on the other hand we have the law which prevents the children from looking after their parents.

It is Government land.

It is not Government land so long as the man complies with the conditions. It is the settler’s farm; it is not honest, and it is not fair to make such a provision. The Minister says that there are instances where a number of families live on one farm—perhaps three or four. I am sorry that there are conditions which make that necessary, but what does it prove? Once again it is a characteristic of the Afrikaner. He will suffer hardships, but he will try to help the other man. “Helpmekaar” is an Afrikaner slogan. I know of cases which have been brought to the Department’s notice where three sons stay with their parents. All of them have families there and they assist in developing the place. They go to work—perhaps one or two of them go to the mines or wherever it may be, and with the money they earn there they help in the proper development of the farm. They would not be able to do that on the money they made on the farm itself, but with the help of those earnings they are in a position to develop the farm. I must admit that if a holding cannot give a living to four people, provision must be made for them, but then it is the Minister’s duty to look after them, to tell them that there is no living for all of them on that holding, but that they will be given a holding somewhere else. They are agriculturists, and the Minister must help them in such cases. I do not think it is fair for the Minister to shift his responsibility on to another Minister, because where are these people to go? Are they to go to town where the Department of Social Welfare will have to look after them? These people have grown up on that farm and they are farmers. In a case of that kind the Minister must see to it that they get their own land. If the Minister wants to insert a provision like that, well, then he has to see to it that land is made available to these people. Now the Minister says that such people can buy land under Section 11. There he condemns himself. He says that four people cannot make a living there. Where are they to get the capital then to buy under Section 11? Because not only do they have to have one-tenth of the purchase price but they also have to have money to enable them to work the farm properly; they have to buy agricultural machinery, stock and so on, so that they can properly occupy the farm. It is no use therefore saying that they can buy land under Section 11. The Minister reduces these people to a position where they will not be able to look after themselves. But now I come to Clause 2 (2) and I must say that it is inexplicable to me how any man with any sense of fairness can vote for such a clause. That clause reads as follows—

And then we come to the provision which causes most difficulty—

This clause, which is retrospective, one cannot condemn strongly enough. Not only is it not fair, but it is a breach of faith, because what is the position? We used to have two classes of settlers. The one class which makes application for Government land. What happens? Those people make application for a bit of land advertised in the Government Gazette. A man has seen it advertised and he makes application. When he applied the conditions were published. He knew exactly what he was going to get and what the conditions were—what the purchase price was. He knew all about the contract and he also knew that if he complied with the conditions that bit of ground would become his property. Not only was it advertised but when the allotment was made, a contract was drawn up. The man got a copy, the Minister got a copy of the contract, and the world was informed by the contract which was registered in the Registrar of Deeds Office. So everybody knew what were the the conditions under which the man got the land. Everyone therefore knew what were the conditions under which the man got the land. The contract was entered into with the Government, with our own Government, a Government of the people which said: “These are the conditions.” Now the man has been in occupation for ten or fifteen years. Can hon. members imagine what a man must feel after he has done all he possibly could—he has done nothing wrong—can hon. members imagine his feelings if the Government steps in now and commits a breach of faith? It is more than a breach of contract, it is a breach of faith. If it were a breach of contract the man would still have the right to go to court, but if Parliament steps in and amends the conditions, the man cannot even go to court. What must the man feel, if after all those years, entirely new conditions are introduced into this contract? He is is not even required to sign those amendments to the contract, it is simply laid down that henceforth new conditions will apply. I simply cannot understand how Parliament can be expected to agree to a thing like that. Surely there is such a thing as a man’s word and a man’s honour? It will not be to the Government’s credit if it breaks its word. Here we have a Government which is prepared to commit a breach of faith which is even worse than a breach of contract. It wants to change a contract which has already been registered without even consulting the person concerned. I cannot imagine how we can do a thing like that. I want to appeal to the House and to the Minister at the very least not to make this provision retrospective. Let it apply to the future if the Minister wants to go as far as that, but don’t make it retrospective to contracts which already exist. The Minister has told us that many of the people who are on those lands today are not content to be settlers all their lives, but if this Bill is passed it means that these people will always have to come to the Minister for his approval. They cannot do anything without his approval. They will remain bywoners all their lives—they will remain settlers all their lives—but not because they want to. A blot is being cast on the settler—he is told: “You can be as good a man as you like but the Minister regards you as a weakling who cannot stand on his own feet, and in the eyes of the law you are going to remain a minor.” No matter how old the man is, no matter how hard he has worked to make a success, he has to come to the Minister for approval. Now, I should like to draw attention to an anomaly which perhaps has not struck the Minister. It is said here that no white person will be allowed to live on a holding, and even if a Crown grant is made no white man, with the exception of the settler, will be allowed to live on a holding. But if a man has obtained a Crown grant, will he then be allowed to have Indians and coloured people for instance on his holding? A man who has a Crown grant often allows a shop to be started on his land. He will be able to allow a Coolie to start a business there but not a white man. Surely that is an anomaly? He will not be allowed to take a white man but he will be allowed to let a native, a coloured man or an Indian start a business there. Then we come to Clause 3 which reads as follows—

You are quoting from the old Act again.

But if that is the old Act why does the Minister come along with this new Bill? The object is to apply this to all future Crown grants and transfers. This servitude is now to be made a perpetual servitude. It will not lapse if a man gets a Crown grant, but it will be perpetuated. In the old Act it may only be for such time as it is a contract of hire, but the main objection is that it is now being turned into a perpetual servitude which will not lapse when a settler gets a Crown grant after many years. He faithfully carries out his commitments and he gets his Crown grant but he is still subject to those conditions. For instance, he is not allowed to sell without the Minister’s consent. He is not allowed to go to the Land Bank to take up a bond without the Minister’s consent. He has to come aong like a minor and a weakling, and he has to ask the Minister: “Please, may I do this or that.” He will be a bywoner all his life and he will never become the owner of his land. He is not allowed to sub-divide the and, even if the land is suitable for subdivision. We know that some land is of such a nature that if in later years water is found on it the man can get along with a smaller piece, but he is not allowed to sub-divide. The Minister has to give his consent. Now, I particularly want to refer to people who have obtained land in special circumstances, which circumstances changed afterwards. I am thinking of people for instance who have land under the listed 1 per cent. farms. After a number of years it has been found that certain parts of Bechuanaland, Zoutpansberg and Potgietersrust are not suitable for settlement. After a number of years it has been found that owing to the prevalence of fever in certain areas, the recurrence of drought, and also as a result of stupidity, those areas should never have been used for settlement because people cannot make a living there. The Government thereupon reduced the payment on those farms to a nominal interest of 1 per cent. Some of these people have been living on that land for thirty years. In spite of everything they have suffered, they have carried on, and it has been possible for them to carry on owing to the rate of interest having been reduced to 1 per cent. They have been there for thirty years, and they have suffered great hardships in those malarial districts, those dry drought-stricken districts. But the Minister comes along and says: “You have loyally done your duty there all those years, you have sacrificed your health, and as a reward for what you have done we are going to put a servitude on your land.” Those are the thanks these people get. What is the position? The land is not such that a poor man can make a living on it. Only a man who has plenty of money at his command, for instance a man who can go in for cattle farming on a large scale, can make a living there. Now, whom can those people ever hope to sell their land to? They can only sell to people who have cattle. But now the Minister tells them that they will never be allowed to sell to those people. The Minister tells them that they will never be the owners of that land. Take parts of Bechuanaland for instance. I think it is a recognised fact that the people in those areas were settled on the Bechuanaland border to act as a buffer between the Union and the adjoining territory, to prevent cattle diseases and other things making their way into the Union. These people have been farming there, they paid what they had to pay, yet if they get a Crown grant now the land is to be made subject to the conditions of this Bill. It is the most unjust thing the Government could ever do. It is bad enough that these provisions are to apply to people who got their land from the Government. It cannot be justified, but what justification is there for the application of such provisions to a man who has bought land under Section 11? Under Section 11 provision is made for a man to pay one-fifth, and the Government advances four-fifths of the purchase price. Subsequently, this was changed to one-tenth and the Government paid nine-tenths. A man would go to the Government and say that he wanted to buy a bit of ground. He selected the land himself, and all the Government did was to inspect the land—to go into the man’s history and find out whether he would make a suitable settler. The man had to select the land himself and he had to fix the purchase price at which he was going to buy. What justification is there to apply those conditions to that man? What right have the Government to impose a restrictive servitude of this kind on the land? The Government said to that man: “Come to us, we shall help you to buy the land.” If an ordinary individual lent money and abused his position in the way the Government now proposes doing he would very soon be taken to court. I don’t know whether he could not be criminally prosecuted for obtaining money by means of false pretences.

You will find those provisions in the 1937 Act.

The 1937 Act was by no means good, but the Minister is now going further. The main objecttion we have is that while under the 1937 Act those provisions lapsed when a man got his Crown grant, when he became the full owner of the land, this Bill provides for fresh conditions to be inserted in the Crown grant. The Minister cannot say that that is in the 1937 Act. If all these things are in the 1937 Act then this Bill is not necessary. This Bill has been introduced because the Minister wants to make the land in perpetuity subject to certain conditions. When people bought their land under Section 11 those conditions did not exist, but now the Minister wants to enforce new conditions on them. Section 11 did not come under that, but it is now proposed that the man who bought under Section 11 is also to come under this provision. All the Government did under Section 11 was to advance money to the man. Why does not the Government go even further, and why does it not apply these provisions to people who have borrowed money from the Land Bank as well?

Or from private people?

Yes, from the Land Bank or from private people. The Government dare not do it. If the Government did that it might just as well say that its policy is to put the principles of socialism into force and say that nobody can ever have full ownership of land. For the moment I want to confine myself to the man who has bought land with the assistance of the Land Bank. He can get money from the Land Bank up to 66-2/3 per cent. of the value of the land. The settler, under Section 11, gets 90 per cent. The Government dare not tell the people who have been assisted by the Land Bank that it is going to impose this servitude on their contracts. Then why does it do so in regard to these poor settlers, the people who have trusted the Minister of Lands, and who have looked to him to carry out his obligations to them. They have trusted the Minister and now he is going to break faith with them. Now that these people have paid back what they owed, and the Government has no further claim on them, the Minister comes along with a Bill to put these burdensome restrictions on them. The man is not allowed to have his parents on his holding, he is not allowed to sell or subdivide his land, he is not allowed to take up money from the Land Bank. He is to be subject to all the obligations which apply to the settler. I really fail to see hew the Minister can bring the people who have bought under Section 11 under this provision.

Why were they not excluded in 1937?

But it is perpetuated in this Bill. I again want to say to the Minister that it was wrong in 1937, and it is no use perpetuating the mistake which was made in 1937. Seeing that a mistake was made then, the Minister would have done the right thing if he had introduced a Bill to repeal the 1937 Act. It would have been a good thing if he had done so, and we would have supported him. Hon. members must realise that the people who buy land in future will come under this provision, and they will have to be told what these conditions are when they go to the Department of Lands. It will have to be made clear to them what provisions will apply to the land; and I should now like to ask the Minister this: does he think it fair and reasonable, after the Government has said that it is going to give land to returned soldiers, to apply these provisions to that land? These men have been ready to sacrifice their lives in support of the Government’s policy; they were told that they were going to fight for freedom; when they come back those of them who have a few pounds will be able to buy land under Section 11, and the others who have no money will be able to get land on settlements under the Department of Lands. Is that the kind of freedom which these people have been fighting for? What sort of freedom is it, if it means that if they buy a piece of land under Section 11 these provisions are to apply to that land? They will be slaves on that land, because they will be treated like minor children. Is it fair to them? I hope the Minister will make things very clear to the returned soldiers and that they will know that if they buy land under Section 11 or if they get land on the settlements those provisions will apply to that land. Now let me come to Section 3 (a). I want to know what it means. Honestly I must say that it is difficult to understand. I do not understand it too well. Is it really proposed, if these people already have Crown grants, and already have their title deeds— the Crown grant is the same as a title deed because it is called a “Crown grant” if the land has been bought from the Government, is it fair if there was no servitude on the Crown grant and no servitude on the transfer, and the man has complied with all his obligations, is it fair to make such a Crown grant and such a transfer subject to these restrictions which to all intents and purposes amount to servitudes?

No.

I should like to quote the clause—

1. (i) any company or other corporate body, or any other association of persons, or any partnership or any person acting for and on behalf of a company or such other body or association or a partnership; or
2. (ii) any person who in any such area already holds any land under such a Crown grant or deed of transfer, or already has title to any land which at any time has been so held, unless the board has certified that such person is unable to derive a reasonably adequate subsistence from the land which he already holds or to which he already has title, as aforesaid.

It is perfectly clear. It applies to the existing Crown grants and to transfers already issued. If we are now to go so far that a man cannot look upon the deed of transfer, which he already has, as the embodiment of the conditions on which he has his land, then I really don’t know how far the Minister wants us to go. I cannot believe that can be his intention. Meanwhile I want to show how far this may go. In the Northern Transvaal, in districts like Waterberg and Zoutpansberg, people hold farms under the Law of Occupation of 1886. Many of these people only got their Crown grants after Union under the Land Settlement Act. Parliament passed a law which made provision for them to get Crown grants in cases where they had got the land under the old Occupation Act of 1886. Does that land now also come under the provisions of this Bill? Surely that cannot be the intention. The land no longer belongs to the people who originally got it. Many of them have died. The title deeds belong to other people, and the position is going to be very difficult if that land is to come under this Bill. The clause reads that the Minister may proclaim an area. He can proclaim any part of the Union; in fact he can proclaim the whole Union. If an area is proclaimed it means that all Crown grants will be subject to these servitudes, including those I have mentioned, and surely that cannot be the intention?

Existing Crown grants are not included.

Now there is another point on which I feel I can make an appeal to the Minister to help us, and where he can really prove himself the father of the settlers. It is felt that the Department of Lands should help the settlers, but under this Bill they get no help from the Department of Lands—they are only going to be oppressed. I want to appeal to the Minister to insert a specific provision in the Bill and I am convinced we shall get his blessing here, in regard to the payment of transfer duty. The Commission of which I was Chairman reported on this matter, and in our report we said that the settlers should not be called upon to pay transfer duty when they got Crown grants from the Government. They should not be asked to pay transfer duty at all. The position is that in the Free State and the Transvaal they have to pay transfer duty if they exercise their option of purchase. Within six months they have to pay the transfer duty in these two provinces. It used to be 2 per cent. in those days. But in the Cape Province and in Natal that has never been the position— there they do not pay. Our recommendation was that we should have uniformity throughout the Union. If we give a settler land to settle on, we want to help him by giving him ground and we want him to become independent, and we felt that the State should not with one hand help a man and with the other hand take money from him under this tax. It is bad enough that the settler has to pay the transfer duty. But what is going to be the settler’s position who has occupied the land for years and who has exercised his option of purchase, but has not yet paid the transfer duty? Or what is going to be the position of those people who have not yet exercised their options? But take those who have exercised their options and who have not yet paid. Will they now have to pay 4 per cent. transfer duty in accordance with the new taxation system introduced this year? I am convinced that I may appeal to the Minister to take up our case with the Minister of Finance, and ask him to exclude the settlers from the payment of these transfer duties of 4 per cent. If that is not done we shall again have this peculiar position that in the Free State and the Transvaal the settlers will have to pay 4 per cent., while in the Cape Province and Natal they will not have to pay it. This is a war tax and it is not the intention, I take it, to apply this taxation to the settlers. Now there is another point. If the settlers do not pay within six months, they have to pay a heavy fine of 12 per cent. on their transfer duty. We pointed out at the time that the Department should see to it that those people paid within six months because Parliament knows that when those people exercise their option they have to pay their transfer duties. Those people know nothing about it when they get their Crown grants and if they want to pay seven years later, the interest is more than the transfer duty itself. If the transfer duty is now to be increased to 4 per cent., what will the position be then? [Time limit.]

One feels rather diffident about passing criticism on this Bill that is before the House, because as soon as one finds one debatable point or another, the Minister of Lands has a peculiar manner of neutralising your argument. He merely says that that was already the law in 1937. Consequently, I will confine myself to certain provisions that have been laid down in this particular Bill, and offer criticisms on them.

I would just say this to the Minister at the present stage, that when I talk about certain provisions of his Bill, then I mean the prohibitive provision that is contained in Section 2 (1) (b) of the Bill, which reads as follows—

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that he has previously applied this restriction on the settler in the law by way of regulation. But when one makes a study of the land settlement legislation, particularly Section 28 of the Act of 1912, or when you study Section 7 of Act No. 26 of 1925, one finds that the Minister of Lands is not empowered to apply such a regulation. All that is laid down there is what is also mentioned in this Bill, namely, that there is a limitation of beneficial occupation. But I can find nowhere in these Acts that the Minister has the power to apply these regulations to settlers, such as has happened now. I should like to point out to the Minister that there may be exceptional cases where an adult son does not occupy such a holding benefically—but that would only be in exceptional cases—and then the Minister would have the right to take action, but not on the lines prescribed by this regulation. Then I should also like to tell the Minister that he acted absolutely illegally in applying this regulation to the settlers; it cannot in any way be justified under the previous legislation. If it had been a case of the Minister acting in a sympathetic manner and taking exceptional cases into consideration then one would have said that the Minister’s conduct had been Christianlike, and one could have justified the Minister’s actions. But the big scale round-up that has been carried out in connection with the adult sons and on the old people on the settlements, leaves one simply amazed that the Minister of Lands should have enforced that regulation in such a reckless way. As I have said, the regulation does not conform with the law, and we cannot honestly say that the Minister has applied the regulations sympathetically. Last year the previous member for Brits introduced a motion into this House in which he asked that an enquiry should be instituded in regard to the policy of the Minister over the application of this regulation, and what did we find? Was there a sympathetic attitude? No, there was nothing of the sort. I want to say this to the Minister, that the previous Minister of Lands, the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) and also his predecessor, the late Mr. Grobler, did not apply the regulation as the Minister has applied it. It is true that they made use of it, but only in exceptional cases, and they did not act in a high-handed manner. I can virtually count on my fingers the number of cases in which they took action. In Mr. Grobler’s time there was, in fact, not a single case where an adult son had to leave the holding. When the hon. member for Wolmaransstad was in office there were one or two cases. But especially in the last few years since the present Minister of Lands has assumed office, this regulation has been enforced in an exceptionally strict manner so strict that a great deal of uneasiness exists, and much injustice and suffering has been occasioned amongst the settlers. This regulation is regarded today as a most obnoxious and detestable regulation, and it fills the parents on the settlements with aversion. I would ask the Minister not to act so recklessly in the carrying out of this regulation. When he applies the regulations. as he is busy doing at present, he does not take into account the spiritual and domestic welfare of the settlers. If we would ask the settlers whether they are in agreement with this regulation, then in 100 per cent. of cases he will receive from them the answer that they are opposed to it as one man. It is not in conformity with the existing legislation: it does not spring from the provisions of the present land settlement legislation, and it has been applied in an illegal way, especially where it cannot be proved that the adult sons on the settlement have not contributed towards the beneficial occupation of the holdings. The onus rests on the Minister of Lands to prove that those young men whom he has forbidden to remain on the holdings, have failed to contribute towards beneficial occupation. He neglects to do this, and he simply removes them from the holdings in a high-handed manner. The result is that the cruelest day in such a young man’s life is his 21st birthday. The only Ministerial congratulations that that young fellow receives come from the Minister of Lands in the form of a notification that he must abandon the parental home at the earliest possible date, that he must leave the farm where he has grown up and go out into the world. I would like to say this to the Minister that those young settlers—I notice that the Minister is laughing; apparently he derives pleasure from the grief of other people—I want to say to him that those young fellows leave the settlements with very sore hearts. Why? Because the young farm lad who has grown up on the settlement close to the heart of mother nature regards the land as something more than a mere economic asset. It has for him a cultural value—it has for him also a spiritual significance. And where these young fellows are obliged by the Minister to leave the settlement, they leave with the iron in their souls. The Minister of Lands should remember that these young men have lived with their parents through storm and sunshine. They have helped to occupy the holding beneficially. The Minister of Lands has also made certain observations here in regard to the settlement at Brits. He expressed certain views, but what he omitted to say was that many of those people who have made the best progress are just those very people who have had adult sons to help to develop their holdings. With the intensive tobacco culture that prevails there, the people require help and we know of cases where the settler had two sons to help him and his tobacco brought him in the sum of £2,000, which made him an independent man. In these days of a critical labour shortage the adult son is of great assistance to his father on the holding, and he is a big contributory factor towards the beneficial occupation of the plot. The Minister must take into account that these young men have helped their parents in a large number of cases. It is a labour of love for the farmer’s son. Because he loves the holding, he is willing to work for a meagre wage in order to help his father to make a success of the undertaking.

Will the hon. member please not repeat that argument?

It is not that I want to repeat arguments that have already been employed, Sir, but I want to bring this point to the notice of the Minister, and accordingly I thought it required emphasising. The young men contribute towards the beneficial occupation. They have helped to dig the stones out of the ground and remove them; they have helped to prepare the lands; they have built the dams and the weirs; they have helped to plant the tobacco; they have helped to irrigate the land; during the night they have been on duty in the drying kilns. In the cold winter nights they have tried to make that occupation truly beneficial. But when such a lad reaches his majority, he receives instructions from the Minister of Lands that he must leave the holding as soon as possible. That is callous conduct on the part of the Minister. It occasions unrest and unhappiness. It reacts detrimentally on the settlement as a whole. But there is another point to which I should like to direct the Minister’s attention. Over this unsympathetic application of the regulation, enough has already been said. But when one notices in this Bill that this cruel regulation is to be incorporated in the Crown transfer that is mentioned in sub-paragraph (d) then it will come as a shock to every settler and to everyone who is interested in the settlement. I have already said that this regulation is the most unfeeling regulation in connection with the settlements, but when we find that it is included in the Crown transfer it will undoubtedly be regarded by the settlers as a general weakening of the Crown transfer. In the past it was the great ideal that the settler kept in view to become the proud possessor of his own holding, to be the proud possessor of his Crown transfer. Now this regulation will be included and it will weaken the Crown transfer. The Minister is with this going to put the fly in the ointment, because this will be a general weakening of the Crown transfer; in fact, it will almost destroy its value. I have put a question to the Minister of Lands, namely how many persons at the settlement of Brits, Hartebeestpoort, are already in possession of Crown transfers, and his answer was 77. In addition to these 77 there are a further 38 who have already made their payments and fulfilled their obligations. In other words, there are some 115 settlers out of something over 600 who have complied with all the requirements of the Department of Lands. Why does the Minister now come and say, where these people have got their Crown transfers which it has always been the greatest ambition of the settler to realise— why does the Minister come now and insert this provision in the Crown transfer which destroys one of the biggest ideals of the settler. It causes a lot of sorrow to the settlers, and it is small wonder that the Minister has now to say that speculation has taken place. If a little speculation occurs it is because the Minister has so weakened the Crown transfer that the settlers no longer wish to remain there. If so many irritating restrictions and humiliating limitations are applied by the Department of Lands to the case of Crown transfers, the settlers will not wish to remain one day longer than necessary on the settlement. They sell their land. If today the Minister says that there is a little speculating, we should also enquire as to the cause of it. The stimulus to this speculation has been nothing else than the legislation that the Minister now wishes to pilot through the House. Last year the Minister came before this House with the same Bill, and on these provisions all the interest in the Bill was focussed. The Minister withdrew it, but the effect on the settlers was such that they said, as a whole, that their feelings were such that they did not want to go on with their work or to acquire the holdings. The Minister is setting about things in a callous way. I have mentioned these little matters in connection with the Bill to enable the Minister to see clearly that he should consider an alteration of these clauses, and that he should not insert this restrictive provision in the Crown transfers. What strikes me as even more peculiar is that the Minister proposes to make provision of this sort retrospective. Is that perhaps the reason why the Minister has not yet issued the Crown transfers in the 38 cases where the settlers have already completed their obligations? Perhaps he will reply that they should only be handed out after the lapse of ten years. We know however that he has the right to issue them after five years. He has, however, refused to do so, and we suspect that he has kept it in suspense to enable him to obtain a hold on those thirty-eight settlers. But there remains something more. This Bill has retrospective force. Where the parent hitherto has aspired to possess a Crown transfer so that the son could come and live there, thus making them completely dependent on the settlement, the Minister now proposes taking the course of inserting this restrictive provision in the Crown transfer, with the result that he will always have that grip over the holding so that it will be impossible for the minor son to live there. It will always be effective in respect of the transferee when the land is transferred. I maintain that that is callous action, and that it will mean that our settlements will fail in their purpose. I was sorry when I read the Hansard report of the Minister’s speech to find that the Minister had said one or two things about the settlement at Brits which will create a false impression. I think that the Minister presented a very incomplete report to this House where he picked out ten cases of speculation on that settlement. You should know, Sir, that the impression was created in the country that speculation is rampant on that settlement, that the settlers are making enormous profits, and that 40 per cent. of the settlers are now not only minus their land but also minus the money they received for its sale. The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) followed the Minister, and he went even further and said that 90 per cent. of the people now possessed nothing.

No, I said that 40 per cent. of the settlers are now caught in the clutches of a financial institution.

Yes, the Minister also said that, but in another place the Minister made the following statement—

That is not 40 per cent., but 50 per cent. I want to point out to the Minister that that gave a wrong impression. Why did he only mention ten cases. There are at least 636 settlers, and hundreds of them have made a tremendous success of their holdings. Why did the Minister make no reference to the improvements that they had effected on their lands? Why did he not mention the purchase price and the interest that those people paid; why has he not taken the value of the improvements that they have brought to the land? I do not want to suggest that the Minister has intentionally made an erroneous statement—I shall never do that— but the idea that it created at Brits and throughout the country, or the impression that it created, is that all the settlers have been seized with a crazy spirit of speculation, that there is unbridled speculation, that those people have sold their lands at tremendous profits and they are now stranded there at their wits’ end without land and without cash. That is not the truth, because 99 per cent. of the settlers make a conspicuous success of their undertakings, and instead of the Minister creating the impression that he did create he should have told us of the successes that have been achieved by the people on that settlement. May I mention that a thesis was written about the settlement by one of our young students. He instituted a thorough investigation. He obtained statistics concerning the annual income of the people and so on and so forth, and you would be surprised if you knew what the income is of the first hundred settlers. In every case it was a minimum of £1,000. Those people have revealed initiative and perserverance. They have farmed on propressive lines. These are not merely impoverished people. In many cases they are people who have come from the Karroo, who have been driven from that area by the adversities of nature, and who have obtained a piece of land on the settlement in order to regain their independence. They exerted themselves to the utmost. I shall accept it that the Minister did not want to create the impression that the settlement was a failure, but having created that impression he should to a certain extent withdraw his words and explain that that was not what he intended. It was not right of the Minister to have picked out 10 cases and to say that there had been failures, and that speculating is going on, and then to assume that that is the spirit of the settlement. The Minister stated further that 40 per cent of the settlers owed money to a certain financial company. Why is the Minister not more specific with his allegation? It is so easy to talk about 40 per cent. of the people being in the clutches of a financial company. What did the Minister mean by that? Did he mean that they are in the clutches of the National Bank, or of the Volksbank, or of Volkskas. On a previous occasion mention has been made of the Volkskas with which the settlers transact business. I can say that many of the settlers, nearly 90 per cent. of them do business with the Volkskas. But that is a financial company of which we may rightly be proud. There is nobody who can show that this company with its short-term loans does not do a great deal of good on the settlement.

And in many cases the bank charges run as high as 35 per cent.

I will not allow my attention to stray from my argument. That allegation was made but the books of a bank are open to inspection, and such an institution would not be sound if it did not take precautions that when it provides financial facilities it will get its money back. But to come here and say that 40 per cent. of the settlers owe money to that financial institution signifies that a financial institution such as Volkskas trusts the people, and that at the same time it has such faith in its clients that it is willing to assist them with short-term loans. It would not assist those settlers if it had not confidence in them. That is what it boils down to. So the information that the Minister obtained was that 40 per cent. of the people sit there in the clutches of that bank. Who furnished him with that information? Will the Minister tell us that? Because it is quite inaccurate. I have also made enquiries in connection with this matter, and I can prove here that it is in no way correct to state that 40 per cent. of the settlers are in the hands of that financial institution. On the contrary some of those people have invested £1,000 and more in that financial company. No, the settlers of Brits have done pioneer work, and the Minister of Lands ought to be proud of the work that they have done. In view of the fact that the Minister has made these observations, and given an entirely wrong reflection of the actual position in regard to this settlement, I trust that he will avail himself of the opportunity to remove this wrong impression. In his speech the Minister proffers advice to the people; I read here that he said that the father must save money and that he would then be able to purchase some land for his son. The Minister thinks that in this manner they will be able to rehabilitate these young men. But it is of course much better that the son should remain there. Why should he just go away? Take a case like that at Geluk where the father had two or three sons, where they lived together with their father during the time the late Mr. Grobler was Minister, and where each one of those sons today owns a separate plot and is the proud possessor of a Crown transfer. I feel that it is a mistaken policy to turn adrift on such a scale those young fellows who have a liking for those lands. I consider that it should be the policy of our land settlement to aim at the settlers achieving complete independence. We shall build up a race of settlers in South Africa should we continue to draw a pernicious dividing line between settlers and farmers. We must have more faith in the ideals of those settlers. We must not imagine that it is a disgrace to be a settler. It must be the objective of land settlement to make every settler independent, and the hon. Minister must regard every settler as a potential independent farmer of the future. And that is just what the Bill seeks to kill. By these humiliating restrictions we are operating in the direction of them being held in bondage by the Government. The hon. Minister must not imagine that the settlers at Brits are asking charity from the Government. They do ask that they shall not be obstructed in their endeavours to achieve independence and to stand on their own feet, and I want to ask the hon. Minister to repose more confidence in them instead of hampering them with restrictions. In that way we shall rear a type of settler of which we may yet be proud. Let us not draw a sharp dividing line between the farmer and the settler. The final goal of land settlement must be the complete independence of the settler.

There is one aspect of this Bill that I am very worried about, and that is the principle of Parliament introducing a new condition into an existing contract without consulting the persons concerned. The principle I am particularly referring to is the question of the people who have acquired ground under Section 11. I have assisted several people to purchase ground under this particular section. Those people get an option on this ground. They are prepared to pay the full cost of that ground. They have had to put up 10 per cent. of the purchase price, and in many cases they have put up considerably more, and now the Government contemplates introducing a condition that would be very unwelcome to these people. I do not look upon those people in the same light as I look upon the people in the various small irrigation settlements. I know the circumstances of many of these people particularly well. They have bought a thousand acres of ground, in many cases in a part of the country where a thousand acres is looked upon as a decent sized farm. They thought that they would eventually be able to get transfer. They have improved that ground and spent money on it, and if a clause is now inserted in any subsequent title deeds restricting the method that this ground can be worked, I feel that they would resent this very much. I hope that the Minister will take this very seriously into consideration. I hope that he will be able to exempt people who have got ground under Section 11 from the operation of this Bill. If he is not able to do that, I hope he will give those people an opportunity of paying to the Government the amount that is owing on this ground, and that he will let them have a free title, so that they can sell the ground freely as any other owner can do. I think that is only a reasonable proposition; and I would just like to stress that these people have not had a present made to them by the Government. They got an option on the ground, and then under the existing scheme under which they must put up not less than 10 per cent. of the purchase price they acquired that ground. The Government paid the owner and took transfer, but the lesses have always had the right to pay off the rest of the money that was owing on the ground and to take transfer. I hope the Minister will not place those people in any worse position than they are at present, and I feel that they should be exempted altogether. If the Minister cannot agree to that, I feel that they have a strong case for being given an opportunity of raising money to pay off the balance.

The Government will not let them pay it.

I hope the Government will allow them to pay off the balance and to take transfer of that ground.

I have listened attentively to the address of the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé), and I should just like to correct something he said in connection with the Northern Transvaal. He has stated here that if you live in the Northern Transvaal there is always the danger of malaria, and that you continually have the menace of malaria threatening you. He stated that if you could not get away from your farm you would succumb to malaria. I should merely like to tell the House that the opinion of an expert is that our children who are living in malaria areas must be allowed to grow up there and be educated there, because if we do not follow that course they will be more subject to malaria than people who newly arrive there. I would just say that as regards the eleven months’ residence on the holding that I feel that the Minister has adopted the right standpoint. There are thousands and thousands of farms in South Africa that have changed hands from time to time. If we come to think of it then we appreciate that that is just what is wrong with the farming community, namely, that our roots did not go deep enough into the ground though we should be proud of the land that our fathers possessed for us. I say therefore that the Minister is right to have taken a step that will surely conduce to building up the farming community for the future of South Africa. Another point that has been harped on a good deal is that regarding the Minister not allowing an adult son to remain on the holding with his parents. I live in a part that has certainly more of Oom Paul’s old lands than any other part. And what steps has the Minister taken there. Never yet in a single case has the Minister refused permission for the son to be allowed to help his father, but the father must of course be prepared to make provision for the future of his son. In such cases the Minister has always granted his consent. But what happens is this. When a young fellow who has turned 21 sets out to work to assist in building up his father’s holding it happens in some cases that the father sells the land, the money is divided amongst the children, and that young fellow is stranded without any land. I consider that when the eldest son has helped to cultivate and develop his father’s lands the father should be obliged to transfer these lands to his son. We are at work taking the farming section of the people away from the land. In my district where there were previously eight bywoners on the land they have been dispersed and the land today belongs to people who are living in Johannesburg and who allow the land to be worked by natives. I do not want to pick a quarrel with the Opposition. I should like to see us co-operating to build up the farming community. I have just as much right to champion the cause of my people as any other member. I would like today to ask the assistance of hon. members on the other side of the House to build up the farming community. We should seek to influence them not to abandon their farms and allow natives to remain there to look after them. I think we should strengthen the Minister’s arm in this connection. In the old days every farmer’s son conceived it to be his duty to improve the land, and that land was handed down from generation to generation. I was bom in the Cape Colony; and where did I end up—on the borders of the Transvaal. Why? Because I had no land. We should, I claim, do everything in our power to give children of the farmers a chance in life. Now we turn to the settlers, and what do we find. If we allow the holdings to be sold to people who will not live on them, those holdings will be bought up one after the other, and very soon we shall find natives occupying that land. That will be a sorry state of affairs for South Africa if we allow those holdings that were purchased to help our people to be occupied by natives or by people who have no love for the land, and whose only motive is to make money out of it. I have listened with attention to the speeches made by hon. members opposite, and I believe that we are of one mind in that respect. We have, however, differences of opinion. But I should like to relate what happened in my district. Transfer was effected and those people sold the land, and the result was that these people had to come to the Minister again to ask for more land. I know of cases where people have got land no fewer than five times. The Government were compelled to assist these people time and again. We are then reproached because those people are assisted while other young fellows are not assisted. What has struck me particularly in this House is the solicitude that has been evinced for the welfare of our soldiers. I have the greatest respect for those soldiers. When the call was sounded, and when I was not allowed to join up I appealed to others. I want to ask that our soldiers should not again be exploited by a certain section of of our people for selfish purposes. In the past it has happened that soldiers have been asked to get the land in their name; that land was later bought from the soldier, and within five years he would be walking the streets. Our people have cut adrift from the land, and if in the future we do not help our soldiers things will happen in South Africa that we shall have occasion bitterly to regret and that will re-act to the irrevocable harm of the people of South Africa. It is our duty to keep a watchful eye over the people who for four or five years have fought for the freedom of our country and who have protected us. We must provide for their future, and we must place them in a position to be able to provide for the future of their families. One thing that struck me this afternoon was the anxiety of certain hon. members to have these so-called restrictions removed. I have seen in my district how much land has been appropriated not by transfer in the ordinary way but a result of the advancing of monies. That Government land has been appropriated, farm after farm, and today one finds that certain people are in possession of a great deal of Oom Paul’s lands, while there are Afrikaners who do not own a single morgen. I have heard it stated that the white man must be protected. I should like, however, to say this. We must not forget that the Native Trust purchases farms from Europeans. Today we find that excellent irrigable lands belong to natives, but that the people who sold them are now reproaching the Government for having given these lands to the natives. The blame is being attached to the Government. We shall bitterly regret it if we permit these lands to pass out of the hands of our settlers. I have seen to what extent this land speculation occurs in the Northern Transvaal, and I beg and pray the Minister to ensure that this speculation is put a stop to once and for all so far as regards settlers. May I cite just one instance. We assisted two young farmers to obtain land. Under the relevant section of the Act if you have effected certain improvements you may sell the land. What happened? One of these two young farmers sold his land, and today he is roaming about the veld, looking for a place where he can settle down as a bywoner. That 800 morgen that he possessed is today in the hands of the speculators. I know of one case in my district where a speculator purchased no fewer than 40 holdings; that is a disgrace. I should like to ask hon. members on the other side of the House not to be so concerned over the future of South Africa. We on this side of the House, whether Afrikaans-speaking or English-speaking, will look after that man, irrespective of his political feelings.

We shall put him in the position of bringing honour to the name of South Africa. But as soon as any hon. member on this side of the House says anything that is calculated to promote the welfare of the people, he is reproached on the ground that he is actuated by political motives.

You are one of Oom Paul’s people, are you not?

There has been some discussion about the 1 per cent. interest. The 1 per cent. interest came about in this way. Many of those settlers paid the 1 per cent. interest not because the land was so bad, but in order to allow them to retain a feeling of self-respect and to allow them to feel that they were not receiving charity from the Government. I have heard today that the farmers on these 1 per cent. interest lands now wish to sell. The hon. Minister stated, however : “If your holdings are too small I am prepared to give you larger holdings on the same terms.” He went out of his way to help these settlers. In my district out of 22 farms that were allotted 18 went to supporters of the Opposition and four to supporters of the Government.

But we are of course in the majority in the platteland.

I would just say this, I am thankful that the Minister has never allowed himself to be influenced by political motives. I was very annoyed with the Minister when he allotted 18 of the farms to supporters of the Opposition. I had thought that he should have given more of the farms to supporters of the Government; then they would have liked me a little better; but the Minister stated that we had to distribute the land in a just way, so that our settlers would have the best chance to make a success of their farming. There is only one other matter that affects my district, and that is in connection with the parents. I want to submit this request to the Minister. Where the parent is today prepared to transfer the land to his eldest child, I suggest that he should take that fact into consideration, not to the detriment of the other children but to support the new generation of that family. Other children sometimes are not able to purchase land. I hope that the Minister will do everything in his power to prevent those children of the platteland migrating to the towns. They must be encouraged to preserve their love for the land. I take a special interest in educational affairs, and I discovered to my surprise that in the Transvaal we have recently taken to encouraging the children on the platteland to go to the towns. I hope that the Minister of Lands will do everything in his power to ensure that our farming folk will remain on the land.

When you have listened to the hon. member who has just sat down regarding the conditions in his constituency, you can understand why he has been sent to this House. His district apparently comprises a speculative element. They are selling their land left and right. Apparently he has an unstable element there, and that explains why he has come to this House. He began by praising the Government, then he attacked the Government and he wound up with precisely the same plea that this side of the House made.

He is one of Oom Paul’s people.

I regret that I was not present in the House when the Minister introduced this measure. I have however, taken the trouble to examine his speech very closely, and I am sorry to find that the Minister presented a Bill to Parliament before he knew what the contents of that Bill were. The Minister admitted here that he did not know it, and that stands recorded in Hansard. He admitted that he did not know of certain provisions in the Bill. Have we ever before seen a Minister of the Crown introducing a Bill while he was not aware of the contents of that measure? When the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naude) read out certain provisions of the Bill the Minister said that they were not in the Bill.

What I meant was that he was referring to another section.

But the Minister admits that he did not know that that Bill has retrospective effect. Let us see what the Minister said. In Column 2138 of Hansard the following question appears as having been put by the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander)—

To that the Minister of Lands replied—

That is what the hon. Minister said. Am I not then entitled to say that the Minister brings Bills before this House the contents of which he does not know? I should like to refer the Minister to this. Frequently during the course of his speech he stated that he would be ashamed when spending so much money to appear before the House in order to ask that the country should continue to contribute money if this Bill were not accepted. May I say this to the Minister, that the Bill brings shame, too, on any Minister who introduces it into Parliament, and it will bring shame to Parliament if it is adopted. The first question is what is a settler and who are the settlers?’ The Minister of Lands is the father of these people who are being helped by the money that is being voted by Parliament. They are his children, and just as any father does the best he possibly can for his child, just as a father will do everything he can to provide the best for his son, so one expects from the Minister of Lands that he will give of his best to the settlers. No parent would ever think of imposing such inhuman restrictions on his son when he has come of age The first that the Minister stipulated is this. The law prohibits any settler from having any Europeans on his holdings except his wife and minor sons and daughters. This Bill is in conflict with any feeling of justice on the part of the State towards less privileged persons. The Minister resorts to his powers to import these provisions into the Bill. I should like to put this direct question to the Minister: He, and I, and others have borrowed money from moneylenders to buy land; what would he and I do if one day the moneylender came along and told us that we were not allowed to sell the land, that we might not divide the land, and that we might not keep our adult son on the land. We ask the Minister what he would do if his parents came to him in their old age and wanted a little refuge on his farm. Would he throw them on the road? Would he put his son on the road when he reached the age of 21 and let him fend for himself. I say that if the Minister did this he would be an unnatural son and an unnatural father. Now we ask the Minister this. The Minister expects that every settler must cultivate his holding or farm. I ask the Minister whether the settlers can successfully cultivate these holdings or farms without assistance from the one son or perhaps from two or three of their sons? We know that one young man can do more work on a farm than three non-Europeans. The work also nourishes a love for the land on the part of the lads. The Minister comes along and says that these lads must be sent away. They thus lose all contact with the land. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) has pleaded with the Minister not to allow these young fellows to lose contact with the land. Now the Minister says that these lads have been taught everything. I hope to return to that point later. But the Minister knows just as well as I that if lads are uprooted from the land and spend ten or fifteen years in the town, it is very doubtful whether they would then make a success on their father’s farm. But the worst is that the Government is making the Bill of retrospective effect. The Minister has stated repeatedly that the law of 1937 contained the same provisions. Let us look at the law of 1937. That law deals with land which was allotted after it came into force. The Minister repealed the section. Why does the Minister repeal that Act of 1937? If it is the same, why does he repeal the Act. The Act says—

And what does the Minister’s Bill provide? It merely gives power to the Minister to apply the provisions to Crown grants and transfers that have been issued after the coming into operation of this Bill, and also those that were issued before that time. Apparently this year or next quite a number of Crown grants will be awarded in respect of land that was distributed 20 or 30 years ago. Now the Minister has provided that in all Crown grants and transfers it will be stipulated that a settler will not be able to keep on an adult son or any other European. And the Minister goes further and says that even though he gives his assent to the sale of the land, which he has the right to do, the identical provisions still hold good in respect of the future owner. The Bill says—

This means that if the Minister himself is the purchaser of such a place, the servitude remains on the farm, so that he himself cannot keep an adult son or a European bywoner on that land. But let us go further. What do we find? We find that it is nothing else than a breach of faith in respect of the earlier applicant under the Land Settlement Act. These people entered into contracts with the Government. In those contracts it was laid down under what conditions they could obtain the land. Now the Minister comes and having recourse to the authority of Parliament, he imposes on these people new conditions which are inserted in their contracts. Would not I and others do everything in our power and use every means at our disposal to prevent such provisions being applied to land in connection with which we had in the past been assisted by money-lenders? But what surprises one most of all is that the Minister stands up here now and advocates precisely the thing that he condemned last vear. I would refer the Minister to his speech of this year. He said, speaking in connection with the restrictive provisions of the Bill, that they were imposed—

Those were the Minister’s words. But what did he say last year when he made an attack on the Kakamas administration over its settlement policy? He said—

That is precisely what the Minister wants to do to his lessees now—

And the Minister now states that he wants to impose certain conditions on the settlers of the Government which will apply permanently. “The Government will retain a perpetual interest in those small holdings.”

Does not the same thing apply to the department? Is not the Minister doing the same thing here? Is he not doing on a bigger scale what he condemned there?

But that was last year.

This is a breach of contract in respect of the settlers, because as the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) has said, even if a man has finished paying, even if he has his transfer deeds, the Minister may still proclaim an area in which the people may not sell anything or do anything without the consent of the Minister. Now I come to another point, and my question is this: Why does the Minister discriminate between settlers and other land owners in South Africa. The one is helped by private moneylenders or by a commercial bank, the other by the Land Bank, which is also a Government institution, and the third is helped by the Government advancing him money. Why place this life-long stigma on the settlers? Has the Minister forgotten or does he not know that the wheels of time are always turning. Who are the settlers? Blood of our blood, flesh of our flesh—and that also applies to the Minister. The Minister knows that the wheel turns, that the poor man of today may be the well-to-do man of tomorrow, and that the well-to-do man may become a poor man. Even his children or my children may tomorrow or the day after be in such circumstances that they may have to be assisted by the State. We say that amongst the settlers are some of the finest of our folk, and if we do an injustice to them under this Bill, an injustice to our fellow-citizens, then we do it to ourselves. We ourselves will suffer under this injustice. But the Minister could not say enough about the poorest of the poor. Let us look at the matter. Hundreds of applications are received for land, and the Minister knows what difficulties his board has in selecting applicants, and as a rule those are selected who apparently will be in a position to work the land. The Minister talks of the poorest of the poor. I want to ask him, has he ever stopped to consider what the poorest of. the poor have cost South Africa? Has he ever considered what they have refunded to the State in the form of direct payments since the formation of Union? The total amount spent by the State on all sorts of settlements including boreholes, is £16,327,228. That is what the State has spent in connection with all sorts of settlements. But these poorest of the poor have since Union refunded to the State the sum of £14,865,505. This implies that the State spent only £1,461,000 more than what has been refunded.

Then Brits must have paid back practically everything.

If the Minister will not accept these figures, I will just say this, that the figures are his own department’s.

Brits is the oldest settlement and it was established in 1915 or 1916. You are applying the figures to settlements. It is not correct.

I am applying it in respect of all sorts of settlements since the formation of Union. That is the figure given by the Minister’s department.

When the Union was formed there were no settlements.

Then I must refresh the Minister’s memory a little. In the Transvaal and in the Free State we had Land Settlement Acts. We had a Land Settlement Act in the Cape and one in Natal before Union was brought about. A law was introduced into this Parliament, Act 12 of 1912. From the time Union was brought about this is the amount that has been expended on those whom the Minister has described as the poorest of the poor. Now the Minister stands up and says that our educational system places these young fellows in this position that when they are driven from the holdings they can find a niche. We have the public service and industries and other avenues of employment. Does the Minister not know that in Cape Town free education only extends to Standard VI? What lad with a Standard VI education can compete in South Africa’s labour market? The principal posts are filled only by highly qualified people. But assuming that it is true my argument still remains that if a young fellow must leave the land when he turns 21, then he probably will not be successful if he returns later to the land. They have helped to work the land, they have acquired a love for that portion of it, but after they have attained their majority and have begun to appreciate what the value of land is, they are turned off it. The Minister wants under his Bill to treat all settlers as minors, and I maintain that it does not redound in any way to the honour of the country always to treat these people as minors. The Minister talks of impoverishment if the sons remain on the holdings. How many cases have come to light where people have been impoverished on account of their sons remaining on the holdings? The Minister stands up and says that he has had interviews with the settlers here and there, and that they all agree on this point. I think that the Minister must know by this time that there is no one for whom the settlers have more fear than for the Minister of Lands. That is openly admitted. The people are afraid to offer the slightest opposition because they fear that should they some day fall into arrears their contracts may be cancelled. The Minister’s agents are at work on the irrigation schemes and on the settlements, trying to find out if there is anyone who says anything against the Government or the Minister. I should like to mention one or two matters in connection with settlements. The first point which I want to bring to the attention of the Minister is in connection with holdings that are cancelled. I refer now to holdings under Section 11. These people receive no compensation in respect of works that they have constructed on the holdings. We find that last year the Minister found fault with Kakamas, because when the holdings there were cancelled the settlers received only £200 for what they had done. I say that the Department does not pay a single penny to the people on the holdings. When cancellation is effected they have no right to compensation, and I know of cases where people have not obtained a penny compensation despite the fact that improvements have been effected to the value of £500 or £600. I want to ask the Minister to make provision in connection with this matter. The second matter that I want to bring to the attention of the Minister is in connection with Crown grants and transfers. As the law stands today a man can only receive a Crown grant after ten years. Why has he to wait so long? I know of a few cases where people have paid off their ground after eight years, but they have to advance very sound reasons before the Minister will grant transfer. What difference does it make whether a man has paid after six years, or eight years, or twenty years. It is no more than right that he should receive a Crown grant or transfer when he has paid. The last matter that I want to touch on is one that I have given much thought to, and I have mentioned it on other occasions, and that is whether it is not possible to have an insurance system in connection with our land settlement policy. We feel this, that a time limit is set in which the people must pay. If a man has reached the age of 65 and is a settler, then he may have paid twice as much as the actual price for the land. I would like to ask the Minister to institute an enquiry regarding the feasibility of setting up an insurance system for settlers. I do not know whether it is practicable, but I think it merits enquiry. If the settler dies his wife or son would then get the land unencumbered by any debt. His life itself is a guarantee for the farm. Can we not introduce in connection with settlements a policy for a period, say 25 years, such as is issued by many insurance companies? That would put the owners in a position to become owners of the farms more rapidly. I should like the Minister to go into the question of whether such a scheme is feasible.

I do not want to say much in regard to this Bill, but after listening to the arguments advanced by the Minister in defence of this Bill, I feel that I, too, must express my opinion. There is undoubtedly much to be said for some of the points which the Minister raised, but in my opinion he has only proved the necessity for what we are asking. I think this is the sixteenth Bill which has come before us in connection with settlements, and it is clear that the settlement legislation has seen its day. The time has arrived to introduce a law which one can understand, an Act which is not built on an unsound foundation, but which stands on solid ground. It is for that reason that we on this side moved the amendment that this Bill should be read in six months’ time, so that the Minister, together with the officials he has at his disposal, can introduce a Bill which will really be in the interests of the farming community of South Africa. What was the object of the Land Settlement Act in the first instance? Was it to make the farming community of this country dependent or independent? It certainly was the aim to make the farmers independent, to make them landowners and not bywoners. Take the constituency which I represent, Kuruman. There we have a large territory which is today inhabited by people who in the past were not strong enough financially to make a success in the more thickly populated parts of our country. The competition was too strong for them, and they had. to trek to the outposts of civilisation, open up an area and make it habitable; and after they have endured the greatest hardships for generations, the Minister comes along today and says that all these sacrifices were in vain, that neither they nor their children can ever become the owners of their land. The Minister wants to retain control of that land permanently. The other day the Minister mentioned certain cases to us. He spoke of people who bought farms for £1,000 and £1,200, and he asked: “How can I consent to their selling these farms at £3,000 or £4,000?” And, so I understood him, he asked: “How dare these people ask for such a thing?” In other words, he asked how he could be expected to allow these persons to become financially sound by means of the assistance given to them by the State. Why not? When I think of my constituency, and the Minister knows that, I think of people who have suffered the greatest hardships. If you want to farm there, you have to have your wits about you. To mention only one thing, take the question of the provision of water. We have cases there where the people sunk every penny on which they could lay their hands into boreholes. They contracted large debts with the Minister’s department in order to get water. The Minister knows that in other parts of the country one can get subterranean water. At perhaps £10 or £15 per borehole. In the North-Western parts a borehole may cost £250 or £300. After these people have done all the pioneering work and faced all these difficulties and made the country fit to live in, so that farming in those parts today is a profitable proposition, the Ministers tells the people that they must remain bywoners. These people, on their own initiative, with the little assistance which the State gave them, developed those parts and made the farms lucrative. The worked hard in order to be able to save something for their offspring, and now that they have reached that stage, the Minister says that they cannot do it. I must say, in all honesty, that when I heard that the Minister was going to introduce a Land Settlement Bill, I expected him to fulfil the promises which he made so frequently not only in this House but also outside the House, and that he was going to provide the people with sufficient water. He said that it was impossible to farm in these parts on 6,000 or 7,000 morgen, if there is only one borehole. At least two boreholes are required, and we expected that the Minister would introduce legislation to make it easier for these people to farm there in the future. But instead of that the Minister says that they do not want these people ever to become independent. The Minister wants them to remain servants of the Government. Is this Bill which the Minister has submitted to us today in the interests of the country? I say that it is not in the interests of the country having regard to the consequences of this Bill. The Minister must not forget that today he is treating three sections of the population on exactly the same footing. The man who falls under an irrigation scheme, the man who derived benefit from the fact that the Government spent perhaps millions of pounds to provide water, the man to whom the Government gave a small holding is treated on exactly the same basis as the man who went to the outposts of civilisation and did not wait for the Government to build dams or level the lands. In other words, he treats the man whom I mentioned first on the same basis as the man who did not wait for the Government to make those parts habitable, but who, on his own initiative, developed the land. But that does not apply to them only. When I started farming, I was advised, even by members of Parliament, in heaven’s name not to borrow money from the commercial banks when I buy land, but to buy land under Section 11. Today I cannot be thankful enough that I did not accept that advice, because if I had done so I, too, would not have been an independent farmer today, but a bywoner of the Government’s. I cannot understand how the Minister can treat these three sections on the same basis. I agree with the Minister to a great extent when he speaks of settlement schemes, and when he says that he wants to oppose certain malpractices which make it impossible for any Minister or any department effectively to introduce and to control any scheme. I agree, to a large extent, when he says that these malpractices which have crept in must be prevented. But when we come to the people who fall outside these schemes, I cannot agree with him. How can the man who felt that he wanted to help himself and who did not expect the Government to do everything for him, be treated on the same basis as the other people? There are certain people who preferred to take assistance from the State rather than borrow money from a commercial bank, because they thought that when things went wrong the Government would be more patient and would not, as may be done by a commercial bank, call up the bonds. But how can one put a millstone round the neck of this man and tell him that he cannot become the owner of this land? One cannot justify that. Another aspect of the matter is this: Take the man who went to those parts where there are many settlers today, as for example Bechuanaland. He made those parts habitable. We know what marvellous progress has been made in those parts. And now the Minister, through his Bill, immediately reduces the value of the land. I am not now referring to speculators who were mentioned by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers). That must be a marvellous constituency.

It is.

I was thinking of the result of the by-election. We know that many people went to those parts to farm. Now I want to ask whether the present Minister of Lands will, as he did in the past, buy those lands which are subject to the servitudes, which he now wants to impose by means of this Bill? No, he will never do it. He does not want those servitudes on the land which he buys, and consequently the value of the land is immediately reduced. The only buyers of the land will be people who have no other alternative at all. That is the only type of buyer which those settlers will get, and although those settlers had to endure hardships in the past and although they had the privilege in the past of receiving remuneration in this way for the labour which they put into the ground, they will in the future no longer have that privilege. I have said that this Bill will not be in the interests of the country. Now I want to put this further question, whether it is in the interests of the Government or in the interests of any Government to have a Land Settlement Act such as this Bill which the Minister has placed before us? Let us see whether this Bill is as good as the hon. member for Zoutpansberg gave us to understand, this Bill under which we shall be bound continually. What will be the effect of this Bill? It will mean that as time goes on we shall not have fewer settlements; we shall not have more self-supporting farmers as time goes on, but we shall make settlers of our people to an increasing degree. If this is such a good thing that every farmer will in the future want to come under this Land Settlement Act, I ask whether it will be in the interests of any Government, especially since the Government has now created a new post, namely that of Director of Lands? Cannot the Minister realise that he is leaving the door open to political corruption, something which has already taken place in this country to a very great extent? Here we have a Bill which gives a government and an official a whip to intimidate the people when there is an election. No, I am afraid that instead of fighting for the principles of democracy, we are engaged in a process of violating the principles of democracy. But I say that this Bill is not in the interests of the country nor in the interests of the Government. It is only in the interests of a political party, that party which has the fortune or misfortune to be in power. I say, therefore, that it is unsound in principle, and for that reason we want it referred back to the Minister and his Department, so that the Minister can come forward with a sound Bill. One of the arguments of the Minister the other day was that he would like to have this Bill on the Statute Book, because he mentioned certain schemes which will be held back for eighteen months; they cannot carry on with those schemes, because these malpractices will continue. Now I want to put this question to the Minister. If he takes this matter so seriously, why did he not carry on with the Bill last year, when he came before us with the same Bill? We can only come to one conclusion; and that is that the Minister knew that there was a general election impending; he knew that the settlers throughout the country were opposed to the provisions of this Bill? If he really wanted to act in the interests of the settlers and of the country, as he maintained. I say that the Minister of Lands would have put this Bill through the House during the last session of Parliament, and he would not have waited until the election was over. And now hon. members come into this House and they plead for the Bill on the ground that it is in the interests of returned soldiers; the hon. member for Zoutpansberg comes along and pleads for this too, the hon. member who pleaded with much emotion for everything to be done for returned soldiers, and who told us how we must look into the matter of the lands that the soldiers will get after the war, so that they will not fall into the hands of the speculator. But what is the answer of one of the officials of the Department of Social Welfare, namely, Mr. W. P. Steyn of the Eastern Transvaal? On this particular point he says this—

They listen to the scheme and as soon as the conditions are elucidated this is the answer that they give.

The same conditions as today.

We are talking about today. When this Bill and the soldiers’ settlements are explained through an official of the Government, they do not want to have anything to do with them.

Do you want these provisions rescinded?

He was not in the House.

We say that these conditions that the Minister of Lands has inserted in the Bill have that effect, and it would appear that the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) is not au fait with the matter.

You mean the existing conditions?

We are talking about the conditions that the Minister of Lands wants, and also the existing provisions. If the existing conditions are wrong, then it does not assist us to bring in another one on wrong lines.

Do you want to rescind those conditions?

Naturally. We have been fighting for many days against those provisions which have been included in the Bill. We do not want these conditions that the Minister wants to incorporate. These conditions bring the people even nearer to being slaves, as these soldiers have said. We oppose those conditions, and we shall continue the fight through every stage of the Bill. If we turn to the section where the Minister makes of retrospective effect those provisions which are now imposed upon the settlers, we come to a point on which one feels that one cannot find words adequately to express one’s disapproval. How in Heaven’s name can a Minister go out and tell people who have made a contract in the past, that he is now simply going to tear up that contract? But do you know what is even worse? I have in my possession a letter from people who paid off their land, and who then made application for transfer and diagram. But do you know what the answer is that they received from the office of the Minister? Even as far back as a year ago they received a letter to say that although they had paid off the amount, and had met all their obligations under the law, the Minister nevertheless refused to give them transfer and diagram because he intended to alter the law. Just imagine, Sir, the Minister has not yet steered this Bill through the House, and yet he would not be able to honour the settlers’ contract because he had a plan to alter the law. This is an unheard of and far-reaching state of affairs, when we got so far as to tell people who have made a contract in the past, that that contract rests simply on the approval of the Minister, that everything is in suspense, and that they must wait for the execution of the contract until such time as the Minister has received power from Parliament to alter the contract as he wants to.

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 was adjourned; to be resumed on 15th March.