With leave of the House I should like to make a statement in regard to the Report of the Witwatersrand Mine Natives’ Wages Commission which was laid on the Table this morning. The Government thinks it is in the public interest that the policy of the Government in regard to the recommendations of this Commission should be made public as soon as possible, and for that purpose I should like to make a statement:

After careful consideration by the Government of the Commission’s recommendations and consultation with representatives of the Gold Producers’ Committee of the Transvaal Chamber of Mines, it has been decided that as from 1st April, 1944, the following improvements will be instituted in respect of the conditions of employment of native labourers on the gold mines:

1. (1) That, as recommended by the Commission, native workers when employed on overtime or Sunday work will receive pay at time-and-a-half rates, as is the case with European miners.
2. (2) That in lieu of the other recommendations of the Commission the wage of all native surface workers will be increased by 4d. a shift and of all native underground workers by 5d. a shift.

The present annual cost of giving effect to these improvements is estimated at £1,850,000.

The Government recognises that in present circumstances the imposition of such a burden on the industry involving as it does an increase in working costs of more than 7d. per ton milled, would have very serious consequences both for the industry and for the country. It would make it impossible for certain low grade mines to continue in operation, and it would at the same time, because of the increase of costs, place the mining of a great deal of low grade ore on the mines generally beyond the limit of payability. In view of the part played by the gold mining industry in the national economy; its contribution to State finance, its support and stimulation of industrial development and of employment all round, it is important that nothing should be done which would have the effect of curtailing it or shortening its life unduly.

The Government therefore considers it to be appropriate that the Gold Realisation Charges which have since 1940 been collected for the benefit of the Loan Account in the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and which represent a levy on the whole of the product of the gold mines, should be made available to meet this situation. It therefore proposes in respect of the financial year 1944-’45 to pay over an amount, not exceeding the amount to be collected by way of Gold Realisation Charges, into a Fund out of which payments will be made to the various mines on the basis of what they will require in order to put the above-mentioned improvements into operation. It is probable that the amount in the Fund will be sufficient to meet such requirements in full—should it not be, each mine will receive a share proportionate to the cost to it of these improvements.

The Commission has also had remitted to it for examination the claim for increased wages put forward by native workers on the Victoria Falls and Transvaal Power Company’s undertakings. After careful examination of its recommendations the decision has been come to that these native workers should receive the same flat rate increase in their wage of 4d. a shift as it is proposed to pay to surface labourers on the mines. At the present moment the V.F.P. natives receive broadly the same basic wages as mine workers, except for the fact that they are paid the present temporary cost of living allowance, which they will continue to receive while such allowances are payable. In view, however, of all the circumstances, including the composition and method of recruitment of mine and V.F.P. natives respectively, and the nature of the work done by them in each case, it is not considered that there should be any differentiation of a permanent character between them.

In view of the assurances given by the Company, the increase in the wage to V.F.P. natives will be made retrospective to 1st January, 1944.

Mr. Speaker, when this debate was adjourned a few days ago I was dealing with the recommendations of the Native Affairs Commission on the subject of kaffir beer, and the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) put a question to me, by way of an interjection, in regard to the brewing and consumption of kaffir beer on farms. I told the hon. member that I would reply to his question later on, but I should like to do so now. This Bill, of course, deals with the amendment of the Native Urban Areas Bill on this particular point, and it has nothing to do with the farms on the platteland. I just want to tell him that in accordance with Clause 125 of the Liquor Law the brewing and consumption of kaffir beer on farms is permissible, with the consent of the owner or the occupant of the farm. And in the case of Crown lands the approval of the magistrate or of the Native Commissioner has to be obtained. When I last spoke I had just about finished dealing with that part of the Bill dealing with kaffirbeer, and I now want to come to another part which concerns native administration. There are certain areas like Lady Selborne which are close to Pretoria and which to a large extent are inhabited by natives only, and the natives who have bought erven in that area are often exploited by unscrupulous non-natives who lend money on mortgage to the natives on the most disgraceful terms. The result is that the ignorant or the simple native often finds that he cannot meet his obligations, and he loses all he has when the bond is called up. That sort of thing is happening over and over again. A native pays a number of instalments, or he pays off part of the bond, and then he gets ill or loses his work and he finds that he cannot meet his commitments, with the result that the bond is called up. The land is sold again, and the same thing may happen all over again. Paragraph 3 of this Bill is intended to prevent that sort of thing. The non-native will now be required to get the consent of the Administration for any transaction in respect of a native’s land in which that individual may acquire an interest of this nature. Every transaction will be scrutinised and approval will not be granted if an attempt is made to impose unreasonable terms. Many hon. members know that in the Native Areas a native cannot get a bond on his farm without first having obtained the Minister’s consent. In every such case I go personally into the matter and I initial the document before the necessary consent is given. I do so personally in every case and I have been astounded to find that in many instances in the last few years the moneylenders got up to 10 per cent. on their money. Except where the amount is very large or where there is already a mortgage on the property I, as Minister of Native Affairs, am not prepared to give my consent to such a bond because the fact that the native has such a bond on his property will result in his not being able to meet his commitments. The bond will be called up and the native will lose all he has. I refuse to give my consent wherever I feel that it is not in the interest of the native to do so. That is our policy in the Department of Native Affairs where a native takes a bond on his farm for the first time—we feel it will be much better not to let the native take up money on bond if the rate of interest is so high; because there is the possibility that he will be unable to meet his commitments and in the end he will lose everything if the bond is called up. Since the introduction of this Bill I have been criticised outside this House, and letters of protest have been received from that section of the community which says that it takes an interest in the native. They have protested against this clause being inserted in the Bill. Here we are trying to assist the native and I am astounded, and at the same time I am somewhat disappointed, at this opposition from respon sible white people who pretend to be the friends of the natives, but who now object to this effort being made to help the natives. The argument put forward is that we are depriving the native of his rights, his right to do with his property what he likes, and all the rest of it. Let me just give a few instances of what was recently brought to my notice, so that hon. members may see that it is no more than right that this clause should be inserted in this Bill, and I want to express the hope that these so-called friends of the natives will not only keep quiet but will feel ashamed at having tried to stir up the natives against the Department with the contention that we are trying to do an injustice to the natives. I have before me the case of thirty-seven native land owners in Lady Selborne and Alexandra who had bonds on their properties. Out of those thirtyseven cases five of the natives are paying 10 per cent. interest, three are paying 9 per cent., twenty-one are paying 8 per cent., one is paying 7 per cent., and the lowest rate of interest is 6 per cent., which is the rate paid by seven out of the thirty-seven. I feel that in these days that rate of interest is altogether too high. There is no reason why the poorer section of the community should be exploited in this way. The security at Lady Selborne and Alexandra is good because there is a great demand for that land. The demand is greater than the supply, and whenever a bit of land is offered for sale there are three or four buyers waiting; but to pay 10 per cent. interest to a moneylender is to my mind a disgrace. That, however, is not all. Unfortunately in the case of a number of the existing bonds we were not able to investigate the conditions of the bond. All we could find out was the rate of interest. That applies to ten of these bonds. But in fifteen out of the other twent-seven the bonds cannot be paid off, or cannot be reduced until the interest has been paid for a full period of five years. It comes very heavy on those poor people as the building societies are prepared to invest their money in those native properties on the same conditions as those applying to properties owned by Europeans in the towns—at 5 per cent., or at the utmost 5½ per cent. Although the natives can now get money from the building societies they are unable to pay off their existing bonds because they have to pay the full interest for a period of five years, or for the remaining part of five years. In one instance the native signed an open form—he gave carte blanche, and what was the position when he came along with the money to pay off the bond? He found that he had to pay the interest for the whole of the five years, or for the remaining part of the five years, in full, before he could nay off the capital. He had the money but he could not get rid of the bond which he had taken up at such a high rate of interest. In other instances reductions of the bond are only allowed annually. In some cases a certain part of a bond can be paid off and in other instances there are provisions to the effect that the bond is to be reduced every year by a specific amount. But the reduction of the capital is only calculated annually. In other words, if an individual in the second month of the year pays off part of the capital, even if he pays his interest every three months, six months or every year, he still has to pay the interest in full for the other ten months, although he may have reduced the bond in the second month of that year. There are many other scandalous things which I could mention to show how the natives are exploited, but I don’t want to take up too much of the time of the House. There is, for instance, the question of raising fees. But I think I have said enough to show that those who have taken up such an attitude against that part of the Bill should investigate the position a little further to satisfy themselves of the way the natives are being exploited in these areas. While the Europeans have the right to do with their property as they like, I feel, as Minister of Native Affairs, that I am the guardian of the natives, and that it is my duty sometimes to protect the natives against themselves. Now, let me revert to the Bill itself. Clauses 5, 7 and 16 provide for better control in certain areas where the normal machinery of the existing law, as a result of the development which has taken place in the meantime, is not sufficient to cover the position. We have for instance the fact that contractors may bring in labour for temporary work. When the work is finished those natives often cannot get enough work to enable them to remain at the place where they have been employed, or in other cases, again, they have not got enough money to return to their homes or to the places they came from. The amendment in paragraph 5 says that wherever the registration system is in force, the responsibility is placed on such an employer to prove that he has given security to his employees and will undertake, if necessary, to give security for their being returned to their homes or to the place they came from. Clauses 7 and 16 provide that one local authority can undertake the work under the registration system in a specific area, and this may include the area of another local authority. Provision is also made for the distribution of revenue and expenditure between the local authorities concerned. Where there are a number of municipalities adjoining each other and close to each other, and where it may be necessary to establish a reception depot, such a depot can perhaps be established beyond the borders of an existing municipality, but that depot can be placed under that municipality, and it can be used not only for that particular municipality but also for the surrounding local authorities, and the expenditure and revenue will then be divided pro rata among those local authorities. As the law now stands, a native is not allowed to live closer than five miles or ten miles—five miles in some cases and ten miles in other cases—from the boundaries of a municipality, unless he is the servant of the occupier of land or has been given the right to live there. It is very difficult to apply this provision of Clause 6 of the old Act because as the Act now stands the Crown has to prove that that native is not the servant of the occupier. We know of cases where we are convinced that the native is not the servant of the occupier, but he has built a pandokkie on that land, while he is working somewhere else. The Crown, however, cannot prove that. The occupier simply says that the man is working for him. Paragraph 4 of the Bill places the onus of proof on the occupier instead of on the Crown, and that will make the carrying out of this provision easier. At the same time I want to explain that any land coming under a local authority does not fall under the provisions of this clause. Now let me come to another point. Advisory Bodies for Native Locations have been set up under the Principal Act, but their work and their powers are not clearly defined in the Principal Act. Clause 6 of this Bill contains an amendment of Clause 10 of the existing Act, and explains what kind of matters must be referred to these advisory boards for their views. Paragraph 5 also provides that those boards, those native advisory boards, must be given the opportunity of expressing their view prior to the Native Revenue Account being considered by the local authority. It is at the same time made clear that these bodies, these advisory boards, can only express their views and can only give advice, but that they have no executive powers. In this connection I want to point out that when the late Gen. Hertzog in 1936 submitted his Bills to the House, he expressed the view that we should educate the native, as far as possible, to undertake responsibility, that we should educate him to enable him to look after his own affairs. The position at the moment is that if the Native Revenue Account is placed before them, it already is an accomplished fact, and the advisory boards feel that it is no use their saying anything about the matter. For that reason we feel that before the Native Revenue Account is considered by the local authorities it should be referred to the Native Advisory Boards for their views and for any recommendations they may want to make. As I have said, those bodies have no executive powers. Clause 17 of the existing law deals with the removal of vagrants and disordely natives from urban areas. Paragraph 8 of the Bill provides for the removal of such natives without further investigation being made, if they illegally return to any urban area after having been ejected under Clause 17.

Is there anything in this clause giving you the power to do so for the first time, without having to go through the whole of this procedure?

Once a native has been ejected under Section 17 of the Principal Act, and if he comes back the law at the moment provides that he has to be brought before the magistrate or the Native Commissioner and he may be fined or sentenced. But if he has paid his fine or served out his sentence proof has to be provided de novo why he has to be ejected. Now we can remove him at once without any further investigation.

But he cannot be ejected the first time without the reasons for his removal being stated.

No, there has to be an enquiry before the man can be ejected under Clause 17. There must be an investigation by the magistrate or the Native Commissioner, but if he returns and is fined he can be immediately sent back again. As the law stands at the moment that cannot be done, and the whole procedure has to be repeated again, the whole enquiry has to be made de novo. In the Native Labour Regulations Act of 1911 it is laid down that that Act was to apply to natives employed in mines and works, and those natives are placed directly under the Director of Native Labour, who is an official of my department. But the position of all other natives in urban areas is dealt with under the Natives Urban Areas Act, under the local authorities. Well, the terms of Clause 18 (g) of paragraph 26 of the Natives Urban Areas Act does not make it clear who has the control of such cases, and this gives rise to confusion. Clauses 9 and 18 of this Bill make the position quite clear. At the same time I want to say that it is provided that the employer who employs more than fifty natives has to provide proper housing for those natives.

He, himself?

Yes, if he has more than 50 natives in his employ. In certain areas the authorities hesitate to allow natives to trade within their own locations. They are afraid that such natives may perhaps compete, owing to their expenses being lower, with ordinary shops in the town, and they are also afraid that the natives may perhaps not be the owners of their shops but that the natives holding the licences may only be used as dummies. That is the objection on the part of the local authority. In order to remove that fear Clause 22 of the Urban Areas Act is amended to compel local authorities to issue regulations with a view to preventing any difficulties of that kind. They have to issue proper regulations in order to have control and thus avoid these things. Just before I went North in September last year I flew over to Bloemfontein where I met the Administrator and the Executive Committee and it is at their request that this provision has been inserted in the Bill. Many hon. members, I am sure, are aware of the fact that the Minister of Native Affairs has the power to compel local authorities to allow natives to run businesses in their locations. That power exists today, but I have never yet used that power, because I have always felt that it might possibly be detrimental to the proper co-operation between the natives and the authorities concerned, and that it might cause ill-feeling among those people. For that reason I have never yet used that power. Last year I explained in another place that as Bloemfontein treated its natives so well—I can almost say better than in any other place in the Union—I had no intention of using the powers which I have under the Principal Act, but I asked them if they would not do so voluntarily, and I am glad to say that a few months later the Town Clerk at Bloemfontein wrote a letter stating that the Municipality had decided to allow natives to trade in the locations. Now I come to the question of the illicit liquor trade. The illicit liquor trade among natives is largely attributable to the fact that there is no control over the sale of sprouted grain. The High Court has given a decision that sprouted grain which has been stamped or milled does not come under the definition of sprouted grain as defined by the Law. Well, the fact of the matter is that the regulations Can be evaded in that way. Sub-clause (3) of Clause 14 aims at rectifying that position. Then Clause 17 makes provision for control within five miles of a local authority’s boundary. Sprouted grain is not to be controlled five miles beyond a municipal boundary. Paragraph 2 (a) of Clause 5 of the Principal Act gives the Minister the power to sanction certain areas for native occupation. Now a native is often exploited by unscrupulous non-natives, and the municipalities at the same time experience difficulty in controlling such areas effectively under the Municipal Ordinances. Clause 14 of the Bill makes provision for such areas to be placed under proper control and at the same time we shall have the necessary power; that is to say the municipality will have the necessary power to insert conditions in the Deeds of Transfer and in Leases to prevent the exploitation of natives. Now I come to another point. You, Mr. Speaker, know from personal experience that the Administration of peri-urban areas is always very difficult. In the Cape Province, as hon. members know, the control of periurban areas is in the hands of divisional councils, but in the other three provinces there is no such thing. Some time ago local Health Committees were established in Natal and I see they are doing good work there, and recently the Provincial Council of the Transvaal passed an ordinance to establish the Transvaal Health Board for peri-urban areas, with the same object in view. Those bodies must now be given the power effectively to carry out their duties. Paragraph 18 of the Bill provides for the appropriate provisions in the Urban Areas Act to be applied in the areas defined and controlled by these bodies. Now I come to another Act, and that is the Native Taxation and Development Act of 1935. Under Clause 9 of that Act, as it reads today, a native who has been sentenced to imprisonment for failing to pay his tax cannot be released until he has paid the full amount of his tax. In other words, there is no provision for a remission of the sentence if he pays off part of the tax he owes. Take a case where a native owes say £2 in tax. For every £1 he owes he is sentenced to a month’s imprisonment. If he can pay £1 15s. or £1 17s; he still has to stay in gaol for two months because he cannot pay the whole amount. It is not fair to the native. It is not fair to his family, nor is it fair to his employer. Clause 19 of this Bill allows the sentence to be reduced if part of the tax is paid, and it further, reduces imprisonment from one month for every £ of tax which has not been paid to seven days for every 10s. which has not been paid. Now I come to another Act and that is the Natives Administration Act of 1927. The Bill now before the House provides for two amendments in the Act. In paragraph 21 provision is made for the solution of certain administrative difficulties which have arisen by the issue of amended transfer deeds to natives living in the Fingo and Hottentot Locations near Grahamstown; this amendment of the Deeds of Transfer was approved of by Parliament in 1942. Some error has crept in which is now being rectified. If any objections are raised in this regard I shall be pleased to explain the matter further in Committee. Then the next paragraph, 22, consolidates the law dealing with the appointment of chiefs and headmen, and the only change of any importance is that provision is made giving the Governor-General the power to appoint deputy chiefs to assist their chiefs in dealing with certain matters coming before them; provision is also made for the restriction of the right to appeal from the decisions of a Chief to a Native Commissioner’s Court except where the claim involved exceeds £5 and naturally, also, where important principles of law are involved. It was found, however, that natives appealed whenever they, were dissatisfied with the chiefs verdict on matters which it was not worth while appealing on. In one case I know of, the cause of action was a strap which was not worth more than 3d. or 4d.! As hon. members know, natives are very fond of going to court. If they are dissatisfied with the decision of the chief they appeal to the Native Commissioner’s Court and often a great deal of time is unnecessarily wasted. I have one instance in mind which I think will convince hon. members of the necessity for an amendment. Two natives had a case about an old rooster, which was not worth more than 1s. or 2s. The man who lost the case was dissatisfied with chief’s verdict so he appealed to the Native Commissioner’s Court. Both litigants obtained the assistance of attorneys from the nearest towns—I don’t know at what expense—and eventually the case came before the magistrate. Had it not been for the fact that the old rooster on the third day showed more common sense than one would have expected and died, that case might still have been going on today. I think hon. members will realise that the Commissioner’s have not the time to deal with cases of that kind. Now I come to the Native Service Contract Act of 1932. As hon. members may know that Act aimed at protecting owners against squatters who did not carry out their obligations. A young native cannot enter into a contract with another individual unless he has obtained the consent of his master, and in the case of a young native of 18 years or less he must also have the written consent of his guardian. According to a decision of the Native High Court it would appear that Clause 2 of the existing Act as it now reads does not give the occupant of a farm the right to employ a native on his own property unless he has first of all obtained his own consent to employ that native. That, of course, was not the intention of the law, and Clause 23 of this Bill rectifies the error. In conclusion I want to say a few words about a few small amendments to the old Cape Location Act of 1909 which are inserted to facilitate giving effect to that law. Clause 24 of the Bill amends the definition of the English term “servants.” I may say that before Union the laws dealing with these matters were only drafted in English so that the definition of “servant” has to be amended. A “servant” is exempted from the provisions of the Act if he lives on the property of the farmer for whom he works, but if the employer houses natives on a farm other than the one on which they are working for him the owner has to take out a location licence under the Act because exemptions under the Act lapse in that case. That, of course, is very unreasonable, and the object of this amendment is to grant exemption to all servants, irrespective of the province in which they live. Often a farmer has more than one farm. A farmer may perhaps have a sweet veld farm and a sour veld farm, strand veld. In the winter his shepherd is on farm A to look after the sheep, and he lives there, but when summer comes these sheep may perhaps, owing to drought, have to be taken to the strand veld and the shepherd goes with them. He is there for perhaps three or four months on this other farm while his home is still on farm A where his family also are. Now, the farmer has to take out a location licence because his shepherd has to work on another farm for six months, although he still lives on farm A. I do not understand how such a provision could have been left in the Act since 1909. Then there is a small amendment in Clause 25 which gives power for the drafting of regulations so that officials of the Department can make investigations in regard to natives living on private property in the Cape, and also—and this is almost just as important—in regard to their stock and cattle. The power already exists in regard to private locations, but a very undesirable state of affairs has developed on a number of farms in the Border Districts of the Cape. Power is now given with regard to farms in such areas as may be indicated. I think these in the main are the important points in this Bill and I do not think I need say any more. Other points, can, if necessary, be explained during the Committee stage.

There are a number of points in this Bill which I would prefer to deal with in Committee, points to which this side of the House wishes to draw attention and in connection with which we shall possibly want to move amendments. Our legislation on native affairs, especially the laws dealing with natives in urban areas, look like a pair of patched trousers, and thickly patched at that—every now and then a bit is pasted on to the existing legislation. And now the Minister has come here with a Bill which not only amends the Urban Areas Act further, but also three other Acts in connection with native affairs. I do want to express the hope that the Minister will soon be able to come forward with a comprehensive consolidating Bill dealing with native affairs which will particularly deal with the unsolved burning problem of natives in urban areas.

We should need a special Session for that.

Instead of continuing with these old patched trousers, it is very desirable to have a new pair of trousers—it is very desirable to have a comprehensive consolidating measure to deal with the whole subject. Our legislation in regard to native affairs has been amended so often that if a layman does not get a lawyer to look up things for him, he gets into a hopeless state of confusion. To the ordinary layman the position is practically impossible in view of all the amendments and all the different acts and regulations—it is almost impossible for the layman to know exactly what the position is in regard to our native legislation. It requires very careful study. And that also applies to the Bill now before the House. On behalf of this side of the House I now want to move the following amendment—

The position in regard to natives in the urban areas has got completely out of hand. The legislation in force today in regard to the laws concerning natives in rural areas is not effective, is not adequate to deal with all the conditions existing today. I must tell the Minister, and I think I am expressing the feelings of the population of this country generally on this subject, when I say that there is something wrong with his administration, and especially with his administration in the urban areas. Either the laws we have at present do not give him sufficient power, or he has been neglecting his duty in not taking effective action in regard to natives in urban areas. Perhaps the existing laws have not given, him the necessary powers, but I feel he has failed to take effective action in regard to natives who have drifted to the towns in such huge numbers. In Johannesburg a certain degree of control has been exercised. I understand that some 2,000 natives have lately been sent back to the Reserves, and I also understand that they have a Labour Colony there for natives, Noukop I believe is the name, and that is chock-a-block at the moment—Transvaal natives who are loafers are sent there, but in the Cape Province we have no such thing, and I feel the Government has allowed matters to develop here in a most alarming manner. There are difficulties in regard to urban areas generally, to which I want to refer. First of all I want to say that a large part of this Bill deals with the question of the supplying of beer to natives. It is essential that this matter should be put under proper control. In Committee we shall draw attention to gaps and anomalies and perhaps to bad provisions in that respect, but generally I want to say so far as beer is concerned we may have perhaps followed the wrong course in the past. The natives’ beer, before it ferments, is his food. During the first three days kaffir beer usually does not ferment and in that form it is very nourishing. When it begins to ferment it is a different thing, but we set about things in the wrong way when we forbade the natives making use of some ingredients of food which to all intents and purposes constitute their national food. By the wrong attitude we have adopted we have driven the liquor trade underground. What has been the result? A few years ago the police trained their horses to smell out the beer. The horses were used to smell out the places where the natives had hidden yeast or beer under the ground. It is this illegal liquor trade which is the main evil. To a white man drink in the long run may be detrimental but to the native, kaffir beer, before the fermentation stage, is not detrimental, but actually nourishing. The Minister will no doubt know that the small babies in the native areas drink unfermented beer—and they get fat on it. I don’t say that kaffir beer should not be controlled— on the contrary. I am not criticising legislation under which proper control is provided for; I am only drawing attention to the fact that in the past we have mis-applied our control measures. Now let me come to another question. The Urban Areas Act of 1923 so far is still the foundation of our legislation in regard to native control in the towns because it embodies the principle of residential segregation. As the Act today still contains this main idea, as residential segregation is still the central idea of the law, that law was, and still is, a good law as a basis to build on, but the difficulty is that the Act of 1923, as I have often emphasised, was an Emergency Measure, and it has not been amended since that time to such an extent as to fit in with our changed conditions. What we now want is a law which will fit in with the altered circumstances of today. That Act, so to speak, is a child, and that child is now called upon to do the work of a grown man. That is the difficulty in regard to the Native Urban Areas Act. From time to time little bits have been added to the Act but it has remained an emergency measure. Twenty years ago that Act may have been effective to this extent, that it only had to cope with an emergency condition, but it is no longer effective under today’s circumstances—and it is particularly ineffective where it comes to coping with the position which has arisen here since the beginning of the war. What is that position? Our local Native Administration is based on that Act. Insofar as the principle of residential segregation is contained in it it is good, but the law does riot take into account the further large scale infiltration of natives since 1923, largely as a result of the industrial development which has attracted a great many, and which has led to the detribalisation of the natives. As the law contains the principle of residential segregation we have to be careful before any change is made which may possibly affect that principle. I am sorry therefore that the amendments now introduced have not first of all been referred to a Select Committee. Amendment are essential, but I should have liked to have seen them referred to a Select Committee so that they could have been thoroughly enquired into. Will you allow me, Mr. Speaker, to tell the House how the Urban Areas Act of 1923 originated? Twenty years ago the people of South Africa realised that something was happening which they had not suspected before, viz.: that large scale native infiltration was going on in the towns, especially of natives who would never leave the towns again, and there was no legislation to properly control that infiltration. The mining industry was the principal cause of the steady influx into the towns. Large numbers of natives never returned to their territories. After that the almost sudden industrial development of South Africa set in, between 1914 and 1918. That also attracted large numbers of natives to the urban areas, and in addition to that we have the custom, especially in the Northern Provinces, of employing native males as domestic servants in the towns, which also contributed to the swelling of the stream. But the other cause was perhaps the wrong and ineffective carrying out of the Native Land Act of 1913. That possibly was also one of the causes which brought native labour to the towns. If in 1913 South Africa had had a Government which had made proper provision for the Native Land Act to be properly carried out there would have been no trouble because the intentions of the Act were good. What happened after that? Conditions arose in the towns which we, as a civilised people, look back upon with great displeasure—conditions in the towns which we, as a nation, really do not like to talk about. There are books describing the the conditions which prevailed, books such as “Dark Johannesburg” and so on, but our people would not like those books to be circulated in other countries to any extent, because those books contain some serious accusations. When influenza broke out in 1918—I have said this often before—the people of this country discovered that the epidemic in its course through the towns did not distinguish between residential areas or between colours, and on that occasion conditions were discovered in the towns—social evils, intermixing of people, conditions in the Slums, which fortunately today are no longer met with to the same extent. What was the result of the epidemic so far as the slums were concerned? The ’flu epidemic not only killed off thousands of whites, but in the slums, where the natives lived, packed together, it killed off many, and it destroyed them in their thousands. Parliament woke up with a start then to the danger of native infiltration, and that was how the Natives Urban Areas Act of 1923 originated. It originated as a result of the suddenly discovered abnormal conditions. It started as an emergency measure and it has remained an emergency measure. The Natives Urban Areas Act took particular note of the social evils in urban areas which was the outcome of the heaping up of natives in the slums but that Act has not kept pace with the development that has since taken place in South Africa. Parliament was at that time forced to take steps to deal with the natives who had accumulated in slums and locations, and who in certain localities had also infiltrated among the Europeans. The natives were then given separate residential areas and the principle of residential segregation was introduced. But the way the Act was put into force was disgusting. Native hostels were supposed to have been established as well as native locations and native villages. Parliament went even further and said that there were two other matters which had to be dealt with. One of those was that action should be taken in regard to the kaffir beer question which presents a bigger problem in native life than hon. members may perhaps realise. Then we had a further problem with which this Act had to deal as an emergency measure, and that was the question of native service contracts on the farms. A restriction was imposed on the movement of natives and the Act in that respect should have been given effect to. There we have the history—even though I have had to put it briefly—of the circumstances which led up to the birth of the Natives Urban Areas Act. But if we study this Bill now I think I am entitled to say that it falls very short in several respects. These are the reasons why all these measures fall short; the white man has not yet made up his mind as to the place the native is to occupy in the industrial and economic life of South Africa. We are not yet prepared to come forward and say exactly what place the native has to occupy in that respect, and that is where these measures fall short. We have had this situation, that many natives have come to the towns to find employment, and the idea quite correctly was that the native was to have a temporary place in the towns, so that he might be employed there. The mines in particular carried out that policy in that particular way. The industries largely followed the example of the mines in that respect, and even on our farms it is the custom to a certain extent for the native to come and work there temporarily and then go back. The mining industry started off with the idea that it was dealing with a nomadic native population, a population which came to work for a time and which after that went back to the Reserves. That was in the days When the idea was held that these natives should not be allowed permanently to come to the towns. In those days the mining industry quite rightly adopted the principle that the natives only temporarily came to the towns and that after that they must return to their own areas or territories, after having Worked in the industry for a certain length of time. Industrial development followed subsequently and the same principle was adopted there, but what was the result? They did not control matters as well as the mines have done, and the consequence was that large numbers of natives who had come to the towns stayed there, and that to me seems the main reason why alongside the development of our industries there was such a great increase of the native population between the years 1914 and 1918, and now again. The white man will have to make up his mind: Is the native to remain a nomadic population? Is he to work temporarily in the towns, and is he then to return to his own area, or must the native, who for years already has been here with his family, become an integral part of South Africa’s industrial and economic life? Will those tens of thousands of detribalised natives who are in the towns today have to go back to the reserves? It seems to me that the white man has not yet made up his mind. I think that the concensus of opinion in South Africa today is that in view of the industrial development of the country we shall have to allow a permanent but a minimum native population in the urban areas, under strict control. It seems an impossible object to carry out, in view of the already established native families in our urban areas, to proceed with our industrial development, and now to decide after all these years that we must have a temporary native labour force, all of whose members will only remain temporarily in the town and who will then have to go back to their families in the native reserves, or to the areas where they come from. To return all of them after all these years seems an impossibility. The native women also come to the town—they have come in their thousands during the last quarter of a century, and it has perhaps become impossible to insist on the native leaving his family behind for long periods of time and to expect him to come and work in the urban areas on his own. That sort of thing will ruin his tribal life; even if we still want to do it the position has got out of hand to such an extent that we cannot treat the native who has been in the town for years in that way. Where is he to go?

Are you speaking on behalf of your party?

I am speaking generally. I think the time has come for us to realise that we must not only make provision for the native males who come to the towns. Large numbers of natives have in the last twenty years come to the towns with their families and today we not only have the problem of the native male but we have the problem also of the native female. Once the man’s family is here, churches have to be provided for them, schools and all sorts of other things which the native’s family required will have to be established. The problem therefore has changed completely.

I am not talking now of the wrong type of education which the native is getting from us, but I say that the problem in the urban areas has got out of hand. The Natives Urban Areas Act contemplated a South Africa where the native men only came to the towns, where their families stayed behind in the territories. But the native women have for a long time been coming to the towns in their numbers, and we now expect that law which was designed to deal with a simple state of affairs to cope with a most complicated position. I am pleading for a policy of realism, a policy which will face the conditions of today—and what are those conditions? The fact of the matter is that if the white man does not look after himself in the urban areas he will very soon see the writing on the wall so far as he is concerned, in view of the large numbers of totally detribalised natives with their thousands of children already at school. If the Government has not got the necessary legislative power, then it should take such power; that is why I have moved the amendment which I have read out, that before we approve of this Bill the Government should make provision finally for proper control to be exercised over the natives coming to our urban areas. We also want a proper system of registration of the natives coming here. There are too many of them already. The stream must be turned. There is no control and there is no registration today, with the result that the natives walk about the towns in a way which can only lead to the development of serious social evils. We are making provision for the control of native beer and we want the native to be allowed to drink his beer in a decent way, but we have created such conditions that the white man’s liquor has made its insiduous way to the native in urban areas and that is one of the main causes of these evils, that is one of the main causes of the condition in which the natives find themselves in urban areas today. I can describe the conditions of the natives in urban areas in no other words than as a seething cauldron. We see the natives in our streets in the daytime; but let hon. members talk to the police, and they will soon find out that the evil is more underground. Hon. members will soon be told what is going on in the slums. Urban areas like Cape Town are unable to tell us how many natives there are here. I think I can rightly say that none of the big towns in the Cape Province can state the number of natives in their urban areas. I do not know the conditions in the Free State and the Transvaal.

Do you mean within the urban area itself?

I mean Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and other large urban areas.

The question is whether you mean the urban areas themselves? Do you mean only the municipal areas?

No, I am speaking of the whole area. If I speak of Cape Town for instance, then I do not mean simply the municipal area but also the pondokkies which are hidden away on the Flats underneath the bush outside the municipal area.

You include also the peri-urban areas?

Yes; the City Council of Cape Town cannot tell us how many natives there are in the municipal area. It cannot do so because it has not taken a census.

That also applies to the Transvaal.

The Cape Divisional Council cannot tell us how many native pondokkies there already are on the Cape Flats. The Provincial Administration cannot tell us how many natives there are in the municipal areas resorting under the Provincial Council. The Union Government cannot tell us either. I say that with the industrial development which we have, it was to be expected—and it actually did happen— that large numbers of natives would come to the towns. What I am sorry about is that they came without there being any control. Thousands arrive in Cape Town every week and they arrive here without any control. Those natives are causing trouble. And among those who have come to our towns a number still have their anchors in their own territories, but the Government is going to find it very difficult to get them out of the towns. The legislation we have is not effective. If the Minister wants to eject a native he first of all has to go to the magistrate. In that respect, too, there is something wanting in the Bill. The Minister provides that if a native has once been ejected with the aid of the magistrate and he returns he can immediately be ejected again. Provision should be made to enable the Minister to eject him the first time. There should be a system of registration. We should also have the provision which already exists outside Johannesburg—a reception depot where the native can be registered and where he can get a permit or whatever it is called—where he can get an identification certificate to go and look for work. And then the police must be given instructions to demand the production of these identification certificates from the natives, so that the Minister may get to know what the position is, and so that he can compel the municipalities to take a census, which the amended Act of 1923 empowers him to do.

The Minister has got the power—let him compel the municipalities to do that work. If a municipality does not do it, the Government should itself do it. The Van Eck Report states clearly that South Africa’s future lies along the road of industrial development. Labour is needed for that purpose. We cannot get away from it, and if that is so then we must take into account the fact that we shall have to have a more or less permanent native population in our towns for our industries.

Hear, hear.

And where the Act of 1923 already starts off from the principle of residential segregation we must now also accept that principle and carry it out. We shall have to accept the fact that the natives will more and more become part of our industrial life—but in accepting that principle we must at the same time apply the principle of residential segregation. If the native comes to work for the white man let him live in his own location and let him develop there in accordance with his own tribal relationship.

And there must also be segregation of employment.

Yes; that is the Nationalist Party’s policy in regard to employment. It is well-known that we want separate spheres of employment for Europeans and coloureds. I don’t propose going into that aspect of the matter now, but the principle which we feel very strongly on is that there must be separate residential areas and that we must take into consideration the fact that large numbers of natives have been in the towns for years, natives who cannot go back to the Reserves, and who will have to become part of our industrial native population. But their numbers must be restricted. I move my amendment.

I have much pleasure in seconding the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus).

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

Afternoon Sitting.

I have risen to second the amendment. To begin with I want to say this, that when we saw that this Bill was to be introduced we had the highest expectations of the Minister of Native Affairs. I think we had cause to have those high expectations of him, because the Minister of Native Affairs has shown that he loves the cause which has been entrusted to his care, and he also has imagination. The Minister also told us that he could give us no idea of the developments in his staff because of the size of his staff, and that being so we were entitled to expect something great from him. Unfortunately we have been disappointed to a very large extent because the time has surely arrived when we should tackle this matter with all our energy. On the other hand, I want to pay this tribute to the Minister, that in many respects he is on the right course. There are clauses in this Bill which deserve our entire support. I first of all want to say a few words about the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus). The question of registration is most important and it should not have been dealt with in this Bill merely by implication. It should have been dealt with in clear and specific terms, it should have been stated that there is to be registration and control over the movement of natives. It should have been stated specifically in this Bill, and only then would it have been of some value. I am particularly pleased at the fact that the Minister has taken action in regard to conditions in locations such as Lady Selbome because there are large numbers of people who are exploiting the natives in the most disgraceful manner. That is one of the things which we cannot tolerate. If we are the natives’ guardian and trustee we have to prove ourselves worthy by our actions, and we have to protect the natives against these things which are going on in this country on a fairly large scale; we have to protect them against the things which are done, particularly by people who pretend to be the friends of natives. In the Pretoria location most scandalous things are going on, and, if necessary, I can mention names in connection with what is happening there. One thing which I most heartily welcome is the provision contained in this Bill that the native in peri-urban areas is also to be placed under a certain amount of control. We find that unscrupulous people are letting places to a large number of natives near the towns, and they are making money out of the natives in the most inequitable way. They exploit the natives and it would be a good thing to have control over things of that kind. Another matter which I want to warn against are these advisory boards. In principle I heartily welcome those boards. The native must be taught gradually to govern himself, but we should not turn those advisory boards into bodies which imitate European boards. Such advisory boards must be an appendage to the tribal system of government. The native will then understand the sort of thing he is dealing with, and it will be useful to him, and it will be of greater service to the community. I want to utter a word of warning and say that these advisory boards should not turn into the kind of thing which the Natives Representative Council has turned into. This Natives Representative Council is going in the direction of the representatives of the natives meeting there to a large extent, not for the purpose of looking after the interests of the natives but of finding out what proposals they can make to imitate the Europeans. If we look at the report of the last two meetings we must say that those boards are not following the right course. I want to issue a warning, that so far as these advisory boards are concerned we must go about things very carefully. We think the advisory boards should be based on the tribal system of government, and if that is done they will become valuable in the locations. The question of kaffir beer has been discussed here, and I just want to say this, that if there is one matter in respect of which strict and thorough control should be exercised, it is this question of kaffir beer. This Bill is a step forward. I was present at a number of raids made by the police and I must say I was astounded to see the many malconditions prevailing in the locations in this particular respect. On these raids we have come across places where hundreds of gallons of kaffir beer were stored, and worst of all is that we found snakes, lizards and leguans thrown into the beer—and every other kind of vermin in the world. When we talk to the natives about these things they tell us that that is done to make the beer stronger. It has a deadly effect on the native population, and it is essential to keep proper control over the brewing of kaffir beer. Even in regard to our urban beer halls it should be laid down as a principle that the natives must not be given the opportunity of drinking to excess. At week ends these beer halls should be closed at an earlier hour. We now get the fact that farm natives go to the urban beer halls when they can get no more beer on the farms. They drink to excess and when they return to the farm they are useless. On the farm, too, better control is required to a certain extent. We find that the natives drink kaffir beer to excess to such an extent on the platteland that on Sundays and Monday mornings they are incapable of doing any work, and dairies and other concerns have to carry, on without their services. I really think we should give more attention to this question of kaffir beer. Another point which I heartily welcome in this Bill is that greater powers have already been given to the native chiefs. The Bill however does not go far enough and I think we should give even stronger powers to the chief. Where such greater powers have already been given good effects have been achieved. Since the powers of the native chiefs have been undermined in various ways these chiefs no longer have a hold on their people, especially on the young natives. The result is degeneration. Let me mention one instance. In Rustenburg there is a tribe which follows this system, where the chief, under a system recognised by his subjects, himself punishes his subjects. If one of the members of his tribe, either in Johannesburg or wherever else he has worked, has committed a crime and comes back, and it is found out that he has committed a crime, the native chief again punishes that man in accordance with the customs of the tribe, even though the court has already punished him, he is again punished, and the result is that the natives of that particular tribe are certainly the most disciplined natives in Rustenburg and other areas. That system should be encouraged. Of course, we don’t want the chiefs to have too much power because if they have too much power they may abuse it, but we have this fact, that the sanctions of his own people are always strong enough to the native. We have this further position which we often meet with, that the native tells us that if his case is a bad one he does not go to his chief or to his Kotla but he prefers to go to the magistrate or the native commissioner. If he has a good case he goes to his Kotla because he knows that he will get justice done to him. Even if he is given the right of appeal we must be careful not to undermine the powers of the native chief. I want to put up a strong plea for that system. Then there is the whole question of the natives in the towns. Let us be clear on this point—we must not encourage the influx of the natives to the towns. The strength of the native population, the place which the native population must occupy in the life of the State lies in the reserves. This labour can go from the reserves to the towns, but we must not encourage the influx of natives to the towns by creating ideal conditions there for the natives. We already find ourselves faced with a situation where the young natives do not want to go and work in the reserves. The old natives are at their wits’ end. Neither do the young natives want to work on the farms today simply because conditions in the towns are made so attractive to them. We are already beginning to gather the fruit of that type of policy. We must be very careful. In the towns we should only allow the minimum number of natives; we should only allow those who are absolutely necessary, and they must be properly looked after there. Only the minimum number of natives should be allowed to remain there. This Bill touches such important principles, so far as the whole question of native policy is concerned, that I want to avail myself of the opportunity to touch on a few other matters. First of all I want to suggest that consideration should be given to a system which would provide separate residential areas for the different races in the locations.

The hon. member cannot go into that. This Bill only deals with natives.

The whole Bill touches some very important principles and we are anxious, especially where the Bill also affects the urban areas, to have careful consideration given to questions of that kind. I do not think I need say any more on the subject. There is just one other question which I want to bring to the Minister’s notice because it also touches a very serious matter, and that is the question of the training of natives generally. I want to put up a strong plea and to ask the Minister to make provision so that in the urban areas as well the life of the natives in the locations may be built up to a great extent on the foundation, on the laws and practices of the tribal life of the natives. Only if we build on that foundation can we hope to build up a sound existence for the native population. It has been proved over and over again, and we are getting more and more evidence of the fact that the old policy of turning the native into an imitation white man is not only detrimental to the white man, but also to the native and the community as a whole. The greatest happiness can only be created if we take as our premises the natives’ tribal life with his own culture as a background. We must develop that in his own locations. Only then shall we be able to sustain a sound and healthy native population. With these few words I want to second the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg, and I want to express the hope that the Minister, having made a good start now, will tackle this matter strongly and effectively, and will continue to carry out this principle to its logical conclusion in the interest of the native population, and in the interest of our whole communal life generally.

Mr. Speaker, by far the most important provisions of this Bill are the sections amending the Urban Areas Act of 1923. That Act confers upon local authorities Draconian powers over natives in urban areas. After the far-reaching amendments inserted by the Native Laws Amendment Bill, 1937, those of us on these benches could not conceive that still wider powers would be required by the authorities. It seems, however, that we were wrong in our diagnosis. Now, Sir, I want to say that, coming from the source from whence it proceeded, the speech of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus) is quite the most remarkable I have heard since I have been in the House. For years we have been trying to convince members of this House of the fundamental economic necessity of a stabilised urban African population, and we have now heard this fully admitted by the hon. member. We welcome the recognition of that fundamental necessity in the economic life of the country. It is hardly necessary to add that in our view, the hon. member, having admitted the crux of the situation, drew entirely wrong con elusions from it, and I want to explain precisely why I say that the necessity for a stabilised African working class in our towns and the difficult circumstances under which that class is being developed constitute an economic problem, and the measures designed to deal with the situation must be of an economic and industrial nature. The hon. member for Moorreesburg sought an administrative solution of what is really an economic problem, and I shall attempt to show the necessity of a long term economic solution being employed to deal with a long term economic problem. It can only be dealt with adequately in that way. There is no short-cut solution to this difficult problem of native industrialisation and urbanisation in this country, such as the hon. member for Moorreesburg envisages. Now the Urban Areas Act, which this Bill seeks to amend in a number of important respects, is one of the three pillars of the policy of native segregation which is embodied in the trinity of Acts. The first is the Native Representation Act which took away from the native the Cape Franchise; the second is the Native Land Act of 1913, as amended in 1936, which limits the right of the African native to purchase or lease land in his own country to 12 per cent, of that country, although the Africans comprise over 60 per cent, of the population. This is the second great pillar of the segregation policy; and the Urban Areas legislation of 1923 as amended in 1937 is the third pillar. In its essence the Urban Areas Act was designed to deal with the situation which has been created by the Act of 1913. That also was recognised by the hon. member for Moorreesburg in the speech he made this morning. By depriving the native of his right to purchase or lease land he has been forced to a greater extent than he otherwise would be, to seek industrial employment in the towns, and to meet that situation the Urban Areas legislation was introduced along entirely wrong lines.

I said the 1913 Act was badly administered.

The hon. member said it was badly administered, but I also understood him to say that it was an important factor in driving the native population into the towns. This process of urbanisation and industrialisation of the peasant African population would have taken place to some extent in any circumstances, but not to the degree which has created the present problem if it had not been for the artificial impetus created by the restrictions which the land laws forced upon the native. This process went on in European countries, but not to an extent which created any very special problems such as have been raised in this country by these laws. It was a natural process in Europe. The exodus of the peasant population to the towns left more elbow room in the countryside, and those who went to the towns created a market for the countryside, and so a natural balance was struck between town and country. There are two factors, both inherent in these legislative Acts, which have prevented an adequate balance being struck in the case of the majority of the population of this country. The exodus to the towns here did not mean more elbow room in the country because of the restrictions placed upon the acquisition of land by natives, together with the natural increase of the population. Moreover, in European countries the emigrant from the countryside had opportunities of employment, unskilled perhaps for the first generation but subsequently he became a skilled artisan. He could buy a home for himself and stabilise himself in the urban area. The operation of the land laws has driven the indigenous native into the towns, but the urban legislation has denied him those opportunities which exist in European countries for the countryman. The native is prevented from buying land in the towns except in areas designated by the Minister, and so far there are few of these. He is prevented from going into business; he may only invest his savings in a savings bank, building society or some other institution, specially approved for the purpose; he may not set up a shop except in a location, and as I shall show, the native locations have been entirely inadequate for the housing of the native population. Urban Areas legislation was designed to prevent the native from getting a permanent foothold in the towns, to ensure that the labour force in the town shall consist of single men who return to the countryside on completing their terms of service. That has been the whole basis of urban native legislation, to secure the presence in the town of a casual migratory native working class. The migratory character of these workers is one of the major factors inhibiting the industrial growth of the country, and it militates against industrial expansion. The Urban Areas Act is at the root of the trouble. As it stands it can be divided into four categories. There is the principle of segregation in housing; secondly, there are the provisions that regulate entry by natives into urban areas; thirdly, the provisions which regulate labour, and finally, there is financial segregation. I want briefly to fill in the details of that picture, because those details must be appreciated before an adequate opinion can be formed of what is proposed in this Bill. In regard to segregation there is a section which empowers local authorities to set aside locations or villages for the residence of natives. They are not allowed to buy land in these locations or villages. They can hire a stand for their houses from local authorities, or hire houses erected by local authorities. Whenever the Minister is satisfied that provision has been made along these lines he can advise the Governor-General to issue a proclamation laying it down that no native except certain classes specially exempted, may live elsewhere than in the location or village. Finally, there is the provision that prohibits a native from buying land in an urban area except in an area specially designated by the Minister for that purpose. As to the way these provisions have been administered in some of our most important urban areas, proclamations have been issued segregating the native population when there has not been anything like sufficient houses in the locations and villages and no areas have been designated where they may buy land of their own. The Cape Peninsula is an example of this. A recent departmental report shows that the labour requirements here involve the presence of a local population of about 60,000 natives, but the important thing is that there is legal accommodation for only about 13,000. The rest of the native population here are living illegally. Then there is the provision in the Urban Areas Act which says that an African may not live within five miles of a municipal boundary. That has completely broken down in practice.

They are taking the work of the coloured people.

The point I am making is this, that all this labour is required here, and when you have a situation in which about 80 per cent, of your labour force is required to live under illegal conditions, I am justified in saying that this legislation has broken down.

You say it has broken down; what exactly do you mean?

I say you cannot enforce the law; it is impossible to enforce it because the administrative provisions of the law are in conflict with the economic position. The labour is required here but the provisions of the law prevent the labourer from living under legal conditions.

If I enforce the law will you support me?

Certainly not; I say it is impossible to enforce the law because it is in conflict with the economic position. That is why the law has broken down. Dealing with the second category, the regulations regarding entry into urban areas, there is a provision in which any town may preclude Africans from entering. There is an exception in the case of the mining industry, because there they are allowed to come in as they like. The mining industry wants labour and puts the labour into compounds and turns them out when their contracts are finished. In this category we have the section which states that an African may not live within five miles of a municipal boundary unless he is in employment of the owner of the land on which he is living. Then we come to the provisions governing the native who seeks work. He can only do so under permit, which is within the discretion of the local authority to grant or withhold. That is an instrument for regulating the labour that is required, but has no regard for the long term requirements of any particular locality. Having got work the native must register and take out a service contract which is registered, and that again can be issued to him or withheld at the discretion of the local authority. There are a number of provisions, Section 17, for instance, and other sections by which a native who is temporarily out of work can be turned out of the urban area. I mention these points to show that the object of all these provisions is to prevent the very thing which the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus) says is a necessity, that is the growth of the permanent African working class in the towns, people who are trained to industrial work and experienced in industrial conditions. The fourth category is that regarding financial segregation. That is rather a matter of administration. Under the Act where an African community in a certain area is segregated into a location, the revenues collected in the location must be paid into a special revenue account and be spent only in the location. The practice of a very large number of local authorities has been to limit expenditure in such locations or villages to the amount collected there. That practice deprives the native community from participating in the rates collected elsewhere. A well-known principle of taxation is that the more well-to-do should contribute to the social services of those less well-to-do. The practice to which I have referred is one which militates against the operation of that principle. Before going into details of the Bill I want to submit to the House that I have made out a case for a thorough reconsideration of the whole principle of the Urban Areas Act. But not along the lines suggested by the hon. member for Moorreesburg. He suggested an administrative remedy for an economic problem which he recognised existed. What I want is a reconsideration of the whole position in accordance with the realities of the situation and the growth of industrialism in this country. I want to move the following amendment—

That differs from the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg in that it suggests an economic solution of an economic problem. With regard to the Bill itself, I want to say at once that I am in favour of the provision relating to the advisory boards, and, subject to what I shall say later on the subject of beer halls. I am in favour of the beer provisions. But there are a number of clauses in the Bill that are seriously reactionary in character and these by far outweigh any beneficial provisions contained therein. The first of these which I wish to refer to is the amendment to Section 5. sub-section (2) of paragraph (h) of the Principal Act. Under the provisions of that paragraph to which I have just referred, the Minister has the power to designate areas in urban areas where natives may buy land.

As the law stands, when the Minister has designated such an area, the Africans can purchase land there and hold it under the ordinary laws, the ordinary health laws, and the municipal regulations applying in municipal areas. Under this Bill it is proposed to confer on local authorities the power to make regulations under the Urban Areas Act governing such areas and also to make regulations inserting provisions in the leases and title deeds of owners in these areas. Now we strongly object to that, and we do so on this ground, that the regulations under the Urban Areas Act are regulations of a character which are made to deal with backward people. I do not say for a moment that I regard them as appropriate to deal with backward people, but that is the assumption on which they are drafted. But these areas should be ordinary middle class areas, they should be areas where the better-to-do native has a chance to buy land and become an ordinary citizen of the community, not governed by any special differential regulations under the Urban Areas Act, and where he can acquire full property rights, not property rights limited by any regulations which the local authority wishes to insert.

That is the gravamen of our objection to this proposal. One of the inducements to the native to buy land is that he shall be a householder, that he shall be a free man. I want to deal with the suggestion of the Minister this morning—if I understood him correctly—that his object in proposing to the House this particular amendment is to protect native owners or would-be owners of property in these areas from exploitation by money lenders. Now, I have two answers to that. My one answer is that the whole of the poorer section of the community requires protection from exorbitant interest rates. Our Usury Act does not go far enough but it is no use trying to afford that protection in the way proposed unless an alternative source of finance is provided, something on the lines of a Municipal Savings Bank scheme which we have been discussing here for some time—anyhow, some other financial source must be available to those who want to borrow money. Now, that is my first answer. And the other answer is this. As far as I can see the Minister will have that power under section 2 of the Bill, quite apart from this provision of section 14. Under section 2 of the Bill, in areas designated for African occupation and ownership, somebody who is not an African may not acquire an interest in land without permission of the Governor-General. Now, it seems to me that that is perfectly adequate to protect people. There is no need for these special provisions referred to in section 14. I agree with the Minister as to the exploitation which has been going on, particularly by the building societies in Johannesburg, in areas such as Sophiatown, Martindale and so on, where 10 per cent, interest is charged …

Do you say by building societies?

Yes, I believe so.

Well, it is certainly not correct.

That is my information.

But it does not matter whether it is building societies or anyone else. I say that these are not the correct lines on which to protect these people. Where legislation is required to protect the poorer section of the community, be they European or African, it should not take the form of a limitation of property rights. Another provision to which I must voice the very strongest objection is that in section 7 in which it is proposed to confer on any particular local authority the right to administer the Pass Laws under section 12 of the Principal Act in a proclaimed area outside the limits of its ordinary municipal jurisdiction. The clause itself looks innocent enough, but the purpose is this, that in an area where you have a number of Local Authority areas, one local authority can be constituted the Central Pass Authority for the whole area.

For instance—I don’t say that that is the intention — the Johannesburg City Council can be constituted the Pass Authority for the whole of the Reef. But I do believe that the intention of this clause is to constitute the Cape Town City Council the Pass Authority for the whole Cape Peninsula including such areas as Goodwood, Parow, I Bellville, Fishoek and portion of the Cape Divisional areas as well, to have a ring fence round that area, and to establish a depot at Bellville where the natives must report before entering the area, and to introduce the Pass Law in its full severity. If I am wrong in suggesting that that is the intention I hcpe the Minister will tell me so. But my grounds for making that suggestion is the report of an urban areas inspector of the Native Affairs Department which was made to the Secretary for Native Affairs early last year and which at the close of last Session was considered by a conference of Cape Peninsula local authorities convened by the Minister. Now, this Cape Peninsula situation is an example of the inapplicability of urban areas legislation to a developing industrial situation. I have indicated that an estimated native population of 60,000 people is required here but that there is only housing for about 13,000 of these. Now, it is proposed to deal with that situation by way of administrative regulation, but putting up a Chinese wall round the area and only allowing an African into the area if he can produce a pass on demand. Now, how can that alter the fundamental causes of the situation? The fact of the matter, is, more particularly since the war started, although the process began before the war, the Cape Peninsula has been developing industrially and the demand has been growing greater and greater for unskilled labour. The local community cannot provide enough unskilled labour to meet the demands of industry, and therefore there has been a call on outside labour to fill the gap. We have from time to time heard complaints about the influx of native workers into the Cape Peninsula. Actually I draw the inference from the report which I referred to, that there is domiciled in the Cape Peninsula only about 10 per cent. of the native labour requirements of the Peninsula.

How do you know? There has been no census.

No, there has been no census and it is just an estimate. If you are going to organise your industry on a basis which demands that you should get upwards of 90 per cent, of your native labour supply from somewhere else, then my question is how can there be anything but an influx? Of course there must be an influx if you organise your industry in that manner. The trouble is economic. Take a place like Kimberley. There is a stabilised non-European working class there. You never hear of an influx of natives into Kimberley. That is the essence of the situation. To the extent to which there is any undue influx into Cape Town—by undue I mean at any particular moment exceeding the local labour requirements and of that I say that there is no proof—but assuming that that is sometimes the case—then I say that the only special reason why native people should come to Cape Town is because of the scandalously low wages paid in other industrial centres. They are low in Cape Town also, but still they are higher than they are on the Witwatersrand. Take a Transkeian peasant who has to decide whether he will go to Cape Town or Johannesburg to work. Most of them come from that part of the country. He knows from reports of his friends that if he goes to Cape Town and works, for instance, in the building trade, he gets £2 per week plus cost of living allowance, and he also knows that if he goes to Johannesburg he gets £1 6s. per week plus cost of living allowance. Assuming that there is such a thing as an undue influx—my suggestion is that the first remedy is to level up the wages in other parts of the country. Secondly, instead of introducing regulations to make it more difficult for an average worker to make his home in Cape Town and to establish himself here, if it is desired to do away with the influx, there should be encouragement of the growth of a permanent settlement of a native labour force here. That is the way to do away with influxes— to encourage the establishment of a population here which is adequate to meet the economic demands of the area, and also there should be an attempt to establish for the African worker, as is the case with other workers, an employment bureau. I have never understood why the bulk of the unskilled labourers in this country are left out of the ordinary labour exchange machinery of the Department of Labour. They should be included. And labour exchanges should also be established in the rural areas. [Time limit extended.] I shall not be very long. As I have said, it is along those lines, the stabilisation of the labour force and the equalisation of unskilled wages, that any difficulties of that kind, any “undue influx,” should be dealt with, but not by administrative provisions. I also object most strongly to the clause in this Bill which proposes to confer upon the Governor-General the power to give powers under the Urban Areas Act to local authorities that are not urban local authorities. Even the urban local authorities —Cape Town is an example and Kimberley is another—have not been able to face up to their housing and social welfare requirements under the Act. How then can a divisional council or a rural authority be expected to do so? I can only draw the inference that it is not the intention that they should. I know that one of the objects behind this section is to confer the Urban Areas Act powers on peri-urban authorities in the Transvaal and Natal. I object to that because it involves the extension of the scope of an Act which I believe to be fundamentally inapplicable to the problems of this country. But if that is all that is intended by this section, then I hope the Minister in Committee will accept an amendment to exclude the Cape Divisional Councils from the scope of this provision. I want to make it clear that if this provision becomes law it will be competent to constitute Divisional Councils as local authorities under the Urban Areas Act to deal with Pass Laws and matters of that kind. And I certainly will never be a party to that. Now, I want to say somethings in conclusion about the beer position. As I have said, as far as they go, I welcome the provisions of this Bill in that respect, but I would not be doing my duty if I did not take this opportunity once more to voice a˙ protest against the whole of the beer hall system.

It is a scandal.

The beer halls have been a method˙ by which the natural feeling of the native people for their indigenous drink has been used to finance services which should have been financed out of the ordinary revenue of the country. I know that in this Bill it is proposed to limit the services upon which beer hall proceeds can be spent. But I still say that these services, if they are required, are not a justification for a system for the supply of liquor to which the people object. When we arrive at the stage when the native people or a large proportion of them are included in the ordinary provisions of the liquor law of the country the position will be different—we know that a certain portion of the Africans in the Cape already come under the ordinary provisions of the Liquor Law, under the Hofmeyr Act. Let me say at once that this Hofmeyr Act has nothing to do with the present Minister of Finance—it was not sponsored by him.

It goes back to before I was born.

It may well be that that principle will be extended, but so long as they are attached to their own form of liquor, they should be allowed to partake of it in the way their customs recommend to them, and that way is to make it in their own houses and drink it with their friends. The present Act has an enabling provision for home brewing. Home brewing is in force in a number of municipal areas but this Bill, I am glad to see, infringes the principle of Municipal monopolies. I still contend that the beer hall system is an offence to the native people, and it does no good to the European people, and the system is one to which the native people as a whole object. And that position should be faced up to— We should consider once and for all whether We should go on with these beer halls of not. As I have indicated it is my firm belief that this urban areas legislation cannot continue. The whole system should be revised in the light of the developing industrial needs of the country—of the country as a whole including all races of the population. The members of the various parties and particularly of the United Party, have often stressed their wish that what they have referred to as the native problem should not be a matter of party politics. It is a matter which should be treated on its merits, and in accordance with that principle, a principle which I support, I want to make an appeal to hon. members to treat this amendment which I have moved on its merits. I ask hon. members to recognise the seriousness of this problem and to stand with us and support the amendment which I have proposed.

I second. It will, I think, be clear to the House that there are two grounds on which we are putting up this amendment at this time. The first is that in spite of the social welfare clauses, as I may perhaps be allowed to call them, which the Minister has introduced, this measure is in effect an extremely reactionary measure. The virtue which is inherent in the proposals that there shall be an improvement in the regulations in the law controlling the manufacture and sale of kaffir beer, the extension of the powers of the advisory boards and the general tightening up of the Administration—of the loose ends in the present Urban Areas Act— are by no means an adequate compensation for a number of the additional provisions in the new Act which go a long way towards reducing the fragmentary liberties which the African urban population now enjoys, or may enjoy in the future. In one direction in particular, as my colleague has shown, this Bill, if it becomes law, is going to shut the door in the face of the rising middle class of our native population, the claims of which have been given a good deal of lip service in recent years. Even in 1923 in an Act designed to deal with a situation in which the bulk of the urban population was assumed to be migrant and undeveloped in social outlook, provision was inserted for the recognition in due time of areas within the boundaries of the urban local authority where natives, stabilised, permanent, progressive natives, might live an ordinary citizen’s existence. We have now reached a stage in our social development where in fact a respectable, stable class of native element is growing up in our towns—yet now is the time we choose to close this one avenue whereby these people might get out of the ring fence which is placed around them in their daily life. The Minister has suggested to this House that the intention of this is merely to protect the native people and he has instanced one thing, or he has emphasised only one aspect, and that is the financial aspect. There, too, I support the representations of my colleague and I go further. I contend that in any area where provisions are being made to start housing schemes for the poorer sections of the population with a view to enabling them to achieve a higher standard of living, the type of legislation which is wanted is legislation to protect their interests, and that legislation was proposed last year by the Cape Flats Committee which reported on the situation which has arisen in the Cape Flats area. In this report the Committee went so far as to include a Bill, which I have reason to know from members of this Committee they are extremely anxious to see on the Statute Book as soon as possible. If this Bill is put on the Statute Book provision will be made for all sections of the population of a similar social character, and with similar social needs, and if and when that is done there is no necessity for special legislation to control any developing area of native middle class settlement. But if that were the only interest which the Minister had in seeking control of these areas provided for under the 1923 Act, why then should he add to Clause 2 of the Bill Clause 14, 4 (u) which gives him power to control the whole life of this middle class by the customary location regulations? Under this clause he can—whether he wishes to do so or not—control the number of people who will live in a house—he can say what the members of your family are—he can impose a lodger’s tax, he can prevent Europeans from visiting in these areas, for social, philanthropic or other reasons, he can in fact impose every restrictive regulation which now applies to these middle class areas. I find it incredible that the Government should be taking these powers at this time of all times when we are educating our people, or trying to educate our people, to believe in democratic principles, and when we are impressing upon people that we must encourage the development of the native population. This clause is looked upon with the greatest suspicion by the natives. It goes far beyond any protective measure, beyond any provision necessary to prevent exploitation. The Minister will probably say that the Government feels that the local authorities have not enough power to control areas of this kind. My reply is that if urban authorities have not enough power, it is time we revised the Municipal Ordinances to give them sufficient control. The problems which it is attempted to deal with in respect of natives in urban areas, are not confined to natives—exactly the same problem has arisen in regard to the coloured population, and no provision for the native population will prevent the growth of new slums. Now, any urban authority which proposes to establish a new village under the old clause of the Act, and cannot prevent it developing into a slum, has something seriously wrong with it. The people to whom this applies are middle class people and there is no reason why in establishing such an area the most careful conditions should not be laid down in regard to the size of the plot and so on and why the property should not be controlled in the same way as properties in other areas are controlled. The other restrictive clauses of this Bill have been dealt with exhaustively by my colleague. I want, however, to emphasise again that I do not trust that the members of this House, particularly those who represent Cape constituencies will realise that if this Bill becomes law, there will be an extension of the principle of the Pass Law in the Cape Province. The Pass Law has already been introduced in this Province through the application of the Urban Areas Act. The Urban Areas Act did more to whittle away the rights of the natives in the Cape Province than any other piece of legislation, and it has been progressively extended during the last few years; but the extension of the powers under the Urban Areas Act to local government bodies such as Divisional Councils is going to spread that beyond our wildest expectation of what might happen. It is no good saying that the Government does not intend using these powers. If the Government does not intend using these powers, they should not be on the Statute Book. We feel that the introduction of this new legislation has brought matters to a head, that it is time that the whole urban areas legislation should be reviewed, and in that respect I must say that it has been extremely encouraging to find that not only is our appeal in this regard supported by hon. members of the Opposition but that the ground of our appeal has been supported. That, I think, is a red letter day in the history of the native people. I feel that in fact our common ground is so great that it should be extremely difficult for the hon. Minister to refuse our proposition that this Bill should be withheld until there has been a full enquiry into the whole situation. I can only follow the line which was put forward this morning by the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus). He emphasised that the Urban Areas Act was originally designed to meet a particular case. It was a piece of emergency legislation, as the Natives’ Representative Council pointed out when they turned down this Bill. It was a piece of emergency legislation designed to deal with social problems that had suddenly-overwhelmed the community. Towards the end of the last war the influenza epidemic tended to focus attention on the evils that had grown up out of the haphazard industrialisation of our natives, and this Urban Areas Act was brought in to deal with that emergency situation, a situation in which the economic line of our development had not yet become clarified. At that time the Act was dealing with a period—I think the hon. member for Moorreesburg also said so this morning—in which there had been rapid industrial development, but we had still to discover how much of that development was going to be stable.

It was therefore impossible at that time to define our policy in regard to the development in the towns in clear terms until peace time conditions should give some indication as to the extent to which the lines of industrial development had been truly set by war time expansion. At that time also the land situation was still not defined. At that time the bulk of the native population had still some claim on the land and the area of land to be available for native settlement was still undecided so that the extent to which our native population was going to be a rural population had also not been clarified; and in all these circumstances, historical as well as industrial and social, the population of the towns had then not achieved any stability. We were legislating in 1923 for an industrial force which was predominantly male and-migrant. As all of us in this House know, since the original passing of the 1923 Act this country has developed extensively along the line of industrialisation, and today the position is defined much more clearly in regard to the rural areas available for native occupation. Today our industry, I venture to suggest, is definitely set, geographically as well as economically. There may be a certain scattering of industry in local areas through social policies, but that will not in fact alter the character of our industrial expansion, nor will it alter the attraction of our greater industrial area. In the second place our land policy has been rigidly defined by the Land Act of 1936, which has set extremely restricted limits to the amount of land available either for purchase or occupation by our native population; and under the pressure of that rural situation and the natural attraction of developing industries, the character of our native population in the towns has itself changed. Today, as the hon. member for Moorreesburg emphasised, it has become a family population, not nearly to a sufficiently great extent, but it has become a family population rather than an individual population, and I think the hon. member agreed that it must increasingly become a family population rather than a purely migrant male population. But in the mean time we are continuing to try to deal with the situation which is resulting from progressive industrialisation and progressive separation of the population from the land under machinery which was designed for an entirely different situation, and what we are doing is to try to fit this machinery on to this framework, on to a model which it will not fit. I contend that it never will fit. We are not going to make it fit by clamping it down and turning the screws more tightly. It simply will not fit. All that happens is that we get a continuous breakdown of the machinery. The hon. Minister asked my colleague whether he would support him in putting the machinery into operation. My colleague’s reply was the natural one in the circumstances, that he would not do so. We do not go in for hopeless jobs; you cannot make those laws apply. This is neglected in the circumstance that, every year, we get repeated demands that the streaming into towns shall be restricted, that the Government shall “do something” in the matter. Since there has been nothing but failure under the existing machinery why not try something new? I feel that we must try something new for the simple reason that this machinery, designed for the special circumstances I have referred to, is now in fact cutting across every natural line of development. This urban areas machinery was specifically designed not to stabilise the native urban population; its whole purpose was to prevent the growth of a stabilised urban population. Under the law today a man can be thrown out of the town merely if he has not got a job, not if he fails to pay his rent, but if he is not in employment. Today under our law—an extraordinary law in a Christian country — no woman has a claim that cannot be refused to come into town and live with her husband unless he had been in continous employment in an urban area for two years. You see, the point is that our intention was to prevent the native population from becoming a stabilised urban population, and the result is that now, when we need a stabilised urban population for a variety of reasons, we cannot get it. This old Urban Areas Law cuts across the whole of our economic development. Industry today knows and is increasingly loud in its demand that the native population must be allowed to settle in towns so that industry itself will not lose, as it is now doing by the continuous loss of efficiency, which is the natural result of pushing people about the country irrespective of their economic needs and irrespective of the demands of industry. We are trying to deal with the situation under this law in terms of administrative needs, not of economic needs at all, and industry and commerce are both losing heavily through the instability of the native population. The native population itself loses very heavily in view of the fact that much of its meagre earnings have to be spent on travelling expenses. No poor population can afford the travelling that is imposed on our native population by the terms of this legislation. But secondly the act needs review for this reason that it cuts across any sane administrative development. Today we are faced with definite problems of urban administration. We on these benches do not intend to deny that. There are problems of urban life which are becoming increasingly acute and about which the Government must be seriously concerned. But we claim that the assumption that the native does not belong to the urban area and that the person responsible for him is the Native Affairs Department, is distracting the attention of the public from the fact that these problems are the result of progressive industrialisation which has thrown up new administrative problems, and that what is needed is a revision of our local Government machinery in order to deal with these administrative problems. Under this Act the local authority inevitably casts the burden on the Government; so do the politicians. They say that the condition of the urban native is the Government’s business, and that is making it impossible for us to get the national review that we so badly need of the functions and the sphere of local governments. Under the Urban Areas Act we throw the responsibility for housing on the urban areas, and they have failed to meet that obligation. They have failed to meet that need, aS they were bound to fail to meet that need, in a period of rapidly extending industrial development. But to assume that the native population shall be put apart and shall have its housing provided for it by special machinery, is to fail to see the necessity for extending the whole of our administrative organisation to find the money and the organisation necessary to meet the need. The fact is that in these days we demand certain standards of social services for the native population, for the whole population. The assumption in the Urban Areas Act is that the Native Affairs Department shall have special responsibility for seeing that these things are done in respect of our native population, and that these services shall be maintained through this financial segregation, a separate finance account to which my colleague referred. That method has tended to obscure the fact that many local authorities are entirely incapable of dealing with the problems created by the employment of natives in urban areas, and the whole situation will have to be reviewed in terms of national policy and adjustment of financial relations between the Government and the urban areas. Socially also, as I have already suggested, the present Urban Areas Act cuts right across the sound line of present-day development. It is, as I have suggested, completely disastrous to the maintenance of family life—this circumstance that the wife has no right to be in the town except under the special conditions which I have mentioned and the circumstances that no man may settle in a town unless he is employed. He may come to the town to work; he may even lose his job, and he may have to get out with his family, and that creates a state of flux which is hopeless for family life. On the other hand the instability of family life, where the man is alone in the town, inevitably leads to this conflict of loyalties which is really responsible for the spreading circle of crime in our times. This Urban Areas Act is as responsible as any single factor for our problem of crime today. And I think the hon. Minister will find that his own department will support that contention. This illicit beer drinking and its attendant evils, which we hear so much about, are largely the result of the fact that there is no decent solid family life based on the recognition that stability and thrift, will enable a man and his family to get out of a rut, to get out of the control of the location regulations and live an ordinary decent life. We deny these people every encouragement to thrift and ambition, and can we be surprised that the result is that the costs of our prisons and police force are rising more rapidly than the cost of our social services.

Do you suggest that the ordinary native who comes here wants his wife here?

Yes, I do.

All of them?

My difficulty about answering the Minister’s question is this, that he sees the problem in terms of a particular point of time and a particular person. I am talking about the progress of society under the pressure of certain impulses. I know that in the first instance the man comes to town in order to earn his tax money. The first time he comes alone. Does the hon. Minister suggest to me that that man wants to keep on coming back without his wife? If he does, then we are encouraging a failure on his part to maintain his family connections The first time the man comes to town alone, the family bond may not be weakened much; the second time the family bond becomes definitely weaker; the third time he has almost lost the family bond. Thus we are to blame for the extension of illegitimacy in our urban areas, for the decline in the use of legal marriage. What we are trying to suggest is that we should use a little common sense and learn by the experience of others and avoid the social evils which have attended industrialisation elsewhere and which have a far greater effect in this country than they have in homogeneous countries because here they create racial conflict and behind them stands the possibility that we may never have the chance of doing away with them. In other countries those social evils have been a temporary phase, but here as long as you go on with the idea that you can push the native about all over the country, in response to the demands of employing groups, your problem can become one that will assume proportions you will never be able to control. I do wish the hon. Minister could see this approach to this matter and view our problem in perspective and not as a matter of the immediate choice of a single individual. I feel that now is the time for us to review this situation. We are at the present moment planning, or we are suggesting that we are planning for a post war development. In planning for post-war development the fundamental situation we have to take into account is the future of our native population. We cannot build up our industrial system except on the decision—or rather let me put it this way—the lines of our development are going to be decided by the place we assign to our native population in the future economic life of our country. We cannot do any planning at all without making that decision, and I contend that that is not a decision for the Native Affairs Department. It is a decision for the country as a whole. It is a decision in which the interests of commerce and industry and agriculture have all got to be reviewed and integrated and, Sir, for that reason I suggest that the hon. Minister would be well advised to accept our proposition at this moment and agree that this whole urban areas legislation shall be taken into review by a competent commission, that will approach it in the light of the situation that has developed since the Urban Areas Act was first introduced and in the light of what we have been told are the factors that we have got to relate in our future industrial development. Then I feel that we would at least be taking a step forward, a step that will really carry us forward. I contend that the step that the hon. Minister is taking now, in spite of the innocuous and relatively unimportant social clauses in this Bill, is definitely retrogressive. It is going to have serious results. It will certainly make the native population extremely anxious. The Natives’ Representative Council would have none of this Act. Since those days the Act has lost some of its worst features, but it still has features that the native population will not accept. And only two days ago the decision of the Natives’ Representative Council was reinforced by a request from the Chiefs of the Transkei that we should oppose this Bill solidly until such time as the Minister has appointed a commission. I trust that for both those reasons, that is the re-establishment of the confidence of the African people and a serious consideration of the foundations of our industrial policy, the Minister will accept our proposition and withdraw this Bill.

I do not propose to analyse the details of this Bill for two reasons; firstly, they have been very fully dealt with both by the hon. Minister and by the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) who moved the amendment, and secondly because our amending legislation under the Urban Areas Act covers such a wide field that it is almost impossible in the time at one’s disposal to co-ordinate the amending measures and to analyse them, and I think that that in itself is a very strong case for the suggestion that has been made by the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) and certainly for the proposals Of the hon. member for Cape Western, that it is time that the Urban Areas Act should be reviewed, revised and overhauled completely and new legislation introduced.

That is not what the hon. member for Moorreesburg said. He wanted consolidation.

I advocated consolidation.

It should be reviewed both in the light of the need to have a consolidating measure and also in the light of the fact that the whole of the industrial and economic life of this country is being changed, and many of the provisions of the Urban Areas Act are not in accord with the requirements of our future industrial policy, it is surprising and it is regrettable that on occasions the Government which is essentially a progressive government, which is essentially supported by the progressive elements of South Africa, especially when dealing with the problem of the non-European population, seems in its legislation to follow the pattern of the curate’s egg, and every now and then to fall into illiberal habits. And what is even more difficult for those who support the Government but who feel that we have to pursue a constant liberal policy, whether it be as it affects the European population or as it affects the non-European population is the fact that we are frequently faced with this difficult position that in a measure of this kind you have some provisions which are essentially good but they are cluttered up with other provisions which, from an ordinary liberal point of view, it is very difficult to support. We have had that experience in this House before. The hon. Minister of Finance is not in the House at the moment, but he has had that experience and a number of us who supported him. We have had that experience with the Asiatic Tenure Act, when the present Minister of Finance and a number of us who supported him found ourselves in the position that there was a provision in that Bill which it was essential that the House should pass, but there were other provisions that were so hopelessly bad, that we felt great difficulty in supporting them.

I hope the hon. member is not going into the provisions of that Act.

No, I am merely referring to that Act by way of analogy. We had the same position recently in connection with the Natal Pegging Act. There were certainly useful provisions in that Act, but again they were mixed up with other provisions which we had difficulty in supporting. We have the same position at the present moment, where we have certain useful provisions in this Bill, but again they are mixed up with other provisions which make it very difficult for one to accept the Bill. We have a provision, for instance, in this Bill which is a very good one, and that is the setting up of Native Advisory Boards in townships to advise the local authorities and put forward the views of the natives on these matters. Unfortunately, our experience is such as to make one feel that these advisory boards are not likely to be of very great value to the natives as these boards while putting forward the views of native people cannot exert pressure towards having effect given to them. We have a body of very able natives in the Native Representative Council which has the right and the opportunity of considering legislation which affects the natives. The Minister has very rightly submitted this measure to that Council, which appointed a Select Committee to deal with the matter. That committee put forward certain recommendations. Now what is the result? The report has gone to the Minister, I presume, and to the Native Affairs Department, but what is the position of Parliament? What do we know about the report of that committee? It is not only the Native Affairs Department and the Minister, but the Parliament of this country whose charge it is to find out what is the view of the people to whom we have given certain representation. Surely, Sir, the report of that Native Representative Council should be placed upon the Table of the House so that members can study it for themselves and know what are the views of the Native Council in connection with the matter. When we have established machinery of this kind, if it is to be of any value whatever, the representations of such a body as the Native Representative Council should be placed before this House, so that members may have an opportunity of considering them and seeing what value can be attached to their recommendations. If one can go by the experience of the Native Representative Council and its relationship with Parliament in connection with these matters, then one feels that the setting up of these native advisory boards, however good they may be in form, may be of very little value. The real remedy in connection with this matter would seem to lie in applying to the natives in urban areas the suggestion made recently by the Minister of the Interior in dealing with the Indian population. He suggested that there should be direct representation of the Indian community upon Town Councils. That would be a much more effective method of giving natives an opportunity of putting forward their views on legislation affecting them than these boards which may be treated as simply a sop given to the natives. The whole object of our urban areas legislation and of the Bill now before the House accentuates the existing position and tends to make it very difficult for natives to come into the towns and to take their place in the industrial development of this country. When we passed our native legislation in 1937, one of the arguments in favour of it, at any rate one of the points made, was that the position of the native would be greatly improved because, as far as the native reserves are concerned—they constitute something like one-tenth of the area of South Africa and in them one-third of the population is resident—it was proposed to acquire seven and one quarter millions of morgen of extra land tor natives at the cost of £10,000,000, which was intended to relieve the situation in the reserves and make it less necessary for the inhabitants to get into the towns. But what is the position? It now transpires that during the period since 1939 some 465,000 morgen of land has been acquired at a cost of some £997,000, a price which is so exorbitant—we have had the matter up before the Public Accounts Committee—that if we are to be limited to the expenditure of £10,000,000 we will at the end of the period have done very little towards enlarging the possibility of natives living in those reserves. What is more, I think it is admitted on all hands that the land that has been acquired has de facto been occupied by natives before the acquisition, and therefore to that extent little really has been done to improve the lot of the natives and make it less necessary for them to go into the towns. That is one point of criticism that may be levelled at a measure which, while having some very good points about it, will on the other hand still further restrict the opportunities for natives to come into the urban areas. The other point affects the European population to an even greater extent. We are today embarking upon a policy of industrialising South Africa. We are continually talking about the necessity of increasing the national income, and there are only three methods of doing that. One is to develop to the fullest possible extent our natural resources, including secondly the fullest use of our human resources; another is to see that the labour force of this country is used to the best possible advantage and the standard of life improved. At the same time we now propose to make it still more difficult for labour to come into the town, and this affects the whole industrial future of South Africa. It has been suggested by the hon. member for Moorreesburg that what he would like to see done, and I take it he was speaking for his party, would be to compel every native who comes into the towns to be registered and have a pass, to be subject to such control that he will no longer be a free citizen. I would remind the House that years ago Lincoln said you cannot have a nation half free and half slave. I want to say, Sir, that we cannot pursue a policy which will make the European population to a greater extent than ever before an exploiter of cheap servile native labour. I feel that the Bill is one which, while good in parts, is certainly objectionable in other parts, and from that point of view puts me in the same position as the Minister of Finance on a former occasion found himself, of having to refuse to vote for the Bill.

I shall be very brief, but there are a few points which I want to touch upon in connection with this Bill. I agree with the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus) that it is a pity that no proper consolidating measure can be brought before Parliament in regard to the native problem. We have had the Native Land Act and the other Acts associated with that Act in operation now for a number of years and we have been able to test those laws pretty effectively, and we have seen what effect they have had, and it is fairly clear that at this stage it is necessary again to appoint a Commission, call it a national convention or whatever you like, again to take this large and important problem into consideration. As previous speakers have already said, the native question is a question which affects every sphere of our national life. Take the agricultural industry. We must admit frankly that the agricultural population on the farms, who are said to be happier than any other section of the population, cannot produce as they should produce if they have no native labour. Take industrial development. The very same thing applies there. Take our big gold mining industries —it cannot carry on without native labour. We fully admit that the native population is one of the most important assets South Africa possesses; therefore, when dealing with such a big problem one feels that it must be thoroughly investigated, not from a party political point of view, but from a national point of view. It affects the whole nation and it should be properly investigated from a national point of view. The public have accepted the segregation policy and we assume that that is still the policy of the country, because in spite of the fact that certain people contend that the Prime Minister has rejected it at some time or other I am glad to notice that the Minister of Native Affairs still adheres to it, and I assume that that also applies to the Cabinet. The Cabinet still stands by the segregation policy, and consequently when we are dealing with the native question we must always look at it from the point of view whether it is still tending in the direction of segregation, whether we are still building up the segregation policy which has been adopted by Parliament and by the people of South Africa. It is true that there are great difficulties in that regard. With the industrial development which is taking place, with the growth of the towns and the cities, one finds today that a great many natives have become detribalised, that they are not going back to their territories, and that they have gradually settled permanently in urban areas; but may I be allowed to say that I am of opinion that the natives are only temporarily in those urban areas. Individually they may be there permanently, but their presence there should be regarded as being of a temporary nature. I know there are people who differ from me and who are of opinion that they are permanently in the towns, but that is not my conception, and I am of opinion that their stay is temporary, and that they should return to their territories. I also feel that if natives are encouraged to take up temporary employment in the big industries, especially on the mines, they should be paid proper wages, proper provision should be made for their housing, and they should work under proper conditions, and when their time is up they should go back to their territories. I assume that that is still the policy not only of this side of the House but of the people as a whole. When natives come to European areas, as laid down in the Native Land Act, when natives come to work in European areas they come there in the interests of the whites. They only come there temporarily and when they are no longer needed, when their time is up, they return to their families, to their territories, where they settle again permanently. I know that there are institutions, such as for instance the Johannesburg Municipality which is anxious—and perhaps it can be allowed, although I personally feel it is wrong—to enable the natives to own land there permanently, to buy plots there, just as any white man in some suburban part of the town is allowed to do, so that they can settle there permanently. I am of opinion that this is definitely in conflict with the policy laid down by Parliament. It will straight away destroy our segregation policy because it will be found that such natives will never go back to their tribes or to their territories because they will settle down permanently with their families in urban areas, and when the native dies his family stays. And another result will be that other natives will be attracted to the towns. They find that if a native goes to the mines or is employed in industry, he is able to buy an erf and he can build a house there, and he can remain there permanently, and in the long run you will get a mixture of natives and whites in the towns which is entirely in conflict with the segregation policy. The policy laid down by Parliament—not just by one party but by all parties, was the segregation policy. We took up this attitude, that a native who leaves his territory and comes to work in an industry or on the gold mines only comes there temporarily, and as soon as he has done his work and the time for which he has engaged himself is up, he goes back to his territory. The hon. member who has just sat down said that that sort of thing tends to break up the natives’ family life. I fail to see it. The tribe live together in kraals, they live there happily, under very happy conditions—or at any rate they should live happily together there—and it is the duty of the people to see to it that they can be happy there. Then the young native goes out to earn enough money to buy the things which they cannot produce locally perhaps. They can produce sufficient to provide for their own needs, but if they are short of anything they go out, and if a man like that goes out he comes back again. What is wrong with that? I fail to find any fault with it. And the position is not such that these natives go out for six months every year—they only go out to work six months every few years. I took that to be the policy agreed upon, and I also think that we should accept that as the policy for the future. We should not make provision for the native to settle permanently in an urban area where he is going to stay permanently. If there is one thing on which we probably all agree, one thing which we are all anxious to achieve, it is that the native should be in a position to live a happy life. If he goes to town to work in industries proper provision must be made there for his housing. As long as the native worker is there he works in the interest of industry, and that industry has to see to it that he is properly housed. It is the duty of the Johannesburg municipality, and it is the Government’s duty, if the native works for the Government, to look after him properly. That has not been done in the past, except perhaps by the mines. Good or bad, in any case the mines have their compounds and we have heard no complaints about them. But in Cape Town one finds a scandalous state of affairs. It is a disgrace to see the way the natives live here and I therefore say that when the natives temporarily come to a place to work they must be properly looked after, while the natives for whom there is no work in the town should not be there. As soon as they finish their work they must go back to their territory. The hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) spoke about the purchase of land for natives. I agree with him that it is our duty to see that the natives are happy. We know what the Department’s difficulties are. They say they have not got the necessary people available to develop the land properly so that the natives can make a decent living there. We must buy the land which has been promised to the natives. The area has been laid down, and it is not a question of the amount involved, the 7,250,000 morgen have to be bought in any case. And if that land is bought the natives will be able to live a happy life there. Then they will only be compelled from time to time to go outside to work for the farmers where in any case they will be happier than in the bigtowns, or they will go to the industries or the gold mines for short periods. The natives were promised land, and that land must be bought. We know that as a result of the war no further steps are being taken at the moment, but we know that more land will be bought eventually. Now, I just want to touch on one or two minor points in the Bill. The one point is the difficult problem of beer brewing. I am glad to see that proper prevision is now to be made. We know that one of the great grievances of the natives in urban areas is that the municipality of Johannesburg for instance, and other municipalities, have beer halls where they sell kaffir beer on which large profits are made. I think it is hopelessly wrong. Beer is the native’s food, and no profit should be made on it. And then they pretend that they are doing the natives a great favour by supplying them with certain amenities out of the money which the natives themselves have provided. I am glad that provision is to be made so that the native will not only be able to buy beer at the beer hall but that he will also be allowed to brew in his kraal, that he will be allowed to make beer in his usual domestic way, once he has been granted a permit. It was a grievance among the old decent natives that they were not allowed to brew beer in their own homes. I am glad to see that provision is being made in that respect. Let me say something else in this regard. Some farmers who grow kaffir corn are of opinion that as a result of this legislation there is a possibility of less kaffir corn being used. I am convinced that more will be used, because kaffir corn is the native’s ordinary and natural food which he converts into kaffir beer. I am convinced that more kaffir corn will be consumed. What happens today on the Rand and in other parts of the country? They don’t get kaffir corn there, and as hon. members have already said all sorts of concoctions are brewed; they drink strong concoctions and they do not get decent beer. They will now be allowed to brew good beer legally, and they will use kaffir corn for the purpose. It will not detrimentally affect the farmer, and it will certainly be to the benefit of the native. I am mentioning this because farmers have been under the impression that the natives will to a certain extent be prevented from using kaffir corn. Now let me revert to the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg. Like the hon. member I am sorry that we have not got a consolidating Bill before us. What is happening today? Thousands of natives come to Cape Town to look for work, and conditions here are miserable. If there were a proper registration system in force these conditions could be prevented. It’s going to cause a lot of trouble, it’s going to be difficult to carry it out—we can be quite frank about it, but we have to take the bull by the horns and introduce a registration system which will prevent natives for whom there is no work here drifting into urban areas. This Bill makes provision so that when a native is once removed from an urban area on the order of court and he returns he can be removed a second time, but the legislation should be such that it will be impossible for him to return unless he can find work here. The hon. member for Troyeville, or the speakers previous to him, said that the object of this Bill was to restrict the rights and privileges of the individual, and that the native was just as entitled as anyone else to come here and look for work. There is no difficulty so long as there is work, but it is not in the interest of the natives to come here if there is no work. This is a white area, and only if we have a registration system will we be able to control the position. The native must necessarily be kept in the native areas until their services are needed here. Then they can come out and work for the whites in the white areas. Otherwise they should develop in their own areas as best they can, and we must see to it that they are happy there. If they go outside their territories to a white area they should realise that they only go there temporarily and that they must return to their territories as soon as their work is finished. That is all I want to say in regard to these few points. There is just one other point of minor importance, and that is if natives are sentenced and fined they are now to have the right to pay part of the fine, after which they will, of course, be exempted from that part of the punishment which has been imposed on them. I want to say that in the Transvaal the system under which the farmer can pay the native’s tax when he is brought to court works very well. I think that if that system is well advertised practically no native will land in gaol for not paying his poll tax. The farmer goes to court and pays the fine and the native then works for the farmer instead of spending his time in gaol. If the native is in gaol his services are lost to the country and to the public, whereas if the farmer pays the fine, as is customary today, then one obviates the necessity of the native going to gaol. It is not necessary to make special provision for that in the Bill. It is already done administratively and farmers can pay the fine for a period which the native would otherwise have to spend in gaol.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister can hardly be congratulated on the reception which this Bill has had in the House. I think it is one of the worst measures ever introduced into Parliament; even the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naude) has damned it with faint praise. However, I think the industrialised African native can be congratulated on the fact that the Prime Minister, for the first time in South Africa, and this Parliament for the first time in South Africa, has recognised the fact that the native is an asset worth more than gold. It is now recognised that if the native is to have more wages he must be recompensed out of the consolidated revenue. That is the very big thing. That is the first thing I want to congratulate the native upon; and the second is the speech of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus). It was a remarkable speech, and I could not make out why it was so good coming from the party which he represents. I only found out when I started reading the report of the Select Committee of the Native Representative Council. When I read that report I found that the hon. member’s speech was almost word for word the same. That report is signed by. Chief Victor Poto, Prof. Matthews, Councillor Mosami, Councillor Selope Thema, Councillor Mosaka and Councillor Sakwe. If you read this report you will see that most of the sentences in it appear in the speech of the hon. member for Moorreesburg. And I congratulate the hon. member on having the sense to study the views of the natives on this Bill. I wish the Minister would do that. Let me read what they ask for. They say—

1. (1) the right to participate in the local self-government granted to urban local authorities;
2. (2) the right to possess and own a home in the urban area;
3. (3) the right to come and go (freedom of movement);
4. (4) the right to sell one’s labour to the highest bidder (freedom of contract);
5. (5) the right to the inviolability of one’s home (freedom to be and to feel safe in one’s home); and
6. (6) the right to self-expression (freedom of speech, assembly and action).

I do not think there is any member of the Labour Party who does not agree with that. I don’t think the Minister of Labour would disagree with that, and I don’t see how this House can disagree with it, but this Bill is the absolute antithesis to what is asked for by the Select Committee. What do they say—

And then they go on—

Now, in this Bill we are asked to pass a clause which fully establishes these advisory bodies in the locations. This Council—the Natives Representative Council —is the greatest advisory council that has ever been established in this country. The Minister does not take the slightest notice of it. Backed up by his Department, which at present is out of date on native questions, he brings before this House a Bill which is in entire conflict with what the natives in this country want, and with what they have demanded and asked for, and they say this—

That is what the hon. member for Moorreesburg quoted.

Rather than to continue to tinker with this vast problem in the manner indicated in the Bill under consideration.

Never have I in my life, in my long parliamentary career, and in my Press life—which will be fifty years next month, heard a Bill more strongly condemned by the people whom it is supposed to protect. Never have I heard a section which is supposed to be protected condemn a Bill in the wav the natives have condemned this Bill. I am not going into the merits or otherwise of the Bill. This has already been done. We have in this House a small group of people who have placed their views on this matter before the House—perhaps they are the best group in this House, and the natives ought to be congratulated on their representatives—which shows that they are better choosers than the white people are.

It applies all round.

Yes; I agree, but I congratulate the natives on the group they have here. They have brought the natives along very far as the Minister knows. I know something about these, things. I was the man who laid down and built this big location which the Minister always tells us is the best location in the country—I mean the Bloemfontein Location. I am not going to base my history on the Select Committee report as my hon. friend for Moorreesburg has had to do, but I want the Minister to be reasonable—and he is a reasonable man, he is a good Minister and a hardworking Minister, and he is trying to do his best for the natives, and the natives like him, and we all like him, but I don’t like his Bill and shall not vote for the Bill.

I should like to put a question to the Minister. I understand that he received a memorandum from the municipalities in connection with this Bill. I understand that the main theme of that memorandum is an objection to the Bill in connection with the provision that in the future the moneys derived from native taxation can only be used for certain special purposes. I do not want to make loose statements, and I should like to know from the Minister whether he has received such a memorandum. I should also like to know whether the Minister has considered the complaint which was brought in by the municipalities, namely, that they are being deprived of the right to use the money, which is derived from native taxation, in any manner in the interests of the natives.

You are speaking of native taxation; I take it you refer to the profit on beer.

Call it that. The point is that that money can be used only for specific purposes. I believe the municipalities maintain that in the past they could spend that money in the interests of the natives, but not necessarily for specific prescribed purposes; in other words, since the municipalities will be confined under this Bill to specific purposes for which these moneys can be used, they are practically being placed under restraint, and it deprives the municipalities of the right freely to exercise that function in the future which they have always had in spending these moneys in any way they deemed fit in the interests of the natives. I believe it means that some of them will be faced with this position, that the municipalities will have money which they may wish to spend in the interests of the natives in other directions, but if this Bill is placed on the Statute Book they will be prevented from doing so. If that is the case I should have thought that the Minister would give proper attention to the memorandum, because we cannot get away from the fact that as far as the control of natives in the cities is concerned, the municipalities have done a very great deal, and I do not think that the Minister or the Secretary for Native Affairs can have any complaint that they did not do their utmost in order to promote the welfare of the community. I think the Minister owes us a reply as to why he does not want to leave it exclusively to the discretion of the municipalities to spend these moneys in the interest of the natives. Why must the Minister lay down by means of legislation that these moneys cannot be used for specific purposes? That is my information, and I should like to know to what extent the Minister proposes to meet the objection of the municipalities.

Do you want me to reply now?

I do not want to take up the time of the House unduly, or to delay the passage of this Bill. I want to make a few remarks in regard to the object of this Bill, namely, the control of natives in urban areas. I am not one of those people who hold one opinion today and another opinion tomorrow in regard to the control of natives, but I want to point out to the Minister that the control which was exercised over the natives during the past few years, has not been effective. There are two schools of thought. One school of thought wants to give the natives complete freedom, and on the other hand we have the second school of thought which wants to place the natives under restraint. I am not in favour of any one of these courses, but there is a twofold problem in this country. One aspect is that we allow natives from other countries to come here and compete with the South African natives in the labour sphere. While South African natives are without employment we allow the Chamber of Mines to import hundreds of thousands of natives from outside the Union to come and work here. We are fairly consistent in our attitude, namely, that no native from outside the Union should be allowed to come in until such time as every native in the country is in employment. You must not tell me that with 7,500,000 natives in our country we cannot find sufficient natives to work on the mines, or to provide our farms or industries with the necessary labour. It is so illogical and so inconsistent that we have to be told, quite correctly, by those who represent the native interests that there are large numbers of our natives who are not only unemployed but who practically succumb to starvation.

And if they do not want to work?

I am quite prepared to suggest my plan in connection with those who do not want to work, but this Bill does not deal with those who refuse to work. Let me say to the hon. member—and I know he will agree with me—that there is a great deal to be said in the interest of the natives in the mining industry. It is our experience that the native who works for the small businessman—I would go so far as to say even the children’s nursemaid—is better off than the native who works on the mines, as far as wages are concerned. When one looks at the wage scales on the mines, one is not surprised to find that the mining industry has to go outside the Union to find natives to work on the mines. What is the result of that? The natives say that it is better to wait for the rains than to work underground in the mines for 1s. 8d. per day, and then perhaps be put out of the mines at a later date with miners’ phthisis and without a pension, as the position is today. We must remember that all the other employers, the shopkeepers and the private people, pay the natives much better than the mining industry does. That is the position which this House has to face. The position of the natives on the mines is so bad that the natives of the Union are not prepared to work on the mines. Then the Chamber of Mines asks the Government for permission to import natives from outside the Union, and that request is granted. The farmers complain that they cannot get native labour and that the natives flock to the cities. Why? It is not because the wages in the mines are more attractive but because the other employers, like the shopkeepers on the Witwatersrand, pay better wages, and the native argues that if only he can get into the city he will in time to come get the higher wages paid by the shopkeepers. When he arrives there he finds that all the positions have been filled, and that the only avenue of employment which is open to him is to work underground in the mines. He thinks over the matter and he then discovers that the wages which are paid by the mines are not adequate, and he waits for weeks and weeks in the hope of obtaining employment in the service of a shopkeeper at £6 or £7 a month, or with the Johannesburg City Council at the wages which they pay. The result is that he remains in the city until sooner or later he obtains employment with the municipality or with a private employer. The native asks himself why he should work underground in the mines at 1s. 8d. a day. He prefers to wait until he can get employment with a shopkeeper at £5 or £6 a month. There must be approximately 50,000 natives on the Witwatersrand who do not work. I agree that there are many amongst them who do not want to work. The first class consists of those who simply do not want to work on the mines, and the other class consists of those who have discovered that there are certain schemes which make it possible for them to exist without working. I refer to those gangs of natives who make a living by committing burglary on a large scale. There are gangster shopkeepers who train these natives to commit burglary on a large scale and to steal goods which are then sold to them cheaply. Those natives are a prey to these smart gangsters. If the native cannot get employment with the shopkeeper or the private individual, he becomes the prey of these smart gangsters who use him for their own purposes. After years of practice he gets into difficulties and lands himself in gaol, and the smart gangsters go scot free. The Minister might ask me what I suggest. I say that we, must recognise that the native is the sinew of labour of all the industries of South Africa, and therefore it is necessary so to spread the native popularon over the length and breadth of the country that they will be able to meet the labour requirements. We shall have to arrange the labour conditions in such a way that the natives will be able to make a living everywhere in the country and receive attractive wages. That must be the position in all cities and we must not bring the native under the wrong impression that their only chance is to flock to Johannesburg and to seek employment there. The native must learn that he can make as good or perhaps better living in the Cape Province and in the Free State than he can in the large cities. Until such time as we have reorganised the conditions throughout the whole country in such a wav that this sinew of labour will be spread over the whole country, and until such time as we arrange the labour conditions in such a way that the natives can make a reasonable and decent living in all parts of the country, we shall have continual dislocation of the labour market. I should like to be of assistance to the Minister. I do not for a single moment want to place any obstacle in his way, since his Department is dealing with this great problem, but I want to point out to him that the position on the Witwatersrand is anything but satisfactory. There is a great concentration of natives, and those who remain without employment come under the influence of these gangsters. The result is that they frequently land in gaol, and once the native has been in gaol the employer is afraid to employ him. The time has arrived to give effect to an idea which has been expressed here, namely, that there should be a proper survey of the whole native position on the Witwatersrand and on the platteland. I think that that is desirable, and absolutely essential, but it must not take an indefinite period, so that we can assist the Minister to attain his object, i.e. to exercise effective control over the natives and to do justice to them; so that we can fulfil our duty as trustees of the natives and at the some time make the best use of the natives as the sinew of labour of South Africa.

This Bill, when you go into the different clauses, is one which will be generally acceptable to the natives of this country. I think that anyone who has carefully considered it and has taken the trouble to try and find out exactly what it means will realise that there is really nothing in it that is antagonistic to the interests to the natives, Or to the interests of the Europeans. We have had a lot of criticism of this Bill this afternoon. It is unfortunate that whenever any matter which deals with native affairs is brought before this House members seem to get into difficulties and arguments which we are not facing just at the present time. I was on the Native Affairs Select Committee which sat and dealt with this particular problem nearly 15 years ago, and I find that in this House—and I think that is the trouble with hon. members who represent the natives—many hon. members seem to think that the people for whom they talk are the intelligentsia, the natives who are educated, the natives who live in the towns. The hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) made an appeal with which I agree. She referred to the middle class native and she asked that something should be done for them. Well, I don’t quite know who they are but I take it she means the natives living in the towns, earning a decent living …

And wearing a collar and a tie.

I am not worried about that. I take it she means the man, who is making a decent livelihood. Then we have a small class who belong to the Communistic element—who are very vocal and who give a tremendous lot of trouble to the authorities, and who unfortunately are assisted to a certain extent by a small European minority. The Native Affairs Department has a difficult task in trying to meet the demands of all these sections. Now, I think the remarks of the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) when he passed certain criticisms on the Native Affairs Department were rather unfair. I have been associated with that Department for over twenty years, and I think I can say truthfully that the Native Affairs Department has a very high standard today, and that the Minister and his Department are doing their very best to assist the natives and to do all that is possible for them —they are doing their utmost to deal with their difficulties and to help them.

That is what the hon. member said.

He said that they were behind the times. Well, all of us here are anxious to assist the natives in the development to which they are entitled. I go very far with what the hon. member for Cape Eastern and the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) said, and also with what the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus) said. I think the time has come when we must recognise that there are two sections—two different types of natives. We have what the hon. member for Cape Eastern referred to as the middle class but we also have the huge class of what are practically barbarians living in the Reserves who don’t want to come and live in the towns.

Of course they don’t.

We have those huge masses who come to the towns but really don’t want to live in the towns. They want money just the same as we do. We have those natives who come here to earn money—they come here and work for comparatively small wages and they depreciate the wages of the middle class. Those people come from the Reserves, and they are to a certain extent subsidised by the Government. That is the problem which we have to face and that is the problem which the Native Affairs Department has to face—the problem of the great mass of natives who really do not want to live in the towns, and who really do not want to become urbanised, but none the less are becoming urbanised. When I was in Canada some years ago I read a report about the conditions of the Indians there who lived in the Reserves. I asked what the position was about the vote and their conditions of residence so far as they were concerned. The Indians there retained the Reserves by title and those Reserves cannot be taken from them. As long as they live in the Reserves they cannot get the franchise, but they have the right to leave the Reserves and enter a European community, and then they are asked to sign a document that they do not want to retain any right or title to the Reserve, and if they do that they get the same rights as the Europeans have. I ask hon. members if you were to ask the native who comes here if he is prepared to sign a form to the effect that he has no desire ever to go back to live among his people and that he gives up his land rights there—I wonder how many would be prepared to sign that. Every native who comes here in the first instance comes here as a temporary employee. Women drift down as we know—unfortunately it is very seldom the wives of these people who come here, and that is why we have such a large number of delinquent children wandering about without parental control. That is the trouble which we have to face. We have not to legislate for a small minority who will become industrialised, but still we have to deal with these people. We have this section of the population to deal with. Now, some hon. members say that this Bill should not be passed at this stage, but that we should have a commission to deal with this question. Is it wise at this juncture for a commission to sit, during the war, to deal with such an important question? Today you have 60,000 or 70,000 natives in Cape Town. They have only come here during the last few years. In a few years time possibly they will not be required. We are passing through a stage in the country’s industrial development which is so uncertain that it would be very unwise to anticipate that you will have these huge numbers of natives living in this town, and I do not think the establishment of a commission will carry the matter any further. Take the position in Cape Town. The Native Affairs Commission considered that we should have a depót here and a registration system to know where these natives live. You have these natives scratching about and intermingling with others. They live under conditions of which we should be ashamed. I don’t think there is a farmer who would allow his pigs to live under conditions under which some of these natives live down at Windermere.

Then why don’t you force the City Council to act?

These natives have come here under conditions which no one anticipated three or four years ago. To deal with the situation today is almost impossible. You cannot get building material to force the municipality to make provision for 60,000 natives, when in a few years’ time you may have only 10,000 or 15,000 here. But, of course, we realise that the position is such that it cannot be allowed to continue, and that is why the Minister has made certain provisions in this Bill. I think it is right that there should be a registration office where the native can register and where he can be traced not only by the police but by his relatives. Surely that is essential in the interests of the native himself. It has been repeated here many times that the present flow of natives to the towns and the congestion there is due to the 1913 Act, but that measure never applied to the Transkei territories; you have more Transkeian natives here than from anywhere else, and also Basutos, more than ever before and more from Portuguese East and Nyasaland. They are all over the country. The 1913 Act is not the only cause of this influx into the towns. The native is an adventurer, he is a wanderer, he is out to earn a certain amount of money, that is his primary object, and it is not always because he is forced out by economic circumstances. Only recently during the recess a young native came to me with £100 in his pocket and he wanted to buy cattle. I asked him where he had come from and he said Cape Town, where he earned 10s a day and he had saved every penny of it. I asked him what he was going to do when he had got the cattle, and he said he would go back to Cape Town immediately as he was only away for a week to buy cattle. This seems proof that it was not economic pressure that forced him to work. Without any economic pressure upon the native he still goes out to work; he is inspired by love of excitement and the city attractions, just as our children in the country are; our own children have this feeling. We are continually told that there is a shortage of land in the country. The hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming) will know that quite close to Umtata recently certain land was available for native settlement. It was laid out and natives were allowed to keep ten head of cattle there, and had three or four morgen to plough. That land is idle today. The native said he was not going to be limited as to the number of cattle he owned. We had an application the other day from a native who has a farm in a rich part of the Free State, asking that he should be allowed to lease this farm to a European. That shows that there is no terrible land hunger. There are natives who owned land and farms in the Transkei and the Ciskei and most of them have lost it. They squander that land and are unable to hold it. Now, the hon. member for Cape Eastern says they should be given freehold title to their ground, and the right to dispose of it to Europeans, but if we acceded to the request of the hon. member we would not be doing the people she represents any kindness. If you give these natives clear title they would get into debt and dispose of their land. They simply cannot resist getting into debt, and that is the true fact. I do not think this Bill is being approached in the proper way by those who think they represent the natives’ interests. I admit that conditions have changed and are changing every day, but I do say that the Bill is one that should be dealt with on the merits of each individual clause. If any member of this House says the Government’s views are illiberal, I do not think he has read the Bill or understands it, nor, if he votes against it, will he vote in the true interests of the native, who will greatly benefit by the great majority of the provisions in this Bill.

I am very glad to see that the Minister of Native Affairs is engaged in putting native affairs in order. There are just a few things that I want to mention which may be of interest and in connection with which changes might be brought about. The first is in connection with the locations at which beer is brewed. I want to tell the Minister that I am afraid that if the natives in the locations, where there are beer halls, are also allowed to brew beer at home, we shall not succeed in putting a stop to the evil with which we are faced, especially in the Free State. What is the position in the Free State today? As a farmer who lives near a town, I can speak of experience. A native receives a pass to go to chinch. Instead he goes to the location and a beer drink takes place on Sunday. The position is that every one keeps a few gallons of beer, and if the police are not there—they are very quick to find that out—

Are you speaking of urban natives?

I am speaking of locations. The native goes to the location and drinks there the whole day. It is stated in this Bill that within a distance of five miles from the municipal border, no sprouted or fine grain may be sold to natives. That provision would straightaway affect me and other farmers who live close to a town. It will mean that my natives will specially have to go to town in order to drink beer, and it will later lead to a chaotic state of affairs. We who are sensible allow the natives to brew beer but under supervision, under control. In that way we prevent drunkenness, but if no sprouted grain may be sold within a distance of five miles from the municipal border, the farmers near the towns will be at their wits’ end. The natives will not be allowed to brew beer. I hope the Minister will give due consideration to this matter. Then there is the question of the return. According to these proposals the natives will be sentenced to seven days’ imprisonment or be required to pay a fine of 10s. I think in the past we have all adopted the attitude that the natives should be kept out of gaol, but I am afraid that in practice this provision will lead to the imprisonment of the natives. The native argues in this way: If the sentence of imprisonment is very light and, comparatively, the fine is very high, he prefers to go to gaol. Take the case of the native who has to pay £2. Within a month he can earn £2 by sitting in gaol. I would prefer to see the sentence of imprisonment stepped up as against the fine. I personally have gone to the magistrate’s court when a native boy was sentenced to fourteen days’ imprisonment or a fine of £1. I offered to release him and to pay the fine. But the native said: “No, I eat the Government’s food and I wear the Government’s clothes; it pays me better.” Another aspect which in my opinion will cause difficulty, especially in the Free State, is that natives will be allowed to trade in the locations. I appreciate the intention, but I do not believe that it will have a good effect. In the first place, it will have a detrimental influence on the shops in the town in the vicinity of which the location is situated. I adopt the attitude that the location is there in the interests of the European population and not the other way about. Since the native comes to a European territory to make a living there, he cannot demand these privileges. It may at a later date become an evil which it will be difficult to combat, because the native lives cheaply and will sell the commodities cheaply, and later on we shall have the position which we have in Natal in connection with the Indians, who are forcing the Europeans out of trade because they live more cheaply. I have not the slightest objection to the natives having shops in their reserves or in the territories set aside for them, and even their own bioscopes and their own industries, but not in European areas where the native it at the disposal of the Europeans. I want to issue a warning that in practice that will not work very well. If the Minister insists on applying this, he will have to stipulate that no Europeans may trade in the locations. Otherwise I foresee disastrous consequences.

Provision is made for that.

I want to prevent the creation of a further evil. In the Free State we have peace and quiet as far as that is concerned, and we do not want to create as thorny a problem as exists in the Cape today. The hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) laid great emphasis on the fact that the natives have to be at the service of industries in the cities. In that connection I also want to issue a warning. If the ultimate aim is to have the natives working in industries, I am afraid the European workers will be squeezed out completely as a result of the competition from the cheaper labour of the natives. The factory with European labour will not be able to compete with the factory which employs cheap native labour. For that reason we have to be very careful, if there is a shortage of labour, let the natives be allowed to go through the recruiting bureau. We would then be able to prevent this danger. In conclusion, I just want to say a few words in regard to the vagrants in the towns, and even on the mines. We, as farmers, can speak from experience when we say that one of the great attractions as far as the natives are concerned is the native girls in the cities who do not work. They are the people who brew the beer. The natives call them “takatsi’s,” that is to say, street girls. This leads to a great deal of licentiousness amongst the natives. In Johannesburg especially the natives are attracted by these girls. They always have plenty of money and the natives go back to their homes poor. The girls collect everything they earn. The native girls who are left at home by the natives complain a great deal. The native boy may stay away for a year or longer, during that time his family has to be maintained by the farmer. Every now and then these natives do send a small amount, but they live loosely in the cities and degenerate completely.

With regard to kaffir beer halls, I can only speak for Johannesburg, and I deny that we get any profit from kaffir beer sales. We only use the profit for the benefit of the natives themselves. I have heard kaffir beer halls condemned, and I would like to tell the House that I took the chair at a conference in the City Hall at Johannesburg when 42 deputations were present, and out of the 42 only six did not vote for the kaffir beer hall. The objection to home brewing is that if you allow it every native house around Johannesburg will become a shebeen. That is what will happen. We had nearly every denomination of religion represented by the deputations I refer to, and I say they were all very much against home brewing. I would ask hon. members to visualise what would happen in Johannesburg and the outer urban areas if we allowed home brewing. I do not want the proceeds of the beer halls spent upon anything to benefit the white man, and in any case I want to see the profits so small that they would not matter. As regards the influx of natives to Johannesburg, we will never be able to clean up the slums there nor keep the native townships clean unless we get control of all these natives who are coming in. We have not got that control today. It is not our fault, we appealed to the Government some years ago, in about 1937, for control and we did not get it, we have no control whatever. We have only control in our own native townships, and that we exercise as well as we can. Had we control at New Claire, Sophiatown and other places outside, we could stop a great deal of the nuisance that happens there at week-ends. It is nothing at all to have 50,000 natives there at week-ends, and that is because we do not have control. They come from the mines round about and stay for the week-end as visitors. With regard to housing, under present conditions accommodation cannot be found for a hundredth part of them.

[Inaudible].

The hon. member interjects: “Why don’t the City Council build houses?” Let him just think what he is saying. Where is the Council to get material at present, and it is impossible to build houses in a minute, and a house a minute would hardly meet the situation for the next year or two. No sooner do we build a house than we find the tenant’s uncle arrives from the Free State, and his brother comes from somewhere else, and they all get together in the house whatever you do. Until we get control of the natives coming into the towns, we may as well give up trying to do anything. I heard one hon. member say that it was a shame and a scandal that the price of ground required for native houses should be so high. I would like to reply to that hon. member by saying that the only difference between the price now and the price twenty years ago when the Labour Party was in power, is the extra amount payable to the Minister as profits tax. With reference to allowing native wives to come in, the trouble is that when we have a house for the wife to come into we find that there is not only one wife but occasionally half a dozen. I would like to say again that if we can only get the citizens of Johannesburg and members of Parliament to help us, we could make a good job of the business and do it as quickly as possible.

Mr. Speaker, as one of the native representatives my great fear when I first entered the House was that other parties in the House would not take any interest in anything we were attempting to do, and for some time after we came into the House that was unfortunately the position. But today it has been refreshing to find people in all parts of this House speaking in the way they have about these matters which are of great importance to this country. Although we may disagree with the premises of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus), we are in agreement with his conclusions, and we only hope that although we may find ourselves unable to vote for his amendment, that his party will have the courage to vote for ours. It is also, Mr. Speaker, very refreshing indeed to hear the speeches of members on the Government side of the House. We appreciate very much, I can assure you, Sir, and the native people of the country appreciate very much the fact that there are members on the Government side who speak in the way they have, and I feel quite certain that although only one or two have spoken today, they do in fact represent a very much larger volume of opinion. I am glad to have that view confirmed by the “hear, hears” around me. We feel that the old Act was ill-considered and panic legislation passed upon insufficient information. Its original purpose was to control so-called redundant natives in the big cities, but I have said it before and I say again, that the only investigation ever made found, as a fact, that the native population was not redundant, but was in fact required by the industrial needs of this country. What evidence have you today that that situation does not still exist ? Upon what are we basing our assertions that these natives are redundant? If a proper investigation were made in this matter, you would find in fact that these natives are not redundant. It has been said that in a few years’ time the demand for native labour may not be so strong. Then why not wait until that situation arises? Why increase the restrictive measures which we already have, when we have no expert information as to what the position will be in the future? I am sorry to have to disagree with my friend, the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn), but I must disagree with him completely. This suggestion is made by him that the objections to this Bill come solely from what he was pleased to call the intelligentsia. That is not so. The Natives’ Representative Council is drawn from different types of Africans all over the Union; it is a truly representative body, and they are opposed in this Bill. I have here a telegram from the Transkeian chiefs who represent what the hon. member for Tembuland has been pleased to call the “barbarians,” and I want to say that this telegram is completely unsolicited. I did not approach the chiefs of the Transkei for an opinion, in fact, I never approached the Africans for an expression of opinion. I think it is better for them to come forward on their own initiative. I received this telegram on the 21st March from the Transkeian chiefs—

We have had an expression of opinion from the Natives’ Representative Council and here we have an expression of opinion from the chiefs in the Transkeian Reserve, and the opinion of both these parties is one of strong opposition to the Bill. It is no good the hon. Minister telling us that he consulted various bodies if he is going to disregard completely the opinion of those bodies. I am prepared to admit that the hon. Minister has made certain concessions in this Bill, but on the fundamental point, viz the interference with the freedom of movement, we say that we cannot under any circumstances agree with it or vote for it, and although the Bill may be sweetened, it is still a pill which the Africans are not prepared to swallow unless they are forced to do so. I submit that in a measure of this kind it is more important to have the goodwill of the people behind it than all the administrative machinery to remove the feeling of injustice which has been created by the very Act which you want to amend. I just want to say to the hon. member for Tembuland in regard to the question of subsidising industrial wages by land holdings in the Reserve to which he referred that I have repeatedly pointed out that that is not the correct representation of the position. I am brought into daily contact with the people of that territory, and I know what I am talking about. The Transkei had a population of 800,000 thirty years ago; today it has a population of 1¼ million. The size of the ground is identical. Can we be surprised then to find in 1944 when 1¼ million people have to make a living on the same land on which 800,000 people made a living 30 years ago, that there are hundreds and thousands of natives in the Transkei who are forced to come out of the territory to make a living elsewhere? And I say that if we are going to build up a sound industrial system in this country we must create a position in the various industrial areas whereby these people can obtain employment at living wages and come down freely. You cannot have this migratory movement going on from place to place and from year to year. What will happen to those hundreds and thousands of people who have no home or land in the Transkei, if it is not possible for them to come down freely and to make a living here? My own estimate, based on first hand information is that there are 60,000 married males in the Transkei who have no land whatever. If that is so the idea of subsidising industry falls away. I think members of the House may have noticed the other day that the City Council of Cape town tried to find an answer to the question why there were so many natives here, and they suggested that there was something wrong with the economic position of the Reserves. There is something wrong with it, but that is not the fault of the people who are in charge of the administration of the territory; it is only because the Reserve is too small. The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) mentioned the matter just now, i.e. the increasing number of natives who are coming in from the territory to work in the Peninsula. That is a question which is closely allied to the economic position. But why do they come down? In the first place, because they cannot make a living in the Transkei. When this matter was dealt with in Umtata last week Chief Victor Poto made this remark; he said—

There is very often an attempt in that direction and it is interesting to hear what Chief Victor Poto said on this subject; he said—

And the same situation applies to the people in the economic sphere. The native people are serious in their intention not to support the suggestion to send natives to the Rand unless wages are improved. With regard to the policy of the mines to import extraUnion natives to work on the mines, I say that that is a deliberate attempt by the mines to keep down the wages of the Union natives, and I say it should not be allowed. Today you have more extra-Union natives on the mines than you have Union natives, and I say that that is a position that should not be allowed to continue nor should you make any attempt to force the man who wants to seek work elsewhere to go to the Rand. When the. Urban Areas Act first came into force, the onus was put on the municipalities to provide accommodation for the natives in the urban areas. But what happened? The Act broke down, the municipality said: “That is what the Act says, but we simply have not got the money to build accommodation for the natives.” So what did the Government do? They promptly amended the law and relieved the municipalities of the responsibility of providing accommodation. Take the position in the Cape Peninsula. Here you have 60,000 natives and you have only got accommodation for about 10 per cent. of them. The rest are living in slum conditions, conditions which must promote crime. It has been said that if the authorities had the control, they could make these things right. The last speaker made that remark. We want to point out that they have had control over Windermere for the past 15 years, and in spite of that the position there is just as bad as it is in the Cape. We say that the control you seek is not the answer to the complaint. The answer to the complaint is to pay the natives adequate wages, to enable them to live under decent conditions, to allow them to seek employment where they want to work, to stabilise them ….

How can you stabilise them if they can come here without control?

If they do not like their work there they will go to other industrial areas and settle there, just as the Europeans do. Why should the native be told where they must live, where they must take up employment? I am discussing the question of equal rights and rights of citizenship. Every man should have the right to settle where likes. No nation can deny that right to any of its people. We talk a great deal of democracy. We are told that it is Government for the people by the people. That is a very popular saying but judging by the South African conditions as far as the natives are concerned, we have only government by some of the people for some of the people. I feel that I can honestly join with my hon. friend and ask for the appointment of a suitable commission of enquiry into the whole situa tion. A remark was made just now by an hon. member of the Opposition that if the native earns a certain wage he would compete with the Europeans and do the Europeans harm. But what has been the result of the policy we have been following? Obviously if you depreciate the wage of the native and fix it on a low level, it is inevitable that that should be taken as the basis of the wage of the lower paid European. In this wonderful country where we have only 2,000,000 Europeans, we have 300,000 unable to earn a decent livelihood. I am suggesting that one of the main causes of that situation is that the basic wage paid to the native in this country is too low, and that in turn it is the basis of the wage of the lower paid European. We are living in a time of war, and I cannot see what need there was at this stage to bring in amendments to this particular Bill. Emphatic disapproval of this Bill has been expressed both by the Natives’ Representatives Council and the chiefs in the Transkei, and in view of that I sincerely hope that even at this late stage the hon. MINISTER will agree to the motion which has come from this side of the House.

I should like to draw the hon. Minister’s attention to the fact that the question of natives on the farms and in the large cities was discussed last year by the Agricultural Union of the Transvaal, and I think the Native Commissioner was also present. One of the difficulties which was discussed there was the question of the concentration of large groups of natives on the farms, and especially round the big cities like Pretoria and Johannesburg. The farmers are in this position that they cannot put the natives off the places where they squat. There is no legislation under which they can do so. In one case an action was instituted under legislation which was promulgated in the days of the South African Republic, but the magistrate ruled that that legislation was not applicable in this case. The result is that it is necessary to institute a civil action against the native in order to remove him from these places that, of course, entails a great deal of expense and trouble. I hoped that this matter would receive the attention of the MINISTER. The solution in connection with this matter, as one of the hon. members on the other side put it, is that there should be legislative provision so that the police will have the right to take immediate action and to remove any squatter on the farms or in the neigbourhood of the city after due notice has been given to him that he is not a desirable person. At the moment that is not the position. The only way of removing the squatter is to institute a civil action against him. One finds this concentration of natives especially near the military camps. I do not know just why they want to be in the immediate vicinity of the camps.

It is possible that one of the reasons is that they brew and sell kaffir beer. Another possible reason is that many of those natives work in the camps. A further possible reason is that gambling takes place there. In this connection I mention the Premier Mine especially, where one finds this concentration. I should like to see that something is done under this legislation to put a stop to this state of affairs. Then there is another question in regard to which I should like to say a few words, and that is in connection with the education of the natives. This is a question which we in the platteland towns have a great deal to do with. In the Transvaal the education of the natives is mainly in the hands of the churches. The churches have the control of the schools, and today those schools are mostly in the hands of the English churches, with the result that the education is given in the language of the English Church. I would have thought that in a neighbourhood where Afrikaans is the principal language, the second language of the native-would be Afrikaans. On the other hand, where English is the main language in any area the second language of the native ought to be English. But we find throughout today that the native’s second language is English. We would not like to have a treble medium, but we would like to see that the native’s second language is Afrikaans in an area where Afrikaans is the predominant language. We would not like the native when he leaves school to be a sort of educated European; he must be taught in that school to be proud of his own nation. We want him to learn his own history. In other words, he must be a full-blooded kaffir when he leaves that school, just as an English child is a full-blooded Englishman when he leaves an English school. The native ought to be proud of the fact that he belongs to the native race. Furthermore we would like to see that the education of the native is not left in the hands of the provinces, but that it falls under the Union Government. We shall then be able to have uniformity, and we shall be able to exercise better control. I just want to mention another matter. The Native Commissioner was present at the meeting of the Agricultural Union of the Transvaal. He will remember that nearly a full day was devoted to the question of native farm labour. At the moment the position is extremely difficult. We find that not only do the Mines recruit natives on the platteland, but also the Railways, with the result that the farmer is left without farm labour.

There is nothing in this Bill which deals with that subject.

We should like to see that the mines recruit natives only in the native reserves and not on the platteland. It would then be possible to have a better distribution of labour. I want to associate myself with what has been said here by the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) and the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus) and express the hope that we will now get legislation which will be long-term legislation. We do not want patchwork, but legislation on which we can build progressively in the future.

I should like, in the first instance this afternoon to express my regret that the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) should have delivered an attack on the Department of Native Affairs. I am convinced that if ever a department has done its best for the natives in this country it is the Department of Native Affairs under the present Government. This department today enjoys the confidence of the general public. If a department possesses the confidence of the public there is a much better prospect of it being able to achieve something for the natives; and to attempt to break down that confidence is a serious matter; it can only do harm, and it can do no good. I agree with hon. members that in segregation we have a principle. Any principle that we discuss in connection with native affairs has that for its starting point; the jumping off place is the principle of segregation. This Bill deals with the Native Urban Areas Act, where certain provisions have been introduced to regulate affairs in urban areas, mainly European areas, in which specific privileges have been granted the natives under certain circumstances. I assume that those privileges must be granted. I do not accept the proposition that we should drive the natives out of the towns. We need the native throughout the country, and where we utilise his services we must provide reasonable opportunities for his employment and payment at a proper wage. But the native representatives in this House adopt another note, and that is where we clash. They will have it that no restrictions should be placed on the movement of natives; that they must be allowed to live where they want to, and to go where they want to. I want to put this question to those hon. members : If they desire that we should accord these rights to the natives in the European territories will they allow Europeans similar rights in respect of the native territories? No, naturally not! That is the point of difference. At their start urban areas were European; later, as the natives became more and more necessary in urban areas, they began to reside in the towns on an increasing scale. This Bill deals with limitations and restrictions on ownership of land in certain urban areas. Hon. members who represent the natives do not want any restrictions. The hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming) said a moment ago that the difficulty is that the native cannot buy where he wants to. But I would like to ask the hon. member whether they would agree to Europeans having similar rights in the native territories.

No, not in the reserves.

The natives must have that right in the European territories, but the Europeans may not have that right in the native territories. I agree that Europeans should not have the right to purchase land in native areas. If we give that right to Europeans the result will be that the natives within the next few years will not possess any land at all, and consequently we also should not allow them to buy in European areas. Those hon. members try to contend that this Bill is not a liberal measure. But this Bill holds in prospect for the natives amazing opportunities which they have never previously enjoyed. The European population is obliged to give certain things to the natives, but we must set to work very cautiously, because we do not know whether the native will make proper use of those rights. Consequently, it is necessary to lay down certain restrictions for their own protection. If those restrictions were not laid down you would never be able to record development. On the Witwatersrand especially the municipality have found it necessary to impose certain restrictions; and if that was not done the position would become dangerous not only for the natives but also for the Europeans.

[Inaudible],

I am not referring to Uitenhage. I am speaking about 90 per cent of the urban areas in this country. You must give the urban areas complete control. They must be able to maintain order, frame health regulations, and prescribe all the requisite restrictions. I want to say this: If those urban areas appear to be a success under the proposed laws, it is possible that there may be further extensions. I think I am echoing the opinion of the majority of people when I say that they fear that they are giving too many rights to the native, and that it may be necessary tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, to rescind some of these rights. I am in favour of granting more rights to the natives who today cannot live in their old territories, but we must be careful that we do not estrange the natives from all his tribal customs. It is asked: Why must the native be controlad through the pass laws? There you have the same thing. If an agitation is launched, both by Europeans and natives, which will have the effect of encouraging vice, it may be that you will obtain no development for the natives. The European population will not permit that, and you must be careful not to propose things which may block that development in the future. You must go slowly. The development of the native is slower than that of the European, and consequently we must proceed slowly in respect of any legislation. What seems strange to me is that hon. members maintain that no control should be exercised over the movements of the natives; that he must be free to look for work where he wants to. At the same time the hon. member asks why the people in the towns do not build houses for the natives. How can they build houses for those people if they do not know whether the natives are going to remain there two days or a week.

That is also the position in regard to Europeans.

I believe in being liberal in this, but while being liberal we must not be irresponsible. We should be liberal and at the same time responsible the speeches that have been delivered here will not only be referred to in this House. I assume that the natives are acquainted with what happens in this House, and there are speeches delivered here that have a disturbing effect in the country. It is stated here that houses should be erected for the natives that come to this town with the result that tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, twice as many natives arrive here, and they find there are no houses for them. That sort of talk does not assist the natives in any way. This Bill holds out the prospect of various schemes under which the native will be able to develop, and those schemes will have the co-operation of the urban authorities, so why suggest now that this Bill will lessen the opportunities for the native. That is not so. We must have reasonable and orderly people in the country, and we must proceed cautiously, so that we do not make it impossible to have that co-operation in the country which will render possible development on the part of the native population. Under this Bill additional powers are conferred on the Native Advisory Councils. Silence is preserved over all these matters. They are suspected, and treated with distrust. The Minister has shown a tendency to have discussions with the natives. That is a sound policy, and it should not be disparaged and regarded with suspicion. If the native representatives treat this with suspicion they are doing no service to the natives.

We do not talk from suspicion, but from experience.

The less suspicion we arouse the better chance we have of securing co-operation between the races. The hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Brink) has spoken about native education. I do not know whether it falls under this Bill, but I would just say this, that where education is given in the church schools it is not the Minister’s affair, and that here we have an heirloom from the Afrikaner who did not fulfil his obligations in respect of native education.

That is why I desire that the State should take it over.

In the past we failed in our duty. We left it to others.

So therefore we should now set it right.

I trust that we shall exert every effort to alter that position, so that the Afrikaner churches will have the necessary influence on native affairs, the influence that they ought to have, and that they are entitled to have.

I want to support the plea of the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) and the hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming) that the House should consider all subjects dealing with native questions on a non-party basis. I am prompted to make that plea for one thing because the Nationalist Party advocated the desirability of some means being found for stabilising native labour in industrial areas. I don’t know to what extent that idea is accepted by the Nationalist Party as a whole because it seems rather contrary to our experience of their attitude in the past on native questions, but it is a matter which reflects the economic needs of the farming community, and it is a subject on which the Nationalist Party should focus attention in order to bring about such a stabilisation of native labour in the industrial areas. And I am further prompted to add to that plea, by the very appreciative “hear, hears” which came from some members of the United Party in response to the very progressive outlook propagated by the hon. member for Transkei and if it can be dealt with on such a non-party basis then I am convinced in my own mind the results will be quite the contrary to what we were told by the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) who claimed that his attitude represented the point of view of the United Party, which, of course, would show that there are a number of members of the United Party who take up a very different point of view. But I may say that the statements made by the Prime Minister are entirely contrary to the expression of the hon. member for Tembuland. This is the second occasion since I have been in this House that I have been almost alarmed by the statements of the hon. member for Tembuland. The hon. member was quite aggrieved—in fact he said it was a figment of the imagination of the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) when that hon. member declared that the Native Affairs Department was behind the times. All I can say is this, that if the Native Affairs Department in any way reflects the advice which it must receive from the hon. member for Tembuland as a member of the Native Affairs Commission—for which he receives no less than £1,000 per year—then the Native Affairs Department is not just twenty years behind the times but fifty years. I can only hope that the influence of the hon. member for Tembuland on the Native Affairs Commission is not such that he can influence and shape the policy of the Native Affairs Department because I have never heard any more reactionary statements here than those that were made by that hon. member. For the hon. member to stand up here and say that the natives are barbarians does not reflect any credit on that hon. member or the party to which he belongs.

You know very well he did not say that.

Not only did that come from him, but I was surprised to learn that he travelled from one town to the other, and that he completely disregarded any advice that might be given by people wearing a collar and a tie—those people’s advice he would not take the trouble to accept. The hon. member does not understand, so he told us, why there should be shebeen queens. Well, let me tell the hon. member what the reason for the existence of these so-called shebeen queens is—it springs from an economic source. And it was because I heard the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) and the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) explain the native situation and native conditions in terms of economics that I hone there are many members on the Government benches who will listen to the remarks made by these hon. members and examine the question purely in terms of economics. I remember a speech made by the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister some four or five months ago when he dealt with the question of the trusteeship of the native population and that whole idea centres on the point, of arousing public feeling and making public feeling realise that the native does not get a square deal—there is a growing feeling of sympathy today for the native—there is a growing feeling that he should be treated better than in the past; to what extent that growing feeling is attributable to hon. members who represent the natives in this House I don’t know, to what extent it is a general coalescing of thought I do not know, but I believe it is desirable, it is essential, that this House should realise that there is a growing feeling of sympathy—there is a growing feeling as to the treatment of the native people in this country and there is a growing belief, too, that there are too many oppressive laws on the Statute Book which are the cause of the natives being treated not as human beings but as slaves and cattle.

That is not correct and you know it.

Everyone has seen the native people deteriorate from what was once a strong, healthy and fertile race, into a race partly driven into the urban areas where they gradually—many of them— lapse into every crime. They are no longer healthy physically as they were in the past. Many of them suffer from T.B. Their womenfolk suffer considerably from other diseases such as V.D. and their moral standards have declined until they are only a shadow of the race of forty or fifty years ago. And in South Africa the same process of development is going on as went on in Great Britain about a hundred years ago. Quite often people mistakenly say that history repeats itself. History never repeats itself. Always the circumstances are different. When we in a similar manner repeat the mistakes of the older industrial countries of the world we do not do so in the same wav as they did. Of course, we are not subjecting our workers to a 20 hour day. We have not got a set of conditions where people coming off work have to occupy the warm beds which have been occupied by people who have just gone to work. We have different sets of circumstances. But we are not benefiting by history, we are not benefiting to the extent that South Africa is prepared to recognise that we have an industrial working population which must be looked after in every sense physically and morally, and they can only be looked after if they work under decent conditions and receive a wage standard commensurate with what we consider a decent standard of living. I support the recommendation of the hon. member for Cape Western that a commission should be appointed to investigate the whole structure of native laws in this country. The hon. member for Tembuland recognised that a change was going on. It was really pleasant to hear that the hon. member for Tembuland recognised that a change was taking place, and I submit that the change has gone on and has been accelerated during the period of the war and the time has now arrived when the House should consider setting up a commission to consider the whole structure of native laws. It is true that the House has on several occasions been very critical of commissions, and if it was thought possible that the commission contemplated might be anything in the nature of the Native Affairs Commission, possibly hon. members would withdraw that suggestion; but what we want is a commission of people who are prepared to investigate from the point of view of the natives the sympathetic consideration of the changes necessary in the laws. Such a commission would serve a particularly useful purpose and if it were wise it would seek to adjust the laws of the country in regard to the natives and not to consider the natives merely as a particular species of human being but to recognise them as human beings. Throughout my political life I have been guided by the principle—and I think it is a principle which we should recognise—that there are fundamental human rights to which people are entitled, and you cannot exclude the natives from that.

Hear, hear.

And furthermore, we should recognise the fact that any laws which prevent freedom of employment and full enjoyment of privileges are unfair. Probably one of the most important needs for revising the native laws of this country is in respect of the housing of the native population. It is not a sufficiently good excuse to say that if you built a house at the rate of one a minute you could not provide for all the needs and that at any rate you have not got all the material that is necessary. After all, that has not always been the case, and there have been ample opportunities in the past for local authorities, for provincial authorities, and for the Government themselves, to see that the housing needs of the native population were met, and even long before the war when there was plenty of building material the natives were without the housing accommodation they required.

Are there not lots of other people too who have not got the necessary accommodation?

I am not excluding anyone—I say everybody is responsible and it is not sufficient for the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Gray) to say that the Municipality of Johannesburg has done its job—it is no use passing the buck.

We have done the job anyhow.

Everybody, from the Government down to the local authorities— everybody is responsible to some degree for the failure to meet the housing needs of the population of South Africa—European, native and coloured alike. And I go further and I say that on the occasion of one of the financial measures before the House I made a proposal which the Minister of Finance thought sufficiently well of to reply to, but I found when the Municipal Executive Committees visited Cape town last week and interviewed the responsible Minister, he seemed to be almost completely unaware that such a suggestion had been made. And it has come to my knowledge that when the Minister was challenged and a statement was made to him by a member of the deputation that it was possible to sell a house to a sub-economic person at a lower figure than he would expect to pay in rent, he was almost inclined to laugh it off. But he will not laugh now, because it is quite clear that the Executive Committees of the major municipalities came to Cape Town, and they have departed but they are not at all pleased with the proposal of the Government in connection with housing, and they made it plain that what they desired to see was that the housing of the native people should be met by providing some scheme for home ownership.

Will the hon. member please come back to the terms of the Bill.

I am dealing with the need for a commission, and one of the things which the commission would have to investigate—and I submit that the most important point which the commission would have to investigate—is the necessity of so amending the laws as to enable the natives to buy land and houses so that their needs can be met and I say that under the present laws the encumbrances are such that it is impossible to make provision for a housing scheme embodying the principle of home ownership which every municipality is asking for. That is the point which I am stressing— the need for a commission to examine the manner and means by which the native laws can be so amended as to make provision for the most important aspect of housing— of housing based on the claims by every major municipality that it should embody the principle of home ownership. Let me get to the point of the question of stabilisation which the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) said we should seek to bring about —stabilisation of the industrial population. The Minister in charge of the Bill was asked how it was possible to bring about stabilisation, and I suggest it can be brought about by the most natural means—those means being to allow industrial natives, that is natives who are no longer semi-rural, but who have become completely urbanised, to be recognised as urban dwellers and to give them all the facilities which urbanised dwellers are entitled to have, and one thing they should be allowed to have is the right to develop their own trade union, and if industrial workers were allowed to develop their own trade union organisations those trade union organisations would be the best means of checking the influx into a city of a surplus number of workers. I submit that it is in the interest of the farming community to bring about the stabilisation of industrial workers, and to see that in the urban areas where they look for work they get decent conditions and civil amenity and are allowed to build up their own trade union organisations. And no one knows better than hon. members opposite that once a trade union becomes, strong it seeks to defend the interest of its own members. There are instances where people have tried to enter a certain vocation, certain avenues of employment, but where they have been prevented from entering as a result of the action of trade unions which did not want such occupations to be flooded. Now, a strong trade union for the African workers would do the same sort of thing. It would stop the influx of people, of surplus people, into a particular industry, and in that way you could bring about the stabilisation of your industrial areas.

I had no intention of taking part in the debate on this Bill, but I am afraid that the picture that has been painted here of native conditions in Johannesburg, does not present a true reflection of the actual position. There cannot be the slightest doubt that if permission is granted to extend the brewing of beer, in conformity with this measure, it will bring untold misery in its train. I can give you that assurance turning to conditions in Johannesburg I can identify myself with what the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Gray) has said in this House. He sees the position as it really is. A little while ago I had a talk with officials in Johannesburg who will have to adMinister this law, so that I might gain their opinion, and I can give you the assurance that they will not give this measure a good réception if it goes through. The position is today of such a nature that most of the crime that exists is due to the abuse of brewing and if an extension should eventuate then I am apprehensive of what the position will be. We know what is happening today in reference to illicit brewing. A police drive is carried out, and the detectives find an amount of beer in the hut, but when they carry their search further they will perhaps discover a false bottom in the floor, and there they get an enormous quantity of beer, If this bill goes through as it is, and if so many permits may be issued, those tactics will be pursued to an even greater extent. The detectives will then see that the people have permits for the beer they have, but large quantities will always be kept stowed away so that the detectives are misled, thus necessitating further investigation. I only want to say this that the conditions in certain quarters of Johannesburg are perfectly scandalous. There are native areas in my constituency such as Sophiatown and Newclare, and the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Gray) has said with good reason that if we drive along the main road in those parts during the week-end it is almost impossible to make headway with the car so many drunk natives are there about. The Europeans who reside in those parts dare not venture out for a walk, the position is scandalous. I want to say here that the whole cause of this is what the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. F. C. Erasmus) has rightly told the House, namely that there is no proper control over the movements or over the influx of natives. There can be no doubt about that. The other important matter is this—and here I again agree with the hon. member for Kensington—that it must be seen to that native women are not permitted to come into the town if proper accommodation has not been provided for them beforehand. What is the position at the moment? Housebreaking and theft is increasing. I can sit on my stoep and point out large numbers of houses which have been broken into. When we investigate we find that the native maids who remain on the property pass on the information to the natives as to when they can come along. If provision is made for the proper housing of these native females in urban areas we shall eliminate a great deal of this misery. I cannot allow myself to be guided by those hon. members who represent themselves as the patrons of the natives in the country. Our position today is this—and there the Minister has been neglectful in the past— that we have definitely allowed this condition to emerge. We have created conditions which have resulted in the native being wrenched out of his tribal background where he was happy. That has made him unhappy, and today he is still unhappy. I admit that we cannot oppose the course of native development, nor do we wish to do that. As guardians of the natives we must see to it that the native obtains what is his due. But those people who pose as the patrons of the natives, the native representatives, are the very people who are making the position intolerable for the natives. Instead of letting the natives develop naturally in their tribal areas there are people today who want to outrun the process of development, and it does not admit of doubt that if you pull the native out of his environment and try to outpace the process of development then it has harmful repercussions for everyone; it reacts not only to the detriment of the native himself, but it is to the detriment of our whole civilisation, those are a few of the main points that I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister, and I should like to say that if this Bill goes through it will in the first place lead to a greater illicit sale of beer to natives than ever before. His officials will also tell him the same thing. We who are acquainted with the conditions know that. I want to make an appeal now to the Labour party to help us. We are not in favour of doing anything unjust towards the natives. In regard to housing we know that the City Council of Johannesburg are making plans, but now the hon. members of the Labour Party should help us, and not range themselves on the side of the native representatives to bring the natives under a false impression. The conditions around Sophiatown, Newlands, and Westdene are scandalous. As a result of illicit brewing, and conditions consequent on that, the property of Europeans there has so fallen in value that it is difficult, even in these days, to dispose of a property. The people there have to throw in their hand because they no longer see any prospect of being able to live there. Consequently I maintain that the western native suburbs must be cleared away, and schemes must be brought into operation to house the natives in their own areas where they can be happy, segregated. In regard to the ownership of the land I should like to say that there I am in cordial agreement with, the Minister. Only last year I drove through a part that had been purchased by the Native Trust, and I went past some of the farms that have been bought in recent years where today not a single farmhouse now stands. The dwellings have been broken down, the roofs have been removed. Natives do not feel happy in farmhouses. But alongside the farmhouse a hovel has been built and in that the natives live. I went and looked at some of the places. Today in the old farm dwellings sheep are sleeping. Consequently I want to say to the Minister: Get a hold on the land and keep it. If you give the right to sell to the natives we know what is going to happen to the land. In this connection I wish to support the Minister, and I believe there is an endeavour on his part, contained in this Bill, to maintain a hold on the native lands so that the natives will not be able to buy and sell it just as they would like. These are just a few points that I wanted to bring to the notice of the Minister. I think that the reception that the Bill has had indicates that in some matters we are in accord with the Minister, and I hope that on the other point the Minister will meet us.

As an Afrikaansspeaking member of this House I should like to· assure the native representatives of one thing, and that is that in my opinion they are approaching the matter from the wrong angle when they attempt to make the native believe that we in this country are out to cheat him. If you look at the old farm dwellings you will not find a single one where some of the very best buildings have not been made available for the natives. That was the model on which the Boer farms were laid out; if a farm dwelling were erected the workers had also to get a fit habitation. That model was not only followed in every respect in regard to dwellings, but in every farmhouse the servants every morning and evening attended divine service held by the farmer and his family. On the farms they received proper training. Today I am living you might say in the remotest part of the Transvaal, and alongside me there live not less than 10,000 natives, and I can tell you that most of them are unhappy. The older natives feel dreadfully unhappy because their children have broken away from them and gone to the towns, and the ties that existed amongst the natives and their habits and customs have been undermined. The native no longer has a hold on his children as he had hitherto. I am afraid that the people who represent the natives lose sight of one thing and that is that one does not make the native happy with book learning. In mv constituency where there is a large native population there is a church congregation that is doing its level best to exert a good influence on the natives, and they afford the best possible opportunity to the native women to be trained. They teach good housekeeping to the women for the benefit of the men, when they return from the towns. And as regards the farmers I can give this assurance to those hon. members that the treatment meted out to the natives is excellent. For instance I have natives on my farm who have been living there for twenty years. If they were not happy they would not have remained with me but they would have gone off to the location—they have their own free will—which is not a mile away from me. But they are perfectly satisfied to remain in my employ. It always amazes me that hon. members should appear to think that if a native goes to Johannesburg he will be happier than he was on a Boer farm. But hon. members must fully realise that the farmers are conscious of the fact that they cannot carry on their farming without the help of the natives. We do not want slavery, nor do we want imported labour, but we want to give the natives of our country the opportunity to be happy on our farms. At the same time we desire that they shall show respect towards us Europeans because Europeans had centuries more of culture, and if hon. members would only observe the example of the farmers on the platteland the natives as a whole would be happier. I agree with the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. Van der Merwe) that if the impression goes out from this House that we want to cheat the natives and that they must be hostile to the European population, and that Parliament is cheating them it will be much more to the prejudice than the profit of the natives generally in the country.

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 27th March.