I move—

The wording of the motion that I am now proposing gives the reasons for my bringing it forward. It is because the hon. Minister has from time to time alleged that the Dutch Reformed Church of the Cape has been culpable of one of the worst irregularities that can be committed by a trustee, namely, not discharging the trust that has been confided to it, and using the trust for its own profit. The Dutch Reformed Church of Cape town is the trustee of property that was entrusted to It by the State for the benefit of the settlers at Kakamas. In order to gain a better understanding of the accusations, I shall explain briefly to the House the origin and the development of the present condition of affairs at Kakamas. The Minister of Lands is in this case the complainant against the church. The Dutch Reformed Church of the Cape is the trustee. I have, on a previous occasion, told him that if he harbours any misgivings on the administration of the trusteeship, he should examine the legal position before he advances charges of such a character. The labour colony at Kakamas is a legal entity, and its legal entity has been accorded to it by Parliament. But I have said it will be my duty to outline the circumstances surrounding the creation of the labour colony at Kakamas to the House. In the year 1897 a commission, that had been appointed for the purpose by the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church, approved of the establishment of a labour colony at Kakamas, after they had made enquiry as to the possibilities in other parts of the country. This undertaking was one of the practical measures that the Church adopted, to attack the problem of indigency, particularly among the rural population. The process of pauperisation which had been going on in the interior, and especially in those regions in the North-West, had up to that time not evoked the interest of the Government. On the 7th July, 1898, a start was made with the cutting of a furrow, a work in which use was made of the services of poor people who were paid a low wage. On the first day the number at work was 28. That was a small beginning of big things. Now we must briefly review the subsequent developments. The object of the institution was, according to the report of the commission of the Synod in 1897, to give work and a decent livelihood to poor whites with families to provide for, but who had not proper employment or remuneration adequate to make ends meet; and by influence and religious endeavour to rescue them from sinking. It was also the intention to demonstrate the potentialities of irrigation schemes in the solution of the problem. Note this, that it was the Dutch Reformed Church who first tackled an irrigation scheme in our country. At that time the Government was still indifferent, and had not concerned itself with the possibilities presented by our national streams for the development of land that lay on the banks of those streams. With the establishment of this colony the Church adopted the principle that the ownership of all the land should remain with the Church. Though the possibility of the ultimate transfer of the land to the settlers also enjoyed the attention of the Synod. This principle is still protected, and where the question of title to the property has been considered as a result of requests to the Synod, a decision has always been taken in favour of this principle as being in the best interests of the undertaking as well as that of the settlers themselves. The labour colony is managed on behalf of the Church by a commission that is appointed by the Synod. Now it will be necessary to review the constitution under which this labour colony today exists. It exists under Act No. 10 of 1909 of the Cape Province, which lays down—

And then it says—

1. (1) For the purpose of this Act—
   1. (a) “Labour Colony” shall mean any undertaking constituted in accordance with the provision of this Act, for the amelioration of the circumstances of indigent persons by farming, agriculture or cognate pursuits, in conjunction with facilities for the education of the children of such persons.

And then a definition is given of “indigent person”—

1. (c) “Indigent person” shall mean and embrace any British subject domiciled in this Colony who shall be entitled to the benefits of this Act under regulations to be framed as hereinafter mentioned.

There follows this proviso—

As I have indicated, the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church had made a commencement with this scheme as far back as 1898, and in 1909 they had made considerable progress; but in that year the Cape Parliament came forward for the first time with legislation with the object of rehabilitating indigent persons, especially on the platteland; and in this Act the right was given to the Church to make application under it for their own constitution. They then made application for a constitution under Section 3 of the Act—

1. (3) When the Minister shall be satisfied in all respects, the Governor may, under some appropriate designation and within specific limits, proclaim the constitution of a Labour Colony under this Act. Each such constitution shall embody such principles, conditions, arrangements and terms as may have been determined between the Minister and the Founders in respect to the matters detailed in the preceding section and in respect to the maintenance of public order, good morals, industrial and other educational arrangements, exercise of trading functions, protection of public health, regulation and control of intoxicating liquor, relations to the Minister, and to the statutory and other local authorities; provided that in such constitution provision shall be made for the compulsory attendance at school of all the children of such colony between the ages of seven and fourteen years, unless they be engaged in a regular occupation and have passed the fourth standard, and provided further that the schools of such colony may if considered desirable by the Governor-in-Council be managed by the Founders in direct connection with the Education Department. No constitution proclaimed under this Act shall subsequently be varied or altered without specific approval of Parliament, and no regulations shall be applied to any colony which shall be in conflict or at variance with its original constitution, save with concurrence of both Houses of Parliament.

The following is Section 6—

1. (6) It shall be lawful for the Governor with the consent of both Houses of Parliament, to acquire land for the purpose of a labour colony or industrial institution, and to grant such land or any other Crown land to the founders of a labour colony, or industrial institution in trust for such colony or industrial institution upon such conditions as Parliament may impose.

Section 7 deals with loans, and the Government itself made certain loans—

1. (7) Loans for the acquisition of land, to be used for the purposes of a labour colony or industrial institution or for the prosecution of any works connected with the establishment or development of a labour colony or industrial institution under this Act may be made to the Founders from funds provided by Parliament for the purpose: Provided that at least one-third of the total expenditure in each case shall be provided from other sources and provided further that a return be laid upon the Table of both Houses of Parliament within fourteen days after the meetting of Parliament, showing the sums so advanced. The redemption of such loans shall be effected in accordance with regulations to be procliamed from time to time under this Act.

Then we come to Section 8 in connection with the auditing—

1. (8) All accounts in connection with the expenditure of loans or monies granted from public funds shall be kept and rendered to the Auditor-General in such form as may be required by regulation.

Then we have Section 9—

1. (9) All labour colonies or industrial institutions established under this Act and all undertakings in connection therewith shall at all reasonable times be open to the inspection of any persons specially deputed thereto by the Minister in writing. A report of such colonies shall be laid before Parliament each year.

This is done every year. Every year the Minister must depute an official to carry out investigation at Kakamas, and every year he has to submit a report to Parliament. There is thus complete Parliamentary control. The regulations, as I have explained them, must be approved from time to time by Parliament. What is the extent of the labour colony? The labour colony comprises the following lands; 53,360 morgen on the south bank and islands, granted by the old Cape Parliament in trust to the church for this specific object; and 73,276 morgen on the north bank, which was bought by the church at the same time. Of this 126,636 morgen about 2,100 morgen are irrigable, and the remainder comprises grazing lands and building lots. In 1937, 19,000 morgen was purchased by the church with a view to extension; that was the farm Renosterkop, about 100 morgen of which was made irrigable after the most strenuous efforts and at great expense. On the old section of the settlement there are about 450 holdings, each about six morgen in extent. There are exceptions where the area is larger or smaller according to the circumstances. On the new Section 112 holdings have already been allocated—on Renosterkop —to poor and deserving families. About another 20 holdings will be available when the land has been put in trim. From the inception, provision has been made for the education of the children, and for the spiritual growth as well as the moral and cultural welfare of the community. It is, for example, a requirement that the Sabbath will be observed, that no strong drink shall be allowed, and that the moral requirements of a Christian life must be complied with. In the course of the undertaking the church has incurred a capital expenditure of more than £150,000. This includes the purchase of farms for £29,000; construction of the canal, £58,000; general development £48,000; education and religious work, £13,000. In this connection it may be mentioned that the State contributed an amount of £46,500 in loans. The part that the State contributed by way of loans was £46,500. Of this amount the Labour Colony Commission refunded to the State in capital and interest £24,480, and the Government has written off the sum of £29,500. That is what the State has done. It wrote off a sum of £29,500. Today there are 450 holdings, though there are also some new holdings; and that represents the total expense to which the Government has been put. The initial stage of construction was a very trying one, especially in respect of finance. In 1919 the Commission’s burden of debt amounted to the enormous sum of £142,434, but in the name of the church the Labour Colony Commission persevered. Now we have heard about the provision in the constitution in connection with trading rights. The trading rights that the church possesses there were granted to them in this Parliament under their constitution. The Labour Colony Commission in the course of time, and in the light of all the circumstances and the exigencies of the case, obtained exclusive trading rights on the settlement. In the process of development of the labour colony the commission incurred heavy expenditure on behalf of the settlers for the opening of shops, and a produce store, and the installation of a wheat mill and a lucerne mill, as well as for the establishment of clothing and boot factories, and the erection of a hydro-electric plant. Today one central store and four branch stores fall under the control of the Commission. The profits derived from the buisness are devoted to the general development of the colony. Now it will be asked what rights the people there possess. From the inception administrative costs were not covered, despite the fact that the members of the Commission gave their services honorarily; and in consequence debts piled up. However, with the extension of the business and the success that attended it the accumulated deficit was gradually reduced, and today the position is so sound that the administrative costs are almost entirely offset by the low erf-rent, averaging £15 a year, that is paid by all the settlers. Even in the worst years this rent has not been raised. In the meanwhile the arrears of administrative expenses were paid off. If the arrear expenses had not been covered by the profits from these stores every erf-holder would, during the period of 27 years during which there was a deficit, have had to pay about £4 more a year in erf-rent. But that was prevented, and thereby the Commission indirectly contributed £48,300 to the settlers without having recourse to the demoralising course of writing off. You will see therefore that the trading rights and the shops which the Minister has made the object of his attack are the rights which the people are entitled to under the constitution. Now the House will want to know from me what title the people there enjoy. They have an occupational right, and for that right they pay the sum of £15 per year. The rights have recently been bought for £700, £800, £900 and £1,200. This is a right that they can assign and bequeath to their children, and they can alienate it, subject to the sanction of the Commission. From this is appears that they have practically a title identical to that of settlers on Government lands. I leave it to this House to judge what the big difference is between the title these people possess and the title that the Minister of Lands is today prepared to give to his settlers, who may not alienate or mortgage their holdings without his sanction. Wherein lies the great difference? What is the big bone that the Minister, has to pick with the Commission? Only this, that he wants, to deprive those Kakamas people of their title, and substitute the title of the Department of Lands. I shall not enter into the merits of the case and enquire which is he better system. But there is one, point I shall emphasise. In my constituency I have both sorts of settlements. There is the Kakamas Settlement under the church with their form of title, and there is Cannon Island where the people have the Minister’s form of title. And every time I visit Cannon Island the people ask me please to use my influence with the Minister of Lands for the deletion, of the stipulations in their Crown grant.

So that they may speculate.

I am only repeating what these people have told me. I find, however, that there are people on Cannon Island who sell their property, and that at other places there are people who have the Minister’s form of title, and they sell their land and then go to Kakamas to buy land there. That struck me in view of the fact that during the last elections the Minister made that a plank in his platform in the contest in Gordonia. I was struck by the fact that some of his people came to me and said : Mr. Conradie, we would prefer to come away from the Department of Lands with all its restrictions and restraints and we would rather go and live at Kakamas. Some of them actually did that. That is the position when you have two types of settlement. But since 1919 the Minister has raised objections to the admirable work that is being performed there by the Church, and his chief objection has been directed at the stores that have been opened there. In 1919 a commission instituted an enquiry and the Minister was a member of that commission, and with three small exceptions of secondary importance he candidly endorsed the report of the Commission.

Read my minority report.

In 1940 the Minister appointed another Commission. That was the Deas Commission which decided unanimously in favour of the present system, but the Minister would not adopt the report that was drafted by one of his officials as Chairman. Notwithstanding the report he goes round the country ascribing certain motives and practices to the church, and he says that the report was drawn up by the Rev. Du toit who is at present the General Almoner. Now I challenge the Minister to say how he can know who drew up that report. He cannot know that. But when one comes into this House and sits face to face with hon. members then one must be absolutely certain of one’s facts. The facts as I know them are that the report is the combined responsibility of all of them. That was in 1940. On the 13th August, 1941, there appeared an article in the “Primary Producer.” The headline is “Minister of Lands Pleads for the Settlers of Kakamas.” It was here that the Minister opened his campaign of accusations against the church. The article is signed : “A. M. Conroy, Philipstown”. Perhaps he will recall that article. The date under the article is given as the 2nd of July, 1941. Or perhaps the article was prepared by the United Party’s candidate in Gordonia and the Minister merely signed it. Here inter alia he makes the following allegation: he asserts that the report was actually drawn up by the Rev. Du toit but that he could not accept it. And then he goes on to say in connection with the land title—[Translation.]

The time has arrived when the settlers must get that for which they have worked, namely, a freehold title. If the Church fears that this will be the cause of speculation or that it will attract undesirable characters to the lands on the settlement that can readily be prevented. Any alienation, hypothecation or transfer of erven can always be controlled as it is done in the case of Government settlements.

Note well the words “as is done on Government settlements.”

As determined by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) when he was Minister of Lands.

We are glad that the Minister is beginning to understand us a little where in the past it has perhaps been otherwise. And now we come to the accusations that the Minister has levelled, and which form the principal object of my motion, the accusations made by the Minister against the Dutch Reformed Church. I have studied his speeches in Hansard, and I have also studied the article in the “Primary Producer,” and on the basis of that I have drawn up an indictment against the Church, that is to say, an indictment as the Minister has framed it against the Church. If you examine his speeches you will be able to prepare an indictment, and I find there are eleven counts—

1. (1) The only interest that the Church still retains in Kakamas is the business.
2. (2) Colossal profits are made.
3. (3) Before the prices of goods were raised the Kakamas stores demanded higher prices.
4. (4) The object was to uplift poor whites and make them independent, and in turn to put others in their place so that they could be raised. The object was rehabilitation but that was not carried out.

That is a very serious accusation, and then—

1. (5) Strict regulations are enforced by the Church, and the settlers have not even the right to be members of the school commission and of the school board. So rigidly are the regulations applied that if a person infringes them he can be ejected and the maximum amount of compensation he can receive is £200 for development, which may represent developments of an actual value of £1,000 to £1,500. Some thirty cancellations had been effected, and amongst them there were several hard cases.
2. (6) The colony is only used to invest money for the Church at 5 per cent.
3. (7) The accumulated profits of the shops, namely, £120,000, do not merely come out of the pockets of the settlers, but also out of the pockets of the lowerpaid clerks and shop employees.
4. (8) Profits are made out of the settlers and a reserve fund is being built up which it is the intention of the Church to employ elsewhere.

How it is possible for the Minister to know beforehand what is going to be done in the future with the money I, of course, do not know. The constitution states that if a profit is made it must be applied to the development of the settlement itself. But the Minister levels the charge here that funds are being built up for other purposes. I do not say whether this is so or not, but on account of that I ask for a judicial enquiry.

1. (9) The L.C.C. (Labour Colony Commission) hampers the activities of the farmers’ associations by refusing land for the cultivation of plots.
2. (10) No settler has ever received cash for his produce. All that the settlers receive is I.O.U.’s of which a record is not kept.
3. (11) The labour colony officials do not receive a cost of living allowance but only a bonus.

Mr. Speaker, these are the eleven complaints that are made by the Minister of Lands, and this hon. House will agree with me that they are serious complaints, and that if they contain any truth at all then the Church is not discharging the trust that has been reposed in it. In 1939 after I became member for Gordonia, in which constituency this labour colony is situated, I made myself acquainted with the condition of affairs that prevailed there. I sensed what was causing concern to a certain section of the settlers, and I wanted to co-operate with them, especially in the direction of influencing the Church to have representatives of the settlers on the Labour Colony Commission. If the Church would agree to having fifteen members on the commission then there should be nine representing the Church and six or seven there on behalf of the settlers; but the settlers should also be allowed to have a say in connection with this matter. If we note the condition of affairs there, and if we are animated by a spirit of assisting the people and of uplifting them, then an alteration could be effected in the constitution and in the regulations without generating any suspicion or venom. But the hon. The Minister of Lands is apparently so disposed that he cannot distinguish between the conditions of 1919—the conditions that according to him still exist there—and the conditions that actually are in force there today. The circumstances that prevailed in 1919 and which were alluded to in the report as necessitating an improvement, do not exist today in the same degree. The position has improved, but in spite of that the Minister has come to this House and he has also gone round the country with all sorts of accusations against the church, accusations which I have now formulated into these eleven charges. Some of those charges may have been true in connection with the conditions that prevailed at that time, but those are not the conditions which are present today. Then I also maintain this. If the right to title over their property—which was the aim on the establishment of the settlement and of the trust under which the settlement was established—is to be effected, this should be the finding of the judicial commission; then the agitation by the Minister may be discontinued because his hands will then be strengthened to introduce legislation. Should, however, the judicial commission find that the present position is as the Minister would make the people believe, that this is the position now prevailing in the settlement, and that the trust is not being carried out, then he can come to this House with clean hands and he can say; I have approached the church and the church will not do anything in connection with the matter. Then his conscience will be clear. But the way he is going about things at present is not becoming to any responsible Minister in the country especially when he must deferentially admit that the church was the first, in the days of distress, to extend a helping and rescuing hand to the less privileged people of the community who were sinking to a lower level. If a judicial commission is appointed the Minister will be able to go with their findings to the church and ask the church to give effect to the findings of the commission. I will tell the House briefly what the position is. At the moment an atmosphere of suspicion and hatred stands in the path of cooperation. People are incited against the church on the one hand and against the Government on the other. That is not the fruit that should be plucked from such a noble effort on the part of the church. If the Government considers that the rights of the people are not being observed, the Government can approach the church with the commission, and even in this respect the chairman and secretary of the commission wanted to approach the Prime Minister with a memorandum, but he refused to see them.

Well, do not just let us show compassion, as the Minister of Lands did, immediately before an election. I trust that his interest and his compassion will extend further than that. The day before the elections he visited Renosterkop and sent a man to distribute 50 blankets amongst the people. It is all very well for the Minister to be compassionate on the eve of an election, but we hope that his interest will outlast the election. In the past the Department of Labour would have nothing to do in the way of granting further subsidies to those poor people who had to be taken away and who became a burden on the State. The church said: We will give work to them, but just help us with the subsidy. The Government would give no further subsidy, because the Minister of Lands had attacked the Synod here in Parliament, and it was only after further representations by the Labour Colony Commission that the department assented to the payment of a subsidy, and that only after a considerable number of families had already taken the road as a result of the procrastination on the part of the Minister of Lands. The conditions that prevail there today are not conditions that redound to the honour of our country, for we find amongst the people there those feelings which I have described. It is absolutely necessary for a judicial commission to be appointed. We ask for nothing less than a judicial commission, because if the Minister of Lands appoints a magistrate or a senior official and the findings go against him he will not submit to them. We want to have the authority of a judge, and that is what the church would welcome. Let the judge come along and tell the church that the church has not fulfilled its trust. It is no use saying that there is no judge available. That course has already been followed in connection with Indian penetration in Natal; Mr. Justice Broome had been appointed there. Recently a similar course was followed in connection with the expropriation of ground at Nelspruit in the Transvaal, where the road had to run through orange orchards belonging to someone or other. That enquiry by a judge was a long and protracted one. A judge of the Cape Provincial Division had to go to the spot to conduct the enquiry, and we ask now that in the interests of all concerned in this matter, in the interests of the settlers, in the interests of the Labour Colony Commission and of the church, such a judicial commission should be appointed. We do not want to show disrespect for the church; the church is quite agreeable to placing its cards on the table, and I ask in my motion that this judicial commission will have the right to enquire into all available records and into the books of the Labour Colony Commission and those of the shops. The church is willing to display the utmost candour, but they do not want to be attacked from behind with the result that their noble work will be detrimentally affected. In regard to the merits of the case concerning the title to the land, that is a matter that I would rather not discuss personally at present. It is a matter than can be submitted to the judge. He can give consideration to what form of title will be the best for such a settlement, and the House will be able to decide the matter in the light of his recommendation. We will submit ourselves to that. This motion is inspired only by an earnest desire to obtain co-operation at Kakamas. We must have mutual co-operation there in the best interests of the labour colony and for the development of the settlement. We do not want outside influences to come along to stir up feelings; and already there exists amongst a section of the public the suspicion that people who are stirring up feelings there, especially against the church, are actuated by motives of self-interest. Well, we cannot allow Kakamas to become the scene of exploitation by strangers. We must retain that settlement for the development of that section of our people who in the struggle for existence, have been able to make a living, and accordingly it is a privilege and an honour for me to introduce this motion in the House.

In order to provide the Minister with the opportunity to substantiate the charges that he has brought against the church, if he is able to do so, I should like to formally second this motion.

I think I had better start my reply by dealing with a few of the charges made by my hon. friend before I come to the question which this motion deals with. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) referred to the report of 1919 and he said I had signed that report and that I was in agreement with it.

With certain reservations.

That exactly is where the sting comes in, and the hon. member hides that fact. Let me say clearly that I was Chairman of that Commission. There were two Ministers of religion on the Commission, the Rev. Mr. Louw of Stellenbosch and the Rev. Mr. P. K. Albertyn, and Mr. George Louw, the brother of the Rev. Mr. A. F. Louw. They served on that Commission with me. I can say this to hon. members, that so far as that report was concerned it was based on evidence and I had the greatest difficulty in the world to get the minority report in. They did not want to include it. I even had to go so far as to threaten that I would leave the Commission before I succeeded in getting the minority report included. In my minority report I said that Kakamas had not answered the purpose for which it had been started. I said that Kakamas had got to a dead end; I said that the idea was that the places of people who had been rehabilitated would be taken up by other poor people who would have learnt to work there, and who have been taught to become agriculturists, and once those people had been rehabilitated they would have to give way and make room for others. I said that Kakamas had departed entirely from that idea. I further pointed out that in 1919 already a great many of the settlers had become independent, so much so that the Church had to invest £3,000 or £4,000 on their behalf. I said that that was not the object with which Kakamas was established. My hon. friend said nothing about that. I, together with the other members, signed the report but I said those points had to be emphasised. I also said that they need not be afraid to give people their deeds of transfer because they could place restrictions on those transfers so that only one man could have the property and he could not mortgage or otherwise encumber it. I admit that the question of the right of ownership is the kernel of all the difficulties at Kakamas and as long as the Church insists in its refusal to allow these people to have their legitimate rights in that connection the Church can never expect satisfaction and contentment at Kakamas. And as long as I am here to stand up for those people they can depend on my doing so on their behalf.

You are doing the same thing now?

Then the hon. member goes on to talk about the Deas Report of 1940 which I did not accept. Unfortunately I made a mistake at that time but I shall not make that mistake again. I made the Chairman of the Commission, namely, the Rev. Mr. Du toit, a member of the Commission of Investigation. I have said publicly, and I want to emphasise again, that the whole of the drafting of that report, the whole spirit, shows the hand of the Rev. Mr. Du toit.

How do you know that?

He is responsible for it; it may be the voice of Jacob but it is the hand of Esau.

Why did the others sign then?

The hon. member should not keep on interrupting me. I said that it was the Rev. Mr. Du Toit’s Report, and that he was responsible for it, but I would see to it that I did not make a mistake like that again. That is the reason why I refused to accept that report. My hon. friend has gone through my speeches which I made in the past in regard to Kakamas. He has all the speeches I have made against the way Kakamas is adMinistered, he has gone through them and he has framed his indictment against me.

No, the indictment which you have framed against the Church.

Yes, every one of those charges is correct. I am not trying to run away from a single one of them.

If that is so, then you have no reason to be afraid of an enquiry.

When the hon. member for Gordonia made his speech we kept perfectly quiet, but hon. members opposite are now behaving like a cat on hot bricks.

It’s becoming clear that you are not going to accept the proposal for a judicial commission.

The hon. member is often wrong in his predictions. I don’t think he has ever made a correct prophecy. The hon. member framed an indictment which contained twelve charges. I shall deal with each of them and there are a few which I want to deal with at once. I shall deal with the others later on in the course of my speech. Now, the first charge is that the only interest the Church has in Kakamas is in the shops. I shall deal with that later. Then there is the accumulation of huge profits which I shall also deal with later. Then there is this 7½ per cent. which has been added to the prices which I have protested against. Now let me explain this 7½ per cent. The war broke out in 1939 and as soon as war broke out the Labour Colony Commission put on this 7½ per cent.—it was the first body to do so. I think at first it was 10 per cent., but it was afterwards reduced to 7½ per cent. They increased the price of goods because They wanted to build up a reserve fund for the time when they would have to pay high prices. No business in South Africa took such steps and if they had done so later on, when the price regulations had been introduced, they would not have been fined only £8 and later £171 for a breach of the regulations, but they would perhaps have had to pay ten times as much. But what were the circumstances? In 1919 already I had an accountant on the Commission. He took 200 articles out of the shops and he found that the profits varied from 5 per cent. to 300 per cent. in some cases. These were huge profits, yet they came along and put on this 7½ per cent. and by doing that they took round about £4,500 out of the pockets of the people buying from them. As soon as they had collected that amount they took the 7½ per cent. off again. They have an enormous accumulated capital which now, according to my calculations, amounts to £141,000. They had a reserve fund of £7,500. Then they added 7½ per cent., which put a further reserve of £4,500 into their pockets. But out of whose pockets did they build up that Reserve Fund—first of all the £7,500, then the £141,000 and then again the £4,500? they built up those funds out of the pockets of the 250 settlers who are in that Labour Colony.

That’s too bad—that is a matter which has to be investigated, it is absolutely necessary.

My hon. friend now attacks me for having said that the settlers are not allowed to elect members to the school boards and to school committees. I quoted from the Act of Synod which I have before me. They are not allowed to elect representatives to the school boards. I originally said not to the school committees either, but I made a mistake and I immediately put that right.

That also is a charge which has to be gone into.

I said they did not have the ordinary rights of ordinary citizens of the country to elect representatives to the school boards. I also mentioned the school committees, but I immediately corrected my mistake. So far as the school boards are concerned I still maintain that they have not the right to elect representatives. They are not allowed to select their own predikant; there is no congregation of the Dutch Church here which has not got the right to select its own predikant, but in Kakamas the congregation is not allowed to do so. The predikant is appointed by the Labour Colony Commission.

It is perfectly clear that this matter has to be investigated.

I spoke about the strictness of the regulations. Those regulations are so strict that the people there have hardly any rights at all.

Parliament has approved of those regulations.

Well, let us see whether Parliament has approved of them. The next charge is that Kakamas is only being used for the purpose of establishing a safe investment, for the Church. I shall deal with that, too, later on, and I shall prove it. Further, that the accumulated profits do not only come out of the pockets of the settlers but also out of the pockets of officials in receipt of small salaries. I said that all those accumulated profits, the reserve funds and all the rest of it, come out of the pockets of the 450 settlers and of no one else. So far as the officials in receipt of small salaries are concerned I mentioned that the Church recently admitted their guilt in regard to having underpaid their officials to an amount of £239.

In one case?

No, it was for a number of officials; they paid a fine of £171. Those officials were underpaid, and if my hon. friend looks at the 1919 report he will see that we brought out a pretty comprehensive report about the low scales of salaries paid to officials in the shops. Now, may I be allowed to say this to the House. In that report it is stated that they had a fixed scale, more or less—there are a few exceptions—of £9 per month for a clerk or an assitant in the shops. Most of these people are married. In that report we ask how it is possible for these people to come out on £9 per month, and yet every one of them drives a motor car. We said that the pay was too small. And those scales, with very few changes, are still in force in Kakamas. I said that those officials, in respect of whom the Church has now signed an admission of guilt to the effect that it has been paying them too little, have been placed in an even more difficult position by the Church. When the representatives of the Church returned to Kakamas, after haying paid the fine, they wrote a letter which those officials had to sign; they went round to get those officials to sign that letter. It was a real whitewashing letter in which the officials stated that they were satisfied, that their pay was adequate, that they got a house, that they approved of what the Commission had done and that they were thoroughly satisfied. I say that I shall bring evidence to show that that letter was signed by a number of these people under compulsion.

You can bring that evidence before the Judicial Commission of Enquiry.

Two of those officials refused to sign. One of them said he would rather leave. Well, he gave notice and he actually left the Colony. So much for the lowly paid official. I say that where we are dealing with a concern making such huge profits—and they are huge profits —and their profits are excessive—the way the business is carried on is not in accordance with the orginal idea as to the profit which should be made. Later on I shall have some more to say about that. The position is that in consequence of these profits there is an accumulated capital of £141,000, a reserve of £7,500 and now again a further reserve of £4,500. That being the case they can at least pay their officials a decent wage, commensurate with the wages paid to people doing similar work. I say that they are not paying half of what an ordinary business concern pays. I therefore say that that money not only comes out of the pockets of the settlers, but it is also taken out of the pockets of the underpaid officials, to such an extent that even the court has had to interfere to see that justice is done. Now I come to the next charge, that the profits are used elsewhere. My hon. friend says that he does not know where I get that information. I shall tell him, where I get it from; I get it in the Report of the Labour Colony Commission. The next charge is that the Church restricts the establishment of farmers associations. So far as the farmers associations are concerned it is not only a question of the Church curtailing and restricting those associations. In their zeal and anxiety to protect and retain a monopoly of trade, the Church has refused to allow the settlers to establish a farmers’ association to market their products and sell them in the best possible way. For years and years they have been paying the settlers what they wanted to pay them for their products and those prices were very much below what the settlers could have got on the open market or through other channels. When I was there in 1919 one of them came to me and told me that he had threshed 50 bags of wheat, and while he was busy with the last bag the Labour Colony Commission’s lorries came along and loaded up 44 bags, leaving 6 bags behind for the settler. “they take my wheat, and they credit me with it, because you don’t get any cash.” they don’t pay a penny cash for products. When I was there in 1919 not one of the settlers was paid a penny in cash for anything he produced. They took the wheat ….

How did these people manage to live there?

I shall tell the hon. member. This particular man told me this: “They take my wheat and they leave me six bags. They credit me with 16s. per bag. When my six bags are finished I have to buy more wheat at the shop for £1 10s. per bag.” And that is how things were done in regard to all these products. The Kakamas farmers then came forward and said they were going to establish a farmers’ association for themselves, but obstacles were put in the way and the Church refused to give them permission. The State has given the Church more than 50,000 morgen of land to be kept in trust, and some of the best soil—even the islands—were included in those 50,000 morgen, but the Church refused to give their own settlers, their own people, the right to have a little bit of ground on which to build storage accommodation for their products: Those people who are supposed to be doing rescue work refuse to give the settlers a little bit of ground. So what happened? They had to go outside Kakamas, and the Minister of Railways was kind enough to give them a bit of land on which to put up a shed to store their products. But the Church went further. Every one of the settlers who took part in this farmers association was victimised. Every man was persecuted including two of the teachers, one of whom taught agricultural subjects in the school. Surely one can quite understand that it is a matter of the utmost importance for the school at Kakamas to have a bit of land under irrigation where the children can be taught agricultural subjects, but because that teacher, and another one, participated in organising the farmers’ association they were refused a piece of land for agricultural education.

Your candidate.

It does not matter who it was. Why cannot he be a candidate? They victimised those two teachers and they persecuted them; and how far did they go? They wrote to the Superintendent-General of Education to the effect that two of their teachers were taking part in a farmers’ association and were actively engaged in it which was not in the interests of the children and did not raise the prestige of the Labour Colony Commission, and they therefore asked for a commission of enquiry to be sent to investigate the position in regard to the activities of these two teachers. Four inspectors were immediately sent to Kakamas unlawfully.

Why do you say unlawfully?

Because the school committee should have made application and not the Labour Colony Commission. That is what the Ordinance provides.

But surely anyone is entitled to make a complaint.

Yes, but they asked for a commission. Well, the result was that the four inspectors had to return with their tails between their legs, so to speak, because they had no right to interfere in regard to this matter. But the Church went further. Any official—not only their own officials but any official who does not see eye to eye with them—is persecuted and victimised, be he a postmaster, a doctor, a policeman or a teacher. They don’t rest until that man, if he does not agree with them, has been worked out of his job and kicked out of Kakamas.

And what about Ministers?

No, I am the only one they cannot kick out. I can go where I like. The result of their attitude has been that the children have not received any agricultural education—and that simply because these two teachers had assisted in organising the agricultural society.

That’s a very serious charge to make.

They stop at nothing to secure their monopoly. But not only that. They also bought up trading rights in connection with surrounding farms because they were afraid that somebody might set up a shop outside Kakamas. And where did the money paid by them come from? That also came out of the pockets of the people of Kakamas. Now let me come to this point, that no money was paid out in cash. I have already said a few words about that. When I was there with the Commission of Enquiry in 1919 we arrived at the following conclusion—that the books of the Labour Colony Commission after a series of years—I don’t remember how many years—had been in such a state that they were destroyed. That was the evidence of the late Mr. Conradie who at that time was Superintendent at Kakamas. The books were in such a condition, as a result of neglect or ignorance, that they were destroyed.

Do you say there was dishonesty there?

I don’t say that, but the books were destroyed and they thereupon had to start building up new books with the data at their disposal. Up to that time not a single settler had received a penny in cash from the shop. If a man brought in his 50 bags of wheat the shop took that wheat at a price; the man could pay off his account then, or he could buy a few things, and for the balance they would give him a “good for” which the man then put in his pocket. They showed nothing in their books. They did not know how many of those “good for’s” were out—whether they represented £5,000 or £10,000—they were just scraps of paper. The position was such that if a man needed help, say, in connection with his wheat crop, he had to pay for that help in wheat. Instead of hiring a man at 3s. per day he had to pay two buckets of wheat because he had not a penny in cash. That was the position.

If you were to grant us a commission all these things would come to light.

They had not the slightest idea how many of those “good for’s” were outstanding. Can hon. members imagine the waste of money this might have led to? A man walks about with a bit of paper in his pocket and if he buys anything he pulls out a bit of paper and they deduct the value of what he has bought; that is how these people lived. I think I have now dealt with most points in the indictment and the other points I shall come back to.

That’s your indictment.

Yes, and I confirm it by proof.

You now want to do the work which the Commission has to do.

You have given no proof at all.

I said that the original intention in regard to Kakamas was—and I also said so in 1919—to take poor people there, to teach them to work, to try to make farmers of them, and once a man, had obtained sufficient experience he would leave the place and make room for somebody else. That is why it was called a Labour Colony. It was not a settlement. During the last few years the Labour Colony Commission has been calling these people “Colonists” but they were “labourers.” It was the object that Kakamas was to be a Labour Colony. I have been trying to find an interpretation of a Labour Colony, and the nearest I have been able to get is “Goedemoed.” there the church has also established a Labour Colony. I have obtained the details from the Department of Labour and this is what they say in regard to “Goedemoed”—

That also was the original intention in regard to Kakamas. I said so in 1919 and I again say that Kakamas has degenerated as a result of the method of administration which afterwards developed into a large colossal under taking for profit, to obtain a profitable investment of money at 5 per cent. I shall prove that just now. Kakamas has degenerated and departed from the original intention with which it was established, but let me revert again to the establishment of Kakamas. I want to paint the background against which we must look at the original establishment. In 1907 negotiations were started with the Government of the day for the establishment of Kakamas. I have a letter here dated the 10th January, 1907, which is signed by Rev. Mr. B. P. A. Marchand, a Commissioner, acting for the Dutch Reformed Church on behalf of and in charge of the Labour Colony. Mr. Marchand addressed that letter to Mr. Fuller, who in those days was Minister of Agriculture, and he drew the Minister’s attention to the fact that he, the Minister, on ground which had been reserved there, on 300 morgen, had four businesses, and he asked the Minister to close up those businesses, and said he would be willing to take over the icences and the businesses.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 12.15 p.m.

Afternoon Sitting.

When business was suspended I was explaining the original object for the establishment of Kakamas and I was referring to a letter which the Rev. Mr. Marchand at that time had written to the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. A. G. Fuller, in which he drew the Minister’s attention to the fact that on the 300 morgen reserved by the Government there were four shops, and in which he urged the Minister to give the people notice to go, adding that the Commission would be prepared to take over the licences. To all intents and purposes they asked for a business monopoly at Kakamas. This was on the 10th January, 1907. On the 27th March the Surveyor-General, on behalf of the Minister, wrote a long letter to the Rev. Mr. Marchand, and I think I shall have to read that letter—

1. (a) not to levy more than say 2½ per cent. profit on the total net value of all goods—the cost of transport and salaries of local shop assistants to be the only charges against the goods;
2. (b) To devote all profit arising from the shop on the erection of reading rooms and other permanent works undertaken to benefit the social status of the Settlement;
3. (c) To charge all customers alike, whether outsiders or inhabitants of the Labour Colony;
4. (d) never to refuse to sell for cash tendered.

I would, however, bring to your attention the fact that the Labour Colony’s store does not appear to have been satisfactorily conducted in the past. Definite complaints have reached the Government showing that on numerous occasions inhabitants of the Labour Colony have been unable to obtain at the store articles necessarily required by them which they had eventually to obtain from the traders on the Police Reserve.

I trust therefore that early steps will be taken to place the said store on a more businesslike footing and under more capable management.

The Government are meeting the wishes of the Labour Colony Authorities in this matter as much as lies in their power in order to further the Poor White reclamation scheme, but it must be definitely understood that the interests of the members of the Cape Mounted Police cannot be allowed to suffer by the creation of this monopoly in trade.

It appears from this letter that there was never any intention of making profits from these shops. Two and a half per cent. was laid down. On the 4th May, 1907, the Rev. Mr. Marchand wrote to the Surveyor-General as follows—

I particularly want to emphasise this. Here is a letter in which he promised that he would write within a fortnight and in which he gave an undertaking that he would build up the business on a co-operative basis. This was a solemn undertaking given by him. Here is another letter written to the Rev. Mr. Marchand on the 18th May—

In reply I have to say that the Government accepts the undertaking with the above amendment.

Six per cent. So far as that is concerned, the Labour Colony has completely got out of hand. I shall come back to that just now. Now here is another letter dated 31st August, 1907, also written to the Rev. Mr. Marchand—

Here I have a petition which was presented on behalf of the settlers in which they protested against the decision that the other businesses were to be closed as this would give the church a monopoly. This went to the Minister who informed the Rev. Mr. Marchand—

That is to say, all the profits were to be used for the establishment of a reading room and for the social uplift of the settlers.

That is to say, the profits would not exceed 6 per cent.

The settlers and other people at Kakamas were not satisfied with that. They protested and they sent a petition to Mr. Redmond Orpen—he apparently was their representative in Parliament, in which they protested against the absolute monopoly of the Church. They said that their interests would not be looked after and that they would suffer. Mr. Orpen went to the Minister and placed the petition before him. He thereupon wrote a long letter to these people. I do not propose reading the whole of it but only part of it—

And then he repeats the four conditions—

1. (1) That a profit of not more than 6 per cent. shall be levied on the net value of all goods, after allowing for cost of transport, deterioration of stock, bad debts and salaries of storekeeper and assistants.
2. (2) That the profit arising from the store shall be devoted to the erection of reading rooms, and other permanent works for the benefit of the social status of the Colony.

Again improving the social status of the settlers. Three and four are the same and I need not quote them. And then he goes on—

Here, again, is another letter written to the Rev. Mr. Marchand, still in 1907, to wit, on the 14th January, containing another protest against the monopoly, and in this letter the four conditions are repeated—

They also wanted to get rid of the law agent—

He again repeats the four conditions and so it goes on. Now, Mr. Speaker, I have read those quotations, and having mentioned all these matters, and in view of all I have said, that colossal profits have been made, that there has been an accumulation of capital, all of which came out of profits made from the settlers—after all these things we should remember that in those days an agreement was entered into and a solemn undertaking given to the Government in power at the time. I now say that they only interested themselves in the business and in the making of profit. I have even more reason to say so if I tell the House that today, after forty-five years, not a single reading room has been established at Kakamas. Recently there was some correspondence between the Rev. Mr. Du toit and myself in which I mentioned this.

Will the Government alter the building regulations?

After forty-five years hon. members now talk about building regulations. They build there with reeds and clay. An undertaking was given that reading rooms would be established, and now, after forty-five years, they want a change in the building regulations. I say that I recently had some correspondence with the Rev. Mr. Du Toit and in that correspondence I pointed out that no reading room had been built. His reply was that they first wanted to teach those people to farm and that after that reading rooms would be built. In subsequent correspondence he referred to the peculiar argument in regard to reading rooms, but none the less he said that it was their intention to do something. Not a single penny of these huge profits has been spent for that purpose. And now I ask the House this: Have they carried out those conditions? Have they carried out any of the conditions on which that Colony was handed over to them? I have a note here about co-operative societies but I do not propose going into that again because I have already discussed it. Now let me quote from a report handed into the Synod in 1940, and adopted by the Synod. I want to do so in order to prove that so far as the shop business is concerned they departed completely from their undertaking and from the object with which Kakamas was established. Now, here is the report which was made to the Synod— [translation]

Your Commission wishes to point out: (1) The financial policy was to a certain extent laid down in the Constitution of the Kakamas Labour Colony (Proclamation No. 163 of 1910, paragraph 7;

It was laid down in the clearest possible terms—

1. (2) The administration expenses of the Colony have never in the past been covered out of ordinary revenue, namely, out of stand rents and building leases. For the first time this year stand rents have covered administration expenses.

In the past the shop business covered all the expenses, and now they are getting sufficient by way of rents from these people to cover their administration expenses, so that they have their shop profits clear. They keep those shop profits untouched—

If I say that the profits on the shop from the start have amounted to thousands and thousands of pounds ….

How much?

I shall ask the Commission to investigate that. We had a series of years here during which all the profits went to the church by way of interest and redemption of capital—

1. (4) The profits from the shops have also been used to assist in redeeming the amount of the capital borrowed. In 1936 the capital owing by the A.K.K. to the Church Office in connection with Kakamas was £129,654. And in 1940 that amount had been reduced to £97,848.
2. (5) The net profit made out of the shops and out of the mill for the year ending 30th June, 1940, amounted to £16,626.

And the mill?

Yes, the whole of that is One enterprise—[translation]

So far as the future financial policy is concerned your Commission wishes to recommend (1) that the A.K.K. be instructed to direct matters in such a manner that the revenue and the expenditure of the administration will balance without the assistance of the profits from the shops.

These profits have to be kept intact—everything has to be placed on the erf holder.

When was the rent increased?

Let me read further—

1. (2) That the capital debt owing to the Church Office be reduced to an amount of £90,000, not including Rhenosterkop and that it be left at that amount at 5 per cent. interest.

Now, this is a very drastic recommendation, and a very drastic resolution. Huge profits are made, and those profits are used to pay the church an interest of 5 per cent. on the capital they have invested. But now they tell the people that no further redemptions of debt are to be made. The amount is to stay at £90,000. It amountş to this, that these people are turned into slaves. The profits are to be made out of them. No further debt redemption is to take place. Is that in accordance with the arrangement arrived at? Is that in accordance with the arrangement made with the Government when the Colony was established? So far as the future is concerned we find this recommendation—

Not in the interest of Kakamas or the Colonists. Those profits are to be used in the following way—

When I say that they are there only to make profits out of the shop then the proof is contained in the facts I have just mentioned. They dare not use the shop profits for other purposes than those which I have already mentioned. The agreement states that every penny is to be spent in the interest of the people of Kakamas, but they don’t want to use it for that purpose. They want to use it for “essential expansion of the shop business.” I said earlier on that they were not satisfied with a monopoly at Kakamas; they also went beyond Kakamas to buy trading rights from people outside so as to prevent these people from starting shops outside the Colony. And that was done with the money earned out of the shop business.

Who are those people?

I can give the names of those people; I have them here; I can lay my hands on them.

I only want to know the names.

Does the hon. member want to deny it? they wanted to use the money for “essential expansion of the shop business.” Now we come to (b)—

1. (i) In times of emergency and unexpected disasters.
2. (ii) For the development or expansion of the labour colonies as the A.K.K. may find necessary from time to time.

A reserve of £20,000! They already have a reserve of £7,500. Then they have the further reserve of £4,500 and the accumulated capital of £141,000. But it has to be made up to £20,000, to be invested with the Church Office. And are they going to pay 5 per cent. interest on that? We have already had a few disasters. There have been floods, but even before the floods went down telegrams were sent to the Government for help. They have all the money they need but the Government must come and help.

And did the Government help?

I shall tell the hon. member later on how much the Government has spent on helping these people there. I again want to draw attention to the fact that the reserve fund of £20,000 has to be employed as follows—[translation]

In times of emergency and for unexpected disasters, and for the development or expansion of the labour colony as the A.K.K. may think necessary from time to time.

They have never yet found it necessary to spend the money in Kakamas.

Can you give the amount?

No; they say the profits which are still to come ….

1. (c) That after this has been attended to and the Labour Colony has derived all reasonable advantages from the shop profits the balance will also be applied for the purpose of other Church uplifting and poor relief work in connection with the neglected section of our people as undertaken by the general Poor Relief Commission.

They now take this money from these poor people to devise schemes to establish other Colonies. And then it goes on—

The poor people at Kakamas have never been given any aid out of the shop profits. Every penny that has been spent has been debited, and on that 5 per cent. interest has had to be paid, and the capital has been paid off. Capital and interest have been paid in full. Every penny has had to be paid back. These people have never been given any help— they have not even been given these miserable reading rooms which they should have been given. I mention these facts to prove that these people have never been given any assistance. Now let me refer to someting else. For a number of years the Labour Colony Commission has been making appeals to the various congregations throughout the country asking them to contribute by means of, collections for the poor at Kakamas. And those people were poor. Collections were made, and I put a question in this House to the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) who at that time was their spokesman, and I asked him how much money had been collected through these collections. He mentioned the figure of £17,000. On investigation it was found that it was a little over £16,000. I then asked him how that money had been used—was that money which was given for charity, which was collected in threepenny pieces and sixpennies in collection plates, used on behalf of these people at Kakamas? People were very anxious to give because the Church told the public that these people at Kakamas needed help, and the public, through collections, contributed to render charity to these people who were in need. I wanted to know whether the money was used for that purpose, or whether it was debited in the Church books and spent as capital, on which the Colonists had to pay interest and redemption? I put that question but I got no reply. Afterwards I again asked that same question outside this House. In “Die Suiderstem” later on there was correspondence between the Rev. Mr. Du toit and myself and I again asked how that money had been spent. I asked him to give me an explicit reply but he did not give it. He simply said that the money had been spent for the purpose for which it had been collected. That was no reply to the question I asked. I asked him to give an unequivocal reply and to say how the money had been spent. Had it been added to the capital of the Church at Kakamas which had to be repaid and on which interest had to be paid? He replied to my other question but he did not reply to this question. The correspondence went on and in one letter I asked this— [Translation]

I want the Rev. Mr. Du Toit to explain, and to answer definitely the question which I have already asked in Parliament. Has the amount which was collected been added to the capital debt on Kakamas on which the Church has received its interest in full? Has the A.K.K. treated this amount as its own capital which it has included as an advance, which has to be repaid together with the interest by the Settlement? Will the Rev. Mr. Du toit answer this question, yes or no.

Yes or no.

That’s the old question again: Do you still beat your wife?

That’s a foolish remark. I asked him to say yes or no and I am putting the same question in regard to the amount which the State has written off in respect of Kakamas. It is a matter of public importance and the public want to know. I have never had a reply to that question. It is a matter on which we want to be clear. I am making no accusations but it is a question which we are entitled to ask and we want a reply, yes or no.

Appoint a judge, and he will be able to make an investigation.

The Rev. Mr. Du Toit says they built schools and that they attended to the spiritual education of the settlers, and so on, with that money. Well, the Labour Colony Commission has not built a single school out of its own money without collecting full interest and a high rent. So far as they were concerned it was a good investment, and the position today is that all these buildings—the Commission has built some of them—have been bought from them by the Education Department of the Cape Province. The only thing still belonging to the Labour Colony Commission is a hostel of the high school for girls, and that has now been bought at a high price. They got high prices and high rents for a long period of years. The amount which the Department has invested in schools at Kakamas is £27,397.

And how much has been invested in the Roman Catholic schools?

What has that to do with it?

That is the position in regard to the schools. Now I come to the amount which the Government has advanced and which it has written off on those advances. The Government has advanced a total amount of £58,957, and on that it has written off £29,840. That is a large amount of money, and it is additional to the amounts which have been spent on schools. When the Rev. Mr. Du toit says that the money has been spent for the schools I have proof here that they spent nothing on the schools which they did not get back. They got every penny back, interest and capital. They have done nothing for the reading rooms. Now what have they done for charity? Large accumulated profits have been made and now I want to quote from the Minutes of the Synod. I want to refer to their expenditure for four years to show what they have spent on charity at Kakamas. In 1937 they spent £16 6s. 2d. In 1938 they spent £9 12s. 9d.; in 1939 an amount of £10 18s., and in 1940 an amount of £13 3s. 8d. That is for charity. But I also find that the following amounts have been provided out of the pockets of the colonists and out of the shop profits : an honorarium to the Synod funds of £61 for each of these years. Grants to Church Councils of £123, £150, £125 and £135 respectively for those four years. The Rev. Mr. Du toit said they had to spend money on school buildings and spiritual work, but even that money came out of the shop profits and was paid by the settlers. I said that these people had been deprived of all their civil rights. They have no civil rights. I go further and say that they have no freedom of religion. I know it is stated that I attacked the Church. I am a member of the Church and I have the fullest right as a member of the Church to raise my voice if things go wrong.

A lonely voice.

Let me give an instance. In the correspondence between myself and the Rev. Mr. Du Toit I pointed to the activities of the Ossewabrandwag parsons who stood for National Socialism and I said: “Look here, the Synod recently proclaimed a ban on Freemasonry and on Communism.”

Are you a Mason?

Do you belong to the Broederbond?

Yes; but answer my question.

I say they banned Communism—I do not say I approve of Communism—but I asked the Rev. Mr. Du Toit : “Why do you condemn Communism, why do you not also condemn National Socialism?” And his reply was: “We are rather nervous of doing that because we should then perhaps have to praise the National Socialistic economic principles and policy and that would bring the Church into politics”. Here again I say with all emphasis that National Socialism stands for nothing but the religion of the heathen, and if my Church has departed from the right course and if there is anything wrong I have every right to draw attention to it. The Ossewabrandwag has got into things there and no person who does not belong to the Ossewabrandwag has a chance of making a living there.

Where do you get all that?

I have a letter here from a man who had conscientious scruples, he refused to have his child baptised and he refused to contribute to the Church funds, and he also refused to attend Church services. He received a letter in which he was told this—

In that same letter the Rev. Mr. W. L. Steenkamp says this—

Now, what are Regulations 19 (a) and (b)? this is what they say—

1. (a) The observation of the Christian Sabbath Day is compulsory; and
2. (b) The public Church services as well as the hours of prayer and Sunday Schools will, as far as possiblbe, be regularly attended by the colonist and his family.

They wanted to eject him from the Colony; there was a plan to get rid of him. Now let me come to Rhenosterkop. I only want to say that the statements I have made regarding the degeneration of the administration of Kakamas in nearly every respect have been proved by me. I say that huge profits are being made at Kakamas and Rhenosterkop. They get subsidies from the Government but they make huge profits out of the Settlements. The settler is only a small cog in the great enterprise. If he submits he is permitted to exist there, but the assets of the Church are increasing all the time. The Settlements have been turned into a huge profit-making enterprise. The A.K.K. has received all its assets free of charge from the State and collections have been made from the congregations, subsidies have been received from the Government, and the labour of the workers has been subsidised. The settlers are permitted to exist and to work if they submit quietly, but always with a view to the assets of the Church being increased and improved and the investments of the Church showing profits.

Who wrote that letter?

I now come to Rhenosterkop. Here I again have the Minutes of the Synod and here is a report made to the Synod when it bought Rhenosterkop—

We shall come to that rescue work. 1,000 morgen at £75 per morgen is £75,000—

They were there for a present to the Church—

Here is a farm which costs £15,000, and the State lent £10,000, of which £5,000 had already been written off at that stage. The Department of Social Welfare allowed them the services of 30 subsidised labourers to level the 1,000 morgen, to make that land worth £75 per morgen. The Department paid 4s. 8d. per labourer by way of Subsidy and the Church with all its money and all its accumulated profits, and its rescue work, only added 10d., which increased the wage to 5s. 6d. Until December last the Government, by way of subsidy had paid £45,752 for the levelling of the land. The 25 small houses which were built there cost £4,720. The amounts paid out for invalidity allowances totalled £4,892, and administrative expenses amounted to £280, making a total of £55,615 in connection with Rhenosterkop for the levelling of 1,000 morgen of land. Hon. member must remember this: “This is a safe investment for the Church.” And what is the position of the labourers? What are the conditions under which they live? Let me quote from a report put in by an inspector of labour. He says this—

And then he enumerates a bucket and a half of boermeal at 5s. 6d. per bucket; 12 lbs. of meat at 8d.; 2 lbs. of coffee, sugar, fat, salt, rice, dried peas, medicines, 2s. 6d.; making a total of £1 6s. 6d. Then he goes on—

From the date the Government put these labourers there large amounts were contributed by way of subsidy and every penny the labourers received there went through the shops of the Labour Colony.

I suppose you wanted them to buy in the Jewish shops.

The inspector in his report goes on to say—

Ah!

Oh, yes, I am coming to the blankets—

Will you tell us whether the conditions prevailing today are still the same.

Why don’t you tell us when that report was made?

They talk about blankets which I am supposed to have given, and they say I gave those blankets before the elections. Those blankets were distributed a fortnight after the elections.

But when were they promised?

That makes no difference. Those poor Afrikaners, among whom rescue work has to be done, are living in conditions of starvation and misery. The Labour Colony Commission makes them pay 5s. 6d. for a bucket of meal. How long can a man with a wife and ten children exist on that? They live under conditions of misery and starvation. And then those houses— they are nothing but hovels, they are made of reeds, cut in the Orange River. And do hon. members realise that the Labour Colony Commission charges them 6d. per 100 reeds to put up those houses? These houses are plastered with clay. When I was there it was mid-winter and bitterly cold, and I saw the conditions under which these people were living, and I sent fifty blankets. And hon. members now resent my having done so! We have been told that heavy expenses were incurred to build a school. It was reported to the Synod that a school had been put up for 140 children. Let me tell hon. members how that school was built and what it was made of. That school was made of reeds and clay with a corrugated iron roof and an earth floor with rubber-tex covering. In winter the children cannot stand the cold and in summer the place is unbearably hot, yet they say they put up a school for 140 children, children who would otherwise have got no education, children who had been rescued from destitution. That school cost the Labour Colony Commission £180. It has been let to the Department of Education for £12 5s. per month. £147 per year. In addition to that the Education Department pays £2 per month for water. £24 per year—a total of £171. That is what they are getting for a building constructed of reeds and clay with earth floors. And yet they say they spent money on a school building! They are making money out of the misery and poverty of those people. The interest on the £180 worked out at 81⅔ per cent.

But surely that is against the law?

Appoint a Judicial Commission. Then you can prove it.

Hon. members are urging me to appoint a Judicial Commission; they are not prepared to believe a magistrate. I want to ask them: Since when are they prepared to accept a judge’s decision? When a judge found the Rev. Mr. Vorster guilty the Leader of the Opposition (Dr. Malan) said that the Rev. Mr. Vorster was innocent and that the judge was wrong.

When did I say that? You should not tell stories here.

When the Editor of “Die Transvaler” was found guilty by a judge the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) said in this House that the judge was wrong and prejudiced.

If a Judicial Commission is appointed you can be taken under cross-examination.

If one takes all these items together, the £147 and the £24 for water—the revenue from the building— it amounts to an interest of 95 per cent. Is not that good business? Is not that a good investment? What worries me is that under the cover of rescue work, these poor people are treated in that way, that they have to sleep under hessian bags, while the Commission makes huge profits. They are annoyed because I gave blankets to these people. I hope these people there will notice what is going on. They starve in winter, yet all the time the Church draws interest on its investment—interest amounting to 95 per cent.; remember, the Church contributes only 10d. a day to the wages of these people—yet if anyone dares give blankets to these people he is criticised.

Just before the elections; you would not have thought of them otherwise.

The Rev. Mr. Du toit visited Vaal-Hartz recently. An article which appeared on a front page of “Die Burger” had to be withdrawn. He said that they were going to give the Vaal-Hartz people £300 to buy books for their cultural education. They want to give Vaal-Hartz £300 for books while their own people at Kakamas are dying of starvation and misery. Vaal-Hartz could buy up Kakamas.

Was that just before the elections?

I believe it was just after the elections. All they are out for is money. Of the forty-eight holdings on Rhenosterkop the Labour Colony Commission has kept back eight holdings of six morgen each to cultivate themselves for their own benefit. They have no right to do so. The money was not given for that purpose. The school which cost £180 was built with labour subsidised by the Government. I want to refer to a few more points to draw attention to the activities of the Ossewabrandwag at Kakamas.

And the Broederbond.

Yes, and the Broederbond too.

And the Freemasons.

Are you accusing the Freemasons of subversive activities? I accuse the Broederbond of such activities.

You are undermining the Church. Are you a Freemason?

I am. There was a foreman there named De Wet. He was a Field Cornet of the Ossewabrandwag and his wife was a Field Cornet too, and the Superintendent is an adjutant of the Ossewabrandwag, and several members of the Labour Colony Commission are O.B.’s.

When was that?

I am talking about last year. De Wet was the foreman and every Friday he had to pay out the labourers with Government money. And what did he do? During working hours he brought them together and before paying them he read the constitution of the Ossewabrandwag to them and he told them that those who wanted to join up could do so now at the table, and that it would cost them 3s. each. Those were poor people earning 5s. 6d. per day. The money was handed to De Wet. Those who did not join up were marked. We know about these Braaivleisaande there. They slaughtered animals there and labourers were allowed on the 15,000 morgen of veld of Rhenosterkop to bring cattle together for slaughter purposes. One of the members of the Labour Colony Commission, Mr. Brink, as commandant of the Ossewabrandwag had previously written a threatening letter and said that they were to treat the Ossewabrandwag members well and support them, otherwise action would be taken against them. He went along and held meetings at Sandrivier. All these people were O.B.’s and they had their braaivleis nights; some of these people got permission to do work in connection with the O.B. and some of them were paid with Government money. There was one man who was pro-Government—he was a man by the name of Carlson, and Mr. De Wet wrote a letter to the superintendent in which he said—

Mr. Beyers thereupon wrote to the Minister and supported the request for Carlson to be removed and Carlson was removed. When the Minister got to know of De Wet’s activities he said: “Unless you send De Wet away I am going to withdraw the subsidies.” Now I say that unless one is a Broederbonder, or a member of the Ossewabrandwag, one has no hope at Kakamas. It is a dictatorship; it is a reign of terror of the worst kind. There is no political freedom there, there is no civil freedom at Kakamas, and those conditions cannot be tolerated. Perhaps I have talked for a little longer than I had intended to.

Go on.

But I have shown that Kakamas has completely departed from the original agreement and the terms on which it was established. I want to move an amendment, and let me say this in the event of our not coming to a vote before the time for this motion lapses, that my intention in any case is to appoint a Commission. I move—

1. (1) the manner in which the Labour Colony Commission has carried out its obligations undertaken to the Government in 1907, that, in return for obtaining a trading monopoly in the Labour Colony—
   1. (a) it would not levy a profit of more than 6 per cent. on the nett value of all goods sold in its stores after making allowance for cost of transport, deterioration of stock, bad debts and salary of storekeeper and assistants;
   2. (b) it would devote all profit arising from the shop on the erection of reading rooms and other permanent works undertaken to benefit the social status of the Settlement;
2. (2)
   1. (a) in how far the present system of trading at the Kakamas Labour Colony is in the interests of the Colony in general and in the interests of the Colonists in particular, whether the present arrangement should continue or what changes, if any, in this direction should be made in the interests of the Colony and the Colonists; and further
   2. (b) whether the said trading should not be on a co-operative basis;
3. (3) the extent to which the principles contained in the constitution of the Kakamas Labour Colony as set forth in Proclamation No. 163 of 1910, issued in terms of Act No. 10 of 1909 (Cape) have been given effect to and whether the said principles are satisfactory and, if not, to propose alterations;
4. (4) the management of the Labour Colony and the policy followed by its founders since its establishment;
5. (5) in how far a Labour Colony worked on the lines of the Kakamas Colony serves to meet the purpose of the social reclamation of indigent whites who have become impoverished, or become degenerated, or who are becoming impoverished, or are degenerating, and who are becoming a burden on the State; what further or additional steps should be taken to produce the best results at the least possible cost, and in how far the system requires modification, alteration, or extension;
6. (6) what arrangements should be made for the further advancement of persons in a labour colony, who have proved themselves—
   1. (a) fit to be independent agricultural settlers;
   2. (b) unsuitable as agricultural settlers;
7. (7) the future constitution, administration and management of the Labour Colony, as also matters pertaining to education, public health, trade, agricultural policy, marketing of produce, freehold title of land and other matters in relation to the well-being of the Colony;
8. (8) in how far the financial statements submitted by the Labour Colony reflect the correct position and how monies collected by public subscriptions have been utilised in the development of the Colony.

The Commission to have power to have access to all books and documents of the Labour Colony and the Labour Colony Commission.”

He is afraid of a judge.

You yourselves do not believe in a judge.

I second. I think certain things have been revealed here today of which I would be ashamed if they were true. The majority of us belong to the same church, but certain things were done here today in the name of the church which ought to be investigated, and we will investigate them.

Why not by a judge?

The hon. member asks why not by a judge. Is he afraid of a magistrate?

A judge can sift the facts better than a magistrate.

The Minister is afraid of a judge.

The Minister is not afraid of a judge. Let me tell those hon. members that I know why they are afraid of a magistrate. It is because one of their front benchers was found guilty of perjury by a magistrate, and they would not accept that.

What did a judge say about your Minister?

I am sorry that we have to cast reflections on one another. But hon. members on the other side started it.

Who started it?

I hope hon. members will come back to the question before the House.

This motion ….

Who are the other members of the commision?

I shall be glad if hon. members on the other side will allow me to speak, but as the Minister has said, they are like a lot of cats on hot bricks; they dare not allow me to speak. Certain things were revealed here as having been done in the name of the church, and I would be ashamed if that were so.

If it were so!

I know that tomorrow “Die Burger” will give an account of the attack which was made here on the Dutch Church, and I know that many of the things which the Minister said will not be reported. We cannot allow a commission to do these things in the name of the church. I am a member of that church, and the Minister is a member of that church. I think the Minister has rendered a great service to the country in connection with a matter about which we continually read in the newspapers, and in connection with which hon. members on the other side are continually accusing the Minister of having attacked the church. Let us get at the truth once and for all. The Minister, in a very capable manner, has explained everything here—the conditions on which the church got the land, what they paid for it and what they had to do. But those conditions were not observed. The co-operative policy is a good policy. Hon. members on the other side are all in favour of co-operative societies. I know there was a time when they were against them—also the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker). To what co-operative societies does he belong today?

To many, if you want to know.

These things must be investigated. When the report of that commission is submitted, I hope that the Government will take steps to protect the people against those misdeeds ….

Who is committing misdeeds?

Those misdeeds, whereby money was taken from these poor people. They were exploited.

The commission must first prové that misdeeds were committed.

We shall await the report of the commission.

And you already believe that misdeeds were committed.

I am not going to say anything else. The Minister expressed himself very clearly. He introduced his motion, and I am seconding it, and we are not going to anticipate the report of that commission. The Minister has placed his case before Parliament, and we shall await the judgment of that commision.

Who are the members of that commission?

I am sure that this day and the action of the hon. Minister of Lands will go down as one of the most scandalous days in the history of this House.

Order, order!

Order, order! The hon. member must withdraw that statement.

May I then put it this way? It will go down as one of the days on which that body which is nearest the heart of the Afrikaner nation as such was besmirched and stained in a most irresponsible way. If ever I was convinced that Herr Hitler was right in Germany when he said that freemasonry must be banned from the world, I was convinced of it today. The Minister comes here and talks of undermining. We have seen how he as a freemason, as a so-called member of freemasonry undermined a body (the church) ….

Which he never enters.

When a man on a cold day such as this speaks here and he has to wipe drops of perspiration from his brow, as the Minister had to do today, it is proof that he is saying things which he knows are not ….

Order, order!

What did he say?

The hon. member must not go further.

May I put it this way? He knows that he is saying things of which he has no evidence.

Which are not true.

Order, order!

Another sad phenomenon which we experienced this afternoon was this, that the hon. Minister went out of his way to drag out his speech as long as he possibly could. He referred to all sorts of papers and documents from the old days. He based his arguments on things that happened in 1907, and he wasted quite a few minutes every time in coming to the next point. Why? Because he knew that those scandalous accusations which he made against the Dutch Reformed Church would be refuted by this side of the House, and he did not want to give this side of the House an opportunity to refute those charges. He knows very well that neither he nor his Government will grant Government time for the further discussion of this matter.

The commission will investigate that.

Let me just say this to the hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler) that if he does not want to be branded as a hypocrite in the eyes of his countrymen, he must not talk about this matter.

I will not allow an exOssewabrandwag general to say that to me.

The Minister comes along and moves that a commission be appointed. What sort of commission? The Minister comes here with the excuse that this side of the House does not want to accept the judgment of a judge, and he comes here and throws the whole matter out of gear. He wants a different type of commission. He tells us who the chairman of that commission will be, but we are not told who the other members of the commission will be. I want to predict who at least two of those members will be. The very first one will be a certain Mr. A. D. Collins, defeated S.A.P. candidate for Gordonia, who is still licking his wounds, and the second will be a certain Mr. Louw Steytler.

And a certain Kentridge.

When we know these people as we have learned to know them, I think it will be agreed that we shall not be able to attach the least value to the report which they bring out. That commission will be nothing but a commission of political agents, a number of “yes-men” who will confirm the accusations which were made here. We are dealing with a very serious matter. We are dealing here not only with the affairs of Kakamas, but through the action of the hon. Minister today, he is bringing into discredit the Dutch Reformed Church of this country. He was engaged in sapping the church.

And undermining it.

He is doing so in a manner which you will not allow me to say. The church which means so much to us as Afrikaans-speaking people in this country, that church which has done so much for us in the past, must today be dragged through the mud by people—well, I wonder when last they were in church.

In Philipstown he never goes near a church.

To come back to the matter which is the subject of this dispute, the establishment of the Labour Colony in Kakamas—the church, a body which existed years before this Government, which could see ahead what was required, as in this case it saw ahead what was required at a time when the Government of the country was asleep and did nothing—the church came along and said : “We must make a start with this matter because we realise that the farming population is an indispensible section of the community in this country, and for that reason we must try to uplift those people.” Now the Minister tells us that the only object of the Kakamas scheme was that the people had to be taught how to farm. And thereafter? He then wants to throw them out onto the veld. Did the hon. Minister or any government of this country at the time when Kakamas was established provide a refuge for those people? This proves very clearly that what the Minister said here is not only a figment of his imagination, but that there is absolutely no foundation for it. How can one throw these people out without giving them some other refuge? In addition to that there was this principle, whether the people who would be placed on those lands should receive full transfer. We heard today from the Minister—and he has said this in the past—that a condition of slavery has arisen at Kakamas. We heard him ascribe it to this evil, that the people could not obtain unencumbered possession of the land. Is his memory so short that he forgets that that was laid down as one of the provisions in his new Land Settlement Act? It seems to me that this Government is a wonderful government. One cannot always rely on what it says, whether hon. members on that side want to admit it or not. I have here a report which was issued by one of our departments, a department which carried out exhaustive investigations into farming and the reconstruction of farming after the war. This report was issued only the other day, and this is what the Department says—

Here one of the Departments which has more to do with the promotion of our farming than any other Department, states that it recommends the system which prevails at Kakamas today. But the Minister tells us that that is a system which only promotes slavery. The Minister came here and made a number of accusations. Unfortunately time does not allow me to go into all those accusations, and I want to express the hope that the Minister who takes this matter so much to heart, will influence the Government to grant extra Government time for the discussion of this matter so that we can get at the full truth. I just want to deal with a few of the accusations which the Minister made here. He told us in his speech that the church, in so far as the children of the settlers at Kakamas are concerned, does not look after them. What has he done for the children of the settlers at Vaal-Hartz?

Schools have been built for them.

Can the Minister deny that I personally as well as others pleaded with him to come to the assistance of those people as far as schools were concerned? He knows that. He knows that the State allowed the divisional councils to assume the responsibility to meet the requirements of those children.

And they had to attend school in a galvanised iron building.

There is a beautiful building today.

Even today he is not meeting them in that respect. He tells us that at Kakamas there are no school commissions. I wonder what the Minister really thinks. I have here the report of the last commission of enquiry which served in 1940. This is his own commission. Amongst a number of people who served on that commission, there is only one man who does not see eye to eye with the Minister, and that is the Rev. P. du Toit. The rest are all followers of his, and what do they say in this report? they say— [Translation]

There is already a measure of self-control in the colony. The present local forms of mangement consist of a local Commission of Supervision, a School Board and two School Commissions.

The Minister has forgotten that.

They go on to say—

Are you not ashamed of yourself now?

Then the Minister comes along and makes these accusations against the church. He tells us, in all seriousness on the floor of this House that there is no such thing as a school commission at Kakamas.

I have never said anything of the kind.

The Minister himself does not know what he says sometimes. But now I want to ask him what type of school commission there is at Vaal-Hartz? It is a school commission which he, as Minister of Lands, personally appointed.

That is not true.

He is a poor Hitler.

I think if we have to make investigations, we must not only make investigations into the affairs at Kakamas, but also the affairs of the settlements which fall under the Minister of Lands. The Minister goes further. He tells us that there are no farmers’ associations at Kakamas. He says the church will not allow them there. Why does the Minister not want to make investigations to ascertain what the true facts are? Why does he listen only to the tales which are carried to him by the defeated S.A.P. candidate for Gordonia? If he loves the church he will not make this type of charge on the floor of the House. And the church has always encouraged the farmers’ associations at kakamas; they had these associations there. But when some of those farmers’ associations degenerate into a political movement—perhaps this is also a freemasonry movement—this type of movement which undermines the authority of the church—it stands to reason that no body, whatever its nature, will tolerate anything of that kind. And it was only in those cases where a farmers’ association engaged in work which it should not have done, but other types of subversive work, that the church said it would not be allowed on the settlement. But the Minister told us of a certain man who wanted to give agricultural tuition at Kakamas, and that he was not allowed to do so. We asked who that person was, but he would not give his name. It is the same Mr. A. D. Collins. It was no more than right that he should leave; but why? It was because he did not do his work but preached politics instead. He started to establish political organisations instead of doing his work as a teacher, and as a result of that things were made uncomfortable for him and he had to leave. The Minister goes on to say that the salary paid to the officials is one-third of what they ought to get. The Minister must really have a very poor opinion of the mentality of the members of this House to make a statement of that kind. Just imagine, the officials are getting one-third of what they ought to get! In that case, what are these people doing there? But what are the facts? In a few cases the church would have liked to bring about a change, but they cannot do so because these people do not want to leave. They want to stay there.

I have had many applications from people who want to leave and go to Vaal-Hartz.

And we know of many applications from people who want to leave the Minister’s settlements to come to Kakamas.

Mention one case.

There is such a case at the moment where a man wants to make a change. The Minister raved about certain officials who are paid so badly that they cannot make ends meet. Now I want to read to the House what the true state of affairs is. On the 23rd December, 1943, shortly after the Minister had made this accusation in connection with the payment of these officials, the officials themselves drew up a letter which was signed by 77 of them. They sent this letter to “Die Suiderstem.” But up to the present that paper has not printed it.

Because we knew that it was written under compulsion.

No, it is because they did not want to reveal the other side of the picture to their readers. The Minister comes here and makes this serious charge, without an iota of evidence in support of the statements he made here. The only evidence he adduced was borrowed from the year 1907. Now I want to ask—I do not say that certain things did not happen in the management which might have been avoided—is it right and fair and is it honest to take the position in the year 1907 to prove the conditions which existed at the settlement in the year 1940? That is what the Minister does in order to save himself from the position in which he finds himself as a result of these irresponsible charges which he made. I wish I had the time to read the whole of this letter which was written by the officials of Kakamas. But in the circumstances I shall quote only a sentence here and there. Inter alia, they state—[Translation]

If our salaries are compared with the salaries paid in any other businesses of this kind, it will be apparent that we are not as lowly paid as people are given to under stand …. We should like to bring to the notice of the public a few facts to which reference is never made. While employees are granted fourteen days leave under the Act, every European employee of the Labour Colony of Kakamas receives twenty days per annum on full pay …. That has been in operation for twenty years.

Does that look like slavery? The second point is this—

Then they ask—

They go on to say—

In spite of the fact that in terms of the law the cost of living allowance was only payable as from the 18th June, 1943, they received it as from January in that year, and then the Minister says that these people are perishing of misery, poverty and starvation. They go on to say—

Then they say that it is not necessary to mention the further privileges which they receive, because this in itself is sufficient to show that they are not being oppressed or exploited. They go on to say that every day the newspapers are full of reports of contraventions of the price regulations, and I challenge the Minister to keep a business going and to keep himself acquainted with all these regulations which are altered overnight.

Why is he not equally concerned about the Jews and other businesses when they contravene the price regulations?

No, I suppose they are also freemasons, and moreover they do not belong to the Dutch Reformed Church. The Minister made great play here of the enormous profits which were made out of the shops. But there is a Price Controller to see to it that that does not happen. The Minister is therefore not only making a charge against the church but also against the officials of the Government. Very well, if those are the conditions, we say that he must give us a commission, consisting of the highest authority, to make investigations into these things, so that they can be rectified. We want such an enquiry to be undertaken, because if the position is as stated here by the Minister, then I do not want to put my foot into the Dutch Reformed Church. I am convinced that it is not true, and I heartily support the motion of the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie), and I want to make an appeal to the Minister to appoint a commission of that standing. If we get such a commission which could then thoroughly investigate all aspects of this case, we shall get a report of which we can take notice, and not the type of report which we know in anticipation will be the report of a number of disappointed political agents.

At 4.10 p.m. (while Mr. Olivier was addressing the House), 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 29th March.

The House thereupon proceeded to the consideration of Government business.

I move—

This Bill really is a very innocent little Bill and I do hope that my word will be accepted for it and not like the other day, when I introduced a very innocuous little Bill it lead to a discussion of native affairs almost from the year one. I hope I shall be given an easy passage. This Bill provides for the transfer to the Public Service of certain employees of the United transkeian territories General Council. As hon. members know, under the Native trust and Land Act No. 18 of 1936, the South African Native Trust was constituted with the Governor General as Trustee, whose functions have been delegated to the Minister of Native Affairs. That Act further vested in the trust all Crown land in the scheduled native areas and the released areas, prescribed in the Schedule to the Act. The effect of this was that all native locations and reserves which had hitherto been Crown land and all land acquired for native settlement became the property of the Trust. Included in this land are all the locations in the Transkeian territories, comprising the whole of those territories except the European townships and some European farms in a few districts, like Mount Currie, Matatiele, Umzimkulu and Umtata. In order to carry out the functions of the Trust the Department of Native Affairs has created a large staff of technical officers, such as agricultural officers, engineers, overseers, and irrigation officers, to control and develop the land belonging to the Trust, and to educate natives in better methods of agriculture and stock raising; and to carry out many other services such as water supplies, reclamation and fencing, afforestation, improvement and limitation of livestock and many other matters. These officers operate throughout the Native Areas of the Union except in the Transkeian Territories, where the General Council has its own technical staff. Actually the General Council in those territories was the first to initiate services designed to foster agricultural development and to provide engineering services amongst the natives in the reserves. It began in a small way over thirty years ago and today it has a proud record of achievement in the service of the native people. It has built up an efficient body of technical officers. It has estatblished three flourishing schools of agriculture. The General Council has, in fact, blazed the trail and been the forerunner of the trust which came into being nearly thirty years later. The operations of the Trust, however, are Union wide and its ramifications are such that in the natural course of events its functions have not only overshadowed the General Council but many of the services in the locations undertaken by the Council will be absorbed by it. We have also the anomalous position that while the land comprising the locations in the territories belongs to the Trust the agricultural and engineering services in those locations are being undertaken by officers paid by the Council and who are not under Government control. I do not wish it to be understood that the Council’s officers are not competent to continue with these services. On the contrary, I wish to place on record the appreciation of the Government of the good work done by the Council in a difficult field of development. It has, however, been clear to the Government for some time that with its limited means the Council cannot provide sufficient staff or finance the services contemplated for restoring the Transkeian territories. These territories which comprise one of the most fertile areas in the Union are fast becoming eroded and denuded owing to overstocking and bad methods of cultivation, and proposals on a large scale are being considered to save the country from further destruction. To carry out these measures the Government will have to provide large sums of money for fencing the locations, the improvement and protection of water supplies, restoration of eroded areas and other services on a large scale, which will be far beyond the Council’s means. In fact, it has been necessary for the Trust to make substantial annual grants to the Council to enable it to carry out work on trust land in the territories. When the trust proceeds with its programme of reclaiming the locations, it will, in any case, have to provide additional technical staffs whose duties will overlap those of the Council officers, and an undesirable state of affairs will result. It is the responsibility of the trust to undertake these services and not the Council. Not only will the Council be relieved of the salaries of the officers transferred amounting to some £15,000 annually, but the officers will benefit by transfer to a larger service with wider scope for advancement, and better pension benefits. Hon. members will recall that when the Trust was constituted in 1936 its technical officers were trust officers as distinct from Public Servants but these officers were transferred to the Public Service by Act No. 17 of 1938. The transfer of the General Council technical officers is thus a natural furtherance of the same principle. The Bill is so framed as to give the officers concerned the choice of transfer to the Public Service or of being retired by the General Council. In order that there may be no misunderstanding or discontent in the future over the position these people are going to take in the public service in so far as promotion, seniority and the rest of it is concerned, the Secretary for Native Affairs had a conference with the Chairman of the Public Service Commission. The matter was fully gone into and an agreement reached between them, and I would like, with your permission, Sir, to read to you the agreement that was arrived at between the Native Affairs Department and the Public Service Commission. I would like this to go on record as it provides the basis on which the transfer is being made—

There is only one other thing to add. These proposals were fully discussed by the Transkeian Territories General Council during its last Session, and they agreed to this transfer taking place, and in order to place that on record I want to read the resolution that was taken by that Council in 1943—

Motion put and agreed to.

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

HOUSE IN COMMITTEE:

Clauses and title of the Bill put and agreed to.

HOUSE RESUMED:

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill without amendment.

I move—

I second.

I am very glad that means have been found to make this transfer of staff from the Transkeian Territories General Council—which is a non-Government body—to the Union Government, and that the Minister has been able to place the officials in a category which will not be detrimental to them on account of transfer. There is only one point that is worrying me to a certain extent, and I should like to have the Minister’s assurance on it. Hitherto the agricultural officers of the Transkeian General Council have been responsible to the General Council in connection with land and agricultural matters. Obviously the situation will now be that these officers will be answerable only to the Union Government, and I would like to have the Minister’s assurance that there is no ulterior motive behind that change. I should not like to find that by merely transferring the officers, by merely changing them into ordinary civil servants, an attempt will be made to force through, against the wish of the Transkeian Council, legislation which would be objected to; arguments which would be objected to and probably would have been successfully objected to, if those officers still remained on the staff of the Transkeian General Council. I have realised, of course, that the whole situation in the Transkei requires very careful handling. I am aware that the Minister has definite schemes. Those schemes so far have had the consent of the people, and I would not like to feel that through this change to which the General Council have agreed for other reasons, it will be possible to force upon them steps which normally would not have been accepted by the General Council. I would ask the Minister to give me an assurance that the understanding of the past, namely, the establishment of betterment areas by consent will be adhered to; and that the General Council will be consulted by the officers who have now been transferred from the General Council to a State Department. Apart from that, I have nothing further to say except to pay a tribute to those officers who have been unfailing in their efforts to reclaim land and advance agriculture in those parts of the country, and I am satisfied that they should receive every consideration that the Minister can give them. I should, however, like this assurance from the Minister that this change of staff will not entail other changes of which the General Council is not aware.

I am very glad the hon. member has raised that point. I can assure him that there is no ulterior motive behind this whatsoever. The only idea is to facilitate the development of the Territories on proper lines. As long as I am Minister my policy will always be to try to carry the people with me rather than to force them; that is my aim as far as possible. There is no intention whatever to bring in legislation which is really hiding some ulterior motive. Once you deceive the native people in that way they will never trust you again. So there is no ulterior motive behind this whatsoever, and the Council will carry on with us as in the past. There will be no unwarranted interference with their affairs. As the hon. member is aware, the betterment areas are entirely voluntary. They have now been established in large numbers. The natives are now beginning to realise what a betterment area is. On my last visit but one to the territories, I went to some of these schools, and I saw what was done there in regard to the feeding of the children. In one school I asked those children who had had milk that morning to hold up their hands, and 80 per cent. of them did so. The natives themselves are beginning to see what it means to have a certain limitation of stock. In the betterment areas practically all their children have milk, whereas in other places where the veld has been trampled out of existence, there is no milk for the children. The whole idea is nothing more or less than to take off their shoulders a burden which the General Council today is unable to carry. I say that as far as possible the policy will not be changed. I will not use force if over a period I can get the natives to see the need for improvements in farming or grazing voluntarily. Conditions might arise when the policy might have to be altered, but there is no intention at present of doing so whatsoever. If certain natives refused to help to prevent erosion or continue to destroy the soil by overstocking, or prevent those who wish to do so from helping to gain this goal then the Government might be forced to change the line of approach. But we have no such intention of changing the policy at the moment. We want, wherever we can, to achieve our purpose by example and demonstration. So far from curtailing the activities of the Council, we have recently extended their functions by proclamation.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

I move—

Mr. Speaker, this is a small Bill to amend one or two relatively minor matters which have been crying out for amendment for some time. No question of principle is involved in any of the clauses contained in this Bill. I shall therefore confine my remarks to dealing seriatim with the different clauses and indicating the purpose underlying them. To deal with Section 1 first. Under the Acts governing the Railway Superannuation Fund and the Pension Fund of 1912, there is a provision that any member of these funds who is dismissed for fraud, dishonesty or misconduct, or who retires from the service in order to avoid such dismissal shall, with certain reservations, be refunded his contributions to such funds. Cases, however, frequently arise in which a servant resigns in anticipation of a charge being preferred against him, and there is no provision in any of the existing Acts permitting of a refund of his contributions in such a case. It sometimes happens that a railway servant has falsified his books or has taken money, or has committed some other misdemeanour, and he realises that he is just on the point of being found out; and before that occurs he tenders his resignation to the Railway Administration. He has not in fact been dismissed, nor has he resigned in order to avoid a dismissal. The Law Advisers tell us that until he is charged and tried it cannot be assumed that he would be dismissed. That particular servant is therefore left completely in the air. No provision is made for him under the existing Acts. It is nevertheless quite clear from the context of Sections 28 and 29 of Act No. 24 of 1925, that Parliament intended that such a servant should have his payments refunded. It is therefore proposed now to amend the Acts by inserting the words—

Why not pay them more?

It would matter very little because you can always pay a little more than the Railways would pay if you want a good man. I do not mind them going to better jobs, but I want to prevent them leaving our service without showing us any consideration. No sooner do we train our recruits then they are offered other jobs. There is a tramway manager of a large system who described our Railway police depót as his best recruiting ground for drivers and conductors. It will be appreciated that what our police recruiting depot is doing is carrying out the functions of the Special Service Battalion, but the sad result is that the Railways are being left without policemen, and I am anxious to do something to keep my recruits when we have trained them. What we propose to do is to bring our service into line with the South African Police and make the same arrangements; we shall require before any policeman in our service can give up his job, he must give three months’ notice. He can still go provided he gives three months’ notice. But the idea is that he will not leave us in a fit of pique or without due consideration, and I think if we have this period of three months’ grace we may be able to do something more to keep those recruits that we are now losing in a really alarming manner, having regard to the work we are putting in in their training. I think that even my hon. friend opposite will admit that it is hardly fair that the Railways should train a recruit and that the moment they have trained him someone else should get the benefit of the expense the Railways have been to in training him. Now I come to Clause 3. The House will recall that in 1941 it passed an Act, No. 24 of 1941, granting pension benefits after five years’ service to employees who were not eligible to join any of our pension or superannuation funds. The Act was designed to meet cases of employees who would otherwise be without any kind of gratuity or pension when they gave up their work. The servants benefiting under that particular Act were mostly casual servants. Experience has shown, however, that casual workers who have had nearly five years’ service with us, are disinclined to to join the temporary staff of the Railways for the reason that they will lose the accumulated benefit of this five years’ gratuity. They will have that benefit under the Act. We desire very much that our employees should transfer from the casual to the temporary staff. When they are temporary men they can, of course, join the ordinary superannuation and pension fund. Up till now when they have transferred and joined the superannuation fund, they have not been allowed to pay up for the five years they have already served with the Railways, and that is the reason why many do not want to transfer. But under the present amendment it is proposed to give these servants the right to pay up for the five years they have already served with the Railways, and to get the advantage of that period in the superannuation fund. I hope I have made the position clear. Without this amendment we cannot give them credit for the five years they have worked with the Railways; they have to sacrifice what they have gained under the Act of 1941 and they have got nothing in return. I propose to enable them to credit that five years to the superannuation fund, so that all the reasons that militated against their joining our temporary staff will disappear. This amendment, however, will only cover cases of persons admitted on, and after the promulgation of this amendment. For that reason similar provision has to be made for those who since the date when the superannuation fund was amended to include temporary employees, are similarly affected. We have to go back to that date in order to be fair to those who have already transferred, and therefore an amendment is provided that this shall operate as from the 1st July, 1931, that being the date when the original Bill was passed. Clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill are entirely consequential on the passing of Clause 1, and I need not elaborate on them. Clause 6 deals with the amending of the Gratuities Act, No. 26 of 1941. As I have already said, this Act was designed to give benefits to certain classes of employees who were not eligible to join the Superannuation Fund. This Act, however, provides conditions of a safeguarding kind. One of these is that any beneficiary shall not on retirement be a member of or participate in any pension or superannuation fund or scheme under any law and shall not be eligible for membership of such fund or scheme. In practice this has been found to work very inequitably in the case of pensioners who have retired from our Railway Service, as has happened recently in connection with efforts pensioners have been making to help us in the difficult position in which we are placed through the shortage of manpower. These pensioners were engaged, and because they were Railway employees they were debarred from any benefit under the Gratuities Act, although casual employees other than ex-railwaymen are so allowed to benefit. That is to say, our own ex-employees are debarred from benefit in connection with temporary work they may now be doing, whilst on the other hand casual employees engaged from outside are allowed so to benefit. The reason for this is that ex-Railway employees were in fact in respect of the previous service not eligible for membership or participation in our pension funds. The only benefit they may have received may have been a small refund of their contribution but even that would prevent them from benefiting under the Act of 1940. This is considered inequitable. It is the kind of thing which was never contemplated when we passed the Act and I now propose to amend the Act by limiting the safeguard, whether they are entitled to join other funds to the current period of service—that is to say, that in a case of pensioners if they are not entitled to join a fund now, they will get a gratuity, irrespective of whether they were entitled to do so in a previous period of service. I am sure this will commend itself to the House which will want to see that the pensioners who have come back to assist us over difficult times will not be put at a disadvantage over other employees. I think I have explained the points clearly but if there is anything not clear I shall be pleased to clear up any other points later.

When the hon. Minister of Railways brings about amendments to the Act with a view to promoting honest and good behaviour in the service, he will always get the support of this side of the House, at any rate. We should like to help to build up a service, the integrity and honesty of which is unquestionable. We are in favour of having regulations and legislation of such a nature that we shall have a model service in the Railways. With regard to the amendments in Clause 1, we would like to support them. I am now speaking of the broad principles. With regard to the amendments in Clause 2, there we do not agree so fully. We are in favour of building up a good and a strong police service for the Railways. We share the Minister’s view that the police service on the Railways differs from the ordinary type of police service. It is a much more specialised service, and we are strongly in favour of building up a special police service. In fact, that is our desire and we shall make any reasonable contribution on this side of the House to bring that about. But we would like to make it clear to the Minister that his action in appointing heads of the Railway Police Service who, in the first instance, are not trained police officials, is the main cause of dissatisfaction in the Railway Police Service. That it is the main reason why the people are resigning one after another. It is not the question of pay at all, but it is due to the fact that the head of the service is not a person who can act judiciously in connection with police matters on the Railways. The last person to be appointed as head of the Railway Police Service was an ex-magistrate, and he played fast and loose with the Railway Police, so much so that there was so much bickering that a great number of the Railway Police resigned. We cannot blame these people. This person was not a police official but a political agent. He did not devote himself to his police work, but concentrated on political work. That was the main cause of dissatisfaction. We have submitted to the Minister on a previous occasion that in making the appointment which is pending, he should consider the advisability of appointing an official who has had a thorough police training and also someone with Railway experience. Give us a police official with a knowledge of Railway work—even if he is not such a good political agent, but as long as he has a good knowledge of police work—we would then be satisfied. The Minister knows that we ought to have at the head of the Railway police a man who also has a knowledge of Railway affairs. The poor man who occupied this post had as much knowledge of Railway work as the man in the moon. It may look easy to learn this work, but it is not very easy to do so. It takes a man a considerable time to adapt himself to the demands made upon him as head of a Railway police division. We have on a previous occasion urged, and we are again urging, that a capable man should be appointed at the head of this department, a man in whom confidence can be reposed, a man who can be trusted by the personnel.

I agree with you.

I am glad the Minister agrees with me. In that case he will get the support of this side. But then we shall be glad if the Minister will take active steps in that direction. He will then find that the police officials on the Railways will not lightly resign their positions. They did not abandon this work in order to take up better posts, or because they were dissatisfied with the pay, but for the reasons I have mentioned and on which I want to enlarge. A Railway official must be transferred when it is necessary in the interests of the service. We have no objection to that. But the manner in which people have been uprooted far and wide and transferred without rhyme or reason, and sent hundreds and thousands of miles away, was so ridiculous and so unreasonable that the people became dissatisfied. When the services of an individual are required at another place, transfer him to that place. If his services are required at some other place, then transfer him, even if he does not live there. But on the slightest report or suspicion a man is uprooted and sent to the outposts of the country without any rhyme or reason. The self-respecting man later decides that he is not going to suffer it, that he is not a ball to be kicked about by the head of the Railway police. We support the Minister in this respect, that he has got the right to transfer any man if it is necessary. But we must not allow the transfer of persons to become a method of punishment on the Railways by driving a man from one place to the other. With the scarcity of housing which exists at the present time, the Minister must realise that the transfer of an official is a very difficult matter. When a person is transferred from Cape Town to Johannesburg, it takes him a year or two years before he is settled there. In these days it has become a penal measure to transfer a man when it is not necessary. In many cases men have been transferred and have not been able to obtain a new house for six or eight months; their families have to remain behind with their parents or at some other place. Then I also feel that the Minister should consider the question of slightly improving the pay of the Railway police. We do not expect and demand an unreasonable increase in salary. A slight improvement has been brought about, but the Railway police have got into arrears to such an extent that the Minister would receive the unanimous sppport of this House if he were to improve their conditions of service to a certain extent. We on this side want to ask him to consider the question of giving them better conditions of service. The value of our Railway police can be judged to a great extent by the funds which we as a House have to vote every year for claims which are instituted against the Railways. With a well organised, disciplined and satisfied Railway police service, the improvement in service conditions will be more than compensated for by the reduction in the number of claims which will be instituted.

They represent a necessary and indispensible factor, but we ask that their conditions of service should be such that the Police Service will offer a little more attraction to the good man. The Minister has fixed the period of notice on both sides at three months. That is a long period but we shall be satisfied and content with that if the Minister, even if he does not do so now, will give us an indication that during the course of the next financial year he will reconsider the conditions of service of the Railway police personnel with a view to improving those conditions to some extent. We welcome the measure to give the casual Railway workers an opportunity of being placed on the temporary staff. I want to tell him however, that I have never come across a single case where a casual Railway worker did not want to be placed on the temporary staff. In any event, we are grateful for this concession, and we shall be glad if the temporary staff can by this means be increased so that the unduly long period for which casual personnel have to remain in the service, can be reduced. In other words, there are too many casual members of th staff and too few temporary members of the staff there are many of these casual workers who have been in the service for years and who have been confirmed in the service.

I shall do so.

In that case we shall support him as far as the other portion of his Bill is concerned. We hold certain opinions on these matters, but I think that broadly speaking this Bill conduces to the advantage of the service and the personne concerned, and consequently we cannot allow minor considerations to stand in its way. But we do trust that the Minister will give serious attention to the conditions of service of the Railway police personnel.

In introducing this Bill the Minister referred to the fact that the Tramway Department in Johannesburg made use of his depót as a recruiting depot and in trying to prevent that he is now extending the time of notice which the Railway police have to give. He says we have to take measures as far as our servants are concerned. My plea to the Minister is that he will find such measures unnecessary if he pays the men what they are entitled to, and in accordance with the type of work they do. We are living in a modern age, we are living in an age different to that when these scales were laid down, and if commerce, industries and local authorities had realised this earlier, and we as a State had done so, my submission is that we would not have been applying restrictive measures to these people.

Does the hon. member know that there is a Committee of Enquiry now going into police conditions?

I am very pleased to hear that; I can only say it is very long overdue. I don’t want, to detain the House, but I just want to say this to the credit of the Minister, that his is one of the Departments where they are doing their best to improve conditions but this is one of the sections of the Department which still requires improvement. I might draw attention to a very important statement made recently at a conference where a man said: “I issue a serious warning that things are going from bad to worse in the service, and the number of resignations is increasing.”

Where was that?

That applies to the Public Service and the Railway Service. And then the speaker went on—

That is the position. The Minister wants the best men. The fact that the Tramway Department takes away these men shows what the position is, but we are not taking away the best men from other Departments although this type of work is very responsible. Finally let us bear in mind that whereas your unskilled workers on the Railways, your engine drivers, in fact all your workers, have organisations which can represent them and press their demands and interview the Minister and everyone else, the policeman, no matter where he is, has not got that privilege.

He is a member of one of the groups.

He is a member of the Railway Police.

What is his association called?

Group E.

Yes, but he has no mouthpiece.

Oh, yes, he has.

Well, so far as I know his is a very silent group.

I rise to congratulate the Minister on this amendment, particularly in connection with a pensioner who has come back into the service. I am also very pleased to hear the Minister say that a Committee is going into the question of the policeman’s pay, because I can support the last speaker. Quite apart from the Railway Police losing men, going to the Tramway Service in Johannesburg, as a Councillor in Pretoria, I know that quite a number of these young fellows have left the service to go to the Municipal Bus Service for the reason that the pay is better. The Minister rightly points out, to train these people it is costing the Railway Service anything from £150 to £200 per recruit; in order to retain this excellent type of recruit I do hope that if the Committee recommends that the pay should be increased, it will be done because we must keep these individuals in the Railway Police, a service which at present is doing a very fine job of work under very difficult conditions. I would ask the Minister in connection with Clause 2 why this only applies to policemen below the rank of commissioned officers. If it is necessary for the ordinary policeman to give ninety days’ notice, it should also apply to the officers. There should not be one regulation for the underdog, and another for the top dog.

I don’t want to make a speech on this Bill, but I want to ask the Minister not to endeavour to take the Committee stage today. I have a case which I want to bring to his notice so I hope he will not insist on taking the Committee stage today.

I should like to say that I am very grateful to the House for the very favourable consideration it has given this Bill, and I want to thank all members for the support they have afforded my proposals. In regard to the difference in conditions between commissioned and noncommissioned officers, these are the same as apply in the S.A. Police, and I have just taken them over so far as the S.A. Railways are concerned. There is, of course, this point. The reason why I want recruits to be under three months’ notice is that I have trained them at considerable expense and I may lose them the moment they are reasonably well-trained, so that I shall get no use from them; but by the time a man becomes a commissioned officer I have had a lot of service from him and I do not know that it is necessary in his case to insist on the same conditions. I think by the time they have been in my service for a year or two, I can let them go back to the ordinary position as regards notice. I do not think there is much purpose in insisting on three months’ notice so far as the man who has served for some time is concerned. In regard to what the hon. member for Vredefort said I entirely agree with his views about the importance of the head of our police being a man not only with experience of the work he has to control but also being a good policeman, but I would tell the hon. member that it is not easy to get a good man.

You have them in the service.

We keep a very close eye on any possible appointee and if I suspect that there is a good man in the service, I make sure that he gets consideration. I have made no appointment of a successor to the present holder of the position of Chief of the Railway Police, because I am anxious to get the right type of man, and so far as my views are concerned I am with the hon. member. Now, the hon. member says three months is a long time, but three months is the same time as is laid down for the South African Police, and I don’t think it is unduly long. We spend a considerable sum of money in the training of our men—and at any rate, three months gives the man time to reflect whether it is wise for him to go or not. In respect of the question of wages there is a Committee which has been investigating police conditions for some time. It has just reported and I am hoping that as a result of their report we shall be able to improve police conditions.

Aren’t they very slow?

I am only referring to the Railway Police.

I think it will do a power of good if you were to stir things up.

Very well, I shall do so. Now, if there are reasonable recommendations for the improvement of the position I can assure the House that I shall be only too glad to implement them. Now, in regard to the question of the transfer of police, it is a difficult question. The whole question of transfers on the Railways is difficult. I know it is a generally accepted principle that if possible you must take a policeman away from his family. I have never been able to convince myself that that is a sound principle at all. It may have its application to the general police, but so far as our Railway Police are concerned, who have to possess a special knowledge of railway conditions, I do not know whether it is wise to move them from their home circles.

That is not our point of objection. What we object to is this undue number of transfers within a short period.

Yes, I am anxious to avoid that myself, and I shall look into the matter and see that they do not unnecessarily move policemen about. The only other point raised was by the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) (Mr. Tighy) and I would say that in the old days policemen were not allowed to be members of any group association but as hon. members know, we have gone far ahead in the matter of our conciliation machinery on the Railways, and I felt that it was not reasonable that policemen should not have the right to represent their grievances and wishes to the Administration and the Minister if they wish to do so, and so they have now, as a group, authority to become members of Group E which is one of our big staff groups, so that the policeman is no longer without a voice. Those are all the points which have been raised and once more I wish to thank the House for the reception afforded my Bill.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee on the Bill on 29th March.

I move—

This little amending Bill also contains nothing that is contentious at all. It does not embody any fresh principles so far as the particular Acts that it is amending are concerned, nor does it in any way disturb the policy of these Acts. Both the National Roads Act of 1935 and the Ribbon Development Act of 1940 were new Acts so far as the legislation of this country was concerned, and it is inevitable therefore that after some years of working some small amendments to these Acts are considered necessary, and these I now ask the House to agree to. In the first place I should like to deal with one of the bigger questions that are dealt with by this amending Bill, and then I shall go over the Bill itself and deal with each clause seriatim. Before a national road is built, it is necessary to declare it a national road. This is done under Section 4 by Proclamation. Now, under the five year plan which was originally inaugurated in connection with the policy of the National Road Board, long stretches of road were so declared as national roads and construction work was undertaken on them. During the construction, however,

many of these roads were inevitably deviated, either much or little, according to the nature of the road, from the road that was originally declared. As the House knows one of the main purposes of the National Roads Board is to straighten out roads, to avoid unnecessary deviations, to re-level them and so on. In doing that it is obvious that you must deviate the road from the road that you originally proclaimed. The proclamation declaring a provincial road a national road reads as follows and it is this proclamation which is important and I should like the House to listen carefully to it. The proclamation reads as follows—

It was thought that the inclusion of these words “as may be altered from time to time” would cover the cases of deviations and therefore a road as originally proclaimed plus the deviations would actually constitute legally a national road. The Law Advisers however, now tell us that the phrase “as may be altered from time to time” is ultra vires the Act and we have no legal authority to put that in the proclamation at all. Not only does this prevent us from legalising a deviation in the future, but it also raises a doubt as to whether the roads so proclaimed with this provisio are either wholly or in part invalid. The amendment proposed in Clause 2 will have the effect of legalising not only a national road but the national road as deviated during its construction. Clause 7 of the Bill empowers the technical officer to approve of deviations. Section 13 of the National Roads Act reads—

In the past the National Roads Board has in fact in respect of all major deviations given that consent in writing. There are, however, many hundreds of minor deviations varying from a few inches to considerable distances which in practice have always been left to the decision of the local engineering officers in consultation with local interests. From a practical point of view this practice is very desirable and provision to legalise this is now made by providing that in certain cases the road engineer may agree without the approval of the National Roads Board to such deviations. I now come to the Advertising on Roads and Ribbon Development Act, 1940, and here only one major development is proposed, and that is contained in Clause 12. Section 11 (3) of this Act provides that the Surveyor-General shall not approve the diagram of a sub-division of land situated outside an urban area and any portion of which falls within a distance of 300 Cape feet of the centre line of a declared road or of a building restriction road or of a main road, if the division might, in the opinion of the Surveyor-General, lead to a frustration of any object of this Act, unless he obtains approval in writing from the controlling authority. A similar provision in Section 11 (4) limits the power of the Registrar of Deeds to pass transfers in similar circumstances. In keeping with this clause the controlling authority is empowered under Section 11 (6) of the Act to grant such approval, and in doing so he may impose conditions. These usually cover such matters as preventing a sub-division of the land, limiting the number of houses that may be built on it and stating whether the land is for agricultural or residential purposes. Those standard conditions which are always imposed by the controlling authority were framed by the Surveyor-General and the Registrar of Deeds. In all these approvals the qualifying phrase used is “except with the approval of the controlling authority,” that is, the controlling authority imposes conditions which cannot be varied except with its approval. Under this provision any condition which was orginally applied and in force may be varied from time to time as the circumstances warrant. At least that was the idea, that once the conditions were imposed they could be varied if in the opinion of the controlling authority such variation was justified. Recently, however, in connection with such a deviation the Crown Law Advisers once more stated that while under Section 11 (6) the controlling authority had the right to impose conditions as contemplated by the Act, these must be imposed fully and finally in the first instance when the original consent is given. It has not the right to reserve for itself the authority to vary these conditions or grant exceptions at a later date. Once imposed the conditions must stand, and as no provision is made in the Act for varying them otherwise, they obviously must stand for all time short of passing an Act of Parliament. That, of course, is really an impossible situation and what the House is now asked to do is to vary this Act by making it possible for the controlling authority to vary the original condition in any way if after consulation with the people concerned it considers it wise so to vary it. But there is also a considerable doubt whether the conditions already imposed, accompanied by this qualifying phrase, are not completely invalid too. So that we are asking the House to amend the Act in Clause 12 of this Bill, so that such cases can be covered and more latitude allowed in respect of the variations imposed. In regard to the Bill itself there are one or two smaller matters with which I would like to deal under the respective clauses. Clause 1, of course, is just an interpretation clause. Clause 2 provide for the addition in the definition of “declared road” of the words “and includes any deviation of such a road which is in terms of any law deemed to form part of the road.” That is merely implementing what I have already spoken about. Clause 3 deals with the designation of the chief techinical adviser. The proposed designation of “chief engineer” describes the function of this officer more correctly, and it is suggested that we call him chief engineer instead of chief technical adviser. Clause 4 provides that any deviation of a declared road shall be deemed to form part of that road. That is to cover the point I have already made. Clause 5 provides for the payment into the National Roads Fund for miscellaneous monies such as the proceeds of national road plans sold, etc., etc. Curiously enough, under the existing Act, the only monies that can be paid into the Roads Fund are monies, drawn from (1) the levy on petrol, (2) money voted by Parliament and (3) interest on any cash balances. But it will be obvious to this House that from time to time there are various odd sums of money which fall due to the National Roads Board and since provision has not been made for the payment, of that money into the National Roads Fund the House has now been asked to amend the original Act to permit of any other monies received by the Board being paid into the Roads Fund which should properly be so paid. Now I come to Clause 6. The existing section in the-Act does not make sufficient provision for the payment of all items of expenditure that the National Roads Board may properly incur. The present authority incurring expenditure on the National Roads Board is limited to the remuneration and allowances of members and officers of the Board and to the rent of offices and equipment. That is all that we incur expenditure on. But in the National Roads Act in Clause 15 it is laid down that the Board may on its own initiative or on the direction of the Minister investigate any question appertaining to roads in the Union, with particular reference to declared roads and to report thereon to the Minister from time to time, making such recommendation as it may deem necessary to advise the Minister on road questions which may arise with governments of neighbouring territories to undertake technical research on road construction, road maintenance, and materials therefor; to prepare road maps, and after consultation with the Administrators, to prepare standard designs and specifications for works, the cost or part of the cost of which is to be defrayed from the fund; after consultation with the Administrators to convene meetings of their officers. There is a great number of things that fall to the Roads Board to do, but there is no provision in the Act for the payment of any expenditure incurred in carrying out those duties. I now ask that that provision shall be made by amending Clause 6 to cover any expenditure which may be incurred by the Board in pursuance of its carrying out its duties under the Act. Clause 7 empowers the technical officer of the Board to approve of deviations to National Roads. That is the point I dealt with in my general remarks. Clause 8 empowers members of the Board to inspect the national roads and national road works. It might be thought that this is an unnecessary provision, but in the Act it says that these road works shall be inspected by an officer of the Board. It is quite obvious, however, that a member of the National Roads Board who is responsible for coming to a conclusion about the work must be able to inspect the work himself. He has done so in fact and on one occasion his right to do so was challenged, and in order to settle that question we are proposing to give any member of the Board the right as well as any technical officer. Clause 8 (b)—a statement of the Annual Report after the expiration of each financial year instead of each calendar year, will make for much greater convenience in the working of the Board. Clause 8 (c) empowers the Board to hire or acquire such land or building as may be necessary for the carrying out of its functions. We have no such power at the present moment. There is no immediate intention of the National Roads Board building any building except that they may in the near future want to build a laboratory. Clause 9 empowers the Board’s officers to enter upon land after notice to the owner for the purpose of investigation and survey, or any duty incidental to the function of the Board under the Act. As at present empowered the Roads Board had no right to carry out surveys themselves, but it is quite clear that they should have such a right. They have, after all, to decide whether the recommendations made to them are the right recommendations, and they can obviously only do that after they have got advice as to whether that is the best route for a road and they can only decide that by having a survey made, and I now ask that the National Roads Board shall have the right to make a survey for its own satisfaction in connection with any proposed national road. Clause 10 is necessary because at present quite a number of the employees of the National Roads Board are not members of the Public Service and have no provision made for them for pension funds or any other form of gratuity. It is felt that in keeping with other bodies, we should also have that right. I may say that the Dairy, Mealie and Wheat Control Boards, Laboratories and Museums and other bodies of that kind have the right to provide pension rights for their staff, and I am asking the House to give the National Roads Board the right to provide such a fund if an opportunity should arise and if the need for it should arise as far as their own staff is concerned. Clause 11 is a consequential amendment of the Advertising on Roads and Ribbon Development Act of 1940 to bring it in line with the amendments regarding the deviations in the national roads. Clause 12 empowers the Board to impose qualifying conditions in respect of the transfer and subdivision of land as I have explained. Clause 12 is the clause which deals with the matter which I have already explained at some length. Clause 13 (1) provides that permanent deviation of declared roads agreed to in the past shall form part of the national roads. That is merely to make the provision now legalised retrospective in respect of anything that has been done in the past. Clause 13 (2) is an equally retrospective measure providing a safeguard for persons who may unwittingly have transgressed the provisions of the Act in the past. I think I have now fully explained the purpose of this Bill. There is nothing of cardinal importance in it. It is merely bringing the the mechanism of the National Roads Board up to date and giving us machinery which will enable us to function more effectively than we can now and to give us some rights which should have been included in the Act but which for some reason or other were overlooked.

We have no objection to the Bill which has been put before the House, except in the case of one section with which I shall deal later. A point which I should like to bring to the notice of the House in connection with the construction of roads, in connection with the controlling bodies which build these roads, is that these boards are responsible for the soil erosion which takes place on a larger scale in this country. The roads are constructed in such a way that the waters are concentrated in certain low parts, and then conducted through culverts or pipes, causing an enormous amount of erosion. It is not only the roads but the railways who commit this sin. While we are conducting a campaign against erosion, while there is an outcry that our most precious land is being washed away, the various bodies which are responsible for the making of roads, which are responsible for the maintenance of roads, are the greatest sinners in encouraging erosion, and we want to ask the hon. Minister of Transport that his Department should issue very strict instructions, or that he will at least compel the public boards who undertake the construction of roads, by means of legislation in this House either this year or next year, to take steps to prevent soil erosion. We are aware of the fact that the soil becomes poorer and poorer when this soil erosion takes place and the best part of our soil is washed away; and for that reason I am raising this matter in order to bring to the Minister’s notice the feeling of the farming community in this matter. I have no objection to this Bill. I do, however, want to raise a few points against Section 9 of the Bill. Section 9 proposes a new Section 15 bis, to be inserted in the Act. Under this section the person who is directed to carry out the survey of land can enter upon the land merely after notice to the owner or the occupier. It is not laid down that the permission of the owner is necessary. It only states that he has to give notice of his intention to enter upon the land and to undertake a survey. He can enter upon the land with such persons, animals, vehicles, machinery, appliances, instruments, equipment or materials, and perform such acts thereon as may be necessary for the purpose of the investigation or survey. That can take place merely on notice to the owner or the occupier, without his permission. There is nothing to say that his permission shall be obtained, and we feel that this is an inroad on the rights of owners. Under the existing laws, if the board wants to deviate a road it negotiates with the owner of the land to come to some agreement, and usually that permission is granted where a reasonable deviation takes place. The Minister stated here that a road first has to be proclaimed as a national road. In this case the surveys are undertaken before the road is proclaimed, and it is not stated that the permission of the owner shall be asked. He simply receives a notice. The Minister knows that it sometimes happens that surveys are made through cultivated lands, through valuable land of the farmer’s, and also through the lands of suburban dwellers. The surveyor can now go along and do the survey merely on giving notice to the owner, and I hope that the Minister will amend this Bill in the Committee stage, and stipulate that the approval or permission of such an owner must at least be obtained. If that is done, we shall raise no objection to this Bill. We understand that new difficulties have arisen, with which these various boards are faced. We understand that there are defects in the laws which have to be rectified, and for that reason we do not oppose this Bill. We only ask that the Minister will meet us in this respect, namely, that the approval of the owner shall be obtained, and if the owner refuses the Minister has other legislation at his disposal which will enable him to obtain this agreement.

I should like to say a few words in regard to Section 5 of this Bill. I am rather perturbed about the provisions of this Clause, because I do think that we are intruding on the rights of the Provinces, when it comes to the income to be derived under Section 5. As far as. I understand the Act the income derived from roads becomes the property of the Provinces, and the Provinces then take care of the vehicles or the machinery in that Province. I know that there has been a great deal of trouble in regard to machinery being taken from one Province to another, but I should like to know from the Minister how he proposes to regulate this. Do I understand from the Minister that he intends letting these vehicles to the Province? In Section 6 of this Bill the Minister speaks of the allowances of the members of the Roads Boards, I would like to know how much these allowances would be, because I do think there is some difficulty in connection with this, because I think that the provinces are really the builders of the road and the National Roads Board are more or less the people who define the road or who do the survey of the road; but when it comes to the actual building of the road I think the provinces are the people who are really responsible. In Section 8 it is proposed to give an officer of the Board the right to carry out an inspection or survey. I would like to know whether a member of the National Roads Board will have any authority to give any instructions when he does visit a construction camp, because I think you will find that a difficulty will arise when the province constructing the road has its own engineer there and they have a consulting engineer from the National Roads Board there as well; these people work in conjunction when it comes to the construction of the roads, and I am afraid that a lot of trouble may arise if a member of the Roads Board has the power to give instructions. In regard to Section 8 (c) I am afraid I come back once more to the provinces. If Section 8 (c) goes through as it stands today, I think we shall be on dangerous ground as far as the provinces are concerned. I am taking a particular interest in this matter because I think that under the legislation existing at the present moment we should be particularly careful not to tread on the corns of the different provinces. I know that the provinces are particularly anxious to retain roads, and we must be careful not to do anything which will usurp the rights of the provinces. With regard to Section 9, I fully agree with the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig) that this is a most dangerous clause as far as the farmers are concerned.

The provinces have that power now.

The province has only this much power, that the province in consultation with the owner can open a fence after an agreement has been reached. If there is no agreement the matter goes to arbitration. That is the position in the Transvaal Province, at any rate, as the law stands today and I think I am right in saying that in the Free State the position is the same. I am going to give the House an instance where a road party came on my farm and cut fences without my authority; they allowed the cattle to stray and we are responsible and not the National Roads Board. I fully endorse what has been stated by the hon. member for Calvinia, that it is necessary to be sure about some alteration because if this clause goes through in its present form the Minister will have the farmers up in arms against him. It is stated here that an officer of the Board may enter upon the land with animals, for example. I think there we should appeal to the Minister to be most careful. It has happened in the past that animals suffering from contagious diseases have been brought on to farms, and I think that we as farmers should be protected against that risk. I appeal to the hon. Minister that every conceivable precaution should be taken in every clause so as to protect the farmers on the land. In Clause 10 it is stated—

As I understand the law the present technical officer of the National Road Board is still a civil servant and I do not see how he can be put on a different scale, and I want to give the hon. Minister the assurance that there was a lot of friction over this, that the National Roads Board officials do not fall under the Public Service, and I do not think it is right to the public servants that a man should be taken out of the Public Service in a lower position and then put over a man in a higher position and still retain his Civil Service right to draw a bigger salary than in the department he has just left. I think we should be very careful to ensure that everything is done to protect that man in the service, and that nothing is done that will bring dissatisfaction into the service. As far as giving promotion in concerned on the National Roads Board, I think we are not going do justice to the other men in the service, and I appeal to the hon. the Minister to be particularly careful with regard to the remuneration. I do not, however, begrudge these men a single penny. The chief technical officer is, I think, a most capable man, and I believe that he can carry out his duties in that position; but I do think that we should be very careful indeed—because there is a certain amount of dissatisfaction already —when a man is taken from one department and put into another department, moving from a lower to a higher scale, and to a scale higher than that of the chief they have been working for. I appeal to the Minister to do everything to ensure that that particular section is most carefully dealt with.

We support any measure which will improve our roads system, especially our national roads system. In our opinion the national roads system comes next to the Railway system in order of importance, and we are prepared to support any measure and any legislation, the object of which is to develop our national roads system, so that it will be second to that of no country in the world. We are strongly in favour of that. But we just want to ask the Minister, as far as legislation is concerned, to go somewhat slowly. This is new legislation. You are entering upon new ground. It is necessary therefore to throw out feelers in regard to the conditions so that measures are not adopted or laws passed which will be unpopular with the people. The people would like to support this great cause today. I can tell you that it is not always easy for an owner of land to yield a piece of his land, even that quantity which is required for national roads. Those roads sometimes go through the most valuable part of the man’s land, and a small farm which is practically indivisible is sometimes divided. But up to the present the public has supported the Government, but one must be careful not to go too far, especially as far as the farming community and the small owners are concerned. With regard to the big principle of the construction and the maintenance of national roads, we heartily agree with the Minister. While we are dealing with that, we should like this matter to be undertaken in a scientific way. We want the necessary means to be placed at the disposal of the authorities to tackle this matter on a scientific basis. I feel that what we have done up to the present has not been entirely satisfactory. In the first place our surveys left a great deal to be desired, and we shall have to support any effort to get a proper survey as long as it is reasonable and as long as legislation in this connection is not unduly rushed. We feel, however, that a survey is very necessary in connection with the construction of national roads. Our country with its unexpectedly heavy rains and land which is very susceptible to erosion, has its own particular problem, and we must still adhere to the old Boer principle to keep as far as possible on the watershed. Although we have modern people today, who teach us new methods, we must remember that in our country, land is very susceptible to erosion. Only recently I saw what the result of five years’ erosion could be. Several morgen of valuable land was washed away completely and deep furrows from 15 feet to 20 feet in depth were washed out simply because a small culvert had been made in the road. We warn the Minister therefore to be careful in what he does. Keep to the watershed and be careful. We welcome measures for the building of roads, but it must be undertaken scientifically. Not only do we welcome it as a step in the right direction but we would also welcome it if we could proceed on a scientific basis with regard to the material which is used. The Afrikaners would like to see the very best roads in the world built in our country. We give our support to that. If money were asked for a laboratory or laboratories we would support it because we would like more research work to be done in order to get the necessary and the right material for the construction of our roads. In our country with its long distances and many roads, we expect the national roads system to be continually extended and increased and made more comprehensive. And for that purpose it is also necessary to provide for the proper training of our personnel, and once you have tained the staff, steps should be taken to see that they are properly remunerated and given a pension fund; they should be placed on the fixed service of the State. Road making is becoming a science, and people who work on the roads, as in the case of people who are in the Railway service, should be on the fixed staff of the State; they should draw proper salaries and also have a pension fund. We should also like to see that attention is given to the question of housing of the staff. Treat them like the Railway staff; give them fixed positions and fixed salaries; let them look upon it as a vocation; let them take an interest in their work; let it be their pride not only to keep the road itself clean but also the vicinity of the road. Let them be proud of their section of the road. It is desirable to have a permanent road staff. We shall also support any steps which are taken to acquire good implements for the making of roads, and also for their proper storage. In conclusion we again want to bring to the Minister’s notice the fact that he should give special attention to the question of erosion. That is more serious than one is inclined to think. When a road has to be made through a marsh, the water which normally runs into it has to be concentrated at one place in order to allow it to pass through, and as soon as you collect water and concentrate it at a place where the earth is soft, it very soon eats away the earth, and once that process starts it eats its way more deeply into the soil and you get soil erosion. The making of culverts at roads at ill-chosen places, constitute a great danger. Further amendments which we may want to suggest in connection with certain things which we do not like in the Bill, can be moved by us during the Committee stage. In principle we are prepared to support this measure.

I should like to associate myself with the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Klopper) in connection with the question of erosion along our roads. This trouble usually arises when a culvert is made and the water is then simply released in a concentrated form. I think that the time has arrived, also in connection with the Railways when some attention should be paid to the manner in which the water is released where culverts are made and the water is collected in a concentrated form. It is very unfair towards the farmers along the roads that the water should be released in a concentrated form by the people who are responsible for the collection of water, and that they do not assume responsibility for the removal of the water. But I really got up to object to Clause 7 of the Bill. It amends Section 13 of the Act, which reads—

It must be remembered that the national road which is being built today is actually making an inroad into the private property of the farmer. In my own area very difficult circumstances have arisen as a result of the construction of roads. I know of two cases where the road is being built practically up against the dam. We know that in the South Eastern Free State the farmers are entirely dependent on their dams. When one has a farm the value of the land depends entirely on the quantity of water which is available on the farm. In these two cases where the road is being made alongside the dam, as it exists, there is a great opportunity to enlarge the dam. But that is not taken into consideration by the offical. The official is concerned with the construction of the road, and he selects the place where the road can best be constructed; he does not concern himself about the possibilities of the farm which he mutilates. Now we see that Section 13 of the Act of 1935 is amended as follows—

What I want to object to is that this power which only the board had of deviating or proclaiming a road, is now given to a technical officer, and I want to make an appeal to the Minister not to rush this legislation. We have the greatest respect for technical officials, but a technical official who has the technical ability to construct roads thinks of one thing only, and that is how he can improve the road, but he altogether loses sight of the fact that by constructing the road in a certain manner he may perhaps jeopardise the farmer’s future. Where his board consists of practical men who work with him, one naturally gets a much better considered judgment in regard to the general aspect of the matter, and we object to these extended powers being given to a technical official. I make an appeal to the hon. Minister not to grant those powers.

I hope the Minister of Railways and Harbours will realise that there is widespread complaint among the landowners with respect to the conditions under which they are obliged to surrender land for the purposes of national roads. Within my own constituency I know of two or three cases in which farmers have had their farms ruined by the demands of the National Roads Board; and I hope, Sir, the Minister is not going to increase the powers of the National Roads Board to inflict such damage upon the helpless and defenceless landowner. There is no means by which he can protect his interests. He is entirely at the mercy of whoever comes along and demands that the roads should be permitted to go in a certain direction. The demands of the road engineers have in the past proved very extravagant. They have in some cases multiplied roads, or deviations, with no real justification, simply because it is so easy to run a road through a farmer’s land to his injury and to his suffering. I hope, Sir, that those who have any care for the interests of their constituents will voice a remonstrance against the policy that has been instituted by the Roads Board, of helping themselves to the farmer’s land and giving him very insufficient compensation. There is another matter of some importance which I wish to bring to the notice of the Minister. I do not know whether he has followed the proceedings that resulted in consequence of some statements that were made by the Chairman of the National Roads Board before a Select Committee of this House. He made certain statements affecting a company in the Transvaal which, when investigated were found to be not at all as he would have had us believe. In addition to that, Sir, the same official, the then Chairman of the National Roads Board, made statements in regard to the management of the national roads in Natal, asserting that the provincial road authorities there had been guilty of extravagance and incompetence and waste. The provincial authorities so, resented this that they made these statements the subject of enquiry by a Select Committee of the Provincial Council, and they requested the National Roads Board to be represented before the Select Committee. The Select Committee found that there was not a word of truth in those statements, that in every respect they were without foundation, and they put on record their finding to that effect.

That is quite true.

I am glad to be borne out by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers). I hope that the official who made that statement will be duly dealt with, because it seems to me a gross waste of public resources that a Select Committee of Parliament and a Judicial Commission in the Transvaal should have to spend their time and spend public money in disproving the reckless statements made by an official who evidently was suffering from swelled head, or from some equally obscure defect which did not enable him to tell the truth. I believe we have got to take …

I have allowed the hon. member to make that statement but I hope that he will not pursue it any further. It really has nothing to do with the Bill before the House.

I merely mention this as showing that in legislation to meet the wishes of the National Roads Board we must be very careful of some of the statements made by the Board. We must not take it for granted that everything demanded by the Board has to be conceded by this House. In so far as the statements of the most responsible official of the body are concerned, we have found to the country’s cost that they are absolutely without foundation. I hope the Minister will be careful not to comply with further extra demands by members of the National Roads Board on the farmers. They have suffered quite enough already at the hands of this Board, and I hope that they are going to be spared any further looting on the part of officials who care nothing for the interests of the landowner and the farmer, and who are there simply to enhance their own importance.

The discussion that has taken place on this measure has more or less been confined to only two or three fairly important issues. I shall deal with those issues generally rather than in respect of the individual members who raised them. The first question raised was the question of soil erosion, and I should like to say that nothing that can be done to assist in the conservation of our soil will be left undone. As a matter of fact, the National Roads Board have been giving a great deal of attention to this question, and anything they can do in the way of advice will be done gladly. After all, they can only advise the provincial councils; the roads are actually built by the provincial councils. The provincial councils who build the roads may be responsible for soil erosion, but so far as the National Roads Board is concerned they will try and keep that consideration in mind in any plans they make. I can assure you, Sir, that all my Departments, including the Railway Administration, have been impressed with the importance of this subject and that any possible soil erosion must be carefully calculated for before any work is done on the land. The next big question was the rights of the land owners, and it was rather implied that we ride rough shod over these owners. I should like to explain that in fact we do nothing of the kind. Let us remember this, that if you proclaim a national road—as we sometimes do— which is 600 miles in length, it is not improbable that national road will pass through some 300 to 400 farms. I think this House will agree that if we have to get complete agreement from every farmer along that road about every detail, we would not be able to build the road in the course of 50 years. That is a practical fact we must recognise. I do not blame the farmers, because they only look at it from their point of view. It is essential if the State is going to pay millions of money in building a road, that that road should be built in the best way, in the most correct way, and along the best route, having in mind the conservation of the soil, the stoppage of soil erosion and other things. That is essential. It may happen that in order to keep that road along the route that has been projected, it is necessary to go through a mile or two of the farmer’s land. But what happens? First of all the farmer is advised that this road must inevitably go through that land. If he objects the scheme is re-examined in order to ascertain whether it is possible to deviate from the route that has been planned. If it is not possible to deviate we fall back on compensation. We say we will compensate. I challenge any member of this House who has any experience on these matters, to say that the compensation awarded by the National Roads Board has been ungenerous.

It is completely ungenerous. In one case it meant complete ruin to the farmer.

I know the hon. member’s idea of what generosity consists of, but I can assure the House that there is nothing unfair in the calculations of the National Roads Board in respect of compensation. The farmer may have to give up some of his land; he has to give it up not for the benefit of any individual but for the benefit of the State. He is being compensated by the State for it, and I think having regard to the fact that that road must as I have said, run in a reasonably straight direction through various farms, that is not an unreasonable course to follow. If you make a detour round every farm with your road, you can imagine what the national road would look like by the time you are finished. It would no longer be a straight road, but the longest you could take. That is the position as far as compensation is concerned. But I do want to assure the landowners we want to work with them; we do not want to ride rougshod over them; as we do in fact work with them, and if there are any cases where our views are not in agreement, we are always prepared to consider the farmer’s point of view. The hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Klopper) brought up the question of training the staff. We do train the staff. We have a fairly complte laboratory in which many interesting experiments are being conducted, and not only are we now training staff but we have in fact a very considerable trained staff. After all the road problem is a problem which is different in almost every country in the world. We have officers who have been trained in South African conditions: they know South African soils; they know the conditions of rainfall; they have had experience of our climatic conditions, of the strong sun and of the other features which engineers trained in other parts of the world would not have. So the staff of the National Roads Board today is probably a more expert staff in respect of the roads of South Africa than it would be possible to get anywhere else. Not only have we that staff, but we have younger men coming on who have been trained in laboratory work. With regard to the fears the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) expressed, that we might be undermining provincial rights by taking the power to collect monies that belong to us, I may say that we hire out a lot of machinery, apart from the provinces altogether. We have done a great deal of work for the Defence Department, and we shall probably continue to do a lot of work for that department. That work should be paid for. I want the hon. member to be quite clear that we have no ulterior designs on the provinces in asking that funds belonging to to the National Roads Board should be paid into the National Roads Board account. I do not think actually that we exercise any powers in respect of going through owner’s farms that are not today exercised by the provinces. When my hon. friend talks about arbitration and so on, he is only talking about the compensation that is given, not the right to survey the property. The provinces have the right today to go through the property in order to survey it, and we are not asking for any rights that the provinces do not enjoy today. With regard to the point that we should not authorise our engineers to make deviations without the consent of the board, the position is this. When you are building a road you may find that a few yards ahead, you will encounter a mass of hard rock, and in consequence it becomes necessary to move the road a yard or two to the one side. That is done regularly on the national roads, and I think it reasonable that the engineers must do that without first obtaining the consent of the Naional Roads Board, which only meets periodically and which is not in constant session. It should not be necessary to have the consent of the board in writing before that deviation is effected. I can assure the House that no major deviation would be authorised except in writing by the National Roads Board. But when it comes to deviating the road a yard or two in order to avoid rock, that it would be a costly business to get rid of, it would be unreasonable to expect the Road Board engineers to obtain an authority in writing from the National Roads Board. That is all that I am asking for; allowing the engineer that authority in respect of these minor deviations cropping up as the work goes along, and not in respect of major deviations, which are part and parcel of the planning of the national road. In regard to the question of the grading of our officials, that is really a matter quite outside the scope of this Bill. One member raised that point. I do not think it is appropriate to raise it in connection with this Bill, but one of the things which I am endeavouring to achieve, now that I have taken over responsibility for the national roads, is that we shall work in the closest liaison not only with the Provinces but with all those associated with our work.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee on the Bill on 29th March.