I notice in this Clause that members of the National Roads Board are now authorised to visit these different roads. I do hope that when these members visit the roads they will not do any inspection or at least when they do inspect the roads, that they will not usurp the powers of the roads authorities. I think we should be particularly careful that laymen do not usurp the powers of these professional officers. I may say that as the National Roads Board is constituted today, that dual power is rather a difficult one because the duty of making roads rests with the Provinces and the National Roads Board merely describes how the road should be built. We have found that there has been great difficulty in practice because of this dual control. I do hope that the members of the Board who inspect the roads will not be able to tell the Road’s people how the roads should be built.

I would like to reassure the hon. member in regard to the point he has just made. I can hardly believe that the National Roads Board would employ engineers or have the use of the engineers of the Province and then seek to interfere with the engineers in the proper carrying out of their functions. But I want to make this quite clear that the roads must be constructed to the satisfaction of the National Roads Board, and it is quite clear that the National Roads Board cannot say that a road has been made to its satisfaction unless the members of the Board can themselves inspect the road. In these circumstances I do not think the hon. member need have any fear that the members of the Board will unduly interfere with the technical work that is carried out either by the Province or the National Roads Board itself.

I would like the Minister to make this clear to us : When these roads are inspected by the National Roads Board, how can they withhold the money? Once the Province has built a road, I do not see how the National Roads Board can withhold the money since they have their engineers on the job. I feel that this dual control will lead to difficulties. For the information of the Minister I would like to state that we have spent £90,000 on one road of 32 miles, and I do not think there is a single mile that has stood up, and £90,000 of public money has been spent on this road. I think something should be done with regard to this dual control, and I should not like to see a third authority come along and interfere with the making of the road.

I do not think there is any need for me to try and explain how any difficulty that may crop up in the making of roads may be solved, but I would like to draw the hon. member’s attention to the fact that the original Act speaks of the cost incurred by an Administrator or by a Divisional Council in the Province of the Cape of Good Hope in the construction, reconstruction, repair or maintenance of any road declared a National Road under section 4; provided that such construction, reconstruction, repair or maintenance has been authorised by the Board and is being or has been carried out to its satisfaction. It is quite clear that in enabling the National Roads Board members to comply with the provision, they must have the right to look at the road.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 9,

May I draw attention to some very far-reaching accusations that were made by the Chairman of the National Roads Board before a Select Committee of this House in which he accused certain provincial roads departments of extravagance and incompetence and waste.

Order, order! I think the hon. member should bring that up on the third reading. Clause 8 has already been agreed to.

In regard to this clause I should like to have an assurance from the Minister that it is not going to infringe the existing law so far as farm property is concerned. The Minister will remember that, when this Act was passed in this House this was a very contentious point, a point on which we insisted strongly—a point on which the Minister eventually gave in, to make special provision to exclude farm property from the provisions of this clause, and although I do not know exactly how this clause affects the existing clause I want an assurance that it will not infringe on the existing law and that it will not affect the concession made by the Minister in the original law so far as farm property is concerned.

This law has caused a lot of trouble. I feel somewhat alarmed at an official having this right without consulting the farmers. Let me give the Minister an instance. A portion of the road from Peddie to Grahamstown has been proclaimed. The road had not been properly constructed but it was taken over by the Roads Board. The Roads Board constructed it properly in the circumstances but as there was only a limited quantity of wire the road was not fenced off. I have had a lot of correspondence with the Roads Board and I have tried to induce them to give the farmers temporary assistance to fence off the road. The farmers themselves offered to fence it if they could get the wire but their request was turned down. Now the farmers are at their wits’ end. Most of these farms are small — they are 300, 400, 500 morgen and even less. Now, the official comes along and surveys the road. I went to the engineer and said : “You can have a straight road here over these flats; why don’t you build the National Road over the flats; it is a level part of the country and there are no stones anywhere,” but the engineer simply took up the attitude that he was the engineer and he was going to build the road without consulting the farmers. So the road is now being constructed over the farmers’ lands. We asked why the road should not be taken over the old road. From Jamestown to Aliwal, for instance, the road has not yet been surveyed. It passes over small farms. On one farm the road passes over the farm about 300 yards along the old line. The engineer was asked to build the road there but he simply refused. I want to know whether the Minister cannot go into such cases?

My objection to this Clause is still the same as it was when I spoke on the second reading debate. This Clause gives any engineer the right, after having notified an owner, to enter the man’s land with animals, implements and materials —not merely to make surveys, but he can take the necessary materials there to do the survey work, and we feel that the rights of the owners are being interfered with here. If you give the engineer the right, without having to get the owner’s consent, you are giving him tremendous powers. The survey may be made over a farmer’s land, but the engineer has the right to take animals and materials there without the farmer’s consent. I hope the Minister will promise us that he will introduce some amendment to protect the farmer’s rights.

First of all, I would like to make it quite clear that the National Roads Board as such will have no powers beyond the powers of Provincial Councils, so that what is complained of in the way’ of working on the people’s farms and so on is what may be done by the Provincial Council under the existing powers. But I do want to stress this point, that I explained in the second reading debate, that the whole purpose of national road construction is to straighten out our main roads, widen them and resurface them so that we have the best possible roads and the most direct roads from point to point. In the process of doing that, it is inevitable that quite a large number of farms must be crossed. I believe on one occasion the National Roads Board proclaimed a road something like 600 miles long. It is quite clear that a road such as that must pass over a great many farms, and it is quite clear that unless the State — this Parliament in other words — has the final say, you would not be able to make a road like that for 50 years if you had every farmer to consider. If you had to go round every farmer’s farm it would be quite impossible. It is quite clearly a case where the farmer and the State must co-operate. I want to give this House the assurance that anything I can do to ensure that the National Roads Board and its officers will co-operate as far as they can with the farmers and other land owners will be done by me; I will encourage them to do so. It is clearly a matter for co-operation, but the final decision must obviously rest with the State itself. I know that in the past the National Roads Board has always endeavoured to give sympathetic consideration to the needs of the farmers, and sometimes I believe it has been possible to move a road from the more fertile land to the less fertile land on the farm; but ultimately it is necessary that that power should be held by the State, otherwise inside of 50 years you would not get anything like a national roads programme established in this country.

Did not the original Act provide for that?

Provide for what?

What you have just explained.

Yes, but the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig) rather indicated that he would like these powers taken away, as provided for in the original Act. However, I do not think that anyone need have undue fear. I know from my own experience that the National Roads Board has shown every consideration, and although not always able to meet hundred per cent of the objections, they have gone a long way to meet the wishes of the farmers over whose farms their roads have passed.

I am afraid the hon. the Minister did not follow me. I can take him to areas where there are miles of flat country, flat country with nothing on it. There is not a stone there, but the road is surveyed 300 yards from the man’s line. I personally discussed matters With the engineer and I asked him why he did not construct the road further along. He did not consult a single farmer, he put in his pegs and laid concrete blocks and they are still there today. Now, the farmers want to sow their lucerne there, but they cannot do so because the road passes over their land. I want to know whether the Minister cannot meet us and go into such cases? I did what I could to induce the engineer to construct the road further away from the line but he simply put down his pegs.

I am sorry I did not make specific reference to the hon. member’s complaint. I will have the circumstances of the case looked into and see what the position is. It was not that I did not understand the point, but unfortunately in making my remarks I dealt with the problem only in general terms and did not reply specifically to the hon. member’s point.

Mr. Chairman, I do not know whether I am in order in raising this point at this stage after your recent ruling, but there is a little matter which is causing uneasiness in my district. The national road passes through part of the municipality of Paarl and in addition to the area which they have expropriated they are also taking 15 ft. on either side—

Order. I am sorry, the hon. member is out of order, he cannot bring that matter up on this vote.

That is under the transport vote.

I want to draw attention to the wording of this clause. It says this—

The hon. the Minister said that the farmers and the Government must co-operate, but no co-operation is asked for here on the part of the Government. The State uses its power here to give notice to a man that his land will be entered upon without any approval being given or without any notice being taken of the kind of land that is being entered upon. If the law were to read that the official, failing an agreement, must first of all get leave from the Roads Board, the position would be different, but if the Minister wants co-operation he must not have a clause like this, giving a man the right to enter another man’s land without consent being asked for or given.

The point is that you must specifically mention co-operation in the law, and then you would have to have a definition as to what co-operation was. It is the practice, in fact, to co-operate closely with the farmer and I think it is best left on that basis.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to say to the Minister that I think the National Roads Board has been very generous as far as the farmers are concerned, but we do feel very perturbed about the fact that protection is given to the officials but none whatsoever to the farmer. It says—

Every protection is given, Sir, to the official, but there is no protection for the unfortunate farmer. We know that with the Minister and the present officials we shall be given a square deal, but we have no right to assume that future officials or a coming Minister will give us a square deal, and we feel perturbed about this. I do appeal to the hon. Minister to let us have something so that the farmers can get protection if the officials do not give them a square deal. I think they should have the same protection as the officials.

I think this is the usual penal provision which is made by the Legal Advisers. I would point out. That the protection of the farmer as well as the protection of the official still rests with the court. The official has no rights in himself to do these things; all that Parliament does is to render somebody liable if he obstructs or makes things difficult. The person concerned is liable to be taken to court, and if the court thinks he has done that with which he is charged then the court may impose the punishment. If the official exceeds his authority or acts male fide, the farmer can equally take him to court.

Clause put and agreed to.

Remaining Clauses and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

HOUSE RESUMED:

The Chairman reported the Bill without amendment.

I move as an unopposed motion—

I second.

I just want to ask the Minister whether he is prepared to give us an assurance that this amendment, so far as if concerns the erection of farm buildings, will not be any handicap? If I correctly understand the existing law the provision contained therein was made to prevent national roads being shut off by speculators or business men who by doing so might spoil the scenic beauty and perhaps prevent the necessary development taking place in days to come so far as roads are concerned. But the Minister is fully aware of the fact that the roads pass over people’s farms, through their lands, and that the roads today go right across farm lands. People are forced to erect buildings within the limitations laid down in the original Act. They are forced to do so if they want to carry out their duties as agriculturists and farmers, and in the original law there was an assurance that the position would not be tampered with, and that the farmers would be able to erect whatever buildings were necessary for their purposes. The Minister will recollect that in the original Act the farmer was given a guarantee in regard to certain things which were not allowed generally. Now, I certainly think that we as representatives of the rural districts would be failing in our duty if we did not make sure that the existing rights laid down in the original law will be maintained in future. Let us remember that the building of a national road impinges tremendously on a man’s property rights. The owner of land has no alternative if the road is surveyed and built over his land. He gets very little compensation if a road is constructed over his property and it causes him a lot of inconvenience. Quite a lot of his land is taken up by the road and by the fencing on the side of the road. He still has to pay his interest on the money he has invested in the land; he still has to pay taxes, and he is still responsible for the land which is cut off from his land for the new road.

The amending Bill does not change the original Act in this regard.

I want to make quite sure of that. I therefore ask the Minister to assure us that if a road goes over a man’s farm the farmer’s rights will not be interfered with in regard to the erection of buildings and improvements, as allowed in the original Act. I shall be satis fied if the Minister gives us that assurance, but if he cannot give us that assurance he will realise that we shall be compelled to ask him to do so in the interest of the people who are already suffering a lot of inconvenience and damage as a result of the building of those roads.

Mr. Speaker, the National Roads Board is spending public money and I venture to suggest that its staff should be subject to the Public Service Commission, the same as the staff of the Provincial Roads Boards. I hope the National Roads Board will not make any permanent appointment until the return of our troops. The different wages paid by the National Roads Board have led to a great deal of dissatisfaction throughout the service of the Roads department of the Provincial Councils, and moreover the Board has appointed junior men in the Provincial Road Service to senior positions under the National Roads Board. That has led to a number of most promising young men under the Provincial Administration looking for jobs outside the service. Some of them have gone to competitive contractors for road-making. To my knowledge they have obtained favourable positions. Another point is that the making of national roads is very nearly completed in some of the Provinces, and I do not think it is necessary to have a huge staff when the work is more than half done and the future will be mainly a question of maintenance.

I do not think that this hon. House is aware of the dual control by the National Roads Board and the different provinces. It is rather disturbing to think that huge sums of money have been spent on national roads in the Union and the country is not receiving value for that money. You find, for instance, in the Transvaal that on the road Greylingstad to Standerton, which is 32 miles, £90,000 has been spent, and there is not a single mile standing up. When we spend huge sums of money like that we should have not only proper supervision but experiments should be carried out first so that £90,000 is not spent upon a road only to find that it will not stand up to the wear and tear. There is another road, Umtata towards Kokstad, which has cost the country £60,000, and that road is breaking up. Another road, Pienaarsrivier to Warmbaths, is also breaking up. Surely there must be something wrong when huge sums of money are being spent on national roads and they will not stand up to the work. These roads are supposed to last for fifteen years, but they have not been in existence for more than five years and they have not stood up to the work. I do appeal to the Minister to see that whatever happens some sort of supervision is exercised by the two authorities, and experimental work done to ensure that the road will stand up to the work required of them. Today we have the dual control, and the provinces have to construct roads to the specifications laid down by the National Roads Board. The result of this is that the provinces may build the roads to the National Roads Board’s specifications, and it is the fault of the National Roads Board, while on the other hand the National Roads Board says the provinces make a bad job of the road. It is the country that is paying this money after all is said and done, and the taxpayer is not concerned whether it is the fault of the National Roads Board or of the provinces that the work is badly done. It is the taxpayer of the country that has to find the money, and I do not think we are getting value for that money. I am going to tell the Minister, I am not referring now to my own province, we have £150,000 worth of machinery standing in the veld, and it is an appalling state of affairs to think that that amount of value in machinery should be standing in the veld. I appeal to the Minister that some sort of arrangement should be come to whereby the taxpayer’s property is protected. I know that a number of lorries were standing about with the tyres on, and I think it is an appalling state of affairs that the people responsible were allowing these vehicles to stand about in the veld without even the tyres being taken off. I know the Minister will say this is not the fault of the National Roads Board, and the provinces will say it is not their fault. Surely somebody is at fault, and I do appeal to the Minister to see that this vast amount of money is not wasted in this country. I am going to say to the Minister that I have seen machinery brought into this country that has cost £3,000 per machine, and it has not worked for six months, and I think that is a bad state of affairs. There are machines in this country that have never done a day’s work. The ex-chairman of the National Roads Board said that we now know the technique of road-building; and still roads are failing. Surely there is something wrong. I am not the man to say where the mistake lies, but I do appeal to the Minister to find out where the mistake lies. You have two engineers on the job, the National Roads Board engineer and the provincial engineer, and still the roads fail. Where is the mistake? Now on another point. I do appeal to the Minister to see that the men working on these roads shall get a square deal. I know you will say it is the duty of the provinces. I say that the previous chairman of the National Roads Board said it was all the fault of the provinces, but do not let us put all the blame on the provinces. The National Roads Board must take a certain amount of responsibility. The ex-chairman says that a deplorable state of affairs exists owing to the incompetence and inexperience of the storekeepers. I am going to tell the hon. Minister that we have no control over the stores because they say they cannot find suitable people, but surely there are enough men, who have come back from the front today that we can trust to look after the stores as far as the national roads stores are concerned. We find that thousands of pounds worth of the stores have disappeared, we do not know where the stuff has gone to, it has just disappeared. I appeal to the Minister to see that the chairman of the National Roads Board should not make statements to the Public Accounts Committee indicating that it is all the fault of the provinces. It is not only in the Transvaal, the province where I come from, but it is the same in all the provinces. I have had the privilege of travelling through all the provinces, and the Natal Province has the same trouble, and so has the Cape and the Free State. I want to emphasise once more that due precaution should be taken in regard to erosion. Roads have been built that have caused a lot of erosion in the country. If only they would follow the good advice given them by one of their experts in the Transkei it will save this country a vast amount of money. In the case of the road from Kroonstad to Bloemfontein steps are being taken to protect the soil of the farmer, and I think we should follow that good example even if it is going to cost the country three times that amount of money.

The Free State always sets a good example.

The hon. member says the Free State sets a good example, and I am pleased that the hon. member says that. I do ask the Minister to help us by seeing that the farmers’ lands are protected in the future.

I have been sitting here and listening to the previous speaker, and I was interested in trying to find out, in the event of bad roads being constructed— whether they were made as an experiment or not—whether the fund paid for the damage. Now I want to ask the Minister, seeing that the Roads Board lends money to Divisional Councils for the building of Provincial Roads—which was done for instance in regard to the road between Worcester and Robertson — why the Divisional Councils should have to bear the responsibility. That road was built in accordance with the Provincial Council prescriptions, although the Divisional Council protested they had to not stand up. The reply was : “What do you know about those things?”, so the road was built in accordance with the instructions of the Provincial Council. The road is now breaking up and the Divisional Council is expected to bear the loss. Although the Divisional Council protecter they had to build the road in the way they were instructed to build it, and now the Roads Board comes along and says that they have to repay the money and stand the loss. I think the Roads Board itself should stand the loss. I shall be glad if the Minister will explain the position.

I think we would be failing in our duty if we did not associate ourselves with the points raised by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers). We only have to travel through this country a little to notice the extraordinary policy which is being carried out in regard to road construction. The first impression one gets is that there is a tremendous waste of money, and a tremendous waste of time, and it would appear that there is no intention whatsoever of ever finishing the work on the roads which have already been declared “National Roads.” One gets the impression that the intention is to go on constructing roads until Doomsday, and to do the same thing as was done with the Railways, namely, to build roads, rebuild them and make deviations ….

You forget there is a war on.

The war is no excuse for a road being constructed in a particular area this year, and being deviated 50 or 100 yards to the right or to the left next year. The war is no excuse for that type of road making. It is almost unbelievable, but in Natal I have seen three tarred roads within a distance of 500 yards of each other. The one is not completed before they start building another. The public are beginning to ask themselves more and more what kind of a policy we are following. Another characteristic in the building of roads is that these roads are built in bits and pieces. You find them busy tarring a bit of road, and when you come back six months later you find that they have perhaps not quite finished that bit of road, which may be a mile in length. As the hon. member for Zoutpansberg said, the public are beginning to wonder what the policy is. Are we going to have this endless expense for ever, and are we for ever going to have all these inconveniences on our main roads, as a result of this extraordinary road policy? As the hon. member also said, and quite rightly, the Provincial Council shrugs its shoulders and says it is not their business, and the Minister says that his Road Board is not to blame. Who is responsible for all this waste? The time has come for the Minister to see to it that the Roads Board finishes its work in a systematic way and that it does not first take one bit of road, and then another bit, as a result of which the whole of the machinery has to be moved up and down. It is not only the expense which worries one, but there is also a lot of incon venience caused by it and I would be failing in my duty if I did not say a few words about it. In regard to the statement before the Select Committee, to the effect that they cannot get people to handle the stores, I want to know who will accept that explanation. Surely that is not a reasonable excuse. If there is one section which has left the people and the Government in the lurch it is the Road Construction Division. Since when have we been busy making these roads? When was the National Roads Board established; when were certain roads declared to be National Roads? I think it was in 1935, nearly ten years ago.

Five of these years have been war years.

We had the same position before the war. I don’t blame the Minister personally. We had this tortoise method of doing things even before the war. Every 50 yards for instance you see a little cement post along the road. Is it not a waste of money to have those posts? If it is not a waste of money, if it is not a deliberate waste of money, then I do not know what waste is. I asked one day what the reason was for having white cement posts built along the tarred road every 50 yards or so. The reply was that that was an indication that the road was a National Road. Well, one could understand it if such pillars were put up over a distance of, say, every 200 yards, where two big roads fork, to show which was the National Road.

The object is to show the road on a misty night.

The kind of drivers who require those pillars to show the road on a misty night must be very dangerous drivers and they are certainly not competent to drive any sort of vehicle. A man who is likely to stray off the National Road if there are no such cement posts is certainly not fit to drive any vehicle. I say that where two roads turn out one can understand the necessity of having such posts over a distance of 200 yards or so to indicate which is the National Road. Any reasonable individual would agree to that, but to think that it is necessary to have such posts all along the tarred road to prevent people from turning off does not seem reasonable. I say it is simply wasting money. A globular amount was allocated to these people; they had to spend that money to make roads, and I say they should rather have spent the money which is now being wasted on these posts, on the tarring of the roads. I shall be glad if the Minister will give the House some information and tell us how much has been spent on the building of these cement posts, each of which is 3 ft. long, along the hundreds of miles of National Roads. I think the House would be astounded if it heard how much money has been spent on that. There must be millions of these posts, and when we get the figure we shall be able to see how much public money has simply been thrown away. So far as I am concerned it is a waste of money, and the time has arrived for Parliament to make itself heard. The Roads Board and the Provincial Councils have been busy since 1935, and let me say that I believe the Provincial Councils made very much better roads in the past than they are now doing with all this overlapping. At the moment it is nobody’s business. If good work is done both will claim to have done that good work, but if bad work is done the one will try to put the responsibility on to the other. This House must now make itself heard on the subject and it should say what it thinks of this waste of money on cement posts. A man whose eyes are so bad and whose lights are so bad that he cannot follow the tarred road at night should not be allowed to drive a motor car.

Have you ever driven in a thick fog?

It means that the public have to pay because a bad driver and a bad car are allowed to use the roads. We cannot expect the public to pay for this. We must use the taxpayer’s money to tar the roads and put them into proper order, and we should not waste money because of a few people who should not be allowed on our roads at all. It is a waste of money to put up these posts, simply for the purpose of indicating to people that they are travelling over a tarred road and that that road is a National Road. I fully associate myself with the complaint made by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg regarding the road policy which is being pursued in this country.

If an impartial person had listened to the speech of the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) he could have come to only one conclusion, and that is that the construction of National Roads in this country is a failure. I say that that is an absolutely unreasonable conclusion. That hon. member sits in Johannesburg and perhaps uses the National Roads very little. He drives very comfortably over Johannesburg’s tarred roads, but we as farmers have the convenience of the National Roads and we know what they mean to us.

I for my part want to congratulate the Minister heartily on this great national enterprise. We must assume that mistakes will be made when such an enterprise is started. Who is there who does not make mistakes? Small mistakes have been made, but the usefulness and the benefit of the National Roads and the success of the enterprise completely overshadow all these minor mistakes. Mistakes are made in every department. Which of us has no faults? Which of us has made no mistakes? This great national undertaking, however, is welcomed in the rural districts. I am sorry the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) also tried to put a spoke in the wheel. I have been through his constituency. We find the Great North Road there—the road from Pretoria to the North runs through Zoutpansberg. Does not that great National Road mean a great deal to Zoutpansberg? And now we are told by the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) that the farmers are being so terribly prejudiced on account of the roads passing over their farms. If I had ten farms I would like the National Road to pass through all of them because it is most beneficial to a farmer to have the National Road passing over his farm. The benefit is much greater than the loss of the little bit of land which is used for the road. I say that it would have been even more beneficial to the farmer if the road had been made twice as wide. It is profitable to the farmer to have the National Road going over his farm. No, we get the impression from speeches of some hon. members that the money spent on the National Roads is a terrible loss to the country. It is not a loss, but a benefit. The loss which the farmer suffers in regard to the small strip of land is trivial in comparison with the advantage he scores by having the road passing over his farm.

If his farm is 50 morgen, is it a benefit to him?

He immediately has the advantage of transport. He has access to the road, and in that way it is a benefit to him and not a loss. Don’t let us be small minded and throw a spanner into the works. Don’t let us discourage the Minister and his Department. Under present conditions it is impossible to expedite the work in the way it can be done in normal times, but I applaud the work, and I am convinced that this great national undertaking will turn out a wonderful success for the country’s future, for the benefit of the platteland and the country as a whole When we listen to hon. members over there, we get the impression, as I have already said, that this national enterprise has been a failure. Let me put this question to them: Must the work be stopped?

Nobody has asked for that.

Judging by the hon. member’s criticism it has been a failure. Let hon. members listen to what the hon. member for Caledon has told us. He says it is a failure.

What are you talking about now?

Where is the Minister to put the road if he is not allowed to construct it over a man’s farm? Has the road to be built up in the air? We want to make the road as straight as possible—what course is the Minister to follow if he is not allowed to build it over a man’s farm?

But he should not build it over a man’s yard.

I deny that a house has ever had to be pulled down or a yard destroyed on account of the National Road. No, I think we must be reasonable and we should encourage this great national enterprise and support it to the utmost of our ability. I can speak from personal experience—I travel a great deal over our National Roads, and I can say that I am very much taken up with them; I want the Minister to continue this work, in spite of the arguments we have heard from hon. members over there.

I don’t think it is fair that the engineers of this country should not have a special word said about them in connection with this debate. It is not fair that the remarks which have been made about them should be allowed to pass without a word of protest being spoken. We have been told that their work has been appalling—or words like that have been used. Now, if there is one thing of which South Africa can be proud today it is our road engineers and of the part they are playing in this war.

Hear, hear!

Gen. Montgomery has pointed out that South African engineers are equal to any others in the world. He paid the greatest tribute to them.

He did not refer to their work on our roads.

Our South African engineers have built those roads up North— they have built a great many roads, important roads, and one of them who was in charge of the roads, paid the supreme penalty. A great many of our boys up North have done wonderful work. Only last night I read of the great work done by our South African engineers in this war, and here we have the Parliament of this nation, while our boys are fighting up North, sitting down and listening to a member calling these people and their work “appalling.”

You are now talking nonsense.

The hon. member is like Lot’s wife—he is always looking back—he will turn into a pillar one of these days. This is a large country with large spaces and big areas. It is not all inhabited country, and let me say this to the hon. member who has been so scathing, that it has some of the best roads in the world, particularly if you take the size of its population. My hon. friend, the member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers), comes from a country where there are a few tigers and lions and snakes, and very few people. He has some of the best roads in the country there in spite of the fact that there are so few people, and the same thing applies throughout South Africa. The roads on the whole are excellent, and they would have been completed had it not been for the war. A large part of our road building machinery had to be taken up North, and our men went up North, and there was a time when the Roads Board reported to this House that they could not get the material to go on with the plan which had been set up. Well, I want to pay a tribute to the Minister and his Department and to the Roads Board, as well as to the men employed, for the wonderful work they have done. We older people remember the days when there were no roads and no bridges, when sometimes we were stuck before a river for days. And that particularly applies to the Free State which produced an outstanding, man like Mr. Murray who was the head of the Roads Department and who laid the first great roads in that province. Then he became head of the department and he laid out this great road scheme of which South Africa has cause to be very proud today. I do not know whether my hon. friend, the hon. member for Krugersdorp, ever comes into contact with any other people except the people of Krugersdorp, but if he does come into contact with people from other parts of the world he will know what they think of our roads. How often have they not said to me: “How do you manage in a country like South Africa to have such good roads”? We are proud of our roads and of our engineers, and I am proud of our engineers and the men working with them, and I say again that they have done a remarkable job in this war.

Notwithstanding the tribute which the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) has paid to the engineers, I want the Minister to face up to the very serious position which is brought about by the Chairman of the National Roads Board. When he was before the Select Committee for Public Accounts in this House he made certain statements in explanation of certain fruitless expenditure which had been incurred, and when taxed with the responsibility for that he accused, among other people, the Provincial Roads Department of Natal, of having been guilty of waste, extravagance and incompetence. Those were the express allegations made by the then Chairman of the National Roads Board. He and his department were subsequently given the fullest and freest opportunity of making good what had been said by the Chairman, the late Chairman, of the National Roads Board. A Select Committee of the Natal Provincial Council was appointed, presided over by Mr. Power, one of the senior members of the Provincial Executive of Natal, and a most careful investigation was made. The Natal representatives of the Roads Board appeared before the Committee and every opportunity was given for the Chairman, the late Chairman himself, to appear, if he wished to. He did not. There was no allegation made by the present Chairman, and I do not think he is likely to be disposed to follow the course of the former Chairman. But in this case those who appeared on behalf of the National Roads Board were unable to produce a single shred of justification for the statement which was made in regard to waste, extravagance and incompetence. Every one of those allegations went down and the Select Committee was bound to come to the conclusion that the statement of the former Chairman of the National Roads Board was unsubstantiated by any evidence whatever. Now, that is a very serious position. We are today engaged in improving the framework within which the National Roads Board works and we are trying to provide for the better construction of our roads. Let us hope that we shall not have any more statements damaging to the people who have done their best in connection with the construction of our roads. These people have indeed been ill requited by the late Chairman of the Board. Now I want to refer to allegations made before the same Select Committee in connection with the Citrus Estate in the Transvaal, the Crocodile Estates, as a result of which a judicial investigation was held.

I hope the hon. member will not pursue that subject too far; it does not seem to me to be revelant to the question before the House.

I accept your ruling, although I should like to know how it is possible for the Chairman of the National Roads Board to make statements which are apparently not correct, and why those statements are not debatable in connection with the work which that Board is called upon ….

I feel that that is not germane to this particular Bill.

Very well, Mr. Speaker, I shall defer that matter until we reach the vote, because it seems to me that it certainly requires the consideration of this House. I merely want to say that the allegations which have been brought forward deal largely with these allegations of waste, extravagance and incompetence—certainly with incompetence. The Chairman of the National Roads Board certainly made his allegation of incompetence the burden of his statement before the Select Committee and he indicated the people who in his estimation were responsible for this incompetence and waste. Now that he has been found wanting in connection with that, and has been found to have declared what is not justifiable, and not even supported by his own colleagues today, I hope the Minister will see that some further investigation is made in which the person concerned would be made to face up to the accusations which he made so recklessly before the Select Committee.

The discussion on this rather small amending Bill has covered a wide field indeed, and I think one or two of the points raised might more appropriately be raised on the Transport Vote. But so far as I can deal with them I should like to say a few words on the points raised. In regard to the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) I would like to give him the assurance that there is no change from the original Act in respect of farmers’ rights under the Ribbon Development Act. No change is instituted by any of these amendments. The rights you have today you retain without qualification or modification of any kind and no one gets any rights which are not contained in the Act.

Thank you.

So the hon. member can be reassured on that point. The next point of importance which came up was the question, which several members dealt with, of the dual control as between the Provincial Councils and the National Roads Board in respect of road construction. I am prepared to admit that there is a certain element of weakness in the organisation as it is today, but I would point out that if you criticise that, you are not criticising the Provincial Councils but you are criticising the Provincial Council system because as long as you have four authorities building roads in South Africa there must be a large element of dual control and overlapping. The only cure for that would be to take roads out of the control of the Provincial Councils, but I gather that that is not what the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) or the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Gray) want; but all their arguments were in that direction. They were not criticising the Provincial Councils but the system. I do not think it is impossible to maintain the system as it is at present. As the House knows I have only recently become the Minister responsible for the National Roads Board, and it will be my duty to see that there is the closest liaison, understanding and co-operation between the engineers of the Roads Board and the engineers of the provinces. I may tell the House that I have already arranged for a meeting, I think, at the end of July in Pretoria with all these authorities, and we hope to establish machinery which will prevent overlapping. It is very easy to be wise after the event and blame people when a road has broken down, but in this country with its great variety of soils, abnormal weather conditions, both in respect of drought and rain, it is impossible to find anyone in the world who is such an expert that he will not make mistakes. We must make mistakes—the great thing is not to make the same mistake twice, and that is where I think our engineers have shown great wisdom. They have experimented—they have experimented at great length, and in great detail—they have built a number of roads, ánd owing to unsuitable foundations, owing to the soil underneath being of a particular quality, some roads have failed, but these things have to be largely learnt by experience, because nowhere in the world can you duplicate the conditions of this country and get the experience of others to help you. But on the whole I think the position has been very satisfactory, and I want to thank the hon. member for Namaqualand for his very wise remarks on the question of National Roads. I could not have defended the National Roads Board against these attacks better than the hon. member did it for me. Now, in regard to the question raised by an hon. member as to whether we are fair to the soldiers at the Front in making appointments, let me make the position quite clear. The National Roads Board like all Government Departments makes no permanent appointments where it is possible to make temporary appointments. The National Roads Board, like other Government Departments, promotes officers in its service, and a number of officers at present up North have been promoted under this arrangement. So we are in line with all other Government Departments, and I can assure hon. members that the interests of the soldiers will not be forgotten. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) raised a point which has nothing to do with the Bill.

Yes, but I should like to hear what you have to say about it.

Yes, I say it has nothing to do with the Bill because the point the hon. member raised dealt with a road which is not a National Road.

It is a high road.

It is a provincial road built under the aegis of the Provincial Council. The hon. member dealt with the WorcesterRobertson road which is a Provincial road and has nothing to do with the National Roads Board.

Who gives the money for it?

The National Roads Board does not lend or give money to Provincial Councils to build provincial roads.

Who was responsible for the financing of this road?

I am not responsible for it. I have nothing to do with the Provincial Councils; I have no say or authority over them—all I am concerned with is the National Roads Board.

You have some responsibility here.

I have not. Now I should like to reassure the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg)—who is not here at the moment—that we have no intention of abandoning the five year plan. I should like to remind him that we have been at war for the best part of five years, and as my hon. friend, the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) pointed out very properly, the National Roads Board has taken a big part in the efforts of the country in the war. Col. Shannon, the Chief Engineer of the National Roads Board, sacrificed his life in the interest of the country, and I think that, while being only one case, sets the standard of the National Roads Board right through, but I would assure the hon. member that although we have given much machinery to the army, although we have been building aerodromes and other things for the defence of this country, apart from giving other services, we have still gone on and tried to do justice to the five years’ plan, and we are still maintaining our roads in proper condition. I think the hon. member for Krugersdorp should be the last man —as a man who wore the uniform of his country—to make a political point out of the position. He was also very much concerned about the white stones on our National Roads. No important point is ever missed by the hon. member for Krugersdorp. I should like to say that one of these days, after the hon. member has been at a political meeting, after he has been talking with his usual eloquence which we know he is possessed of, he may be driving his car back deep in thought and thinking of the remarks he has made, when these white stones may prove his salvation.

Especially outside municipal areas.

We have heard of the effect of the exuberance of verbosity on certain people, and we know when people are in that condition what may happen to a motor car unless it is very clear where the road is. The purpose of these white stones is to mark the road, nothing more and nothing less. They are to mark the road where on a dark night the road is very difficult to be seen, and I think this House will agree that this small expenditure on these white stones is very well justified. The hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) has raised a point which perhaps he will raise later on. The question of store control does not seem to me to be a matter which I should be expected to answer in this particular debate. The question of erosion, of course, I dealt with in my second reading speech, and I would refer the hon. member to my remarks on that occasion so that he may be assured as to what my attitude is. I think that there is nothing more than I can say now.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

On this vote there is an amount in respect of Road Motor Services, in connection with which I want to put a few questions to the Minister. We know that according to the report the progress made last year was very unsatisfactory. The Minister some time ago announced in this House that a few hundred thousand pounds of road making machinery had been used up North in connection with the war. Has this now been returned to the Union, or is it still being used there, or has it been sent further along? Is that one of the reasons why so little progress has been made? The Board’s expenditure is increasing tremendously, and several thousand pounds are paid by way of difference between the civil pay and the military pay. I want to ask the Minister how many of the officials are on military service, and what is the difference which the Road Motor Board has to bear between the military and the civil pay? There is also a large amount here for petrol, oil and grease, an amount of £57,000, £10,000 more than last year. Can the Minister tell us why in one year there is an increase of £10,000 for petrol and oil? We saw a report in the Press some time ago about a member of the Executive Committee in Natal having used a Government motor car. Is the increase due to cars being used in that way? The Minister also has an amount of £36,000 here for the purchase of motor transport, £6,000 more than last year. Will the Minister explain what this increase from £30,000 to £36,000 is due to? We are told that practically no new cars are coming into the country. Where does this increase come from? In regard to the salaries Of the drivers I notice that the highest amount a man can get is £25 per month. Is there any prospect for these people, after they have served for a long time as drivers at £25 per month, to get higher positions to which better salaries are attached, or have they to stop at the maximum of £25 all the time in spite of many years’ experience?

I should like to know from the Minister why the Estimates have been drafted in this form? Why is not the Motor Transport Board’s expenditure also included in this?

I have explained that.

I shall be glad if the Minister will explain it again. The Minister used to be a business man and I should like to know from him whether he can give the House the assurance that the amount of £262,500, which apparently we are voting exclusively in connection with garages, is being spent as effectively as possible or whether this expenditure could not be reduced? Tenders used to be asked in the past from the local garages for this kind of transportation work. Would not that be a cheaper system? We have had very unhappy experiences of business undertaken by the Government itself. As a result it costs a lot more than when private individuals undertake it. Our experience has been that when the Government undertakes a business it usually costs twice as much as when a private concern does it. We have garages now in Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban and Pietermaritzburg, and it seems to me that the system is being extended more and more. It would appear to me that they could save money by having this work done on a tender basis by private concerns. In regard to garage work it is very difficult to determine whether the work which is done and the price which is charged is reasonable in the circumstances. It is very difficult to keep a watchful eye on the material and on everything else that is used, and sometimes more than one man is employed to do the work. I therefore want to know from the Minister whether there is proper control in the garages in connection with the work that is being done there. We notice that the amount of £262,500 includes £87,000 for such articles as oil, petrol, tyres, etc. That means that almost £200,000 is spent on services. Naturally, with the new Ministry a Secretary has been appointed and an office has been established which also costs a lot of money. And if one travels through the country today one sees nearly as many Government cars as private cars. What control does the Government exercise over those cars? Say there are a few cars at Robertson and Swellendam. What control is there to see whether they are being used for private pleasure? In the past tenders used to be asked by the Government and taxis were used for the transport of Government officials. I assume that the service was just as good as it is today, but the system was cheaper. People complain very bitterly about the amount of money that is being spent on Government motor cars, and I think the Minister should consider the desirability of reverting to the old system. The Minister shakes his head. If I am a private owner of a private car I always have it at my disposal, and if a tender is accepted one can see to it that the man has the cars available for such occasions as they are needed by officials. I therefore feel this is not only a Government matter but that we should also watch against abuse.

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

Afternoon Sitting.

I should like to have your ruling, Mr. Chairman, whether road motor services, road motor transport, also comes under this vote, and whether it can be discussed here.

It comes under Railways and Harbours.

The Road Motor Transportation Board?

It comes under Railways and Harbours.

When business was suspended I had almost concluded my remarks. I should like to know from the Minister what all these drivers in the various garages do; there are five in Cape Town, six in Johannesburg, eight in Pretoria, two in Durban and so on. I do not understand what such a large number of drivers are doing in those garages. What, really is their work in connection with transport? Then, in regard to rubber and petrol I should like to know from the Minister whether the Government garages come under the same restrictions as other garages? Do they also have to take out a permit, or can they do just as they please? And in regard to rubber, must they also apply to the controller?

May I raise that point now which I raised on the previous vote, about the expropriated land in the municipality of Paarl for National Road purposes. We are told now that in addition to the land required for the actual road another 15 ft. has to be given. Compensation was paid only for the actual road space, but we are now told to leave another 15 ft., for which apparently no compensation is paid. In some cases this cuts into a small farm very considerably.

I would like to say in regard to the last speaker that I do not get his point. I do not follow him, but in any case I will probably not have the information off-hand. I suggest that he sees me about it and we can then discover what the real difficulty is. I think, Mr. Chairman, I might now reply to one or two points that have been made. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) was worried about certain machinery and what it is costing us. I will explain that that machinery was sold to the Defence Department; it was sold out of hand and is no longer our property. Like all other Government Departments, nothing that went North was sent in the name of this Department but in the name of the Defence Department. In regard to the cost of the civil allowance to soldiers which has been borne by the Department of Transport, I have not the exact figures, but it is a very small thing so far as the Department is concerned; it will be plus or minus £200, a very small figure indeed. The National Roads Board itself does not have what you would call a large staff. Roads are actually built by the provincial councils and those councils employ very large staffs. But as far as the National Roads Board is concerned its staff is relatively small in number. The increase of £10,000 on the Vote for petrol, oil and tyres I do not think is excessive, having regard to the enormous increase in the cost of those commodities. It is necessary for us not only to meet the costs today, but to prepare for any possible further increases, and I do not think the amount of £10,000, which we are now asking for as an increase, is excessive. On the question of buying cars I would remind the hon. member that we as a Government garage had to buy cars in anticipation of Government requirements, and in doing that out of the available stock that we still had in the country, the Government is naturally a fairly large purchaser and the cost of those cars has gone up. They are very expensive because of freight and one or two other factors, and that again accounts for the increase in that particular vote. As to the question of drivers’ pay, that of course is fixed at present at £25, but I am not going to say that that is necessarily the final and last figure that will be considered for a driver. We have always considered that as fair pay for a driver, and in many respects it compares favourably with what drivers are paid anywhere else; but, as I say, that is a matter for adjustment from time to time if the circumstances of the case appear to warrant it. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) asked me why I was not taking the estimates for the other boards, and I pointed out to him that I had already explained that to the House when he was unfortunately not in his place. Provision for the expenses of the Road Transportation Boards, the Shipping Board, the Perishable Products Board and the National Road Transportation Council and Advisory Committee could not be made in these estimates as the laws governing these organisations provided that their expenditure be defrayed from the Railways and Harbours Fund. Those laws have now been amended, and I am tomorrow to be sworn in as Minister of Transport, and this expenditure will then appear in the supplementary estimates. But it was not in accordance with parliamentary procedure to put them on to these estimates until authority had been given for transferring them from the Railways and Harbours Fund. An opportunity for discussing these in detail will come up under the supplementary estimates later. In regard to the question of the control of Government cars, I would like to assure the hon. member that the most elaborate system is adopted to prevent and check any abuse of Government garage cars. Not only do we have inspectors, but we have an elaborate system of checking, issuing vouchers for journeys, getting these signed for, checking up the times and so on, checking the mileage and the petrol used. I can assure the hon. member that it is a matter that receives the closest attention on the part of the Government garages. These drivers, of whom the hon. member seems to think we have too many, are, as a matter of fact, very fully employed. I pointed this out before to this House. Owing to the fact that private transport is very difficult to obtain, that people cannot use their own cars as they would have done in peace time if they are doing a job of work for the Government, or going to see a Minister or anything of that sort, it is necessary for the Government to step in and supply a car for particular Government work. And there is no doubt that the Government Garage today is carrying quite an additional load which normally would have been carried by the private car belonging to the person concerned, but who has not got any petrol, and it is therefore necessary for the Govern ment to undertake this work. In these cases he gets a driver. We do not employ drivers just for amusement of the thing, but only if we have a full day’s work for them. I may say also that the Government Garage itself has to approach the controllers of the various commodities before they can get the use of these commodities for their purpose, and they have to satisfy the controllers that the work which the Government Garage is doing is essential to the life of the country and to the war effort. We get no preferential treatment in that respect. It is pointed out to me that this £25 to which the hon. member refers is an improvement on the figure which was in force until quite a short time ago, so that even now in the period of this Government there have been improvements in the matter of drivers’ wages. I would also point this out, that although the salaries of these drivers are £25 per month they get a cost of living allowance of £6 10s. and in certain cases there is a 5 per cent. responsibility allowance—and that is plus any overtime which they may work. Uniforms are also supplied to men on the fixed establishment, and the Government, as hon. members know, have agreed to an investigation into the Public Service, and the position of these men will come under survey along with that of other branches of the Government service.

There is a matter I want to bring to the notice of the Minister—it is a question of the National, Road between Durban and Maritzburg. Six years ago I raised the question of the construction of an altenative main road between Durban and Maritzburg. The matter was favourably regarded by everyone and a survey was made to ascertain what route would be possible for an alternative main road. When the report came out the engineer in charge had found another route and estimated that it would cost £260,000 to build this alternate main road, opening up new country. The reconstruction of the existing main route, he estimated, would cost £240,000—£20,000 less than building the alternate route. To my astonishment at a later date the Roads Board decided on a policy of putting new wine into old bottles by going in for a reconstruction programme of the existing route. It meant expropriating a great deal of land, and it was contemplated that a great deal of money would have to be spent on such expropriation. There was something to be said at that time for reconstructing the existing route at £20,000 less than the estimated cost of an alternate route. But to my astonishment a couple of months ago the road engineer for Natal addressed the Rotary Club in Durban on the question of roads and said that plans had been prepared to reconstruct the existing route and extend it through Maritzburg to Hilton Road. He said that the cost of this new proposal from Durban through Maritzburg to Hilton Road would be £1,300,000. It is absolutely staggering. This was done before the present Minister had the matter of National Roads in his hands. Now, the matter has been taken over by another Minister. I hope he will reconsider the alternate route. I do not want to go into all the advantages which will be derived by having an alternative route. It is fairly obvious what the advantages would be. I would also mention to the Minister that when a road census was taken some years ago this road between Durban and Maritzburg was found to be the most used road in the Union, and for that reason I hope the Minister will reconsider the question of building an entirely new road which in the long run will cost very much less than patching up the existing road.

Notwithstanding the assurance which the Minister just gave the House that everything possible is being done to stop abuse, I do feel that I would be failing in my duty if I did not bring to his notice the complaints which are being made by members of the public, that the irregular use of cars marked G.G. is wasting a lot of public money—these cars, so I am told, are frequently referred to as the “Gone Gay Transport”. Whether these complaints are justified or not I don’t know. But it has been stated that Government Garage cars are frequently seen parked in very suspicious or unauthorised places.

Oh, oh.

Such as near sporting grounds, places of amusement, and even in front of private residences.

I suppose those are the suspicious places.

Although there may be instructions for a very strict check to be kept, it is quite easy for a senior official to book a car for use for official purposes and abuse its use for private purposes. In view of the very acute shortage of vehicles I trust that the Minister will have further instructions issued to stop this sort of thing if it is taking place, and if necessary have a stricter check kept on these vehicles. I would also like to draw his attention to the fact that while the maintenance of the red postal vans comes under his control, I think the culprits really are the drivers controlled by the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs — in Pretoria, at any rate, the drivers of these vehicles are referred to as “road hogs”. While the Minister of Transport appeals to the public by pamphlets and big posters, to conserve transport and tells us that public vehicles must last until 1947, these things should not be allowed to go on. These vehicles are driven at anything from 50 to 60 miles per hour, and the wear and tear on them must be terrific. I feel that some instruction to these drivers might have the desired effect.

In discussing the question of roads I should like to know from the Minister why it is that we have not in this country, so far as I know, tried experiments in strip roads. In Rhodesia these strip roads are used very extensively. I have looked into this question, I have inspected these roads, I have been near them at night, and seen men working on them, and I am told that they cost about £270 per mile. I am told that people travelling on them travel just as easily as they do on our tarred roads.

Have you ever travelled on them?

Yes, I have travelled many thousands of miles on them.

In the daytime or at night?

In the course of three years I have driven about 6,000 miles on them. I think they are tip top, and the cost is very much less than the cost of our roads. I would not suggest that in this country in parts where the traffic is heavy we should have strip roads, but I know that in Rhodesia they do stand up to the lighter traffic ….

And they play havoc with your tyres.

No more than our roads do.

I have seen roads in Rhodesia that have stood up to fairly heavy traffic for the last eight or ten years and they are still all right.

Probably because people do not drive on them.

Oh, yes, they do. In Rhodesia, when another car comes from the opposite direction, you just slip off the strip and you go on to the side.

You slip all right.

The point I want to make is this : there are areas in this country where we shall have to wait a life time for National Roads, whereas if we built a road of the kind they have in Rhodesia we might be able to get it in the next four or five years. Take a road through the back country to Kuruman and Vryburg on to Johannesburg. If we had to wait for a National Road there, we would have to wait all our lives. But if we could get a strip road built there as an experiment in that part of the country, where the traffic is not heavy, we could get it in a comparatively short time because it would not cost so much. I would not suggest it for very heavy traffic. I don’t believe we have ever thought of carrying out an experiment with strip roads. I do not suggest that we should carry it out in mountainous country but in areas in the Free State for instance you could have a road of this kind say over a stretch of 50 miles and see how it works. I know the difficulties of our rainfall, but we have the same rainfall as we have in Rhodesia. In Rhodesia I realise that native labour is cheap, and of course, there is constant attention given to these strips—the sides of the road are kept up in proper condition, and the road is kept in good order. Well, it has always puzzled me why we have never tried to have say 50 miles of strip road as an experiment and see how it works.

In regard to the question of the Durban—Maritzburg road I may say that the National Roads Board after going thoroughly into all the factors in connection with that road, decided that the best course was to follow the line more or less of the old road, and they therefore rejected the idea of an alternative road. As to the figures which the hon. member has quoted, we have no knowledge of these or where the hon. member has obtained them, and therefore I am not able to say anything as to whether they are even approximately right or not. With regard to the remarks of the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hopf) I was concerned to find that he has discovered Government Garage cars in suspicious places. Not going to suspicious places myself, I have never found them there, and I would hesitate sending my inspector to such places, but if he can give me some details ….

You might go there yourself.

I should be quite prepared to have the matter investigated by one of our inspectors.

You are very innocent.

I may also tell the hon. member that so far as the red cars are concerned, they are run by post office officials and they are outside the immediate control of the Ministry of Transport. I would, however, mention to the hon. member that very special instructions have been issued by the Government to all Government Departments, by the Prime Minister himself, instructing them to maintain the greatest economy in regard to transport and senior officials of each Department have been instructed to pay special attention to this matter. This also applies to the post office and to other Departments. Senior officials are to supervise and requisition all transport for the Departments and special care is to be exercised to see that there is no waste or abuse of cars obtained for the Government. And on the whole I think Government Departments have done their best to comply with these instructions. I am afraid I cannot altogether agree with the hon. member for Kimberley (Mr. Humphreys) about the advisability of using strip roads. It may be that in some remote parts of the country a strip road might meet the needs of the community, but that is a matter for the province and not for the National Roads Board which is only concerned with National Roads, and these should not be strip roads. I have been told that if you take a hen and put its head to the ground and draw a chalk line from it you hypnotise the hen. I must admit that when I have driven over a strip road for a few miles the strip has hypnotised me and I find these roads very difficult to drive over. No, I do not think the solution of our problem will lie in that direction. But if the hon. member thinks that an experiment should be carried out I suggest he should get the provinces interested and let them try it out on provincial roads. I have spoken to many Rhodesians and the opinion in Rhodesia is very mixed as to the usefulness of strip roads.

I am not at all satisfied with the Minister’s reply on the question of an alternative main road between Durban and Maritzburg. We have been told that the cost of reconstructing the existing main road will be £1,300,000. The Minister seems to doubt my figures.

I said I had no knowledge of these figures.

I hope the Minister will examine this whole question again. It is too ridiculous to build a main road, half of which runs through suburbs. From Durban to Botha’s Hill is a suburb of Durban. National Roads for fast traffic should not pass through suburbs. The idea of a National Road is to build it through new country, where there is no cross traffic. But that is not the only point. The estimate has now jumped from £260,000 to £1,300,000 with an extra distance tacked on to it. It seems outrageous to me. We have a new Minister in charge of this Department and I want to ask him to give this matter his consideration.

I shall look into it.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote, No 24—“Interior,” £484,200, †*Mr. LOUW:, May I be allowed to avail myself of the half hour rule? About a month ago we had a debate in this House on immigration, arising out of a motion introduced by the hon. member for Musgrave (Mr. Acutt). Unfortunately, owing to the time restriction under the rules of this House, it was not possible to dispose of that motion, and in the circumstances I now want to revert to the question which was discused on that occasion. The question of immigration is particularly important under all circumstances, but it is more particularly important at the present stage through which we are passing now, especially in view of the conditions created by the war. We as a party, as the official Opposition, regard the matter as particularly important at this stage, first of all in view of conditions in South Africa, and particularly in view of the coming demobilisation, when employment will have to be found for a large number of returned soldiers; we have also to bear in mind the already prevailing conditions of unemployment and poor whiteism in our own country. Secondly, we look upon it as a matter of importance in view of certain conditions which have been created in Europe and certain plans which are being discussed there in regard to post-war immigration. Thirdly, we look upon it as a matter of particular interest in view of the fact that we in South Africa already have a serious Jewish problem and in view of the fact that we consider all Jewish immigration into South Africa should be stopped. Our views about immigration have been explained on previous occasions, but I want to repeat that we are not opposed to immigration as such, provided the interests of our own Union citizens are first of all attended to in our own country, and in the second place, provided such immigration is confined solely to desirable immigrants, not only desirable from the point of view of character and so on, but also desirable, as already provided for in our law, from the point Of view of assimilability. There are, of course, certain exceptions. There is for instance the case of specially qualified persons who are not obtainable in South Africa. This applies to technically and specially qualified men. Then there is the other exception of people who have the necessary capital and who will not, if they come to South Africa, be dependent on Government assistance, and who will not take the bread out of the mouths of Union citizens. Those are the exceptions which we are prepared to approve of. We are not opposed to immigration as such, but we say that this is not the time to encourage any immigration into South Africa in view of the present and future conditions in our country. In regard to the second aspect of the matter we are faced with the position that very serious conditions have been created in other parts Of the world as a result of the war. Large numbers of people have been driven out of house and home, have been driven out of their country, and it is generally said that a new home will have to be found for those people. There is also the further fact that in England also a fear is being expressed as to what the position is going to be when the war is over when England will have to find employment for millions of returned soldiers. We therefore find that this question is being very seriously discussed. Some time ago a conference was held in Bermuda, which was attended by representatives of the United Nations. I do not think South Africa was represented there, but certain resolutions were passed there with a view to post-war immigration. We find from reports which appeared in this morning’s paper that the following statements were made—I am quoting from this morning’s “Cape Times”—

And then further—

We therefore find that this question of the migration of people who have been driven out of their countries, the question of the absorbing of unemployed in a country like England after this war, has become a burning question in England, on the Continent, and also in the United States of America, and that is why this question is now being discussed. It is a matter which could perhaps have been more pertinently discussed on the Prime Minister’s vote, as the Prime Minister is leaving shortly to represent South Africa at the Imperial Conference. But I want to express the hope that the Minister of the Interior is so much in the Prime Minister’s confidence that he will be able to give us information today in regard to this matter and will be able to inform me what the Government’s policy is going to be when this question comes to be discussed one of these days at the Imperial Conference. Now, we recently also had an alarming statement from the Minister of Lands. This matter was discussed in another place and on that occasion according to the report in the “Cape Times” he made the following statement—

And then he said that although the people in South Africa who were landless had to be provided for—

We had always been under the impression that, although it is not laid down in the letter of the law, Clause 11 was there to enable our own Union citizens of South Africa to obtain land. Now we get this important statement from the Minister of Lands, that Section 11, in spite of the fact that we in our own country have hundreds and thousands of people who are landless and who are very anxious to have land, is to be used to assist British settlers to secure land. I think this is a most alarming statement, and for that reason we think it is necessary to avail ourselves of this opportunity again to discuss the question of immigration. We want an assurance from the Minister of the Interior that before immigration on a large scale either from England, the Continent of Europe, or from any other land, is allowed, the needs of our own Union citizens in our own country will be attended to.

That is exactly what Senator Conroy said.

The Minister of Lands also said so.

Why did you not read out the whole of the speech?

I have told the House what he said. It seems that the hon. member doubts my word. I said that the Minister had stated that although the needs of our own Union citizens must be attended to, the Union Government had none the less given the British Government that assurance. This is what he said—

The hon. member for Hospital’s memory is leaving him in the lurch. We on this side of the House also say that there is not enough land for our own people and here we have the Minister of Lands giving the British Government the assurance that the Union Government will be prepared to assist British settlers under Section 11 of the Act.

You should have read the whole thing.

I read it in English and if the hon. member cannot understand ordinary English it’s not my fault. That perhaps is the explanation of the poor English which we find in his paper. Now I come to the question of Jewish immigration. This is a matter which we have often discussed here, but I am not apologising for reverting to it again today, because it has become a burning question in South Africa. It has become a problem which is giving rise to serious concern, not only among Afrikaans-speaking people but also among the English-speaking people in this country. The question of Jewish immigration is a burning one in South Africa today. According to the figures supplied to this side of the House and from questions put to the Minister of the Interior, it appears that during 1943, 1,825 Jews entered South Africa under premits for temporary residence. It was added that those figures included Jews domiciled in the Union, who had returned during the year. But the Minister did not tell us what that number was. Last year a similar question was asked, and the then Minister of the Interior replied that from the 1st January, 1939, to the 31st December, 1942, 1,575 Jews had been allowed to enter South Africa for permanent residence. We have since 1938 and even before that time been drawing attention to the serious condition which has been created in South Africa, and which has been constantly accentuated by the entry of Jewish immigrants and the increase of the Jewish population. We take up the attitude that there is a Jewish problem in South Africa and that it must be tackled, and the way in which it must be tackled is in the first place by putting an immediate stop to all Jewish immigration of all kind. The problem is here, and the important point in that connection is that the Jewish population apparently refuses to recognise the fact that the problem in South Africa has been created by the Jews themselves, by their encouragement and fostering of Jewish immigration into this country. They deny it. I have before me “Jewish Affairs” which was sent to me with the compliments of the Jewish Board of Deputies. One may assume that they speak with authority on the attitude adopted by the Jews. The same attitude is adopted here, they say that they on their part are doing nothing to foster Jewish immigration into South Africa. On a previous occasion I quoted from certain documents, and if the English language has any meaning it was very clear from those documents which were published in Hansard, that there had been active encouragement by the Jewish Board of Deputies and by prominent Jews in South Africa. This paper refers to my speech and says this, inter alia—

That opportunity will apparently be taken today, and I want to anticipate it. I am not concerned with the question of how or where these documents come from. I may add that parts of these documents appeared long ago in “Pro Patria,” a paper published in Paarl. But how these documents were obtained from the Jewish Board of Deputies does not matter. The question which we are concerned with here is that of the interests of our people and our country, and I therefore consider that I am fully entitled to use such documents. What is particularly interesting in connection with the statement I have just read is that here we have an admission by the Jewish Board of Deputies—in the paper which they have sent me—that these documents are correct and genuine. I am very glad to have that admission. We now have the admission that the documents which I have quoted from are in no way false and contain no false information. I do not want to repeat the quotations which I have made before, but if anyone wants to take the trouble to look up Hansard he will see that if English words mean anything, it is perfectly clear from these documents that for years and years the Jewish Board of Deputies and prominent Jews as well have been busy encouraging Jewish immigration into our country. As a result of their encouragement of Jewish immigration we have the Jewish problem in this country today. Nobody dare deny that we have a Jewish problem here. We have said before, and we say again, that you will always get a Jewish problem in a country as soon as the Jewish population exceeds a certain percentage; 20 to 25 years ago there was no Jewish problem in our country.

You created it.

The Jewish problem was created here by the Jews themselves. The hon. member who made the interjection, of course, has very good reasons for standing up as an advocate of the Jews. I don’t propose mentioning these reasons. But I do say that it is a fact that the problem has been created by the Jewish population, through the Jewish Board of Deputies having fostered and encouraged Jewish immigration. And let me say this, and I repeat what I said on a previous occasion, that on every occasion I raise this matter I get letters from all sides. That happened last time too, and for every letter I get from an Afrikaansspeaking person I get ten from English-speaking people. Many voters who support the Government, and who voted for the Government at the last election, feel as strongly on the Jewish question.

It is nothing to be proud of.

We can point to the increasing hold which the Jewish population are getting on the trade of our country. There is no need for me to go exhaustively into this question. I quoted certain figures last time to show the hold which the Jews have secured on the medical profession. I quoted figures from the South African Medical Journal, and I do think that that Journal can speak authoritatively on the subject. I pointed out that in this country today, of the medical men trained in South Africa, 22.5 per cent. are of English descent, 27.8 per cent. of Afrikaans descent and 46.5 per cent. of Jewish descent. So much for medical men trained in South Africa. In regard to the total number of medical men in this country, including those who have been in South Africa for years, and the great majority of whom are nearing the age of retirement, including those who came here from England and Scotland, and from the Continent of Europe, we find the following position: Of English descent, 38 per cent.; of Afrikaans, Netherlands, 25 per cent.; Jewish, 31 per cent. And what is the position today at the Medical Faculty of the Witwatersrand University? I have the figures here. Of the 823 European students, 442 are Jews. In other words, more than 50 per cent. of the students are Jews. Is it not understandable therefore that there is a feeling of serious alarm in this country about this matter? Is it not understandable that those of us whose sons have to grow up in this country, feel alarmed about the position which has arisen? That is why we take up the attitude that all Jewish immigration must be stopped. But I go further. This problem in South Africa is not going to be solved merely by the stopping of Jewish immigration, because the harm has already been done. There is only one way of settling the matter for the future and that is by applying a quota system for Jews to trade, industries and professions. That is the only way to solve the trouble. I want to express the hope that as we have a new Minister of the Interior, he will realise the seriousness of the position, and that he will, as far as he is also able to do so, stop this immigration. Then there is another matter I want to -touch upon, and this is also connected with the Jewish problem because they are people who mostly offend in regard to this matter. I am referring to the change of names. Now, I want to say at once to the Minister and to the department that in regard to the question of changes of names an improvement can undoubtedly be recorded.

Thank you.

The Minister says “thank you.” That improvement is not due to his department, but to this side of the House which has raised the matter every year. Year after year I have asked for the lists of people who have changed their names, and as a result of our raising this matter every year the Minister’s Department has become very careful and we are able to record a definite improvement But the position is not yet what it should be. There is an improvement in regard to the numbers and also in regard to the manner in which these changes of name take place. But there are still quite a number of undesirable cases. I have before me a complete list of changes of names during the past year and there are a large number of cases which to my mind should not have been allowed at all, cases where the only object of a change of name was to change the race—for business purposes. If a man changes his name for business reasons, and for social reasons, as was done in a number of these cases, he commits fraud on. the public. And this kind of change of name should not be allowed. There is a type of change of name which is justified. For instance, there is the case of an adopted child. I can appreciate that the child wants to take the name of the person who adopted it, There is the case of illegitimate children. Then there is the case of a mother who re-marries when her child is still young. One can also appreciate the case of a man getting a big inheritance on condition that he changes his name. Also, where a man has a very difficult name, or a name with a double meaning, a change is defensible, but take for instance the case of Frederick William John Tubby. He applied to be allowed to change his name to Read for the following reasons—

I have every sympathy with a man like that. He does not attempt to change his race. He is consistent. Apparently he is a tall man and a thin man, and he assumes the name of Read because possibly he is as tall as a reed. In a case like that one can approve of it. One also has names with ambiguous meanings, such as those which were quoted here last year. There I have no objection either, so long as the man does not try to change his race by changing his name. In the list I find the name of Gerohovsky, who changed his name to Corvy, and Rosenberg who changed his name to Rau. They do not change their race, but there are cases which I do object to. Here for instance is the case of Friedlander who changes his name to Farr; Friedberg who changed to Freeland, and what reason does his give—

Then there is the case of Isodore Rabinowitz, who changed his name to Robins, and Raphael who changed to Watts. They do not only change their names but their race as well. And then there is the name of Jerome P. Sussman who altered his name to Sutton. If he wants to change his name because it is too long, why does he not call himself Suss or something like that? Jack Lazarus Rabinowitz changes his name to Rushburn, for the following reasons—

I don’t know whether this man ever landed up North. Here is another case of Schopflich who changed his name to Shopley. He did not do what Rosenberg did who changed his name to Rau. If his name was too long he could have changed it without changing his race. Then we have Kaplin who changed his name to Sutherland, a good old Scotch name. Now, is it fair to the Sutherlands? Here is a Greek, Christodolides, it’s a long name. He altered it to Christie. I am sorry for the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mr. Christie). Here is Wolfowitz. If the name was too long he could have changed it to Woolf, but no, he changed his name to Wilton, and thus there are others. In many instances there is no justification for allowing a change of name. If there is difficulty in the pronunciation of a name, or if a name is ambiguous, then the Minister can approve of its being changed, but do not allow Jews to change their names into English or Afrikaans names. In all the instances I have mentioned the reason given was that they wanted to dissociate themselves from their race for business reasons and social reasons. I wanted to deal with a few other points but my time is nearly up and I may perhaps have a further opportunity of speaking on those other matters. I only want to express the hope that the Hon. the Minister who is new in his post will realise the seriousness of the immigration problem and that he will in view of conditions prevailing in South Africa, not encourage any large scale immigration, be it from England or from the Continent of Europe.

My purpose in rising today is to answer at the first opportunity, the attack made upon me by the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) on the 29th February, in which he impugned my bona fides and charged me with making false statements to the House in regard to the attitude of the Jewish community on the question of immigration. I am not going to refer to many other objectionable parts of his speech, or the very illiberal principles he propounded and which he has repeated again in his speech to the House. I am not going to refer either, Sir, to the extraordinary treatment that he wants to mete out to all immigrant aliens who come to this country. Nor will I go into the Jewish question—if there is a Jewish question in this country then the hon. member and those who sit there with him have brought it about, and no one else. They try to exploit the Jewish question in order to snatch a few votes, and I think the melancholy experience of the last election might have caused them to drop it like a hot potato. But hon. members over there will never learn. I do not propose to deal with those parts of his speech, not because I have not an answer to them but because my time is limited, and owing to the rules of this House I shall have to try and get my points off in sections, as they say in the army. I have no time to spare for anything that is not essential to meet the charges made against me. There is no reason why I should not deal with them, but his arguments are his usual stock-in-trade, they have been refuted more than once, many of the documents that he read out were read out in 1939 and they were fully answered then. The hon. member has remained silent for five years, and now he has trotted them out again, no doubt knowing that a third of the House is new and he will therefore have a better chance of putting it over among those who have not heard this sort of stuff before. If you take the pages of Hansard you will find everything that he has said today was said before, and his statements have been refuted from the very documents that he has read. The hon. gentleman used all these documents before, as I will show as soon as I get the opportunity. He has read only a portion of those documents and has twisted their interpretation. The answer to his charges is contained in those documents that the hon. member has got, the stolen documents which he has gloried in possessing, although the highest court in the land, apart from Parliament, has interdicted the use of those documents. He does not consider it beneath his dignity as a member of Parliament to bring those stolen documents into the House and read from them. We have never said, Sir, that the complete documents do not contain the truth or that we are ashamed of them. We are not ashamed of those documents, but we say they do not bear the interpretation that the hon. member has put on them. The point is this, is it in accordance with the dignity of Parliament to bring into the House documents which he avers and knows to have been stolen and which the principal court of this country has interdicted from being circulated for use? What is Parliament coming to if people are to be allowed, without Parliament being able to prevent it, to come into this House and say: “I have a number of stolen documents, the court has prevented these documents from being used but I can come into Parliament and use them”? It is not a question of whether they are true or not. We say the documents speak for themselves; we do not say they are not true, but it is the interpretation the hon. member places on them that is false and the fact that he distorts, as he always does, the documents that he uses to prove his case. There is the further fact that he does not read the whole documents, and I am going to show one or two examples; one cannot go through the whole gamut because it would take too long; but I want to show that it is only by twisting words and omitting essential parts of paragraphs that he makes out even a prima facie case. The entire documents will show that his interpretation is false. The hon. member has challenged certain statements which I made regarding the attitude of the Jewish Board of Deputies. I must remind the House of certain circumstances under which that statement was made, which statement I adhere to. There is nothing wrong about that statement, it is as true today as it was in 1937 when I made it. The question in 1937 was raised by the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) then, as now, Leader of the Opposition, who said that there was going to be wholesale immigration into South Africa from Europe in connection with the refugee problem, and that South African Jewry, through its organisations, was busy fathering this wholesale immigration. I said there was not a word of truth in that either as applying to the Jewish Board of Deputies or any other organisation. I say the same thing today; it is absolutely untrue, and the attempt of the hon. member to prove his case by reading a line here and there from the stolen documents does not prove his case in the slightest degree.

I read much more than a line.

I am not at all sure that he has not convinced himself. Like Hitler, he thinks this is a good opportunity of getting into power by presenting the Jewish scapegoat. It may have been good enough for Germany and Hitler, but it is not good enough in South Africa, and I have only to refer to the last election to show that such tactics have failed and have produced the miserably small Opposition we see today. The hon. member for Piketberg tried to create a bogy in this country, he tried to fighten the people by stating that we were engaged in a mass immigration scheme. I gave the assurance to the House which the hon. member has read; he read that particular declaration of mine quite correctly.

I thought you said I only read a line here and there.

I am speaking not of the document but of the declaration in this House, but I still say the hon. member only read a line here and there from the documents he has in his possession. The statement that I made is not only correctly quoted but it is the truth, and I made it not only in my own name but also in the name of that representative body, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. I reaffirm what I told the House in 1937, and so far from my misleading the House as the hon. member has charged me with doing, I say the hon. member is misleading the House in order to serve unworthy political aims, and he does it in the manner I have described and which I will deal with as soon as I possibly can. The hon. member admits that these are stolen documents and he knows that they are interdicted. This is the first time he has made that admission. Previously I challenged him constantly to admit these facts and today he has been candid enough to admit those two things. If he had quoted all the documents he has in his possession and if he had quoted them in their entirety, there would have been no charge left. Immigration, as such, has never been the concern of the Board, because we have recognised that in South Africa immigration is not a Jewish question but a national question. I said before and I say again no money has even been sent from South Africa by any organisation to bring immigrants here, nothing of the sort has ever taken place. Not that we would be ashamed of it if we had done it, but we realised that immigration must be tackled as a national question, and we realised also the unscrupulous use to which hon. mem bers opposite will put any attempt to try and support mass immigration of a Jewish population. We have never done so. We realise our position as South Africans, what we have objected to is the question of discrimination. We realise that South Africa is not a country that can have a large number of immigrants until the South African population has been dealt with, but what we object to is this discrimination.

It is very distasteful to me again to have to refer to this vexed question of the Indian in our midst. I thought after the passing of the Pegging Act last Session that we would have a rest from this question for at least three years. But since then a new Minister has been appointed to deal with the Asiatic question, and he has been making speeches in the country and has disturbed the minds of the European population. As I say, it is very distasteful to me to have to refer again to this question, and it is especially distasteful to have to criticise a Minister who hails from the samé province that I do, and that is Natal. It is bad enough to have a Minister who now suggests that the Indians should have a vote in this country, but it is ten times worse coming from a Minister who has never been elected to this House of Assembly. He has been a Senator for 15 years; he has never been elected to this House, and it is he who is now introducing this subject and trying to persuade the municipalities to grant the vote to Indians. The hon. Minister made this speech to which I am referring in Pietermaritzburg to the Natal Municipal Association Executive on the 3rd December, 1943. He is trying to introduce this without any mandate from the people of Natal. It is just one more surrender to the Indians. It is the thin end of the wedge to hand over Natal lock, stock and barrel to the Indians. There has been one long list of concessions to the Indian ever since they have come to this country, and I ask the Minister to state any one instance where the Indians have made a concession to the Europeans. If he knows of one, I do not. If the Indians are granted this vote that the Minister suggests, it will be only a question of time before they will swallow up the whole of South Africa. I do not want members from the other provinces to think that this is a Natal problem because it is not; it is a South African problem, and these Indians will encroach on the other provinces; when they finish with Natal they will break into other provinces. The former Minister of the Interior stated publicly—and I think he made the statement to the Indians in Natal—that public opinion cannot be ignored. I would like to ask the new Minister whether he stands by that statement that public opinion cannot be ignored. I heard the other day that a challenge had been made to the Europeans and the Indians in Natal as to the granting of this vote to the Indians. It is not necessary, for the Minister to challenge the Indians on this subject, because they will agree; they will take this as a first instalment towards equal rights which is what they are out to gain. But I would like to challenge the Minister to take public opinion in Natal by a referendum or any other reasonable way—to take the European opinion on this subject—and I can guarantee that there will be only one answer to it. He has issued a challenge. I say that I issue a challenge. Let him put it to the vote of the people in Natal and see what answer he gets. It has been said—it has always been said and I think the Minister stated—that the Indians came to Natal at the invitation of the people of Natal. I deny that. That is not true.

You do not know what you are talking about.

I do know what I am talking about. A few sugar planters went to the then Governor of Natal, Governor Scott, in 1860, when Natal was a Crown Colony, and they pressed that some labour be imported into Natal because the Zulus were not prepared to work in the sugar fields; it was for the benefit of a few sugar planters. The Governor eventually decided to import indentured Indian labour. But the people of Natal, with what voice they had in those days said: “If you bring these Indians to Natal, they are not to remain here on any account”. That was the sine qua non on which these people agreed to the importation of Indians. I have also heard it stated that the majority of Indians in Natal are descendants of the indentured Indians. That is perfectly true. But it gives people the wrong impression. These are not the people who are agitating for the vote. It is the people who entered the country illegally, the trading classes, known in India as the Bunyah, who are agitating for the vote. Those are the people who are causing all the trouble, but the hon. Minister said that the majority of the Indians are descendants of the indentured Indians, implying that they are the people who want this vote. That raises a very important point. I want to read a letter from an Indian which clarifies this position and puts it in a nutshell. He writes—

They have worked the Indian mass into believing that segregation is a stigma. I don’t want you to feel that I am unjustly taking some of the Indian leaders to task, but I am sure you will permit me, an ordinary Indian, to express my opinion, and the opinion of many. Let me ask them (the political bodies) what they have done for the poorer section of the Indian community.

[Time limit.]

I should like to avail myself of the half hour rule. I would like to divert the attention of the House for a moment to another subject, and this a matter which takes roughly between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 out of the pockets of the public, namely, the films. This matter is of importance, especially since the Minister has received the report of the Cilliers Commission, which he appointed some time ago; and in connection with that Commision’s Report I want to make a few remarks. In the first place, this Commission was appointed to report on the production of films in South Africa, with a South African background, and also with regard to the possibilities of producing films in the Afrikaans language. The Minister was friendly enough to allow me to inspect this report, and I am only sorry that he has not yet seen his way clear to lay this report on the Table of the House. I should like to make a few remarks in connection with that report. The first point I want to mention is this. Apart from what is stated in the report, I want to refer to the great leeway which South Africa will have to make up in connection with the film industry. Then I would like to refer to the efect which the existing film monopoly in South Africa has; its effect, in the first place, on the price of admision to bioscopes; and, in the second place, on the production of films in South Africa. Then I would like to point out where the film censorship went wrong in our country; and then I want to make a few remarks in regard to the recommendations of the Commission. One is somewhat surprised when one looks at the development of the film industry in other parts of the world, to find that South Africa, remarkably enough, has been indifferent in regard to what may be called the world’s greatest industry. We in South Africa took the first step in 1931 when the Board of Censors was appointed. The second step was taken in 1936 when the Film Bureau was appointed under the Department of Education, and recently the Minister of the Interior appointed the Cilliers Commission. But those are the few necessary but paltry steps which have been taken in connection with this great industry. I need not even talk about the leeway which South Africa has to make up in comparison with the leading countries of the world. South Africa is the only Dominion which has not yet intervened to a great extent in connection with the production of films. South Africa is still unaware of the world power and the influence of the film. The rapid progress of the film is one of the most remarkable facts of this century, as far as its influence on the human brain is concerned. I just want to say this briefly. I have a book in front of me which was written by Prof. Harley of the United States of America, who is regarded as an authority on the film industry, and I should like to make a few remarks in regard to the views of this authority. In the first place he says that the film influences the thoughts, the opinions, the speech, the vogues and manners of people. He says the film is not only becoming the main world influence, but he says that the wildest dreams of the previous century could never have envisaged anything of this kind. He says the film industry is something new; it is something which has done away with international boundaries; he says it has penetrated into the cultural world, the educational world, and even into the political world. I would like to read a paragraph to show what he says in connection with this matter. He says—

It is for that reason that I say that it seems to me that South Africa has a great leeway to make up, especially when it comes to realising the great world power which is behind the film. I just want to mention a few figures. We are told by the authorities that throughout the whole world approximately £700,000,000 has been invested in the film industry. Prof. Harley says that the number of persons who weekly visit the bioscopes in the United States of America is approximately 85,000,000. He says that in the rest of the world the number of persons who visit the films each week is 150,000,000. That means that if one film, one and the same film, were exhibited in all the bioscopes of the world during the same week no less than 235,000,000 people would see the film during that week. Russia, which stands next to America in this sphere, has no less than 157,000 film centres, and each film centre has a number of bioscopes. We in South Africa have not made much progress in this respect. According to the figures which are in my possession, the number of persons who visit our bioscopes amounts to a Tittle more than 25,000,000 per annum. But nevertheless it is 25,000,000 per annum, and when one thinks that out of that number the majority are the poorer people of this country, and that the poor people of this country have to pay such high prices of admission, it will be agreed that I have the right to say that I am dealing here with a matter which takes between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 out of the pockets of the people every year, and that the time has arrived for the Government to intervene in this monopoly. Only two weeks ago the admission price to bioscopes in South Africa, for no known reason, was again increased; and the bioscope is the means of entertainment of the poor man particularly, whether we approve of it or not. After a week’s hard work, the poor man finds his amusement in the bioscope. In the large cities it is the poor man and his family who at the end of the week seek their entertainment in the bioscope. In the platteland that is not the position, of course. Whether we approve of it or not, that is the truth of the matter, and in this manner approximately £2,000,000 to £3,000,000 is taken every year out of the pockets of the people of South Africa. The League of Nations woke up years ago. As far back as 1928 the League of Nations established the International Cinema Institute in Rome. Unfortunately when Italy left the League of Nations in 1937 the Institute was closed, but in any case the League of Nations has for a long time been aware of the power which is behind the film. 1 just want to compare, for a moment, the power of the film with the influence of a book. Take a book like “Gone with the Wind.” Up to 1940 2,000,000 copies of this book had been sold, but the film was seen by more than 100,000,000 people. That only goes to show what the power of the film is in comparison with the book. Then there is another important factor which is known to everyone, and which I want to mention here. I refer to the number of children who visit the bioscopes. I would like to read what Prof. Harley says in that connection. He states—

generation. There is not a boy of our time who does not become intensely interested in three things, football teams, the makes of automobiles and the cinema.

The child of today buys his entertainment in the bioscopes. I am not speaking of the platteland child, because the film industry has not yet developed to that extent in the platteland. Yesterday and the day before yesterday the child found his amusement in toys, and there his imagination came into play. Today he no longer organises his entertainment as he did in the past; he leaves it to the grown-up people to organise his amusement for him in the film. It is hardly necessary to say that the film exercises a tremendous influence on the mind of the child. America is in the forefront. America prides herself on the fact that every year she sends 600 films into the world, 200 copies of each film, and for that reason America talks proudly of her 120,000 annual American ambassadors. There is an old Scotch saying that one half of the world knows not how the other half lives. That saying has lost all its truth. The Eskimo in the North Pole can see in the films how the Zulu in the South lives, and the tobacco farmer in Rustenburg can see how the Virginia tobacco farmer farms. In the days of the gangster film the ordinary man in the street was the most regular bioscope-goer, but things have changed to such an extent that in 1938 even the Speaker and his retinue were photographed by a film company on entering the British Parliament. He was formally photographed. In South Africa there is nothing of this kind, except in one case of which I know. The previous Speaker was photograped by us when he entered the House of Assembly, and he did not confiscate the picture, and I hope that the present Speaker will not confiscate it either. The film has therefore found favour with respectable people in South Africa as well. The influence of the film is surprisingly great. Take its influence on language. The film industry in America is the largest in the world. Take its influence on the English language. Just listen what influence the American film has on the ordinary language. The other day I heard an Afrikaner say—he wanted to give a translation of “You’re telling me”—“Jy vertel vir my.” I can mention other examples. A coloured person said to another coloured person: “Long time no see.” That shows the influênce of the American film on the English language. Take the English vocabulary. The Englishman very often no longer speaks of his “lift,” he speaks of his “elevator.” He no longer speaks of his “trunk call,” but of a “long distance call.” He no longer speaks of a “booking office” but of a “ticket office.” He does not speak of a “dupe” or a “simpleton.” He now speaks of a “sucker”—the American “sucker.”

And so I could go on giving examples, but my time does not permit me to do so. In South Africa we are in the stranglehold of a monopoly, and what is the effect of that monopoly? In the first place, the effect is that the admission prices are higher, comparatively speaking, than the admission prices in other countries of the world. In the second place, the monopoly has firmly held back the production of films with a South African background. I need only refer to the development of the 16 m.m. film in South Africa. It has been squeezed to death by this monopoly. The 16 m.m. film became very popular in other parts of the world, but because it is in the stranglehold of a monopoly in this country, it has made no progress. That is why I say that the two effects which this monopoly has had on the public of South Africa are, in the first instance, that the price is abnormally high; the public is exploited because there is no control of the price, and in the second place the development of a South African film industry with a South African background is retarded, not to mention the production of Afrikaans films. I just want to mention the three most important companies who hold this monopoly. In the first place, the production of films in South Africa is largely in the hands of African Films Production Ltd. The distribution is in the hands of African Consolidated Films Ltd., and the exhibition is in the hands of African Consolidated Theatres Ltd. All three companies are in the hands of one man, and I need not even mention his name in the House.

Is it a Christian or a Jew?

It is Mr. Schlesinger.

You ought to be grateful for what he has done.

The advertisements are mostly in the hands of Alexander Ltd.—not the hon. member who sits on the other side. To give the House an idea how this monopoly squeezes to death the film industry in South Africa, I just want to mention two examples. A number of years ago an overseas company made a film here, a work of art which depicted the anthropology and the manner of living of the Zulus, a film which was exhibited in the most important cities of Europe for many weeks. But in South Africa one could hardly see it, because it was squeezed to death by this monopoly. I want to give a further example. A number of years ago a film of high standing was made in South Africa. You know Sangiro’s book, “Oerwood en Vlakte”. That book was made into a film called “Kilimandjaro”. This film was shown in London and other important cities for weeks; it was a work of art, and in South Africa one could hardly see it, because this monopoly squeezed it to death. Then take our films in Afrikaans. There we definitely need the Minister’s sympathy. During the past few years various efforts have been made to produce films in Afrikaans, but as hon. members know, one needs thousands of pounds for the production of a big film. Great efforts were made. I want to refer especially to the Vobi Company, which concentrates on the production of films in Afrikaans. In making the film “Lig van die Eeu” they showed what could be done in South Africa. Raro did beautiful work; “Mont aux Sources” is a work of art; his “Zwartlandse Goud” is also a beautiful film. Then take the first sound picture which was produced in South Africa, “Moedertjie.” “Moedertjie” was such a striking film that the Academy of Language and Literature awarded him the gold medal for the first sound picture in Afrikaans. The South African Railways also did beautiful work in this connection. We saw their picture “Noordwaarts” which is another striking example of what can be done in our country in this respect. Their picture, “Die Bou van ’n Nasie” is also of outstanding quality, and why it was withdrawn and is not being exhibited at the moment is a secret in regard to which the Minister may be able to enlighten us. So I could go on giving the House examples to show how effort after effort was made, but the restraining hand of the monopoly is too strong. One need only think how few films we have in South Africa with a South African background. I am now not referring to films in the Afrikaans language but films with a South African background. Think of our own beautiful scenery, our valleys, our bushveld, our game, our birds—those things which are typically South African—and then remember that the children who go to the Educational Film Library in Pretoria cannot see those things there, but they can see numerous film representing overseas conditions. When one goes to bioscopes in our country one feels that one is somewhere overseas; it is very seldom that one sees anything of one’s own fatherland. When we go to the Educational Film Library in Pretoria, one sees films such as “Canadian Landscapes,” “The Growth of Canada”, “Canadian Apples”, the “Maple Industry” and things of that kind, but hardly anything of South Africa’s beautiful scenery and industries. What one sees of South is on a very small scale. In the limited time at my disposal I want to put this third question : What has gone wrong with the censorship of films? I want to admit that those people have to work under very difficult circumstances. I want to ask the Minister in all seriousness whether he does not think that the time has arrived to appoint a commission of investigation in the recess, as was done in connection with the cost-plus contract, to go into two things which I want to mention specially. The first is the price of admission to our bioscopes, and the second is the censorship of films. You will be surprised to hear that while the State collects £600,000 in taxes every year from the bioscopes, we are spending a miserable few thousand pounds on the industry itself. It almost sounds incredible, but do you know that the Film Censor Board, which had to censor films for so many years, has not even got a hall where they can do the censoring, or, as far as I know, a projector of its own which it can use for that purpose. The place in which this work is done belongs to Schlesinger, I believe; I believe the projector also belongs to Schlesinger, and if anyone else who wants a film approved has not got a place of his own, he has to hire Schlesinger’s place and also Schlesinger’s projector in order to exhibit his film. That is a state of affairs which no other country will tolerate. We have this state of affairs in South Africa because we are in the hands of this monopoly. These people work in difficult circumstances. They have to examine thousands of films to the value of £350,000 a year. That means approximately 50 films per week. That is too great a volume of work for the board in the circumstances, and they cannot possibly be expected to do their work thoroughly. The third point which such a commission can investigate is whether our film censors should not be full-time people. At the moment the members of the board have other positions, and they have to do the censoring in their spare time. They cannot examine 50 films per week in their spare time. That is why certain things happen which one does not even like to mention. Films are passed which really give one cause for surprise. The Act of 1931 laid down one thing very clearly, and that is that no film should be allowed in South Africa which in any way depicts social intercourse between white and black. Go to any bioscope you like, and look at the films which have been passed, from the point of view of social intercourse between white and black. The law is being disregarded. That is my first complaint. These people work in difficult circumstances, but I want to add that in this respect there is something radically wrong, and we ought to ensure that the law is carried out. Then there is another matter. The Film Censor Board has to co-operate with the Bureau of Education in deciding which films shall be allowed as educational films, and if an educational film is passed the company which imports the film receives a refund of the import duty on that film. But do you know to what extent we have exempted films from customs tariffs? No less than £12,000 has been refunded to the companies which import films on the ground that certain films are instructive or educational films. I think we should investige this matter, and in order to draw the attention of the House to it, I want to mention a few examples of films which have been exempted from the payment of customs duty, because they were regarded as educational films. The first is “Love’s Memories.” On that film £21 is respect of import duty was refunded. I do not know how that can be described as an educational film. Then we have “Playtime in Hawaii.” We know what type of film that is, and on that film there was an exemption of £45. It has suddenly become an educational film. The next film is “We are the Marines.” That depicts the American sailor.

Did you not learn something from it?

There are two things which I could say in reply to the Minister. In the first place I am not a child for whose sake the so-called educational films have to be imported. In the second place, I am quite prepared to go and see the film “We are the Marines.” I am prepared to pay the ordinary admission price to see it, but then I do not want the State to exempt the company from the payment of £155 because it is regarded as a so-called educational film. I repeat that I am prepared to go and see the film, but I do not want it to be imported as an educational film and to be exempted from the payment of customs tariffs; other people and I have to pay the full admission price to see the film. I need not mention the company’s name to whom this money was refunded. They import such films, free from import duty, but the public has to pay the full admission price to the bioscope. The next example I want to mention is “The Moon is Down” on which there was an exemption of £212 in respect of import duty to the company. Then we have “Blossoms in the Dust.” Anyone who says that that is an educational film must have a strange idea of what an educational film is. Nevertheless the company was exempted from the payment of £542; the film was admitted free of import duty, and the public had to pay 3s. and 4s. per ticket to see it. The next one is “King of the Underworld.” This depicts the gangster who goes about killing people. But that is supposed to be an educational film ! Then we have the “Merry Wives of Windsor”, “Fools who make History” and the “Marines Round Up.” This picture shows how the drunk sailors are rounded up in the evening. This is a film which has to be shown to children and on which the import duty is refunded because it is an educational film. Then there is “Mrs. Miniver”, the lady with the well-known hat which other women try to copy. That is regarded as an educational film, and the company was refunded an amount of £511. Nevertheless that film was exhibited in the bioscopes at the usual admission prices. I think you will therefore agree with me when I say that there is something wrong with the censorship of films in South Africa. That is why I ask that there should be an interim commission of investigation to go into this matter. The Minister was friendly enough to allow me to say here what the recommendations of the Cilliers Commission are. That commission recommended that a National Board of Control be appointed for the film industry. My reply to that is that it is not sufficient. Even if we were to give £10,000 initially to such a board of control, it could not exercise control in connection with the film industry and then still subsidise where necessary. No, let us take this great industry in hand and create a corporation, just as we created the Industrial Development Corporation, just as we created Iscor and Escom. [Time limit.]

The matter which I wanted to put before the Minister is the urgency of holding a census of the native population, but before I deal with that I feel it incumbent upon me to say a word or two about the issue which the hon. member for Musgrave (Mr. Acutt) is in process of putting before the House and the Minister. I do not know that the Minister will welcome my support against the pressure which my hon. friends on these benches—of the Dominion Party—are going to exercise on him to prevent him from bringing about a reasonable condition of affairs between the Indians and Europeans in Natal. He may think, remembering that the three of us on these benches stood alone in our opposition to the Pegging Bill which is now on our Statute Book, that our support is not particularly worth having; but I want to assure him that even I was surprised at the extent of the support which I found in the country generally after the last session of Parliament for the attitude which we had taken up against that piece of legislation, so that perhaps our support is worth more than would appear from the weight of our votes in this House. And I rather fancy that the Minister will need all the support he can get if he is going to have even a reasonable run against the pressure which our friends here are going to exert. As I have said, I found, since the last session, that the country to a very large extent was not behind the legislation passed last year, and still deprecates very strongly the illiberalism of the attitude reflected in that Act, and the people who are supporting this war are still looking for some reasonable solution of the situation which has been allowed to develop in Natal. The people who support the attitude adopted by us last session were as indignant over the Pegging Act as I was when I was in Durban at the time of the trouble, caused largely by the hon. member for Musgrave both in regard to the technical school site in the Botanical Gardens area, which I consider was an absolute scandal and disgrace, and in regard to the attitude taken up by members on these benches, and others at whose attitude I was very surprised, over the school site at the Bluff. If that is to be the attitude of the people on this matter I see no hope of our getting any reasonable solution of the Indian situation in Natal, and I see no hope of our going to the Peace Conference with any reasonable claim to speak on behalf of democracy and justice. Now, the hon. member for Musgrave has said that it is only a number of traders who are making the row in Natal—by implication he suggested that he had a little more sympathy with the people not beloning to that class who are probably the descendants of the indentured labourers who were brought out to this country many years ago. Well, I still have to hear any proposal from these benches or from any other part of the House in support of the claims of a section of the Durban people who are among the most oppressed people I have ever seen. I am referring to a large part of the Indian labouring classes, who as wage earners are paid worse than any other group of wage earners in South Africa; and I am concerned about the position of a very considerable section of the Indian community who also belong to these depressed levels, to whom the hon. member apparently referred, who are steadily being ousted from their foothold, from their economic foothold, by the penetration into Indian areas by Europeans— which is the real problem of Durban. The real problem is not the problem of Indian penetration into European areas but of European penetration into Indian areas. I took a great deal of trouble to see the position for myself when I was in Durban last year. I took a considerable amount of time in going round and I want to know what is going to happen to the Indian market gardener and the Indian peasant who has been shoved off his holding by the European who wants a larger site for his home, further away from Durban, or by the industrialist who is pushing out along the Coast. These are the real Indian problems. These people are simply being pushed off the land, no one paying any attention to what is happening; and as every local authority between Durban and Maritzburg is pursuing the same policy it is not simply a question of their being pushed away from their market, but as market gardeners they are being deprived of all foothold on the soil, with the inevitable result that they swing back into Durban as unskilled labourers to aggravate the position of the unskilled labouring class there. When our friends start showing concern for these people we may listen with a little more patience to what they have to say about the rich Indians and the people who, they say, are making a nuisance of themselves in Natal. Anything the Minister can do along the lines I have indicated I shall be happy to support. And seeing the efforts he is making to meet the situation I hope he will go forward with the strength of the Government behind him, and with the intention of the Government backing him up to make good last year’s failure, and to redeem that situation. Now, in the time remaining to me I want to urge on the Minister the necessity of a census of the native population in this country. We have not had a census since 1936. Before that we had not had a census since 1921. At present we are trying to plan for a post-war world. That planning is economic and social; but it is useless to plan without facts. There are many fields in which we can perhaps not blame ourselves as a young country for the absence of facts. All young countries are usually pretty weak on the statistical side of their organisation, but there is one direction in which we have no excuse for the absence of information and that is in regard to a census. At present our census figures are useless for any practical purposes. The 1936 Census would only have been of some use if the 1921 Census had been a more efficient and effective one, but the 1921 Census had two obvious defects. One was that it came on top of the influenza epidemic which had dislocated the whole economic and social organisation of the country. The second is that we were still ineffective in our methods of counting, so that we have no guarantee of the value of our figures. So the 1936 figures have no reliable value in the absence of a sound basis of comparison. It was a mistake on the part of the Government not to have a census of the native population in 1941. I want to impress on the Government that every single committee or department which has any responsibility for planning for post-war reconstruction has the same complaint—that it has no exact information, no scientific information on the question of the native population, and therefore it cannot plan effectively. I would be glad to hear from the Minister what the possibilities are of our having a census and of our having it soon. I do not feel that we can afford to wait until 1946 and I am certain that the Economic and Social Planning Council feels that also. And there is an additional reason why we cannot wait. Irresponsible people are using such figures as we have in a thoroughly irresponsible way, a way which is calculated to stir up passions in this country. Emphasis is being laid on the so-called “phenomenally rapid” rise in the native population. As a matter of fact there is no justification for that emphasis, none at all. The Department of Census and Statistics itself has been extremely careful in the use of the figures it has; the Social and Economic Planning Council has been equally careful, but others are not so careful and I was horrified to hear the Minister of Native Affairs the other day inviting our Opposition members to new flights of fear. [Time limit.]

I said when I last spoke that the Jewish Board of Deputies and the Jewish community had only protested against discrimination. They had no desire to invite mass immigration, but they objected to discrimination against Jews or against the use of the language used by millions of Jews. They did not want any privilege to be extended to any Jewish immigrant but they objected to discrimination against the Jews or the Jewish language. Spanish, Portuguese and other languages were recognised; why should their language not be recognised? The Board of Deputies in 1936 and again in 1937 and 1939 made public declarations which were circulated through the Press and among members of Parliament, that they had no desire to see any but the best immigrants come to this country, but what they objected to was any form of racial or religious discrimination. When matters began to get very serious and the Hitler regime came into power and started its persecution of the Jews, naturally the Jews suffered more particularly and the relatives and friends of the Jews did their very best to get them out of that hell. But the Jewish Board of Deputies all along took up the position that they were not concerned with individual cases. It had become an international problem. Once Jewish immigrants were here in this country they would do all in their power to help them. That was their attitude, and a perfectly correct attitude at that.

But they invited them to come here.

They did not. After all, we know perfectly well that under our law the position is that no one can land in South Africa unless he complies with the law and the regulations laid down under the law. There was no question of anyone being brought here by the Jewish Board of Deputies. I made that statement very definitely in 1937 and I reiterate it. There would be nothing immoral or illegal, I contend, in helping refugees to come here, but we have refrained from doing so because it is a national question and because of the unscrupulous attitude of the Opposition, but we do take up this attitude, that once Jewish refugees or others come to this country we should do our utmost to help them. The refugee problem, as I have said, is an international one, and can only be solved at its root by tackling the source of infection, and we are doing that, and the world is doing that by getting rid of Hitler and of his poisonous doctrines. I should like to remind the House what the Prime Minister of England, Mr. Churchill, said, that the Jew bore the brunt of the Nazis’ first onslaught on the citadels of freedom and human dignity. The Jew was the first to suffer from the tyranny and policy pursued by Nazism in Germany. The hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) tried to confuse the issue of bringing out Jews to this country with the help given to Jews once they were in South Africa. The two problems are entirely different. Of course we are not unconscious of the sufferings of our co-religionists and once a Jew comes here, once he is in South Africa, it is our duty, no, it is even our privilege, to help these victims of persecution, and we shall go on doing it in spite of what the hon. member for Beaufort West may say. Let me cast the hon. member’s mind back to what happened a few centuries ago. Were not the Huguenots given refuge here from persecution? That right was also recognised in the Immigration Act of the Cape of 1906, where special reference was made to the principle of Asylum. The hon. member mentioned Unrra and he does not want South Africa to lift a finger. In taking up that attitude he is going directly contrary to the true spirit of South Africa. South Africa cannot absorb a very large proportion of immigrants, but can absorb some, and South Africa will certainly do nothing to hinder immigrants—South Africa will do nothing to stop immigrants who have legitimately come here, and who have been admitted to this country, from making a living here. The hon. member must not confuse the issue. The Christian Churches have defied Hitler in his attempts to persecute the Jews—the Christian churches have stood up for the principles of doing justice to the refugees. The churches in Holland and all over Europe have done so. I am surprised at the hon. member with the traditions of his race behind him taking up the attitude he is doing. I have mentioned some instances where the hon. member has suppressed or not mentioned certain parts of the written document in his possession. Let me first of all deal with this question of the £5,000 guarantee. That is referred to in the Hansard of 1939. The hon. member knows exactly what was said about that. Yet he tried to make it appear that that money was given for the purpose of bringing these people to South Africa. He also wanted to give the impression that I handled that money. He gave the impression that everything done in that connection had been done surreptitiously. He knows that whatever was done was done with the consent of the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan), in those days Minister of the Interior, and with the consent of Gen. Hertzog. He knows that I had nothing to do with the agreement which was made—it was an agreement between the bank and the Immigration Department. All this was fully dealt with by me in 1939. The position was that these people—260 of them—came here. He said: “What about the other 100?” They were not actually on their way. But he omitted one sentence in that other document, and that sentence would have knocked him right out. Because that sentence proves why these 100 were in the same position. That particular sentence which he omitted, was at the end of the quotation and read: “These immigrants have sold up everything and their repatriation would be ruin to them.” He also omitted to read the whole of the rest of the document when he quoted these words: “rely on your discretion.” He did not read the rest of the cable. Had he done so it would have shown that I had the discretion given to me because I had to pick out the people who were deserving of being helped. Had he read the whole of the cable it would have been clear what my discretion was. There is no excuse for him trying to mislead the House. Of that £5,000 the bulk was sent back to England. Only £800 was used here, £100 for each case, and the rest of the money was sent back to England. And what was that guarantee for? That guaranteee was to protect South Africa because under the law as it then was, if an immigrant after two years in this country could not get a job, or if there was a danger of his becoming a drag on the State, he had to be sent back again, and that money was there to provide for such contingency. I nominated 24 men, two I did not nominate, but on instruction from overseas I nominated the other two. These two were among the eight sent back. I was told: “You can nominate these two,” so 26 were nominated out of the whole batch. And not a penny was used for bringing them here, the money was only used to send eight away. The hon. member knows the law. If a ship discharges its passengers, some are not allowed to land at all, but if people are allowed to land and they remain here for a time and they are then sent back, they would have to be sent back at the expense of the State, but this money was to be used to pay for the passages of these people if they were allowed to remain and afterwards sent back. What a different story from that which the hon. member told us ! The story told by the hon. member is just a bogy of his own imagination. The hon. member has the minutes of the Board before him—if he had read them he would have known exactly what the position was. There was the question of loans. The Board of Deputies said they had no money for. the purpose of fiving loans, they could not give any loans, and the overseas body tried to do the best they could, but no loans were given here. So there, again, the hon. member, if he had quoted the whole document, would have put the position clearly.

What document are you referring to?

The document of March 27th, 1932, about the loans. [Time limit.]

I want to avail myself of this opportunity to express my thanks to the Minister and the Government for at last having agreed to appoint a commission of enquiry in connection with the Public Service. It really was surprising to me that after so many years ….

I am sorry but the hon. member cannot raise that question here. He can do so on the next vote, Vote No. 25, which deals with the Public Service.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander) commenced by saying that the Jewish question was created in South Africa not by the Jewish Board of Deputies or by the Jewish community, but by myself and other members on this side, for the purpose of vote-catching. May I remind the hon. member that even before I was a member of this House, certainly before I returned to South Africa, the Jewish question had been raised here, not by members on this side of the House, but by the present member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick); so the matter was not originally raised on this side of the House. The hon. member states that we raised this question for the purpose of votecatching. He drew my attention to the results of the recent general election, and seemed to imply that the election result was a reply to my attitude on this question. Well, Mr. Chairman, let me say to the hon. member that if the recent general election had been fought on the issue of the Jewish question in South Africa, then the number of members on that side of the House, would have been considerably less. The hon. member knows perfectly well that the last general election went on one issue only, and that was the war issue. Now, Mr. Chairman, in regard to these documents. The hon. member started off by saying that the Jewish Board of Deputies was not ashamed of these documents. May I ask the hon. member why then the Jewish Board of Deputies was in such great haste to secure an interdict from the Court; why was the Board so anxious that these documents should not be published, if they were not ashamed of them? He almost gave the impression that the Board was proud of the documents, that there was nothing to hide; but if so why this hurry to secure an interdict from the Supreme Court? Mr. Chairman, there was only one reason why they were anxious to suppress these documents; it was because these documents disclosed the part that had been played by the Board in the matter of fostering and encouraging Jewish immigration in South Africa. The hon. member made a great point by saying that when quoting from these documents I had deliberately misled the House; he stated that I had read a line here and there. That is a very serious charge to make, and I would refer the hon. member to Hansard, where my speech is fully reported, and he will find that I gave very full quotations. If I had read every document in toto it would have needed a couple of hours to make my speech. But I say here, that in quoting from those documents nothing was omitted that was essential. The hon. member tried to show what I omitted. I thought, Mr. Chairman, when he started his speech that we were going to have an exposé of a deliberate intention, to mislead the House, but all the hon. member was able to produce was what he called two cases of omission. The first was in regard to the amount of money that had been sent out in connection with the immigrants who had arrived in 1930. I find that I omitted the following unessential words—

I admit that. The only other thing I omitted which he might regard as being essential, though I did not regard it as such, is the passage—

That I left out. And at the very end I omitted the sentence—

I must point out that it was a fairly long cable from which I quoted, but I did hot omit anything that was essential. The point the hon. member makes is this, that this sum of money was sent out to cover guarantees. He denies that the Jewish Board of Deputies supplied money for the travelling expenses of these people. Probably not. After all, they could not expect the Jewish Board of Deputies in South Africa to pay all the expenses. The people on the other side had to bear some of the expense. What happened was this: The people on the other side, this organisation in Paris, and the other organisation in London, arranged for the fares, but it was left to the Jewish community in South Africa, and more particularly the Board of Deputies, to do the rest. It was up to them to do that. The hon. member states that the £5,000 was deposited in South Africa after consultation with the then Minister of the Interior, the present Leader of the Opposition. Mr. Chairman, I have consulted with the Leader of the Opposition in regard to this matter, and he informs me that there was no arrangement whatever made with him regarding any money from overseas being used to pay for guarantees here. He informs me that the only matter discussed with him was the case of those immigrants who were already on the water, and who did not know of the new regulations. The hon. member will recall that in speaking on this matter on the last occasion I said as far as I was concerned I would have made no objection to that either. I am not referring now to previous negotiations for encouraging immigrants, but to the people who were on the high seas and did not know of the new regulations. In those circumstances I admit there would not be a good case for refusing their admission. What I more particularly criticised was that in a report of a meeting of the Jewish Board of Deputies held on March 30th, 1930, it was said that 260 Jewish immigrants were on the high seas, and that 100 were waiting to sail so as to arrive before May 1st. It was these last mentioned to whom I objected. The present Leader of the Opposition, then the Minister of the Interior, was not informed that this money was also intended to cover guarantees for immigrants who had not yet left Europe, and who were well aware of the new regulations. That was the point upon which the hon. member accused me of misleading the House, but he himself was misleading the House. There is this other aspect of the matter. I think I am right in stating that the immigration law requires that this guarantee has to be put up by persons resident in South Africa. The Leader of the Opposition informs me that he did not know this money was being sent from overseas. That, I say, was a contravention of the immigration regulations. The regulations provided that people resident in South Africa had to put up the necessary guarantee. I marked all the parts of the documents which I read out, and as regards the charge that I left out essential portions, I repudiate that, and I say the hon. member has not proved his case. His second point is that when quoting the words, “rely on your discretion,” I omitted to state what follows. I have here the cable, and the cable reads—

That was the end of the telegram I say the hon. member has not substantiated his charge. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, I would like to call the attention of the House to one or two matters under this Vote 24 under heading “P”—“Grants to museums and kindred buildings.” I notice that the Public Library here gets an annual grant of £5,000. I Know this is not the time to speak about an increase in the vote, but I would like to draw the attention of the Minister to a few comparative figures relating to libraries. We all know that the South African Public Library is probably the finest library in the southern hemisphere, and this library gets an annual grant of £5,000 a year. It has 252,000 volumes, book stock as we call it, and by way of interest I have looked up some comparative figures relating to other libraries and I find that Adelaide with 150,000 volumes gets a grant of £13,000; Melbourne with 510,000 volumes gets a grant of £38,000; Sydney with 450,000 volumes gets a grant of £21,000 and Toronto with 275,000 volumes gets £76,000. These figures are very interesting. When I look back at Vote P I find that all the museums, all the libraries, all the art galleries and kindred institutions of the whole Union of South Africa receive a total grant of £46,240 a year, whereas the library in Toronto alone gets £76,000, which means that one single library gets nearly twice as much as all our kindred institutions together. I hope the Minister, of the Interior next year or the year after will see what can be done in regard to our libarry, not so much in respect of the grant but in respect of the preservation of the most valuable collection of books, documents, papers and absolutely irreplaceable articles which are housed in the Public Library. It would shock the public to know, Mr. Chairman, that there is no finer inflammable material in the whole Cape Peninsula than is furnished by our Public Library and its contents. The ceiling and flooring boards are just glorified matchwood, and there is no building in the heart of the city more susceptible to complete obliteration by fire than the Public Library. The library is insured for £200,000. Now the Minister may tell me that he is not quite certain whether this is a Government building or not. As a matter of fact, very few people were certain on the point, and that matter was submitted to a committee which in 1943 under the then Minister of the Interior found that the Government carries all risks of damage thereto from whatever cause. I want to read to the House the report of an inter-departmental committee on the libraries of South Africa of 1937. It is rather illuminating—almost as illuminating as the flames would be if the building went up in smoke—

I am not begging anything from the Minister now, because the time is not opportune, but I would like an assurance from the Minister that the present building will be replaced and the valuable documents in it placed in a building more fire-proof than the present structure, which is 84 years old. I want that building replaced by a building in which those valuable documents can be preserved not only for the present generation, but for the future.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. Minister of the Interior has been asked, has been urged, to exclude all Jewish immigrants on the ground that we Jews are unassimilable. What is meant by “assimilable”? Assimilability, Sir, is a vague and nebulous conception which lends itself to a variety of interpretations. In one sense, in the only sense that matters as far as the State is concerned, we Jews have proved ourselves a readily assimilable element. We have established firm and intimate associations with this country, we have absorbed its culture, we are part and parcel of its social, economic and political life, we share in its vicissitudes, its welfare is as much our concern as that of any other section of the community, and above all we have made this country our permanent home. Clearly, all this proves that we are possessed of the necessary qualifications for good citizenship. On the other hand, we Jews cannot and will not repudiate the heritage of seventy generations of our ancestors. The proudest lesson we derive from our history is the determination of our ancestors to preserve and maintain their heritage in circumstances of the bitterest adversity. Judaism is a culture, a creed, a way of life which lays upon us the obligation to preserve this heritage. We do not believe that the world, or any part of it, can profit from the disappearance of the Jews or of Judaism. On the contrary, we believe that we have not exhausted our capacity to make valuable and substantial contribution to the common stock of civilisation. It is a fundamental principle of every democratic state to permit within its borders a diversity of elements who are held together by a common bond of loyalty. It is diametrically opposed to the Fascist conception of a totalitarian state, which demands a uniform and homogeneous community, of one blood, one race, one culture and one creed. South Africa is a democratic country; freedom and liberty of conscience are its basic tenets; it is precisely because we Jews are free to practice our Judaism without let or hindrance that we value our citizenship and assume the duties, responsibilities and obligations of citizenship. We have proved our worth as citizens in peace and war; war, which imposed the supreme test, has not found us wanting; we have taken up arms because anything which menaces South Africa is a menace to everything we hold dear. Our standpoint then is perfectly clear; the test of citizenship is not assimilability but loyalty. Loyalty is a simple, clear-cut conception, and by that test we are prepared to stand or fall. The hon. member for Beaufort West apparently fears there may be an influx of Jews from Europe to this country. Those Jews are under the Nazi heel. The whole civilised world recoils with horror at the frenzied exhibition of Nazi savagery of which they are the innocent and helpless victims. Recently the House of Commons rose in solemn and silent mourning for those unfortunate victims. By a strange irony, the peril of those Jews increases as the prospect of a German defeat grows more definite and certain. Dr. Goebbels has given us the assurance that if the Germans have to withdraw from their conquered territories they will first exterminate all the Jews, so that not a single Jew will be left alive to rejoice in a German defeat. That programme is being carried out, ánd whatever the Nazi butchers cannot accomplish, starvation, pestilence and disease will finish off. Now these tidings will no doubt be welcome to the hon. member for Beaufort West who fears that if there are any survivors, some few of them may wish to come to this country, to this vast country, to rebuild their shattered lives in an atmosphere of freedom, toleration and human kindness. Mr. Chairman, I cannot believe that the vast majority of the people of this country, with their decent and generous institncts, would refuse sanctuary to those whose need is so desperate. Whether we realise it or not, these Jews in Central Europe are our allies in this struggle against Hitler. Recently the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, armed with the most primitive weapons, rose up and gave battle to German tanks and machine guns, and they fought to the last man. Such episodes will recur again and again, because these Jews are taking part in the underground movement; they are waiting for the strategic moment to rise up inside Hitler’s fortress whilst we assault it from without. Mr. Chairman, the leading exponents of the Allied cause have taught us to believe that the only way to give meaning and purpose to all the suffering and sacrifice involved in this war is to build a new just and creative social order which will make the rise of a new Hitlerism in the future impossible. They have taught us that the destruction of Hitlerism will create an entirely new situation; liberal forces, so long in retreat before Nazism, which will return in triumph, and the doctrines of freedom and toleration will prevail once more. Their healing influence will be felt by all, and not least of all by the Jews. For, obviously, if this is a genuine war of liberation, then the Jews cannot be excluded from a general scheme of redress. The question that forces the Government is whether South Africa is going to make a contribution to this better world, or is South Africa going to dissociate itself from the United Nations and play no part in the work of succour and rehabilitation? Is South Africa going to slam the door and refuse Jews even the right of asylum?

When I was interrupted by the time limit I was in the middle of reading a letter written to a Durban newspaper by a middle class Indian, who was trying to show that the wealthier class of Indians are working for their own ends and cared nothing about their poorer brethern. With your permission I would like to finsh reading this letter—

Another charge that has been made against Durban, in which the Minister, I think, concurs, is that Durban has acted in bad faith in not providing a housing scheme for Indians. Now some land was put up for sale some years ago, and one of the sites was bought q.q. for an Indian. Mr. Chairman, when this site was knocked down a man got up in the audience and demanded to know who the purchaser was. When it was known the purchaser was a white man acting for an Indian, the whole 300 people rose like one man, walked out of the sale room and left the auctioneer with no audience. The hon. Minister, I think, at that time was a member of the Provincial Executive.

I will tell you all about it.

When powers were given to the municipality to restrict sale of land a promise was made that the corporation would put up some land for Indian purchasers. Now the Minister accuses them of bad faith. Well, I happened to be on the Durban City Council at this period, and the Council put up 205 acres outside the boundaries of the city in order to fulfil their promise. I may say there was no land in the borough suitable for selling to Indians. The. Minister knows this; he knows Durban as well as I do. The only two areas in Durban not alienated were Morningside and Stellawood. Now, no one would dare put up those areas for Indian purchase, after the happenings at the land sale already referred to. The Corporation bought the 205 acres out side Durban, and let us see what happened there. The upset price was £45 per lot free of transfer and survey fees. The interest on the unpaid balance was 5 per cent. which was 1 per cent. less than the Europeans paid. Everything was done to induce the Indians to purchase these lots so that the Council might redeem its obligations. The leaders of the Indians, the rich Indians, decided to boycott this. The result was that only four lots were sold, three of them by the Indian from whom the land had been bought by the Council. This was a boycott against so-called segregation. I am explaining this in detail to refute what the Minister has been saying, that Durban has not played the game. I hope he will not say it again. Now, I want to say something else. A statement has been made that Indians are Union Nationals. The Minister is reported to have said that too. If that is so, how is it that they are not allowed to roam freely about the Union? Does the Minister really consider that they are Union Nationals when they cannot go from one province to another. [Time limit.]

I am sure the House listened with interest and also with sympathy to the picture painted by the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Friedman) about the sufferings of the Jews in Europe, but let me point out to the hon. member that the reason for these sufferings is that there is a Jewish question there. And if the hon. member is really concerned about his fellow Jews he should do his best to prevent a similar situation arising here. He should do his best to prevent the Jewish question from getting worse than it is. And that is what is really happening in this country. As regards the question of assimilability the hon. member defined it as loyalty among other things. May I refer the hon. member to the fact that it is well known that when France fell, the Jews sent their money out of the country. It is a well-known fact that when France was in danger the rich Jews moved out with all their funds, and went to America and elsewhere. That is not my conception of loyalty. Now, I return to the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander). His case against me is that I have deliberately omitted certain sentences from documents which I read. That accusation has broken down hopelessly, as I pointed out when I last spoke. The hon. member has not substantiated his charge against me at all. He also said that I had not read the rest of the cable in which these words occur : “Rely on your discretion”. In the cable I have there are no words following these words. The hon. member has put another interpretation on these words. Possibly these words may bear that other interpretation, and if the hon. member assures me that is what is meant then I am prepared to accept that, but I have to point out that these words also bear the other explanation, particularly in view of the fact that in another letter written to the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) the following words occur—

May I ask the hon. member why he asked the Secretary of the Board of Deputies to treat this matter as strictly confidential? He said there was nothing wrong. Why then this injunction to the Secretary of the Board of Deputies, to treat this matter as strictly confidential? Reading that in conjunction with the words, “Rely on your discretion,” I am entitled to put the interpretation on it which I did. I await with interest any further case he may mention where I have omitted anything material.

When I get a chance you will have it.

Well, I await with interest any instance where I have left out anything material. The hon. member says that when once a Jewish immigrant arrives here, there can be objection to the local body, the local Board of Deputies, giving him every possible assistance. I am inclined to agree with him, but provided only that the local Jewish community has not previously encouraged these people to come out here. The hon. member must not again tell me that I am misleading the House. I say to the hon. member that it is clear that these people were encouraged to come out here. The hon. member replied that the Jewish Board of Deputies did nothing of the sort—that they did not encourage these Jews to come out. He said that once they arrived here they helped them as much as possible. Now, may I refer the hon. member to a letter dated 18th May, 1932 : This was addressed to Adv. Alexander by the Hias-Ica-Emigdirect Association of Paris—

Yet, the hon. member gets up and tells this House that there has been no encouragement whatever on the part of the Jewish Board of Deputies for Jewish immigrants to come out ! And here we have a letter—nothing omitted— thanking the hon. member for the names of the Jewish Loan Organisations. Well, if that is not encouragement, then I want to know what encouragement The hon. member’s attitude is that all the time they only objected to discrimination. That is all they worried about. Does the hon. member deny— he has not denied it—that this document is genuine? As a matter of fact he admits that the documents I quoted from were correct. Does he deny that a meeting was held on the 1st January, 1934, when according to the minutes Mr. L. Dubb asked if it was advisable to have more Jews in the country? Or whether it should be wise to anticipate any Government action? And then we have the hon. member’s reply—

Does the hon. member wish to suggest that this speech is not an act of encouragement to Jewish immigrants to come to this country? I can go on quoting from documents, and they all show that there was active co-operation between the Board of Deputies in this country and the organisations overseas, not only to look after these people when they got here, but actually encouraging them to come here. True, they did not pay for the fares. The people overseas paid for the fares, but the local body was seeing to it that these people got work here. And work was got for them, “as unobtrusively as possible.” Why “as unobstrusively as possible” if everything was above board? I have here a paper—“Jewish Affairs”—sent to me with the compliments of the Jewish Board of Deputies from which I quote as follows—

And then it says—

What I want to stress is this, that it is very interesting that not a single United Party newspaper in South Africa reported a single word with reference to the documents which were read here on the last occasion when we discussed the matter. It seems that there was active connivance on the part of the Press to suppress the facts disclosed in Parliament during the last discussion.

Becaue they knew you so well.

I can understand such action on the part of the Press. The hon. member has objected to my reading from certain documents. I propose to quote from more documents and I propose to show that there has been active Press propaganda to get people here to take a pro-Jewish view.

What’s wrong with that?

I have a letter here dated the 6th November, 1933, to Mr. Morris Alexander. This is a letter from Mr. Hirsch Hillman, president of the Jewish Board of Deputies, and it reads—

The efforts referred to were to engender proJewish propaganda in the Press—

Then we have a letter to Mr. Alexander from Mr. I. M. Goodman—

Why in “strict confidence”?

What did “Die Burger” say?

Yes, I know these disclosures are very unpleasant, but bear up and listen to them—

They will have to tell the English people too one of these days. [Time limit.]

I am not going to carry on this sorry business very much longer —this is my third opportunity. I am sorry the time is so short, but I shall still have taken up less time than the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) in his first 40 minutes, and his 30 minute effort today. The hon. member has omitted one document. There is another cable which he will find among the stolen documents. It begins with—

That is the cable I refer to. He will find there what that discretion means. It will take too long to read it all. The hon. member has so many of these stolen documents.

They seem to worry you.

The hon. member has been a member of a Caucus and he has been told, more than once I take it, to keep things strictly confidential. Does that mean that there is anything wrong with it? Now, let me tell the hon. member why I think this question had to be kept strictly confidential. If the Jewish immigrants knew that there was this £5,000 in the bank we would have been flooded with numerous requests for help and could not have dealt with them. The hon. member does not recognise human nature. We kept it as quiet as we could because we did not want everyone to know about it. If the whole country had known that this £5,000 was lying in the bank, it would not have lasted very long.

Try another one.

There was another thing which the hon. member said. He referred to the unwise step of approaching the Prime Minister when Lord Melchett’s name was mentioned. He only referred to the unwise step. Is there anything wrong there? Let me remind him of the old saying: “All seems infected to the infected spy, as all seems yellow to the jaundiced eye.” That is why the hon. member goes wrong.

We want some more instances of omissions.

If the whole document was read referring to the alleged unwise step, the matter becomes perfectly clear. He referred to the position when France fell. He is referring to his friend Hitler. What a terrible thing that some rich people in France moved their money before Hitler came! Had they not moved it Hitler would have got it. Hitler was quite prepared to murder them and take everything they had. Of course, the hon. member was disappointed that Hitler did not get it. He was supporting Hitler, and he still does.

Did others move their money too?

The hon. member wastes the time of this House by reading documents going back 12 and 14 years.

No, I read those documents because that is when the trouble started.

No, the inference which the hon. member draws from these documents is false and distorted. I want to make an appeal to the House to get rid of this poison which is being foisted on the country. Let us look upon the whole question as broadminded men and not say that in this world holocaust South Africa is going to stand completely aside and is going to do nothing for the rehabilitation and uplift of the depressed people. We are not going to do that. In spite of the efforts of the hon. member for Beaufort West we are not going to do that, because when we get to rock bottom the people of this country are religious and God fearing people, and they are not going to follow the wiles of the devil as suggested by the hon. member for Beaufort West.

It was conveyed to members from Natal, I think last year or the year before, that they should keep the Indian problem below the surface and not raise it in the country or at public meetings. We have loyally carried out that request. And then the Minister of the Interior came along and threw a bombshell in Maritzburg when he told the public that he was in favour of giving Indians the Municipal franchise.

Surely the people of Natal should have been consulted first and notified of the Minister’s intentions. When you find a bombshell like that dropped then I think it shows there is something wrong with the whole position.

The Minister made the suggestion, I understand, that there should be communal franchise in the Municipal Council of Durban.

Presumably he meant in the Municipal Councils of Natal. Well, I think that the Indian community has the strongest possible communal representation not only in the Municipal Council of Durban but in the Provincial Council, in this House and in the Other Place. May I just for the information of hon. members read an advertisement which appeared in the “Natal Daily News” of the 29th September, 1943. It was under the heading of “Applicant Pyramid Theatre (Pty.) Ltd.”—

That shows the connection between a prominent member of the Labour Party, a prominent member of the Durban City Council, and a prominent member of Another Place. The other members of the Labour Party may disassociate themselves from the allegation which I make, that the Labour Party is in essence representative of the Indian community in the Durban City Council, in the Provincial Council of Natal, in this House and in Another Place.

What is wrong with that?

Nothing at all.

Then why do you say it?

Prior to the last election a gentleman whose name I have read was the organising secretary of the Labour Party in Natal.

A first class man.

Oh, yes; and he resigned that position shortly after the election. He was not the Organising Secretary during the Provincial Election but at the same time he was underneath everything, organising and conducting the campaign.

Did he oppose pegging?

I said that they were well represented. They are very well represented in this House. For instance, these eloquently verbose members representing the natives are advocates of the Indian community on every possible occasion. Do the Indians need any further communal representation? In my humble opinion even if they have such representation they will not be satisfied. They will want direct Indian representation on the City Council, in the Provincial Council, in this Assembly and in the Other August Chamber. Well, there is no necessity for that sort of thing, and I strongly deprecate the statement of the Minister that we should accord these people communal representation. They have all the representation they want.

Do we represent them?

The hon. member over there is probably one of the best advocates the natives have—and also of the Indians. In regard to the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) I would be the last to say that she falls short in any way of what an Indian representative would do for the Indian community. A great deal of political capital has been made here about this whole question and I have been taken to task for making a certain rejoinder to an interjection by my hon. friend from Hospital (Mr. Barlow) during a previous debate. I was told by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside), I believe, that I would get into hot water about it, and I was told in the lobby that this remark of mine would have repercussions in India.

What remark?

I shall come to that. The statement which I made has been made many times in this House. Now there is an impression in this House that the people of Natal have brought the Indians to this country and I want to disprove that entirely, and I can do that by quoting extracts from the speeches of Mr. Harry Escombe, Prime Minister of Natal in 1891. In 1891 Mr. Escombe moved the second reading of the Indian Immigration Trust Board Law Amendment Bill, having for its object the discontinuance of the expenditure of public money for the introduction of Indian immigrants. In the course of his remarks Mr. Escombe said—

That is what he said in that year. And then he went on to say that the people of Natal were aware of the danger of the increase of the Indian population. But what I want to show the House is that it was not the people of Natal who brought the Indians to Natal. In 1897 it was sought to restrict the Indians in Natal by imposing a £3 tax on an Indian if he did not re-indenture. Things got so bad that there was a protest in Durban and I would like to say that that protest was the subject of my reply to an interjection by the hon. member for Hospital. Now, the Rt. Hon. Mr. Harry Escombe subsequently moved the second reading of the Immigration Restriction Bill, which became law. And in doing so he said this—

He was a true prophet indeed! In the same speech which was made on the 25th March, 1897, he referred to the arrival between 15th October, 1896, and 4th January, 1897, of two vessels which arrived with roughly 500 to 600 immigrants on board. Those two vessels were placed under quarantine under the ordinary Quarantine Law.

I think the hon. members of the Dominion Party and the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) should start a limited, liability company with racial hatred as their capital. The most extraordinary speeches I have heard in my life, I heard here today. These hon. members are attacking a minority of the people in South Africa. I just want to put this to the House. If a man steals something and gives it to a receiver the receiver is punished more heavily than the man who steals it, but here we have the hon. member for Beaufort West taking advantage of the rules of the House and reading out stolen documents which have been stolen by a thief. Who is the worst; the people who stole those documents or the man who reads them out? I am not even sure that it is not a matter of privilege. The highest court of this country, with the exception of this House, has issued a rule that these things shall neither be read nor used nor kept in any place other than with the Jewish Board of Deputies. And here the hon. member comes along, an advocate of the court—I know he was once, but he has been so many things at different times that one does not know what he is—and breaks that particular law. I do not know how he stands with the Bar Society. In the first place the hon. member talks of a quota system. How would the hon. member feel if the Minister of the Interior carried out that policy? Prof. Gray, who is not a Jew, has made a deep study of this and he says that if there had been a quota system in operation in the professions in 1926, 55 Jews would have been displaced, together with a much larger number of English-speaking people from most of the professions and a very large number of Afrikaners from the Public Service. He points out that quotas are double-edged weapons. Then the hon. member says that we must have no more Jews in this country and he then quotes what was said by the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan). I will also quote what was said by the hon. member for Piketberg. Here it is—

That is what the hon. member for Piketberg said. He has also jumped about so much that one does not know where he is.

That has been quoted in this House so often.

He said that when he was Minister of the Interior, when he had the power to bring in a quota system. But why did the Nationalist Party at that time not bring in a quota system? Because the following seats were won by Jewish votes: Barberton, Carolina, Heidelberg, Vereeniging, Krugersdorp, Losberg, Pretoria (Central), Rustenburg, Ventersdorp, Boshof, Vryheid, Zoutpansberg and Fordsburg. I know that, and I know that the Nationalist Party did not hesitate to take Jewish money.

They take any money.

And they take any money. They took Jewish money and the Jews assisted them; and if it had not been for the Jews they would not have been returned to Parliament. Ask the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp). He knows that that is true.

I deny that.

This cry on the part of the Opposition is an old cry. The tendency is to blame the Jews for everything that goes wrong. But at the time when Rome was burning all the Romans ran about Rome, shouting: “The Christians to thé lions.” When it did not rain Emperor Augustine said that the Christians were the cause. The Jew has been made a pawn in the political game for many years, and he is being made a pawn in the political game today by the friends of Hitler in this House. Let me read what Hitler said, which is exactly what one of his colleagues, the member for Beaufort West, said here—

As the member for Beaufort West has followed Hitler during the war, so he is following Hitler in this anti-Semitic propaganda. He is capitalising the lowest feature of a traditional racial hatred. Renan said that if you examine very closely the enemy of Jewry, you will find that they are generally enemies of the modern spirit. It was said in the Bible—I do not know whether my hon. friend ever reads the Bible but if not he can ask his Uncle Dr. Malan about An Alien shalt thou not wrong, whether shalt thou oppress him; for ye were aliens in the land of Egypt …. The Alien that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the homeborn among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were aliens in the land of Egpyt.

Some of the forbears of my hon. friends over there were aliens from France, and they are the last people who should attack any refugee. If the hon. member for Beaufort West were to die tomorrow, what would he leave behing him? What could he leave behind him except a modicum of hate? The whole of his life is a failure. He has been thrown into jobs and he has made a failure everywhere, and that is why he is so wrinkled and warped today. The policy of my hon. friends on the other side is this: If you are in trouble, attack the Jews. But I want to put this question to them: Who wrote the constitution of the old Free State Republic which has been recognised as one of the finest constitutions of any Government in the world? A Jew. Who brought the first Angora goats into South Africa? Mosenthal, a Jew. The hon. member for Beaufort West has a brother who is studying to become a doctor. Every day he goes into the home where is is living, i.e. the Medical School in Cape Town. If he takes the trouble to look he will see an inscription there which reads: “This was given to South Africa by Wernher and Beit”—again two Jews. Why does my hon. friend’s brother go to that University? Who made the maize industry in this country? Lazarus, a Jew. Who made the potato industry in this country? Lurie, a Jew. Who established the Rhodesian tobacco industry in this country? Pevsner, a Jew. Who made the fishing industry? De Pass, a Jew. And who made the Nationalist Party in this country? The Jews. And just as they made the Nationalist Party in South Africa, so they broke them at the last election. The Jews have produced some of the toughest guys in the world, and they cannot be beaten into submission by a puny little man like Eric Louw. [Time limit.]

The case of the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) is rather a sad one. I remember, way back in the early twenties, when he was a member of the House we used to listen to him with a certain amount of interest. His speeches were sometimes interesting and often amusing. But today they are neither interesting nor amusing. He is a man who is trying to stage a come-back, and he is making a very bad job of it. In fact, in the words of the old music-hall song : “The old gray mare she ain’t what she used to be,” and today the hon. member is reduced to boosting himself in his own little paper. He does not get reported in the daily press. No one takes any notice of him. So he writes in his own little paper under the huge head-line: “Arthur Barlow hits out in the House.”

Whose paper is it?

It is your paper.

What is the name of it?

Yes. “Arthur Barlow hits out in the House”! Nobody takes any notice of him; he is not reported by the newspapers and his only hope is to try and boost himself. I do not think we need take any serious notice of the hon. member for Hospital. He is trying to stage a come-back and he is making a very bad job of it. With regard to the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander) I was very interested to hear his admission that the Jews in France did actually leave the country and take their funds with them, and he comes with the preposterous excuse that they did that in order to prevent Hitler from laying his hands on their money. That was the excuse he gave. What about the rich Frenchmen? Did they leave? After all, we are now discussing the question of loyalty.

Loyalty to Hitler.

The hon. member for Hillbrow (Mr. Friedman) gave that as one of his definitions of assimilability.

Loyalty to Hitler.

No, loyalty to France. The rich Frenchmen did not shake the dust of France from their feet when things went wrong. What happened in South Africa after the fall of France? The Minister of Finance was obliged to provide for a very heavy fine because of funds that were being sent out of South Africa

Why don’t you mention the names.

Let them not speak of loyalty. The Jew is loyal to any country as long as things go well in that country, as long as he is able to make money in that country but as soon as things go wrong he shakes the dust of that country from his feet. The hon. member has made that admission, and we are very glad to get that admission from him.

I never made that admission at all.

The hon. member has explained why he was asked to treat the letter about the £5,000 as confidential. A more cock-and-bull story has never before been brought forward in this House. He states that the letter was treated as confidential because if it were published there would be a rush of Jews from all over South Africa to get this money. That is not very complimentary to the Jews. He does not explain what he told the Jewish Board of Deputies at Port Elizabeth; he does not explain why this organisation sent to Europe the names of Loan Organisations in this country; and then he tells this House that he and the Jewish Board of Deputies were not fostering Jewish immigration into this country. He does not refer to the following letter which was sent from the same organisation in Paris and which was addressed to the Jewish Board of Deputies. It is stated here—

I do not blame the hon. member for sympathising with his fellow countrymen. But he must not tell this House that he and the Jewish Board of Deputies are not actively encouraging Jewish immigration into this country. Not content with this, they also try to create a pro-Jewish settlement in this country. When my time expired I was reading this letter addressed to the hon. member by Mr. Goodman. Dealing with the press they had, he says—

Evidently there was some scheme on foot to accuse the late Gen. Hertzog and the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) of anti-Semitism, and Mr. Raphaely, the president of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, writes to the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) in these terms—

Yet we are always being told that these protests against Jewish immigration come only from this side of the House! The hon. member is living in a fool’s paradise. Does he not know that many of those members sitting behind him have exactly the same views on the subject as we have. This letter goes on to reads—

Hon. members will notice the sneering reference to the birth of Christ.

What year was that?

That is exactly the same argument which was used by the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle). He also said that we were referring to matters that took place in 1933. But that was when the trouble started. That was when the active encouragement of Jewish immigration into South Africa took place. If the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) and the Jewish Board of Deputies had not been co-operating with these overseas organisations in 1930 and after to bring these thousands of Jews into South Africa, we would not have had as serious a Jewish problem in South Africa as there is today. I am going back to the source, when all these troubles started. We find intervention on the part of the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) also in other matters. I have here extracts from the minutes of the meeting of the Cape Town Committee of the Board held on January 5th, 1934—

And here is the result of the representations, viz. an extract from the minutes of a meeting held on the 20th February, 1934—

[Time limit.]

The very hon. gentleman who represents Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) is very concerned to convice the House that certain statements he made were not made with the deliberate intention of misleading the House. I doubt very much whether the hon. gentleman did have any deliberate intention of deceiving the House.

Order, order ! The hon. member must not use that expression. The hon. member is not entitled to say that another hon. member is deliberately misleading the House.

I did not say that, Sir. I said that the hon. member was at pains to satisfy the House that there was no charge against him of deliberately misleading the House. For my part I say that I doubt very much whether it was possible for the hon. gentleman to set about with the deliberate intention of misleading the House. When a person surrenders himself entirely to the propagation of subversive doctrines, it is not possible for him to do anything else but mislead. It becomes part and parcel of his make-up. And when the hon. gentleman makes statements and they are in fact misleading, he is not misleading deliberately, it is habitual. I prefer to allow the hon. gentleman to disgorge himself of his filth before I am prepared to soil my hands on him. I want to deal instead at this stage with the Indian question in Natal. I think it is platitudinous to repeat that it is still one of the really formidable problems in Natal, although I am not suggesting that it is confined to Natal: it is a national problem. Firstly, I want to congratulate the hon. Minister on the utterances that have fallen from his lips since his appointment to this new office, in which he has shown—I hope I am correct in my interpretation of the hon. Minister’s attitude—a determination to approach this problem with vigour and with boldness and with no small measure of liberalism. I hope the Minister will not allow himself to be cajoled by a vociferous and unthinking minority in Natal. He is taking the right stand, and I tender him the congratulations which I think he will deresve. Let me say at the same time how equally anxious I am to dissociate myself from the intemperate expressions which have fallen both today and on other occasions from the lips of some of my colleagues. I dissociate myself unequivocally from statements which in my view are calculated to stand in the way of a solution of this problem, a solution which right-minded people in Natal are anxious to see reached. But those prospects are going to be destroyed by the inflammatory type of statement which unfortunately we had had here. This problem is not a problem of preserving the rights of one section, nor is it a problem of preserving the rights of another section; it is a problem of preserving the rights of all sections, and to my mind we shall get nowhere near a solution as long as we have those champions who are solely of the white people, just as much as we shall not reach a solution as long as we have the circumscribed champion of the Asiatics. If the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate) and the like did their job properly, there would not be any need for specific representation for the Indians. He would represent the Asiatic as much as he represents the Euroupean, because the whole problem is one and indivisible. When you look after the welfare of both sections, you look after the welfare of the country; when you look after the welfare of one section at the expense of another, you do not merely injure the one section; you prejudice the whole country; and the view I take is that if you do your duty in this House properly you represent the well-being of the Asiatic community as much as you do that of the Europeans. I want to say again that I congratulate the hon. Minister on the firm stand that he has taken. He has indicated that he is dertemined to approach the big problem properly and I hope he will not allow himself to be shifted. We shall get nowhere by digging up past history. We have to realise that there were mistakes probably on both sides. I think the Indian community will be the first to concede that they have made mistakes, but that does not help. What is important is the position today. The position today is that the Indian Community and the responsible section of the European community is determined to find a solution. I am at one with the Minister when he says that we must recognise as fundamental to this problem that the Asiatic community in South Africa is part of the permanent structure of South African society, and if you refuse to recognise that, then you are incompetent to participate in the discussion as to a solution. If you recognise that as the foundation of the whole problem, then you will have solved half the problem, and that is what so many of our European friends are unwilling to realise. Their whole approach to the problem is completely negative. They speak lightly of not putting the Asiatic here and not putting him there. But it is a matter of complete indifference to them where he goes as long as it is not here and it is not there. I say that the cardinal error of that approach is that it refuses to recognise that he has got to be as he is entitled to be somewhere in the country. We have no right to send him to India unless he wants to go. Nor will the unbridled comment on the part of my hon. friend for the South Coast recently go down in history as the most discreet nor the most gentelemanly observation on the situation. I want to congratulate the Minister also on his statement that we must visualise the time in the very near future when the Asiatic must enjoy, to begin with, the municipal franchise. I think he hit the nail on the head because by implication he drew attention to what is one of the first principles in democracy, namely that there shall be no taxation without representation. Let me say at this stage that I believe that the Durban Municipal Council is today very anxious and sincere in its desire to have a settlement of this problem on a basis that is both equitable and just. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just sat down congratulated the Minister on his recent public utterances on the question of the relations between the Asiatic and European population. I, Mr. Chairman, wish to congratulate the hon. member himself on what I regard as the most courageous speech he has made in this House. A few hon. members of his party this afternoon made speeches which unfortunately were deeply dyed with a type of colour prejudice particularly dangerous in a multi-racial society such as we have in this country, and I am very glad that the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Goldberg), belonging to that same party, should have answered them in the manner he has done. I have been listening carefully to the speeches of the hon. member for Musgrave (Mr. Acutt) and the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate) with the object of trying to find out what these hon. members exactly want. They have the Pegging Act, a drastic measure of racial discrimination, even in this country in which the statute book is littered with laws of racial discrimination, and those two hon. members can largely congratulate themselves that this measure was put on the statute book owing to the part they took in the agitation in this House in this matter of Indian penetration. Largely as the result of their efforts the House adopted that extremely unwise measure which, as I said at the time, the House will one day deeply regret. This measure lays down that a man of a certain race cannot buy property except in certain circumscribed areas without the permission of the authorities.

What about the natives?

I have always protested against these very restrictions against the native. Now what further do these hon. members want? The Minister has made speeches which indicate a desire on his part to meet the legitimate aspirations of a minority in this country, and he has only to open his mouth when these hon. members immediately fall upon him not for what he has done, but merely for what he has said. The hon. member for Musgrave read a letter from a gentleman whom he described as a middle class Indian saying that he did not look upon segregation as a stigma, and that those Indians who did were out for their own ends. It depends entirely upon what is meant by segregation. Segregation in this country, as we know from bitter experience, is not merely saying to a section of the population: “You live there and we will live here.” That is not what it means at all, it does not mean separation of that kind. What it in fact means is racial discrimination, and that is clearly borne out by the speech made this afternoon by the hon. member for South Coast. It was unthinkable to him that the Indian who is a permanent part of the community of South Africa should have any voice in government, whether in the municipalities or in this House. That is unthinkable to him, and that I say is an indication of what hon. members over there mean when they talk about segregation. They mean racial discrimination, they mean uncheked power of one section of the community over another, and because we protest from these benches against ideas of that character, they turn round on us and say: “Oh, the Indian is represented here in this House.” Mr. Chairman, I have explained in this House time and again why I am an advocate for the Indian: We are advocates for the Indian because we believe in the conceptions of liberty, equality arid democracy as a practical policy. A man should be given full freedom to rise in the economic and social scale on his merits and not because of his race. A man should have a voice in the government of his own country, irrespective of race, and these principles we apply fully to Europeans and non-Europeans alike. This is not a question to Us of any special pleading for the Indian community. The fact is, Mr. Chairman, that these so-called segregation laws, whether applied to Indians or Africans, are measures of racial discrimination, measures which make part of the permanent population of this country aliens in their own country. The hon. member for Musgrave suggested that an Indian cannot move from one portion of the country to another, from one province to another and stated that therefore he was not a Union national. I admit that is an amazing thing, but I would remind the hon. member that in the Transvaal and the Free State the African cannot move from one district to another without a permit, in his own country. Yet presumably the hon. member would not contend that Africans are not Union nationals. The segregation laws of Natal, which the Minister, if I understood him correctly, is going to modify, only affect, it is said, a small privileged part of the Indian community. Mr. Chairman, that is the kind of argument which is so plausible on the face of it. If you pass a law against property rights of a particular people, you are only affecting those who have any property; but it should be unnecessary to remind the hon. member for Musgrave that this law limiting the rights of Indians as such not only limits the rights of those Indians who have property rights at the present time, but it also limits the rights of any Indian who by ability and industry may afterwards work himself up in the social scale. This law to which my hon. friend was referring is aimed at the whole Indian community and it says that no Indian without special permission of the municipal authority may own property outside certain circumscribed areas.

I just want to point out that the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Goldberg) has defended the cause of the Indians and the Jews. I don’t blame him, because we know that both are of Asiatic origin. To me it is significant that we should be discussing this Jewish problem on Easter Monday, the day when we are reminded of the Messiah who was rejected by the Jews. I don’t want to go into that question, but I want to refer to what the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander) said, viz: that this matter originated with the Nationalist Party, and particularly with the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw). Now, let me draw the hon. member’s attention to the fact that the three great Churches in this country have continually been discussing this problem. The “Raad der Kerken” discussed the problem last year and I have before me the “akte” regarding that discussion.

Leave the church out of it.

I have it before me and I want to quote it.

Don’t drag the church into it.

This “Raad der Kerken” represents the Afrikaans churches to which partically the whole of the Afrikaansspeaking population belongs, including members opposite. It is therefore important to us to take note of what they say—

I am only drawing attention to this cycle. It started in Egypt, and they were chased out of that country. Then they were no longer wanted in Babylon. And so we find the same thing in Germany now. In the 13th century they were also chased out of England. And the cycle goes on. In the next generation we can expect the same thing to happen in England again. In America it has already started. The cycle goes on. And we are going to experience the end in South Africa shortly. We can see the influences at work in the discussions which are taking place here. But the Raad der Kerken brought up a second point. I am now speaking of the proceedings of the Raad der Kerken of 1943—

The Jews are not welcome in the other countries—not the English, not the Algerians but the Jews are the unwelcome section, and why is that? That also applies to the great majority of the people of South Africa. And then they come with a third point—

Why is it only the Jews who are always being persecuted and murdered? And why is it the Jewish sections of the nation under German domination today who are being murdered? It is because they are the unassimilable section of all nations. They are the sections which cannot mix. And then we come to the fourth point—

A short while ago there was a kind of jeremiad in the British House of Commons which led to a vote of condolence in connection with the Jewish nation. It was only a bit of make believe. They are afraid of persecution and bloodshed at the end of the war. And fifthly—and in the opinion of the churches this suggestion may be in the direction of a solution of the problem—

They are trying to form organisations of Christians and Jews together, but those organisations do not constsitute a solution of the problem, and they suggest a solution in two directions, and the first suggestion is that all the Jews should be sent away to a country which they will be able to call their own. That, of course, makes us think of Palestine. Whether that can ever happen, we do not know. But they also suggest another solution, and I think the Jewish community should cast its mind in that direction. It is no use denying what is contained in these documents, it is no use casting these things back at the hon. member for Beaufort West. They must think of a solution. The solution which has been indicated is that this must be regarded as an international question, and that the Jews should be split up on a quota basis among the various countries, that is to say every country should get its quota, so that one country will not be landed with a large mass of Jews and another country have none. And we in this country should also lay down a quota for the various groups, that is to say if 5 per cent. of the population is Jewish, only 5 per cent. should be members of the medical profession, 5 per cent. perhaps should be members of Parliament, and 5 per cent. should be working on the roads. And why should not 5 per cent. work on the roads? Why should only our Afrikaans people work there? We see the enormous power and influence they have, even in the Government. We know the influence they have over the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Justice. We know the power they exert over Col. Deneys Reitz, our High Commissioner in London, whose two partners were always Jews—we hear it whispered that he is to be the next Governor-General. They work themselves into everything. We know the power they have in our financial affairs. We know the hold they have on the Press. The Chairman of the Argus Group is Sir Eearnest Oppenheimer. I don’t know whether he is still their Chairman, but that powerful group of papers is in the hands of the Jews. The Argus, the Star and the Diamond Fields Advertiser, and the Rhodesian papers all belong to that group. They create public opinion, and we have seen their power in the elections.

Is the Argus group a Jewish group?

And then there is Arthur Barlow’s Weekly which is also in the hands of a pro-Jew. We know that he has connections with the Jews. They control the Press to a large extent. The hon. member for Beaufort West pointed out that 80 per cent. of the students in the medical faculty were Jews, although they only constitute 5 per cent. of the population. They come into our home as doctors, and see what is going on in Afrikaner families. No, I want to suggest to the Jews that they should carefully consier this whole question.

We have now heard from the hon. member that the “Argus” group is a Jewish group, and if that is so why does the hon. member ask for its help? We were told by the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) that the “Arugs” group would not give the Jews any help. The “Argus” group is a public company just like any other public company, and my hon. friend can buy shares in it as well as anybody else. It is no more a Jewish group than “Die Burger” or other Afrikaans papers that may have Jewish money in them. There is one thing that we would like to keep out of politicis in this House, that is the church, but an hon. member has now brought it into Parliament, and I would like to ask that hon. member why, if the Jews are such terrible people, such bad people, why his church uses a Jewish bible and prays to a Jewish God? My hon. friend has also gone back to the quota; of course, no sensible man has raised the question of the quota because it is absolutely impossible now.

Why?

Because it is impossible. My friends on the other side are always saying the Jews are capitalists, and then they turn round and say the Jews are the communists of South Africa.

They are both.

How can they be both? I know you can be a member of Parliament and be a rogue at the same time. I say to my hon. friend over there if the cap fits he can wear it. The hon. member for Beaufort West talks about the year 1931; it was just about that year the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) took a Jewish boy by the hand and led him into the Nationalist Party. I remember well when he brough Mr. Schlosberg along and introduced him to the Nationalist Party. At that time the Nasionalişts said: “Our heart bleeds for the Jews.” They put Mr. Schlosberg up for Germiston, and he got beaten by the present Minister of Agriculture. The Nationalist Party were trying to use the Jews to get into power, and they will try to use them again; they will take all the money the Jews will give them, they have taken it before and will take it again. Another thing about that time, the hon. member for Beaufort West stood for Queenstown, and does the hon. member remember who his great supporters were. The hon. member’s great supporters were Masabala and Clements Kadali, two black men. Oh, I know the history of my hon. friend and everyone of the members over there.

Remember the things you said the other day which you had to retract.

The hon. member was only too glad to get the assistance of these two men.

That is not true.

These are facts, and you cannot get away from them. The hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) was there and he will tell you that Clements Kadali came to see me. He will tell you that Clements Kadali was there. I passed him on and Gen. Hertzog gave him £5 to go to that election.

He was never near Queenstown. Somebody was pulling your leg.

The hon. member has tried a lot of strange tricks.

On a point of explanation. Mr. Chairman, on previous occasions the hon. member has come here and made all sorts of statements. I absolutely deny the truth of what he has just said. It is just as little true as his paper.

I know the hon. member reads my paper. He writes to me; he wrote me a letter the other week.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member is making statements which are entirely untrue. During the general election the hon. member prophesied that I would be defeated by a large majority, and stated that I was no longer popular in Beaufort West. I sent him a clipping of the result of the Beaufort West election which was the largest Nationalist majority in the whole of the Cape Province, and I told him to put that in his pipe and smoke it.

I want to get back to the hon. member. He made statements against the Jews of whom hundreds are serving in the army and a high percentage has been decorated. There are young men, doctors in this country, who if the hon. member’s policy had been carried out, would not have been in South Africa, and that would have been a terrible loss to the Union. Not so long ago a boat was sunk on our coast and a number of our sailors were badly burned. They were rushed to Cape Town and a certain Jewish doctor was rushed from Johannesburg, and he gave these men new faces and restored them to their former appearance. I am talking of Maj. Penn, one of the greatest facial surgeons in the world. Should my hon. friend, the member for Beaufort West, unfortunately have a motor accident, which we hope he will not, and injure his face, this surgeon would be able to restore it. Another young Jewish doctor from Johannesburg has been sent to the John Hopkins Institute in the United States. He is one of the greatest authorities in the world on cancer in women. We have turned out a Jewish doctor in this war who has been able to cope with the “blackout” to which airmen are subject. These are the people who are being sneered at by our friends on the other side. If any of them were to get ill, or their wives or children were to get ill they would hasten to these young men at once, and they would be assisted, because the Jew is a kindly man. While Jews are being killed all over the world the Nationalist Party sneers at them, and what do they think the world thinks of that? Christians should be absolutely ashamed to get up in this House and do that sort of thing while Jews are being slaughtered in Europe.

During the afternoon I criticised the Minister for his remarks on the subject of the Indians having a communal franchise, and I have also refuted the Minister’s remarks where he blames Durban for the position which prevails. I do not wish this debate to come to an end without making a suggestion to the Minister. The City Council has no power to expropriate land. The City Council cannot acquire land. I therefore make this suggestion to the Minister; he is so fond of criticising other people for what they are not doing. Let me therefore suggest that he or the Government should acquire land. Let them secure some 2,000 acres of land on the boundaries of Durban, which can be served by the Railways, and create an Indian township there. That will go a long way towards solving the Asiatic housing question so far as Durban is concerned. I earnestly suggest to the Minister to give this his consideration. I can tell him that the main trouble is that the Municipality has no right of expropriation. I don’t know whether they have the money either, but the Government can do it. The land is there. Let the Minister set an example, let him expropriate the land and establish an Indian township. If he does that then for the next 25 years the Indian housing problem will be settled.

I want to say at once that the interpretation which the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) placed on what I said previously is totally erroneous, and that if he only examines the subject he will find that he is in error, but I am concerned with dispelling the illusion which exists in this House and elsewhere that the people of Natal have brought the Indians to this country. I want to go on quoting from what the Rt. Hon. Harry Escombe said when he moved the second reading of the Immigration Restriction Bill in 1897—

He was speaking to the Natal Government at the time, and then he went on; and referred to two telegrams—

Now, I want to quote further ….

I hope the hon. member is not going to read all these documents.

No, I am not going to read everything, I am just going to read extracts to prove my point.

The hon. member must not read his speech; he can quote brief extracts.

This is not my speech.

It is tantamount to the hon. member’s speech.

It is not my speech it is a speech by the Rt. Hon. Harry Escombe.

The hon. member is entitled to read short extracts.

These are short extracts from a long speech.

They sound like long extracts from a short speech.

Very well, may I continue? I am now going to quote from a circular which was read by Mr. Escombe dated 8th January, 1897. It is called “Point Demonstration”—

These were the people of Natal—

The hon. member for Musgrave knows about that meeting which was held. He heard the “Assembly” sounded. People went to the Point to stop the Indians coming in, they demonstrated, they were prepared to use force, and they were only dissuaded from preventing the landing of these people on a promise by the Prime Minister that he would introduce legislation to prevent the landing of these people in Natal. The Bill contemplated the restriction of immigration of Asiatics, but it was found that a big controversy would result involving a constitutional issue, and then the Government introduced a general Immigration Bill, a Restriction Bill, and dealt with the matter in that way. The point I wanted to make is this—that it had been freely stated that the people of Natal brought the Indians to Natal.

So they did.

The people of Natal wanted to exclude the Indians from Natal.

At 6.40 p.m. the Chairman stated that, in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1944, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), he would report progress and ask leave to sit again.

HOUSE RESUMED:

The CHAIRMAN reported progress and asked leave to sit again; House to resume in Committee on 11th April.