There is only one other clause to which I desire to draw special attention, and that is clause 32 of the Bill. This clause is designed to control the activities of private training schools which offer to teach pupils designated trades in a few months.

Where are they?

I will tell my hon. friend in a moment. Our attention was first drawn to what I might call the pernicious operations of these schools in the hairdressing trade where the parents of girls would pay premiums to these concerns in order to have their children taught the hairdressing trade, it appearing at the time to be—and probably still is today—rather a lucrative calling. They never learnt their trade with the result that the money that was paid by the parents was wasted. That has been developed in another direction now particularly in the engineering industry, and it is having a very bad effect indeed. People are losing their money hand over fist. I think hon. members will realise the necessity of checking this if I read to them an advertisement that appeared in the “Standard and West Rand Review.” I will pass this advertisement over to hon. members on the other side so that they can inspect it. I know that it will have a special interest for the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg). I will pass it round, but I will ask the messenger to keep a very watchful eye on it as it passes from hand to hand for fear that it may be pilfered.

You must not judge other people by yourself.

I do not; that is why I say this. This advertisement appeared in the “Standard and West Rand Review.” It is headed “Progress College.” “The path to success leads only through Progress.” Then it goes on to say—

I told you that your five year period is too long.

Evidently. If this fellow is truthful, we will have no alternative but to scrap the Apprenticeship Bill. Then it states—

Then they mention the names of some of the firms who employ their men. That is one of these assertions somewhere near the truth, but in telling that truth, it is very misleading indeed. I have no doubt that a good many of these people are members of the Associations but only in the sense of being operatives, not as skilled mechanics. That is the point. And any parent, particularly at this time, anxious to see his son getting ahead, especially in the countryside—and I would urge this upon hon. members on the other side—picking up that advertisement will say to themselves: “Here is a chance,” and they will scrape to save up the £30 that these people ask in the hope, in the certain hope, that their children are going to be placed in a position within three or six months of being able to earn £18 per week. What an attractive proposition and what a fraud! If this Bill does nothing else but to put a stop to that sort of thing it will have accomplished its purpose, and I am keenly anxious that the House will agree with me and my Department and everyone who knows anything about this at all, that a step must be put to this sort of thing which is verging upon, if not actually, fraud. As I say, that is the only remaining clause which I wanted to stress specially. I want to tell hon. members who may be concerned—and I know they are concerned—in the technical education of the youngsters, that we have already set up a joint committee of the Education and Labour Departments who will go into this question. I think it would be well if I tell hon. members what the personnel of that committee is so far. From the Union education Department we have Dr. G. W. Eybers, Mr. R. W. Logie, and from the Department of Labour we have Mr. T. Freestone and Mr. J. F. Hannah who is well known to members of this House. There you have the nucleus of the personnel of the committee which I think will enjoy the confidence of all members of the House and certainly of the country, a committee that will do justice to the subject that they will investigate. It has been decided to add one representative of the Social and Economic Planning Council, one representative of the Mechanics Unions Joint Executives, and one representative of the South African Federated Engineering and Metallurgical Association. I think the House will agree with me that that is a committee pre-eminently suited to go into this important question, particularly of preapprenticeship education in a technical way of the youngsters who contemplate becoming skilled mechanics. Finally I do want to urge this upon the attention of the House, that we have done a remarkably fine job, an exceedingly fine job of work during this war. Again, I repeat that our own trained artisans have been largely responsible from the executive point of view for the transition period and the success of that transition period, and the success of our war effort in the direction of the manufacture of war munitions, guns, fortifications and everything that has made us so successful a nation in this matter of contributing our all in the war effort; and in addition to that we must contemplate—or go under—a vast expansion of our secondary industries. We must do it or throw in our hands. This country must become industrialised, and if that is in our contemplation, then it is essential that we should now take the necessary steps towards upholding that tradition that we already have and expanding it and extending it, and also extending the number and the capacity of our artisan staff of the country, in order that we might hope to have this vast industrial expansion in this country. Without it we cannot provide for our returned soldiers. Let us be frank. Without it we cannot provide for the rest of the community. It is an essential item in our national life, and this Bill provides us with an opportunity of adding to what has already been built up —our artisans staff who will cope successfully with all the demands made upon it.

This undoubtedly is one of the most important Bills which has been introduced in this Parliament during the last few months. We on this side of the House fully realise the great value of properly trained craftsmen to a country. We also thoroughly appreciate the fact that we must have legislation to provide for the training of these craftsmen, but what we do not understand is why this Bill has not been subjected to a thorough examination before being introduced here. In introducing the Bill the Minister said that no change in principle was being made to the existing laws. Let me ask him now—if that is the position, why then did he introduce this Bill? He knows as well as I do that this matter has for years been a bone of contention. He also knows very well that this question was partly investigated by the Planning Council which was appointed by the Government and I have the report before me. The head of the Minister’s Department was a member of the committee which held the enquiry, and that committee recently put in its report. After having investigated the matter, and having realised the difficulties attached to the subject, one of their recommendations was—

That is the report of the committee which consisted of Dr. Van Eck, Dr. P. Allan, Prof. H. R. Burroughs, the Hon. J. D. S. Briggs, Mr. G. A. C. Kuschke, Mr. W. J. Mears and Mr. I. L. Walker, Secretary for Labour. These people investigated the matter as far as they could in the time at their disposal and that is the report they put in. In spite of that report, in spite of this important recommendation, and in the face of it, the Minister comes here and brings this Bill before the House. He knows that there are objections from all sides to this Bill, objections to the principles of the Bill. Nobody is opposed to thorough vocational training, but the Minister should know that we feel that the existing legislation, which he now admits is not being improved by this Bill, is one of the greatest single causes of poor whiteism in this country. If he does not know it he should realise that it is so. The only recommendation which he can put forward for this Bill is the competency of our artisans. We have never doubted that. The Afrikaner has gifts and talents for work of that kind, and when he is trained as a tradesman he makes a success of his job. There is no doubt of that. Our Afrikaner tradesmen have done excellent work and we need them. All the Minister can say is that there are 30,000 apprentices here who have served their apprenticeship, and who since 1922 have become tradesmen in this country. But that is not a recommendation for this Bill. Let me tell the Minister that in 1938, one of our years of prosperity, at the Labour Bureaux where people go to look for work, 96 per cent. of the people who applied for work—almost 30,000 in one year—had to do pick and shovel work—they were doomed to do that class of work, because they were regarded as unskilled labour. They are the young men of this country, they are not imported people. All the Minister can say is that in twenty-two years 30,000 apprentices have been trained. He has told us how many tradesmen have been imported from other countries to come and work as tradesmen here. Does he know that between the years 1934 and 1938, that is in four years, nearly 5,000 trademen were imported as against a little more than 5,000 apprentices who had served their time here in that period under their agreements That is the position. The tradesmen in this country used the law of 1922 to build a wall around them because of their fear of unemployment. They have kept the young Afrikaner boys out of the trades. That is what was done under the Act which the Minister is praising so strongly now, and this Bill perpetuates that position. There is no improvement in that respect. It is no use creating aristocratic tradesmen in this country; it is no use our poor Afrikaner young fellows being doomed to unskilled labour and doomed to make a living out of pick and shovel work if they have not got the money or the opportunity to go to a university. The Minister speaks of 30,000 people who have served their apprenticeship, but in only one year more than that number of our Afrikaner sons were compelled to make a living with pick and shovel, and meanwhile people are imported from outside. The position is perfectly clear. The Apprenticeship Act which was in force in this country was used by tradesmen to build a wall for themselves so that they would not be unemployed at any time. The Minister cannot tell me that there were no workers to be found, because if the Minister says that, I would refer him to the Juvenile Advisory Boards in the towns. In Cape Town, two years ago, when an enquiry was held, it was found that 28.9 per cent. of the young fellows who applied for work and who went to the Juvenile Advisory Board wanted to be trained for some vocation or other.

And were they accepted?

Only 6 per cent. of them, but all the time people were being imported from outside to do the work. Foreigners, strangers to this country, travelled thousands of miles to come and look for work here, and they got work as skilled artisans. You don’t see them working with pick and shovel. You don’t see them go to institutions to get food and clothes. No, they are looked after by the tradesmen. I make bold to say that some of those trade unions lend themselves to import people from outside rather than to give work to our Afrikaner youngsters. The Minister talks about tradesmen and artisans who are thoroughly skilled, and he talks about the perfection of our Apprenticeship Act. He says it is a better Act than they have in any other part of the world. In other words, the people who came into this country did not have the training which our apprentices get.

I did not say that our Apprenticeship Act is better than that of any other country.

No, but the Minister did say it was one of the best Acts. Can the Minister get up and say that the tradesmen who are imported are trained under the same conditions as our tradesmen? Is any investigation made. When they come here is there any investigation made to see whether they have had the vocational training which our people are compelled to undergo? No. They are taken up in the trades. I want the hon. the Minister to realise what the position is. The prinicple which was wrong in the Act of 1922 is still wrong in the Bill now before the House. It is this, that the Committees which have to approve of the contracts of apprentices consist first of all of the Chairman who is appointed by the Government, who is there only to arrange matters, and then representatives of the Employers’ Organisations, and thirdly, of representatives of the Trade Unions of the workers. What right has the Minister to give these people the power to decide on all conditions in regard to apprentices? It is a national question. It is a question which affects the whole country, and the whole nation; the whole country and the whole nation are interested in it, but all the power is placed in the hands of a few people who can benefit from it. If the Minister wants to appoint a committee. to encourage apprenticeships and to see that the necessary number of apprentices are trained, then he must put the whole matter in the hands of a national board, an impartial national board, which will enquire into matters and find out how many apprentices we require in one trade and another. The Minister knows as well as I do that if we only take the apprentices who are being trained today, it is not sufficient. I am now speaking about the three important industries, the Engineering Industry, the Building Industry and the Printing Industry, because 85 per cent. of the apprenticeship contracts have been entered into in regard to those industries, and I am pointing out that so far as these industries are concerned the number of people being trained today is not sufficient to maintain the numbers required for the future. Actuaries have gone into the whole matter and have found that the working life of a tradesman averages about thirty years. That is putting it fairly high. In the years 1929 to 1939 the following numbers of apprentices completed their apprenticeships: In the printing industry 746; in the building industry 597; in the engineering industry 7,076. Those are the figures of the young fellows who completed their apprenticeships. Now, if you take the census for 1926, and you take the number of apprentices who are being trained, the number that have been trained in the ten years I have mentioned, then in the engineering industry it will take thirty-nine years to train the number of artisans we had in 1926; in the printing industry it will take 48 years, and in the building industry 61 years. In an article which was published in the “Social and Industrial Journal” of August, 1927, Dr. Holloway, who is today Secretary for Finance, but who in those days was Director of Census and Statistics, calculated that in the building industry one apprentice to every five artisans was required to let the increase in the number of tradesmen be proportionate to the increase of the population. Today the ratio of apprentices to tradesmen in the building industry is less than 1 to 10. I could go on all day quoting facts and figures, but I only want to take the three industries and take the number of new tradesmen who have served their apprenticeships—that is to say apprentices who have served their apprenticeship contracts. The years 1934 to 1938 were prosperity years— I think one can say that. In 1934 the position was that 259 immigrants were imported and 769 apprentices finished their contracts. In 1935—425 immigrants were imported and 698 apprentices completed their indentures; in 1936—770 immigrants came in, in connection with the engineering industry, and 655 apprentices finished their indentures. In 1937 the numbers were 469 and 624; in 1938 the numbers were 481 and 713. From 1934 to 1938—2,404 tradesmen were brought into this country as immigrants, while only 3,459 apprentices completed their indentures. That is to say that 41 per cent. of the tradesmen in the engineering industry are newcomers, people who have been imported into this country. In the building industry the position was even worse. In the four years 2,303 immigrants were imported as tradesmen, and the number of apprentices who finished their contracts was only 1,754 so that 56.8 per cent. of the tradesmen were imported. In the two industries 4,707 immigrants were imported as against 5.213 apprentices who completed their indentures. In other words, the figures show clearly that the existing Apprenticeship Act has not done justice to the Afrikaner boys, and the Bill now before us perpetuates tha unsound position. If we think of the development which has taken place since 1922, and if we take note of the small number of apprentices who have become tradesmen, then it seems to me that the Afrikaners are deliberately kept out of these spheres of employment. These years were a period of unprecedented development. The number of factory workers more than doubled itself in that time, and in the Public Service and on the Railways, in Commerce and on the Mines and other industries, the number of workers increased tremendously. But what became of the young Afrikaners and the young Afrikaner girls in that period? In spite of the development which took place during that period the number of unskilled white labourers increased rapidly. During that period our Afrikaner boys should have been trained as tradesmen, as artisans, but they were lost. Our boys and girls were compelled to do unskilled labour, to do work which formerly had been done by coloured people, and they did so in their thousands. For that reason I say again that this Apprenticeship Act has been one of the main causes, since those days, of the creation of the poor white problem. The Minister told us the history of apprenticeship. I have never heard a responsible individual give such a poor review as he did. He did not say a word about the developments which led up to the passage of the Act of 1922. Surely the purpose with which that law was introduced was the training of tradesmen, and the main purpose was to enable Afrikaner children, English- or Afrikaans-speaking, to take their place in vocational life, and to take up vocational careers. That object has proved a failure. Now, the Minister comes here and wants to perpetuate a law which has proved a failure. This Bill goes a little further. This Bill is an improvement in one respect so far as the administration is concerned. I admit that, but so far as the rest of the Bill is concerned the Minister himself has admitted that it contains the same principle as the previous Bill. Are we prepared to swallow that? I know that the Minister is given greater powers in this Bill, but those new powers which are being given to him have to be exercised after consultation with the Trade Unions. If you have a Minister such as we have today, who is under the thumb of the Trade Unions, then I wonder what one is to expect? One can expect that the position will get worse and worse. To come and tell us here about the good war work our artisans have done, to tell us things of that kind, cuts no ice. Those things are only done to whip up sentiment on the other side of the House. The Minister knows as well as I do that that is all nonsense; he knows that the Bill has not been drafted for that purpose and that it has nothing to do with it. The law will prevail long after it has been passed by this House, and if you have a Minister like the present one at the head of affairs it will continue to be used in the same way as the last Act has been used. That is why this question must be thoroughly investigated, and as a matter of fact the Minister’s own committee, his own secretary, has asked for that. It’s no use saying that the people who have to approve of the indentures will take note of this, that and the other thing. As I said yesterday there is more than one way of killing a cat. The 1922 Act made provisions of some kind. It was realised at the time the Act was passed that it might be used for the purpose of keeping apprentices out of a trade. That is why they said they must take no notice of the numbers who applied; they must not consider the question whether the training of additional apprentices was going to cause unemployment or not. That was laid down as a precautionary measure against the law being exploited for the purpose of keeping out apprentices. But now the Minister goes still further by making it possible for the Trade Unions to build a wall round themselves, and to keep all the other people out. I for one am not prepared to vote for a Bill like this. I can see the evil in the existing legislation, and this Bill is no improvement. Why all this hurry? The Minister says that this Bill does not contemplate any drastic changes. The principle remains the same. But surely the Minister has the existing Act, and he can appoint a committee, or he can refer the matter back to the Planning Council and say to them : “There are certain evils in the Bill. I want you to make a thorough investigation because this is a matter of public importance; it is not a question which merely affects the employers and employees, but it is a question which affects the whole nation and the whole country.” If that were done the matter could be thoroughly examined. There is ample time. The department could then place the facts before the Committee. But he cannot get away from the fact that this Bill is thoroughly unsatisfactory. Even more than in the past the Trade Unions will now be able to do as they please. We have had experience in the past of an inadequate number of apprentices being trained, at a time when tradesmen and artisans were being imported from England, Holland, America and all countries in the world. If you have an impartial council or board, and you take all these things into consideration, you will be able to create a position under which the South African will get his rightful place in the country’s vocational life. The Minister said that in principle this Bill was identical to the existing law. Our main objection to this Bill is that it is a source for the creation of poor whites, and that it will keep people who are suitable for trades and who are anxious to get into trade out of those trades. We say that the weakness of the Bill lies in the fact that the committee or the board which has to approve of the apprenticeship contracts is not a national committee. It should be a national committee, and should not consist merely of the representatives of employers and employees. They are not the only people who are interested in this matter.

I have no objection to artisans being protected by Trade Unions. I have no objection to their having Trade Unions to protect their interests. Not in the least, but what I do object to in connection with this matter, which is a matter of national importance, is that those people will have full say in regard to the employment of apprentices. We want the committee which will have to decide about the future of the apprentices to be a national committee. I don’t mind the Trade Unions and the employers having representatives on it, because they are interested, but we also want impartial people on it who will be able to see that justice is done to our own people. This Bill does not remove the main objection. It is true that greater powers are given to the Minister but he is not given any corresponding responsibility. The powers he is given have to be exercised after consultation with this and that trade union and committee. He will tell me that in spite of that he can do as he pleases because he only has to consult them. We know the Minister of Labour. I don’t blame him for acting on behalf of the Trade Unions and being their great champion. The position is that if he has to consult those people we may just as well put the matter into their hands. I just want to say this, I have made a study of the clauses of the Bill and I can speak on most of them, and also on the amendments which are made in the clauses of the existing Act. We have complaints for instance that young men from the rural districts are not being employed in trades and industrial vocations. The Minister admits that that is the case, but he says that that is not the fault of the law. He also says that the coloured people complain that they are not being engaged in various trades, and the law is not to blame for that either, but he makes provision in the Bill that there is to be no distinction made between the coloured men and the white workers. But he does not make a similar provision in regard to the white youngsters. I say that there are people in the rural districts who have never been apprenticed and who are better tradesmen, better artisans, than most of the artisans in the towns. We have reached the stage where there is no longer any need for us to import people from outside for our trades. We have people who are just as good as anyone in the world. I am afraid that my time may be up before I reach my amendment and I therefore propose to move my amendment now. It reads as follows—

1. (a) the proper recognition of training received by European apprentices in trade and vocational schools in order to ensure proper co-ordination between our system of apprenticeship and industrial training including trade schools;
2. (b) the training as artisans of European workers doing unskilled labour at present and who are suitable and desirous of being so trained;
3. (c) the alteration of the age limit so that every European person with the aptitude for any particular trade, craft or vocation shall have the opportunity of being trained as an artisan;
4. (d) the approval of contracts of apprenticeship being, subject to the approval of a central national apprenticeship committee;
5. (e) properly adjusting the training of artisans to the requirements of the country and restricting the importation of overseas labour to a minimum;
6. (f) the removal of the existing and increasing maladjustment between the European and non-European races in the spheres of industrial labour and the organisation of labour;
7. (g) the assumption of responsibility by the State for the employment of apprentices in industry subsequent to their training; and
8. (h) facilities on a larger scale for the training of young persons from the country by assisting or establishing boarding institutions in the larger industrial centres.”

That is my amendment. I assume that if there is any sense of fairness among members opposite they will support me. I assume that so far as they are concerned they are also anxious to have the best law they possibly can in this country, and I assume that in any case they will take notice of a commission which was appointed by their own side, that they will realise that what I said here comes from my heart, that I feel that an injustice is being done and that a change is necessary, and that these difficulties and mistakes must be remedied. I also want to tell the Minister of Labour that I am not wedded to the Planning Council. If the Minister wants to refer the Bill to an impartial commission to investigate this question I shall have no objection whatever to his doing so. The position is simply that we feel there is no need at this stage to put this Bill through in a hurry. The Minister admits that the principle is not being changed, and as it is unnecessary to pass the Bill at once, I think we should follow this course so that the Minister can introduce another Bill next year. We shall then have the opportunity of placing our difficulties before the commission, not only the difficulties of the rural districts, but also of the towns. I was discussing this question with a man from Johannesburg the other day and he told me that if a young fellow did not have a father or an uncle, or some other relation in a trade, he had no chance of being taken on as an apprentice. If that is the position in our towns, then surely those people should also be given an opportunity of placing their case before such a commission of enquiry. We have not got time to refer this subject to a select committee, nor would a select committee have the opportunity of hearing all sides. Everything has to be done in a hurry. We want to help the Minister of Labour to get a good Bill, and we don’t want any trouble or difficulty in this country. We want our young men to have a good training for the various trades but we feel that to come forward at this stage with this Bill is not right to the country. This is a national question which is of the greatest importance to the country. It is not just a question which affects the various trades. It is an asset to the country to have well trained artisans. I know that the men in the trades must be protected against semi-skilled and unskilled workers and we want to help the Minister, but it seems unfair to me that this Bill should be forced down our throats at this stage. I have made my appeal to the Minister of Labour and I want him to think very carefully over this question. We don’t want to detain him; if he insists on going on with the Bill we shall try to improve it in the Committee stage. We don’t want to hold up the Bill but we must take up this attitude because we feel that these things are not right. [Time limit extended.] I have almost concluded. The position is this, that we do not want the Minister of Labour to think that we want to delay his Bill, but we really object to it very sincerely. I have made my appeal to him. He knows me and he knows that I feel very strongly on this matter. We must have the best possible laws in order to make a success of this matter. We must not only look at the calibre of the people but also at the numbers. We have had a rapid development in industrial matters in this country, and the Minister cannot come and tell us now that the Act has been a success. It is simply ridiculous to come and tell us that because 30,000 people were trained in twenty-two years it shows that the Act has been a good one. At least 100,000 should have been trained. Proof of the fact that insufficient people have been trained lies in the fact that thousands of artisans have to be imported from overseas. It is no use saying that the Minister can determine what number is to be laid down. Let us have a thorough investigation and determine what the position is to be, and let us make this a national matter—because that is what it is. Only under those conditions shall we be able to introduce legislation which will be satisfactory to all concerned. If we appoint a commission which is strone enough and which will thoroughly go into the question and bring up a Bill, there will be no objection then to such a measure. Today an injustice is being done to the platteland and to the whole country, because this Bill is not giving any encouragement to apprentices and it is simply going to enable the artisans to build a ring wall around them. I happened to be in touch the other day with one of the professors in the engineering industry. He told me that somebody had asked him whether he should let his son learn a trade or whether he should send him to the university. He, the professor, asked him why he was in doubt. If a young man became an apprentice after Standard VI, he would have finished his education long before the other fellow who went to the university. To send a young fellow to the university would cost the father thousands of pounds, and when he had finished his university training he would have to start at £250 per year, while the artisan at that stage would already be making £400 to £500 per year. People are beginning to realise what the position is. I do not begrudge those people the wages they get. That is not what I am dissatisfied about, but the Minister must give the Afrikaners these privileges too, and he must not unnecessarily import people from overseas. There is no doubt that the number of apprentices have been too small. There would otherwise have been no need to import men from overseas. How many hundreds of Hollanders and others have not come to this country because we did not have sufficient artisans? The matter is so serious and so important for this country that the Minister must not try to pass the Bill in its present form. I appeal to him to accept my amendment. If he wants to amend mv amendment by appointing another Commission I shall have no objection. But as this Committee has already investigated the matter and as it has found that is has not had sufficient time to remedy all the mistakes, I have no objection to the matter being referred back to that committee. I therefore move my amendment.

With refernce to the amendment which the hon. member has proposed, I must refer him to Rule 161 of the Standing Rules. It is laid down there that motions can be proposed to amend the question for the second reading of Bills. Two kinds of motions are mentioned, and paragraph 2 reads—

The hon. member now mentions as a special reason that he wants to refer the contents of the Bill to the Social and Economic Planning Council for further enquiry. I am sorry I cannot accept the amendment in that form because the Planning Council is not a committee of this House. The hon. member could have moved to refer the subject matter of the Bill to a Select Committee or he could have given his reason in some different form.

I am prepared to alter my amendment to that effect.

Some other hon. member can move the amendment in the proper form.

I am very sorry that my friend, the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) is so much perturbed about this apprenticeship Bill and I can only tell him that his arguments are based on a very unsound foundation because to a very great extent they cannot be substantiated by fact.

He has substantiated them by fact.

Now, as an industrialist of many years’ experience, knowing some of the intricacies and ramifications of industry, I am going to say that I welcome the introduction of this Bill. I feel it is a better measure, it is an improved measure on the old Act, and undoubtedly an improvement in the terms and conditions of apprentices, which is badly required. The hon. member for Swellendam has complained that under the old Act Afrikaner youths were shut out. Is not that an argument for improved conditions? Then he goes on to say that what is required is a national board to decide. Now, in theory a national board might be quite alright but in practice I fail to see how it can work. As an appeal board there may be some argument for a national board, but in actual practice you must have local committees, otherwise how in heaven’s name can a national board decide on the suitability and other conditions appertaining to wouldbe apprentices. The local committee is able to investigate the youth himself and his fitness for employment, which in my opinion would be impossible in the case of a national board. Now, there is one point which I want to be absolutely sure upon in connection with the new Bill. Under the present Apprenticeship Act there is a general committee provided to go into this questions of youths to be apprenticed. I understand that under the present Bill there will be an Apprenticeship Committee for the different industries. Is that correct?

Yes.

That in my opinion is a very big improvement on the present method because with apprenticeship committees it is very difficult to get a personnel which is conversant with the details of the various industries, and I consider that it is absolutely imperative for an apprenticeship committee to be thoroughly conversant with the particular industry in which the apprentice wishes to enter, and there is another point in connection with that. Modern industry has changed very considerably in the past few years. It has become very sectionalised and the tradesman as we knew him some twenty of thirty years ago is to a very great extent non-existent in modern industry. It has become so sectionalised and so mechanised that only in comparatively small sections of many industries does a man become a tradesman in the full sense of the word. What he actually does become is a sectionalised worker on a machine, and if anyone is going to tell me that you can train a youth to be efficient on all the different machines which are used in industry today, I say that in the main that is absolutely impossible. You may get one exceptional youth now and again who has a flair for machinery who can adapt himself to the various types and the various conditions of work which those machines perform. But take the trade I am particularly conversant with. In the one department you get stitching machines of two completely different types. You get lasting machines of two completely different types, and while it is possible for a worker to learn and become efficient on the two types of lasting machines, it is very, very rare indeed that any worker ever becomes proficient in the two types of stitching machines. He is trained to the one or to the other. Now, I should object myself most strongly to any lad being apprenticed for five years to learn one machine because I consider that it would be unfair to the youth that he should be tied down to one machine for that long period of time. Then, again there are a number of dead end occupations in every industry and one has to be very careful that apprentices shall not be tied down to that sort of thing, and might I suggest to the hon. member for Swellendam, while he seems to object very strongly to coloured labour that the cost of production could be increased considerably if you had not got the use of non-European labour in some of these dead end occupations. Then, you come to another side of industry, and the question is whether a man should be fully trained there as a craftsman. I am referring now to the shoe industry in particular—and to the question of the turning out of the uppers of shoes.

On a point of personal explanation, I understand that the hon. member says that I am opposed to the training of coloured labourers. I never said anything of the kind.

I understood the hon. member objected to non-Europeans being apprenticed.

It just shows you are prejudiced.

I never said anything of the sort. What I said was this: I said that while provision is made for certain sections of people, no provision is made for the people from the platteland. The Minister has made provision for coloured people in the Bill by saying that they should not discriminate against them whereas no provision is made for the people from the platteland.

I beg the hon. member’s pardon for the correction.

Do you want me to put that in the Act?

Well, who has the floor now? I beg the hon. member’s pardon for jumping to that conclusion which on this occasion was not justified, and I can only plead that I am not sufficiently conversant with Afrikaans to follow him. On the other hand, the attitude of hon. members on the other side of the House to non-Europeans as a general rule rather justified me in jumping to that conclusion.

Oh, you must have some excuse.

Then one hon. member on the other side interjected that I was prejudiced. The hon. member who made that interjection evidently does not know me, or my reputation, in any sense of the word.

I know you in the House.

If there is one thing I pride myself on it is the fact that I have no racial prejudices and I want to tell that hon. member that when I was actively participating in industry I had hundreds of Afrikaner youths, boys and girls, through my hands, and they came to me for employment, and I never once questioned what language they spoke, or what politics their parents held, and I strongly object to an interjection of that nature which is absolutely unjustified. Now, to get back to the hon. member for Swellendam, with regard to his fear or his wish that something special should be provided in the Bill to make provision for the country youths, so that they may not be discriminated against, with all my experience of industry I never for one moment thought that it was necessary to have a clause of that description, and I want to say that the hon. member for Swellendam is very much out of date with regard to industrial conditions, and the employees who are engaged in industry today, because as far as my knowledge goes—and I represent one of the largest industrial constituencies in this country— and I am in close touch with industries and their conditions—he is quite wrong when he assumes that Afrikaner youths are discriminated against and he is quite wrong when he assumes that Afrikaners are shut out because in industry there are no politics. Now, I say that as I stand here, speaking from experience of industrialists, both Englis-speaking and Jewish—I say that when it comes to the question of taking on an employee, there is no question of politics entering into it.

I again want to rise on a point of explanation, and I wish to say that I am sorry I did not speak in English. The psoition is this, that what the hon. member is saying was never said by me, that there was discrimination against language or against race. On two occasions I said South Africans, English and Dutch-speaking. I said the fact of the matter is that you did not take sufficient apprentices although they were available, and because of that you had to import a lot of men from Holland, England and all over the place.

The hon. member did say that the present Apprenticeship Act discriminated against the Afrikaner youth.

No, he did not say that.

Well, against the platteland, and when one speaks of the platteland one generally takes it as a reference to Afrikaans-speaking people. But, Sir, he made the statement that it was the Apprenticeship Bill that caused a lot of poor whiteism. Is that correct or not? Did he not say that the Apprenticeship Bill had caused an increase in the number of poor whites? Well, Sir, that is not correct and cannot be substantiated by the facts. We had poor whiteism in this country before we had industrial conditions.

Have you the figures?

I am afraid, Mr. Speaker, that my hon. friend has become intoxicated with the figures which he has and I do not wish to get into the same condition.

Argue against the facts if you can.

If the hon. member had presented figures showing the artisans imported and the industries into which they came his figures would have been very much more valuable and convincing than they are today. If the hon. member will allow me to try and elaborate my point he will be able to challenge me when we get into the Committee stage. I did not interrupt him. I have too much respect for him for that. What I want to get at is this, he claims that all these men have been imported and I have not gone into the question of numbers, so I cannot challenge his figures, but I do dispute that there has been any large number of imported artisans in the established industries. I am positive the hon. member cannot show me a large number of artisans imported into the printing trade.

The trade union would protest against that.

I am positive that he cannot show me any large number in the last ten years brought in for the boot and shoe industry, which is one of our established industries. The same thing applies to other industries. When it comes to the establishment of new industries, I do not quite see how you are going to establish those industries unless you do bring in skilled labour, the same as we had to do in connection with our industries. I myself came to this country 45 years ago as a pioneer in the boot and shoe industry, and Iscor introduced a number of Germans into this country for the establishment of the iron and steel industry, and if you are going to establish a new industry in this country, and I take it we all desire that, you have to go outside South Africa to get the trained personnel to train our own youth to be, later on, qualified tradesmen. The hon. member appears to have damned the apprenticeship by bell, book and candle, and I do not think he is justified in that. Is he opposed to the Apprenticeship Bill? Does he not want our youths to be trained?

I said so.

I am very pleased to hear it, because it is only through an Apprenticeship Bill that we get the means to train our youths. Under the old methods you got lots of youths who came to manhood and who are still filling more or less dead end occupations to their own financial detriment. I am as sorry as anyone that such a thing should be. We know that there are men who have married and brought up families, who have not been properly trained, and the result is that they get on to an occupation which does not give them the full wage of a skilled journeyman. It is absolutely necessary that our youths should have this proper training to enable them to hold their own against the artisans of the world. I want to say here that the Afrikaans-speaking youth makes a good industrialist.

So does the Englishspeaking one.

Well, he has got it in his blood. In the earlier days the Afrikaans youth who came into industry came from the platteland, and he had farming and agriculture in his blood, and it was quite a switch over for him to engage in industry. Today we are on to the third generation in industry and these youths of the third generation are proving just as adaptable as the youths of any other nation. I think one should welcome this, I have seen skilled men turned out from Afrikaans-speaking stock as good as any you would wish to find, and what is more, young men of Afrikaans-speaking stock are becoming executives and foremen, and in course of time one can even hope that they will become masters in their own business. But it is only through the medium of proper training that they will attain positions of that kind. I sincerely hope that the hon. member and those who think with him, will endeavour to modify his views towards this Bill. If there are any small points which they feel should be amended, surely that can be done in committee. There are one or two points in the Bill I would like to amend, but I think that can be dealt with in committee. When it comes to a question of throwing the whole apprenticeship system under a nationad board well, Mr. Speaker, that is impossible and absolutely unworkable. I think the hon. member is judging the thing from an entirely wrong basis when he suggests that that can be done. One point which I cannot see touched on in the Bill is the question of what happens when an apprentice has completed his training and becomes a journeyman. I ask this question advisedly, because in my experience over a long period of years I have known times when there has been a glut of apprentices producing more journeymen than the industry can absorb. When difficulties arise the apprentice who has qualified is either exploited or he finds himself out of work. I have seen the time when fully trained apprentices have had to walk the streets, and I do not want to see those conditions arise again. I want some provision made for the employment of these men, otherwise we shall be failing in our duty. I feel that we must see to it that any firm which trains apprentices for the full period must assume the liability of taking those men on as journeymen and pay them journeymen’s wages.

I think the apprentice who has learned his trade is entitled to that. If the firm engaged in industry has not trained the apprentice properly, then it is their trouble if they have to pay that man journeyman wages when he is not qualified to earn them. I think the Minister should give special attention to that particular point, and I hope he will make some provision in the Bill to ensure that these apprentices receive some protection when they have completed their training.

Mr. Speaker, I find myself in my attitude to this Bill, a good deal in sympathy with the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren). Before this Bill was introduced it was apparently very closely examined by the Social and Economic Planning Council, and that council, keeping in mind our rapidly changing industrial structure, definitely recommended that the Bill should not be introduced. I would like to read the relevant section in the White Paper which was issued in connection with Report No. 2 of the Social and Economic Planning Council. The section is 26, and it reads—

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

Afternoon Sitting.

When the House adjourned I had just completed quoting a section from the White Paper submitted by the Planning and Economic Council. I pointed out that, in connection with this Bill, that White Paper makes a very definite suggestion, almost a recommendation, that this Bill be not introduced, but that it be submitted to a committee consisting of the Secretary for Education, the four provincial Directors of Education, the Director of Technical Training (Prof. Sutton), one representative of the technical colleges, one representative of industry and one of labour. In view of the specific nature of this recommendation that there should be an exhaustive research into apprenticeship training and contracts, it is a surprising thing that the Government has decided to introduce this Bill at this stage. If the Bill is not a departure in principle from the present Act, as the Minister asserts, would not that Act’ be good enough to carry us over the interval until we can arrive at a more suitable Act as the result of scientific and expert examination. After twenty years’ experience of technical education in this country in a high administrative capacity, and as one who has had considerable experience in technical education in other countries, I want to associate myself with the recommendation of the Planning Council. My view is that this Bill is unsuited to the industrial conditions of this country and unreal in its approach to apprenticeship training. Notwithstanding the basic changes which have occurred in industry during the war, and in industrial management and technique, this Bill accepts in toto the present unsatisfactory system of apprenticeship training.

Show where it is unsatisfactory.

I am coming to that. I suppose I am right in saying that the aim of much of the apprenticeship training today is not the education, but the productive capacity of youth; in many cases to make possible a large volume of cheap labour. Now this Bill completely ignores one of the most striking experiments in industrial education ever introduced into this country. I refer to the system set up to meet the very grave shortage of skilled men during the war, that is to say the system which is commonly known as the C.O.T.T. system. I have had a good deal to do with the training of men under that. That system was brought to a very high state of perfection; in fact it was a very big contributory factor in the carrying on of the war so successfully by the South African Government. Now this Bill ignores completely the lessons that have been brought out by that scientific and intensive system of technical training as developed by Professor Sutton. It also makes no allowance at all for the fact that the learner system in South Africa is displacing apprenticeship training to a very great extent. The following figures are very significant in that connection. I take the proportion of apprentices to the total employees in certain trades, selecting the years 1927 to 1939 for comparison. In the railway carriage and coachbuilding trades, the proportion of apprentices to the total number of employees fell from 1.6 to .9; in the furniture trade it fell from 19 to 4; in the building trade from 11 to 7.8; in the printing trade from 6 to 4.5, and in the leather trade from 2.6 to .2. These facts show that there is a revolutionary trend in the development of skills in this country, as elsewhere in the world; and that fact calls for investigation of a most important kind, before we set out to provide what indeed we hope to provide, namely an apprenticeship charter for the young people of this country. The Bill makes no provision for the adjustment of training to the new conditions. That adjustment, according to the opinion of industrialists and those who are connected with the training of apprentices, requires basically a shorter period of apprenticeship and a considerably improved system of preapprenticeship training. The whole matter is highly technical, and I do not think that this Parliament is a competent body to discuss this matter in all its technicalities and difficulties. I think it should be referred to the special committee recommended by the Planning and Economic Council. My long experience of technical education has convinced me that the present system of apprenticeship training which this Bill merely confirms, has been a failure; the results achieved have not been commensurate with the time and the money and the expert knowledge devoted to it. For example—I would like the Minister to take note of these facts—the boys with perhaps the exception of the Railway and Printing apprentices, and I have had some thousands of them under my supervision, take very little interest at all in their vocational training. When we come to the examination results, I think I am stating the position liberally when I say that 25 per cent. successes represent the average subject passes each year. Not 10 per cent. of these apprentices reach, in their educational standard, the higher grades in their studies. Thousands of them, even after three years of compulsory attendance, do not complete their first year course of educational training. Now, these facts, I submit, indicate that there is a great deal wrong in our system. I have stated some of the causes. Other causes are the wrong teaching methods, with too much emphasis on the theory side, and too little room and time for the practical training. Then there is the lower educational standard of the apprentices on entering on indentures. There is also complete lack of initiative on the part of the State and of the employers in making this training realistic in that there is inadequacy of workshops for practical training throughout the Union. Now, all these unsatisfactory conditions which I have outlined, this Bill accepts. We all agree that we are now entering a new era of industrial development; as a result of the war a new industrial set-up is taking place; I submit therefore that it is wrong to impose on the present system, a system of apprenticeship training which has been in vogue for twenty years, and which has completely failed.

Exactly.

Now is the time, now we have an opportunity—I don’t say this year— but let us be careful, let us introduce something more realistic next year. Now is the time to begin to formulate a new system of industrial training. I want to submit a few practical suggestions. I believe, and my experience convinces me, that there is urgency in the contention that the period of apprenticeship should be shortened considerably. That will connote a higher standard of entrance education, say a minimum of Standard 8. It may lead to raising the age of entering on indentures up to 17 years. In addition, we require in South Africa—and I think this must be behind the views of the hon. member for Swellendam—a properly co-ordinated system of scientific training, a system which will provide a general education as well as a practical system mainly on the lines of the C.O.T.T. system. I believe in that way, in the workshops, and by technical education generally, we should be able to apply to these young men a practical vocational test, so that before they are bound to a particular employer they will be sure in their own minds as to their efficiency, their vocational calling, their ability to make a success of the trade in which they are interested. This revision which I have in mind, particularly in connection with the pre-apprenticeship training, will call for a complete overhaul of the syllabuses now conducted by the Union Education Department. These syllabuses are largely academic. I believe also that this new system will lead to the abolition of the examination tyranny which is dominating education in this country and which has a great deal to do with the lack of interest of our apprentices in education for their future careers. I believe it will remove the dead hand of the Union Education Department from our technical training in this country. We have a positive jumble in our educational system. Here we are handing over to the Minister of Labour the training of our apprentices. The Union Education Department lays down the syllabus and conducts the examinations. In addition we have the provinces running their systems of vocational education. Until we arrive at the position when we set up a proper Union Education Board to co-ordinate the whole system of our education from primary to secondary training and to our vocational schools, and hand over a little more authority to the provinces—not until then are we going to arrive at a co-ordinated system of vocational training.

Hear, hear!

After apprenticeship is entered upon—that is, after the two years’ pre-apprenticeship training has been completed, then practical training only should be undertaken. And there, again, the system outlined by Prof. Sutton is admirable in its scope, and its efficiency has been proved by the success it has gained in the training of artisans for the army. Such training would have to be carried on in the technical colleges; where there are no technical colleges, then in the workshops by the employers under a union inspectorate.

You would have to have a proper system of inspection.

It should be emphasised in this Bill that it is not an incidental function of employers but a specific duty which they should undertake, in the absence of training at State institutions or semi-State institutions, to undertake a comprehensive system of training in the workshops. I would like also to see a liberal system of bursaries for our rural youths. I should like to see such bursaries liberally available until such time as we have the vision to go in for technical high schools at strategic points throughout the country; or until we are ready to amend the present secondary high schools by giving them departments for commercial education and preliminary agricultural and technical education. Such a system of two years’ pre-apprenticeship training, plus two years of thorough workshop training, and the introduction of our rural youth on a large scale, would supply us with sufficient artisans for our industrialised society. The need is greater than we realise. I have some interesting figures in that connection. From 1925 to 1940 we trained 22,000 apprentices; that works out at 1,500 per year. This is a significant figure. But during the same period 605,000 boys reached the age of sixteen. So that of the total number of eligible youth, faced as we are with a new system of industrial re-organisation, we are turning out only 3½ per cent. of apprentices as compared with America where 16 per cent. are turned out. Notwithstanding the fact that our needs are greater, we are lacking a proper system of making provision for the future. I want to emphasise further the great need of developing a proper system of vocational training for the future. The shortage of labour has been a characteristic of this country for many years. Since 1922 we have systematically imported skilled labour from Holland, Germany, Great Britain, Canada; the same shortage revealed itself on a gigantic scale during the war when we had to bring thousands of women into the C.O.T.T. system which has trained efficiently something like 20,000 men and women. It is also a very interesting fact that between 1915 and 1936 employees in the engineering trades in this country—and I mention these figures only to indicate the general position—increased from 24,000 to 82,000; this growth is going to continue. The need, therefore, for an apprenticeship system which will enable us to approach the future with confidence, which will enable us to get as quickly as possible a trained force of skilled labour, need not be further emphasised. This Bill fails to make provision for the army of artisans which we are going to require. In view of that, I regard it as a restrictive and conservative measure which aims at prolonging a system which has long ago proved ineffective. We should be vigorously planning now to use our surplus farm population, and to provide an organised system for the training of our poor white population. We may even have to go in for a system of immigration to introduce the necessary diversification of labour; and I think we should keep in mind the need for a more effective use of non-European labour in semi-skilled and skilled trades. In conclusion, I just want to emphasise what I have said. The system I have in mind will, I believe, meet the requirements of industry. That opinion is held by enlightened authorities the world over. I believe the apprentices will then get a proper education for a complete living, and there will be an orderly process from the school to the workshop. Moreover, the strain of night work on these young men will be removed; above all I believe the system will pay on material lines for the last two years of apprenticeship will be far more productive than the present five years. This country has not yet awakened, the Government has not yet awakened, to the need for vocational training. We must extend vocational training even at the sacrifice of the secondary classical education which today has very little functional value for the vast majority of the young men and women obtaining it; that system should to a large extent be replaced by an industrial training to fit our young people for that more industrialised society to which we are moving more rapidly than we realise. This question is one of great national significance. It is bigger than party politics, bigger than trade unions, bigger even than the plans of educationists. If I have contributed this afternoon in some measure towards the realisation that a new Bill is necessary and should be introduced only after expert examination,. I shall be content. I regret that the Government has decided to go on with a Bill of this nature.

I wish to endorse the attitude of the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) and of the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Sullivan) in regard to the timing of this Bill. I, too, feel that this Bill is distinctly premature. I feel that perhaps more on the grounds put forward by the hon. member for Swellendam than on those which the hon. member for Durban (Berea) has put forward, since within the framework of the present Bill it is possible to frame the revised systems of education which the hon. member for Berea has so ably put before the House today, and which I believe are urgently required. I feel that there would have been an advantage in reviewing the whole situation before laying down the lines of this Bill, and in view of the circumstances which the Minister himself has noted, that there are no spectacular changes in this Bill from the old Act, it would be worth the Minister’s while to consider the proposition put forward, that the passage of this Bill be delayed until that review has taken place. In introducing the Bill, the Minister himself called the attention of the House to the fact that South Africa is one of the few countries which has statutory apprenticeship. That is a fact of which we should be actively conscious, as it means that we are directly responsible for the labour patterns which industry will assume. And I have no doubt that it was with that fact in mind that the Social and Economic Planning Council was so insistent that a new Apprenticeship Bill should not be introduced in this House until such time as a full survey had been made, not only of the needs for a new educational system, but of the whole labour field in South Africa, the whole need of the people for work, and the character and the capacity of developing industry to meet the demands of that labour. Now, the grounds on which the Social and Economic Planning Council has put forward this proposition are simply the failure of South African industry, in spite of many pieces of good fortune and a phenomenally rapid expansion, to absorb all the labour which has been offering in South Africa in recent years, on satisfactory conditions. That expanding industrial field in fact has failed to absorb even our European population which has had every sort of encouragement and protection under our political system; it has failed to absorb a section of that population at all, and it has failed to absorb a further considerable section, of that European population on conditions which any of us, would regard as satisfactory, that is on a level of remuneration which would enable them to maintain the standard of living traditional in this country. These are facts of serious social concern. They have been facts of less social concern in the past than they should have been, but they are becoming facts of increasing social concern as we commit ourselves to a policy of social security which will impose on the community as a whole the burden of making those provisions which are not provided by the labour market in the ordinary economic way. Where the labour market fails to adjust itself to the demands of the people, the community in future must meet these demands, which is an additional reason why we should be planning with full knowledge of what we expect from our industrial system. Our urgent need in South Africa is to find full and effective employment for everyone, and there is a strong feeling throughout the country, which is only reflected by the Social and Economic Planning Council, that the labour pattern of our industrial organisation in the past has suffered from a rigidity which has made it impossible for industry to adjust itself to the social demands of the community, a rigidity which the hon. member for Swellendam emphasised this morning, under which it is claimed a small group have secured a monopoly of protection at the expense of the needs of the vast bulk of the population who are dependent on the labour market for existence. There is a general impression throughout the country— whether rightly or wrongly—I am not dealing with that at the moment—reflected in all our planning literature, and in all our social literature generally, that the pattern of South African industrial life has given security to a small highly organised group of skilled workers at the expense of the whole of the rest of the community. Now, the Minister may claim that under this Bill which he has introduced there is sufficient elasticity to enable him to challenge any rigidity of that kind. He may say that he has —as I think he has said—taken out the more restrictive provisions of the original Apprenticeship Act. He may say that he has removed the schedule to the Act so that now it is entirely in the hands of himself and the committees that will advise him what industries shall be made subject to Apprenticeship conditions, and what occupations within those industries shall be made subject to apprenticeship. He will probably reply to the hon. member for Swellendam that in removing the upper age limit to apprenticeship which existed in the old Apprenticeship Act, he has gone a long way to meeting the old contention that the Apprenticeship Law of this country did in fact operate against those sections of our population who were moving in from the country, and that now that there is no upper age limit to apprenticeship, it is quite possible for the person from the rural areas to find a place in skilled trades and industry. And generally speaking the new Bill does create that situation in which every detail is in the hands of committees and of the Minister to decide. But that, I think, can be a danger as well as an advantage. I sympathise to that extent with the hon. member for Swellendam when he says that this Bill in fact gives us no more guarantee of elasticity than the old Act did, because in the last resort this sort of framework can be used by pressure groups to limit the number of apprenticeships and create rigidity. In the framework of this Bill, it is in fact possible to do anything with the labour pattern. It is for that reason that I should be sorry if the Minister presses on with this Bill, because I think it is of the very first importance that we should know what we want to do with the labour pattern and then set it down in such a way that no one can change it without coming to this House and asking for that change. Now I feel that there would be every advantage at present in having an investigation into the character, the whole character, of our labour force, into the needs of industry and into the capacity of industry to use that force on conditions satisfactory, both to the force itself and to industry. Within that framework, and within the framework of that knowledge, we should decide where it is necessary or desirable to establish apprenticeship in our industrial system. Only indeed on that knowledge can we decide the extent of the demand in our changed and changing industries for highly skilled labour necessitating a lengthy period of training. I am going to ask the Minister, if he insists on going on with this new Bill now, to give the House a guarantee that he will sponsor an enquiry of that kind immediately.

It is going on now.

No, Sir, I do not refer to the sort of enquiry which the Minister announced as already in progress, this enquiry into the need for a new type of training for skilled workers.

Well, what do you want?

I hope the Minister will not get impatient. We do not want to be awkward. We want to do our best to be helpful in a matter of the first importance in our national life. We are not approaching this matter in any factious spirit. It is far too serious for that. The unbalance of our social system is enough justification for our considering this matter patiently and carefully. The significant fact of our social system is this, that the bulk of our European population cannot make a living in industry, and under the present law, it has no hope of making a living in industry because it cannot rise out of the rut in which it finds itself. I want to ask the Minister not merely to have this enquiry into the vocational training for industrial workers in the new phase of our industrial development. That is a very small part of the field, even if it is a very important part. I feel that that enquiry itself is useless without the enquiry which, I propose, which is an enquiry into the character of the labour force, the demands, and needs of the South African people, of all races, for work, and the capacity of modern industry to give them that work, and to give them that work on conditions which will enable them to maintain a decent standard of living, and to create that demand on which alone we can establish any sort of social security in this country. Our problem in this country, I repeat, is employment for the people, and that employment for the people is dependent on the efficient use, of the material you have, including the people themselves, and the demand created by that use. Those are our problems and I want this enquiry at least concurrently with the enquiry to which the Minister has referred. I hope the Minister will agree to this—that we shall get this. At present we have no detailed knowledge of the character of our population; we have practically no knowledge at all on the European side. We who have been working with the problems of the nonEuropeans know a good deal about the nonEuropean situation, and it is a significant and interesting fact that in a country where the non-European is denied so many ordinary rights, as is the case in South Africa, we have more interest taken in finding out what his condition is than we have in the European who has economic and political rights. We know a great deal more about the native population than anyone knows about the European population, and it is about the European population that I think we must have facts if we are to plan; and particularly if we are to plan an effective apprenticeship system. The demand of my friends here is for the widening of the apprenticeship system since they want jobs for Europeans on which the people for whom they speak can make a decent living. But if we are to meet that demand, it is essential that we should know how many there are and how industry might absorb them. Now I want to make this clear. I do not for one moment believe that we can absorb all our European labour force into industry as skilled workers. And I also want to make it clear that I am as anxious as anyone in this country to maintain the standard and the position of the skilled workers. But I think it is the concern of everyone that we should not look after the interests of that one class at the expense of everyone else The obligation upon us is to find a place in industry for all those who cannot enter the ranks of the skilled artisan, either because of lack of opportunity or more particularly owing to lack of the capacity of industry to absorb more than a limited number of people of that economically privileged level. But I contend that we have an obligation, in defence of the skilled man himself, to investigate the possibilities of increasing the range of occupation in industry for skill and education, because the skilled man, if he is going to maintain his own position, can only do so by the expansion of industry, and by the more effective use of our whole labour force. We have been told today—and the figures quoted are the only ones we have, being those provided by the Social and Economic Planning Council that we have not trained nearly enough apprentices in this country to meet our demands. One of the difficulties in connection with this matter is the ability of the population from whom apprentices are drawn to find the means to finance the years of apprenticeship; and that is largely the result of the policy which has been pursued in this country whereby we have established a labour force which consists at the top of highly trained artisans, while the bulk of the rest of the workers are forced on to the lower levels of unskilled work. If we had not had non-European labour in this country we would not have had the pattern of the labour market that we have today. The conditions are such that it is practically impossible for the man who finds himself in that lower field to rise above it, or his children to rise above it.

That has nothing to do with apprenticeship.

Indeed it has a great deal to do with apprenticeship. I do not understand the attitude of the hon. Minister.

I do not understand yours either.

The Minister should understand because he himself has been trained as an artisan. He should know that the conditions which prevail in the older industrial countries are quite different from the conditions which obtain here. There, there is nothing like the gap between skilled and unskilled work which exists here, yet even there it is very difficult for the sons of the unskilled and semi-skilled workers to get into the ranks of the skilled workers for economic reasons. Now the case that we are fighting here in this House is not only the case of the non-European, but it is the case of the poor man generally. Our problem is to find opportunity for the people in the lower ranks, an opportunity which they have never had in the past, to get into the higher ranks of industrial work; in other words to bridge this enormous gulf that we have here in South Africa between the unskilled man and the skilled artisan. If we can effect this it will help to meet the case which was approached quite wrongly, as I think, this morning by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson). He wanted the Government to force industrialists to guarantee employment to the men whom they had trained. I do not see how you can impose anything of that sort on industry. All that that would mean would be that employers just would not take on apprentices. It is absurd to imagine that you can deal with possible unemployment among skilled workers by such means. The real difficulty here in South Africa is that if a man cannot maintain his position as a skilled man, if he cannot maintain employment as a skilled man, there is little or nothing between him and unskilled employment. Our industrial pattern has largely failed to develop the intermediary grades of employment which have developed in countries with homogeneous populations—occupations which bridge the gap between skilled and unskilled labour and which are themselves paid at rates commensurate with the intelligence and ability they demand. If we had such grades here, to a greater extent than we have, the insecurity of the skilled man would not be anything like so great. If he fell out of skilled employment, there would be these other avenues of employment open to him on which he might maintain something like the same standard of living as that to which he is accustomed. For the rest, his social position must be secured by unemployment insurance which alone can meet the greater misfortunes of industrial life. In any case the training of apprentices must be related to the capacity of industry to absorb skilled artisans. If you are going to train apprentices beyond the capacity of industry to employ them, then the skilled artisan will be at a disadvantage unless there is some guarantee that your economic system is going to expand. We may, we shall, have periods when industry does not expand. I agree that we ought to avoid, if we can, the possibility of dependence on outside supplies of skilled labour. There has been that dependence in the past. But do not let us rush to the other extreme and think that we are going to train everybody to be skilled workers. We cannot reasonably train skilled workers beyond the capacity of expanding industry to absorb them, and we must plan on the basis of the capacity of our industrial organisation to expand. What we require is a re-classification of industry by which we shall find new scope for the abilities of our people, which are now completely thrown away because of this tremendous gap between the skilled and unskilled workers to which I have referred. This may and probably will mean a re-classification of jobs in so-called skilled trades to differentiate between those which really are skilled and require a long period of training and those which are less skilled and require less training. But there are some industries which have never been controlled by the apprenticeship system, and the hon. Minister should enquire very carefully the extent to which these could provide work for people in occupations in which they could use acquired skill. Some of our wealthiest industries are running with natives who are being paid the traditional native wage, but if you were to enquire into the character of the work that is being done, you would be surprised to discover that the jobs that are being done are not unskilled jobs at all, but at least semiskilled jobs which should be classified as such and paid accordingly. This would be to the great advantage of that large part of our labour force, European and non-European, which must work to live and cannot get work at a living wage under our present industrial organisation. I have always contended, Sir, that in this country the people who are not represented in this House are not the native population—who are certainly not adequately represented but have some representation— the people who are not represented in this House are the less fortunate, semi-skilled European workers. I have been well aware of this for a long time. I am glad to see that my hon. friends of the Opposition are waking up, but they are waking up very slowly. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) made a very good speech this morning to which I listened with very great interest. And I agree with him in his criticism of the apprenticeship committees. Like him, I feel that committees of employers and trade unions do not meet the case. The scope of apprenticeship is a matter of national concern and there should be some authoritative body dealing with apprenticeship on which the general public is represented. I accept the proposition of the member for Port Elizabeth (North) that, for practical administration, local committees are essential; but there should be, as the member for Swellendam has suggested, some general reviewing authority which would deal with apprenticeship in its national and social aspects rather than in its purely industrial aspect. But do not let the hon. member and his friend be misled into thinking that the apprenticeship system is the way out for the Afrikaner, the door to the solution of the poor white problem. That can only be approached through a re-classification of occupations in industry according to the skill required to do them, a re-classification in older industries where apprenticeship prevails to release some occupations from the full apprenticeship control, and a reclassification of newer industries to give recognition to the degrees of skill now covered by the term unskilled. By this means alone, will the necessary opportunities be provided for acquired skill and improved education which we must utilise if we are to build up our industrial life and meet our social needs. Only by these means can we possibly rehabilitate the thousands of Europeans and non-Europeans who are crowding into industry today. Now I hope we shall continue to press for this investigation into the whole labour field with a view to widening that field to give opportunities to all the people who need them. Only in that way can we get that intensive use of the whole of our population which is absolutely imperative if we are going to get increased production in this country. I trust the Minister will give a little consideration to these views, which are not put forward in any critical and factious spirit.

I do not want to misunderstand you, but are you advancing arguments against the Bill, or is this something additional.

I say this Bill might be delayed until this investigation has taken place. I am not particularly opposed to the Bill, but I thought I had made it quite plain that I think it would have been an advantage if the Minister, before legislating, had carried out the investigation I propose into the conditions, both social and industrial, in which the apprenticeship system has got to fit in the future. Now I am afraid lest, if the hon. Minister gets this Apprenticeship Bill on to the Statute Book, he may say: “What more do you want?” so I am taking the opportunity which the introduction of this Bill affords to point out that he should still admit the fact that we have to expand the whole of our industry and make better use of our labour force and should undertake an enquiry into the means by which this might be achieved.

Then vote against the Bill.

Well, if the Minister feels like that, perhaps that would be the best thing to do. Obviously nobody is being very enthusiastic about this Bill and in all the circumstances, it would probably be better to reject it. We could then have the proposed enquiry and be in a position to legislate with an informed view of the future on which we might plan with some reasonable hope of success for that social security we all so ardently desire.

I hope the Minister will pardon me for raising this point, but as a member of this House I must say there should be further investigation. I do not think that any member of this House is sufficiently acquainted with all the implications of this Bill, and, therefore, I most emphatically suggest that it should be referred to a select committee to take evidence. This Bill affects numerous sections of the community, it affects industry, and it affects the training of our youth as artisans for the future. Now I have nothing before me to show that this is the best Bill that can be produced, and that it deals adequately with all aspects of the subject. I know myself of many points that this Bill does not cover, and in saying that I am not referring so much to the industrial centres as I am to the rural districts where our youths have not the same opportunity of serving their apprenticeships as those in the big centres. No provision is made for them. I would like the Minister to tell me if this Bill is so good, why it cannot be sent to a select committee so that the people concerned and interested can have an opportunity of examining it thoroughly and presenting their points of view? Then when the Bill with the evidence and the select committee report, comes back to this House members can be helpful to the Minister and to the country. Today we are disarmed.

The hon. member for Berea (Mr. Sullivan) has had considerable experience and has knowledge of this subject and technical training, but not many in the House, so far as I know, are intimately acquainted with the subject, and it is impossible for us to do justice to this Bill. What are we here for?

We are sent here by the voters of this country to legislate in the best interests of the country. Here we have a Bill presented to us and we are practically forced to vote for it, and yet we have no evidence before us and consequently we are unable to say we are voting for something that is best for the country. There is a recommendation from the Planning Council of which the head of the Minister’s Department is a member.

No, no.

That is not a fact.

On a point of order, I have the report here of the committee which made the recommendation to the Social and Economic Planning Council, and in the first paragraph we find the name of Mr. I. L. Walker, Secretary for Labour.

He is not a member of the Planning Council.

I am sorry I said the head of the department is a member of the Planning Council but apparently from what the hon. member has just said Mr. Walker is connected with this Bill. However, that council recommended that this be referred to a Select Committee. Here we have a public body specially appointed for the purpose of going into these matters, and to make certain recommendations, and therefore I am fortified in my argument by their recommendation that this should be referred to a committee. I repeat that we cannot do justice to this unless we have the evidence and the report of a committee. I have no intention of making any reflection on the Minister, but it seems to me that the tendency of legislation of late has been to delegate too much parliamentary power to the Minister. There is no Bill which I know of which contains more delegated powers than this one. Numerous sections permit the Minister to do something. That has been the tendency of most of our legislation, and to my mind that is wrong. What are we here for if we delegate all these powers to the Minister? And some of these powers are judicial and quasi-judicial, and by delegating such powers to the Minister you are depriving the public of their ordinary and common law right of appeal to the Supreme Court. Let us get back to our old system, and not delegate too many powers to the Minister, let us have the regulations which are made under any powers submitted to the House for approval. Let us at any rate have the approval of Parliament for regulations made in such a vital matter as the training of our youth. Let us put a stop to this tendency to delegate judicial and quasi-judicial powers to the Minister without any right of appeal to the Supreme Court. I cannot see my way clear conscientiously to support the way in which we legislate today in this country. We are continually having Bills presented to us at short notice and not sufficient time is given us to examine them adequately, but particularly, not sending Bills to a Select Committee first. If a Bill is sent to a Select Committee one at least has the satisfaction of knowing that one’s colleagues have had an opportunity of studying the case and hearing the evidence for and against what is proposed and the parties concerned were afforded an opportunity of stating their case. But without that members have very little opportunity of judging the merits of a particular measure. If this country is to be run by the civil service, let us say so, and let the civil service and the Minister concerned make the laws and be done with it. But if I am sent here by the public to legislate for them, then I should be afforded every opportunity of carrying out my duties justly. Knowing the Minister of Labour as I do, I know that he is the last man not to do everything in his power for the working classes. But it is the principle of the thing that I am against, and I say that as members of Parliament we should govern the country and not delegate so many powers to Ministers. In this contention I am also fortified by a Report made by a Select Committee in Great Britain where they definitely recommended against the delegation of too many powers to a Minister in regard to the framing of regulations suggesting that Parliament should approve thereof and similarly this Committee recommended against giving the Minister the final decision in matters affecting the rights of the public under legislation particularly on questions of law.

If ever there was a matter of absolutely urgent importance before this House, it is undoubtedly the question of the training and the services of apprentices. We had great hopes when we learned that the Minister of Labour was going to introduce this Apprenticeship Bill. The people outside and thousands of youths in the country looked forward to the day when the door would be thrown open to them to qualify as artisans, with the assurance that when they completed their courses they would be absorbed in trade and industry. When we go through this Bill we can come to no other conclusion than that all hope has disappeared like mist before the morning sun. On going through this Bill we find that no improvements have been brought about. The defects still remain; the deficiencies have not been rectified, and we cannot but agree with the Minister that not many improvements have been brought about in this Bill, that the machinery is still practically the same. If the gaps, the defects, continue to exist, we want to know from the Minister why he brought this Bill before the House. I want to admit that there are improvements in this Bill, but they are improvements only from the administrative point of view. For the rest the position remains the same, and the doors are still closed to the sons of South Africa. When we look at the Railways, the Civil Service, the factories ….

[Inaudible.]

I just want to ask the Minister not to be so touchy; he must give us a chance. He has only been administered a slight blow and he may yet be hit very hard. There have been enormous developments and we would have expected that to apply in the ranks of the unskilled labourers, but the number of unskilled labourers has increased tremendously. It was stated here by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) that investigations were made by the Juvenile Board in the Cape Peninsula. It seems that 28 per cent. of all the boys asked to be absorbed in trade. That is the position. Of those boys who applied, 94 per cent. had to take up employment at wage rates on which they could not exist, and where they have to work with pick and shovel.

The hon. member must not repeat the arguments of previous speakers.

I just want to point out that notwithstanding the fact that there are large numbers of boys who want to become apprentices, they have to take up employment with pick and shovel. The position is therefore very serious. I would like to know from the hon. Minister of Labour who fixes the limitation in regard to the number of apprentices under this Bill. The number of apprentices is not fixed by the Minister or by the department, and neither the Minister nor the department can tell us with certainty today how many apprentices are required in South Africa from year to year. In dealing with this Bill we come up against one important matter, and that is the composition of the Apprenticeship Committee. It looks very satisfactory on paper. According to the Bill this committee is made up of an official as the chairman and an equal number of representatives of employees and employers, but as far as the Employers’ Organisation is concerned, it does not affect them how many apprentices complete their training. If there are too many, it does not affect them, and if there are too few, artisans are simply imported from overseas. Nor has the Workers’ Organisation the slightest idea as to the number of apprentices required every year. The only clue which that body has is the clue of fear, the fear that too many apprentices will be engaged with the result that their own wages and working conditions will be prejudiced, and in that respect we have a very unsympathetic Minister. I just want to refer to a radio talk given by the Minister to show that he holds the same opinion. He gave this radio talk on the 22nd August, 1940, and this is what the hon. Minister stated—

The Minister therefore shares that fear—

This is what I wanted to show, that the committee’s composition is absolutely ineffective, and we therefore ask the Minister to appoint a national committee, so that the interests of all sides will be properly looked after. We know that this committee must decide on every apprenticeship contract, with that fear as its only guide, and the result is that excessive restrictions will be imposed. There we have clear proof, but notwithstanding this great shortage of artisans today, 536 contracts were entered into in 1939 in the motor industry, and of that number only a few more than 200 were approved—an unnecessary restriction. We have a tremendous shortage, and nevertheless this unnecessary restriction. I just want to deal briefly with a few provisions in this Bill. The first is Section 15 (2) (p). This sub-clause reads—

The Minister does therefore make some sort of provision, but he says that he can determine the minimum and the maximum. The question which I ask myself is how the Minister is going to determine that minimum and maximum? Is he not perhaps going to fix it at such a figure that the position will become worse instead of being improved? That may conceivably happen as the result of that determination. The Minister must at least say that he is going to fix a minimum and then state what that number is. Then I want to say a few words in regard to Section 22, in connection with the employment of majors. The Minister does make provision here, but what sort of provision does he make? It is of such a nature that the people will be kept out of the trades more easily. In the first place the registrar has to give his consent; thereafter the contract has to go for approval to the same committees whose only guide is the factor of fear. Then I come to Section 22 (3), the employment of minors. There the Bill makes-provision that a minor can be considered for employment on the termination of his contract. What does that mean? He can be considered. It does not mean anything. It is undoubtedly true that artisans are held back as the result of fear, and thousands of boys and therefore thousands of families are kept in poverty. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson) denied that, but it must be remembered that out of more than 9,000 artisans in two industries, between 4,000 and 5,000 were imported from overseas. That means that between 4,000 and 5,000 sons of South Africa were kept out of employment. That is one of the big causes of the poverty which exists in South Africa today, namely, the ineffective apprenticeship conditions. We admit that the present position is that we have a limited number of technical schools in the large cities. But what is the position? The position is that when an apprentice has completed his apprenticeship, he is simply thrown on the labour market. In many cases the entrance age is so high that the boys cannot be placed. In the Railway Service, for example, if a youngster is a day older than nineteen years, he is not employed. He has no hope of being employed, and the result is that he is thrown on the labour market and his whole future is jeopardised. There is no hope for him in South Africa. I do not want to go into the other provisions. The principle of this whole Bill from A to Z is wrong, and I therefore want to move the following amendment—

1. (a) the proper recognition of training received by European apprentices in trade and vocational schools in order to ensure proper co-ordination between our system of apprenticeship and industrial training including trade schools;
2. (b) the training as artisans of European workers at present doing unskilled labour and who are suitable and desirous of being so trained;
3. (c) the alteration of the age limit so that every European person with aptitude for any particular trade, craft or vocation shall have the opportunity of being trained as an artisan;
4. (d) the approval of contracts of apprenticeship being subject to the approval of a central national apprenticeship committee;
5. (e) properly adjusting the training of artisans to the requirements of the country and restricting the importation of overseas workmen to a minimum;
6. (f) the removal of the existing and increasing maladjustment between the European and non-European races in the spheres of industrial labour and the organisation of labour;
7. (g) the assumption of responsibility by the State for the employment of apprentices in industry subsequent to their training; and
8. (h) facilities on a larger scale for the training of young persons from the country by assisting or establishing boarding institutions in the larger industrial centres.”

With further reference to this amendment I want to enlarge on a few matters. I want to say a few words with regard to the exist ing provision for platteland children. We have this position, that there are hundreds of cases in the platteland where the father lives on the farm. His sons grow up, and they begin to work on the farm. After working for years on the farm they come up against economic circumstances or the vicissitudes of nature, with the result that they are compelled to go to the cities in order to seek employment there. We speak of experience. The majority of farmers’ sons learn bricklaying on their own. The learn to do a little carpentry. The farmer’s son does his own artisan work and in the course of years the platteland boy is able to adapt himself to urban life, especially in this respect, but no provision has been made for that type of youngster—not the least—and one finds that he is a failure in the city. The other day I put a question to the Minister of Railways in connection with this matter. At Kazerne there is such a shortage of artisans that the Minister of Railways had to take bus drivers from the buses and put them at Kazerne as turners. We want to urge that better provision be made for the youngster of the platteland to enable him to qualify as an artisan. That is one of the main things. I feel so strongly in regard to this matter that I am convinced that the time will arrive in South Africa when we will have to change our whole educational system, so that every child after attaining a fixed academic standard, who has an aptitude for a certain industry, for a certain trade, profession, etc. will have an opportunity of being trained for that profession or trade. I feel that that will have to come, and that the whole educational policy will have to be so revised that every child who wants to qualify as an artisan will have an opportunity of doing so. I feel that that will have to happen. The whole apprenticeship system will have to be revised. We on this side do not want to make political capital out of this matter. We regard it as a matter of national importance, and we therefore want to urge the Minister to give his attention to this matter. The Minister ought not to waste too much time on this; he should accept our amendment. The Planning Council recommended that this matter be investigated. Even the Planning Council recommended that. Then there is an inter-departmental commission which is dealing with this matter. Why then come forward with this half-baked Bill? This is a matter of the greatest importance. We would prefer to wait a little longer, but let us get a decent Bill before the House which will be in the interests of the country and in the interests of the nation generally. We would like to help the Minister, and we want to do our utmost, but the hon. Minister himself stated that this Bill was practically no improvement on the old Act. The Planning Council recommended that the whole matter be investigated. A commission is dealing with it at the moment, and I cannot understand, therefore, why the Minister is continuing with this Bill. I hope the Minister will accept this amendment and have the whole matter investigated. The time has arrived when we must bring about a change. The time has arrived when we must deal with this extremely important matter and solve it to the best of our ability, at least in the social and economic sphere. Before I sit down there is only one other small provision to which I want to refer, and that is Section 4 (2) (b). I want to ask the hon. Minister whether he has not yet realised what happens when he wipes out the colour bar. The Minister states in practically every clause that he can make a differentiation, but in the case of this clause he says—

In passing, I just want to point out to the Minister that he will be faced with great difficulties. Originally we had these difficulties in Johannesburg in connection with the trade union disputes, and I have a number of documeuts in front of me in regard to this matter. I just want to quote a few lines and then ask the Minister to abandon this provision. I want to read an extract from a letter which I received from one of the Dutch Reformed Church ministers, who was concerned with this matter—

He then goes on to say—

We notice how much friction has been brought about by this policy of equality, and we want to make a serious appeal to the Minister, at least to alter that constitution, and we ask that the colour bar should be rigidly maintained in every sphere in South Africa.

I second. When we discuss this Bill we want the House and the country to understand that we on this side of the House are not opposed to trade unions. We fully realise the need for trade unions and we fully realise the necessity of the country’s workmen having an organisation which can look after their interests in the same way as any other concern, trade or profession does in this country. But what we particularly want is to turn this Apprenticeship Bill into a body which fits in with the national requirements of the country. We feel that this is a new country which is on the eve of great industrial development. We feel that we are dealing here with established industries, that we are dealing here with industries which are going to develop in the immediate future, and we also feel that there are industries which possibly will develop in the distant future, and in criticising this Apprenticeship Bill we are doing so in the spirit of asking the Minister to bring in a Bill which will meet the needs and the requirements of the people. We feel that this is a matter which concerns not only the interests of one section; we feel it is not only the interests of the employer and employee which are at stake, but we feel that the interests and well-being of the future potential worker are at stake. We feel that the interests of the future youth of South Africa must be protected here, and when we ask for certain guarantees to make sure that the future youth of this country will be given employment, we do so because we are very anxious to make this a country in which the people of South Africa will have a say in regard to the labour forces of the country. When one analyses this Bill and goes into all its details one finds that it is a great improvement on the old Apprenticeship Act, but it is only an improvement so far as the administrative side is concerned. Looked at from the administrative point of view there are a number of improvements, but this undoubtedly is a Bill which does not provide for the present and future needs of the country. If you study this Bill and compare it with the laws in force in other countries, you find that it is a stereotyped Bill, that it is a Bill applicable to an old established industrial country. You find that it is a Bill which only tries to bring about improvements in connection with the administration of the country, but that it does not make provision for giving employment to the people. This Bill is a continuation of the policy of exclusion, and I know that the Minister of Labour as an honest man will agree with me that the old Act as it stands today was an Act which aimed at excluding certain labour forces, but not to encourage labour forces and expand labour forces, and this Bill is a measure which aims at continuing that policy of exclusion. Certain restrictions are imposed. These committees of the hon. the Minister’s do not take into consideration the apprentice’s prospect of obtaining employment when he has completed his indentures. One of the provisions of the law today is that when an apprenticeship contract is entered into the committee must take into account what the prospects of the young men are going to be in getting employment after he has finished his indentures. When we are dealing with a Bill like this in a country like South Africa which is on the eve of great industrial developments, it is essential, on account of the constitution of our industrial economic community, to take account of these factors. I say that the Minister of Labour has not investigated or studied any of those factors thoroughly. In the first place the Minister of Labour has not scrutinised the need of the pupils in the trade schools. As the Act now stands—and as this Bill again provides —everything is based on the Minister’s findings. In this country we have trade schools which are supported by the State. We encourage our young men to attend those Stateaided trade schools and receive their training there. We employ men who have been trained in various industries to instruct these young men. The Minister told me in the past: “Yes, but the position is that these men cannot give individual attention to every pupil whereas in the various trades every pupil does get individual attention.” We could amend that system in such a manner that it would comply with the high demands made by the Minister. I feel very strongly on this point. During the recess the Minister of Labour visited several of those trade schools where he encouraged the young fellows to persevere in their vocational training, and he told them that he would see to it that the instruction in trade schools, or rather he told them that he would see to it, that the pupils attending those trade schools would not have any difficulty in finding employment afterwards. I believe it was at Jacobsdal where the Minister of Labour said that he was going to place trade school education on the map of South Africa. I feel very strongly on this question because there are parts of the country where a large section of the population has to make a living on small holdings and where the people are not able to keep their large families going, or to support their large families. Avenues of employment have to be opened up for them where they can make a living and so far the trade schools have been one of the principal encouragements—that is to say, they could send their children there because they felt that the children would get a sound instruction. We now find that this Bill does not give the training in the trade schools adequate recognition. If the Minister of Labour had studied the report of the Industrial Legislation Commission of 1935 he would have found, inter alia, that in that report the Commission recommended that these trade schools should be properly equipped with the very best machinery so that the pupils in these schools could get the best possible training, and that when they left the schools they would be absorbed as artisans in the various industries. If the Minister of Labour does not want to co-operate with the Department of Education which has to deel with vocationl education he should close down the trade schools in this country because in that case they will be nothing but white elephants. We find today that pupils who have attended the trade schools are working on the roads with pick and shovel, and that they are doing ordinary unskilled labour. That is why it is so essential for this Bill to be referred to a Planning Council or some other commission. We suggest a Planning Council, so that co-ordination can be established between the instruction of apprentices in this country and the apprenticeship which the youth of the country enters upon under the ordinary legislation. If we do not establish such co-ordination, there is only one option for South Africa, and that is to do away with the trade school education, and we shall have to do so with our eyes open and lay it down that any man in South Africa who wants to become a skilled artisan has to complete an ordinary apprenticeship under the Act. We shall have to do one thing or the other, because if we continue along the road we are following now it will mean that our apprenticeship teaching is quite ineffective and useless. There is another type of man, too, in our industrial community whom we have to take into account, and that is the tradesman in our small towns and dorps. The old Act did not apply to all trades and industries throughout the country, with the result that in some spheres where the Act did not apply, in order to make provision for the needs of the population there, men were trained as craftsmen, as artisans, but not under the Apprenticeship Act. The Minister and the Government of the country recognised the training of those people. The Minister will recollect that when the war broke out, and there was a shortage of artisans for the various Government Departments, especially in the building industry and furniture industry, they had to resort to those men who so far had never been regarded as artisans. Those people would if they had gone to the towns in normal conditions, have been regarded as unskilled or semi-skilled labourers. But these people are not taken into consideration in this Bill. At a time of national crisis the Government saw fit to recognise these people as skilled tradesmen, but the very same Government now introduces a Bill in this House to get these people recognised as tradesmen in spite of the fact that they have not been trained under the Apprenticeship Act. Now I want to ask the Minister whether that condition is going to continue when the war is over.

They come under a different Bill.

Yes, they are the people who have joined up. I say that the Minister and the Government are going to introduce legislation to cover the position of those people; but my point is this, that the training of these people was considered to be sufficient by the Government at a time of national crisis, to enable them to do the skilled work, but this Bill makes no provision for this class of man so far as the future is concerned. This Bill makes no provision for that class of man who did not come under the Apprenticeship Act, and we therefore say that good and competent tradesmen who should be included in this Bill are being excluded. The Minister will now ask me : “But how are we to include these people under this legislation?” There is only one way that I can see—perhaps other hon. members can find other ways, and I shall be glad to hear their explanations—but there is only one way which I can see and that is to establish a central national apprenticeship committee which will deal with this matter. Do not let us allow ourselves to be led off the track. We must not allow ourselves be led off the track and off the course of justice by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson). He said that such a central committee would be ineffective. Well, it may have been ineffective in the past but that is not the country’s experience at the moment. If the hon. member studies the report of the Industrial Legislation Commission he will find this in Paragraph 149—

That was recommended as far back as 1935 by this Industrial Legislation Commission. They suggested that the question of such national committees should be considered in regard to certain industries. This war has brought about a great change in the country’s whole economic structure and in the world’s economic structure, and we should now wholeheartedly take up this question with which they only went halfway in those days of the past. If we have such a central Apprenticeship Committee it could go into all these applications. They could go into the position of an applicant and see whether he has the ability for a particular trade. They can let him pass through some test to see whether he has acquired the necessary ability. I shall be very glad if the Minister of Labour will not consider this Bill on the apprenticeship question in the 19th century spirit, or even in the spirit which prevailed in the beginning of the 20th century—I hope he will consider the whole matter in the spirit of the immediate requirements and the immediate needs of the country’s development. We cannot allow our industrial development to take place along the stereotyped lines which were in force in those days. We can only look for complete success if we take account of three parties in connection with apprenticeship instruction. The first party is the employee. He is the principal party because his livelihood is at stake. The second party is the employer who wants the best possible labour. The third party is the State as a whole. The whole national structure is involved. It is not only the first and the second parties who are interested; the State also is interested, and that is why we feel that such a national committee must be established, and that not only the first two groups of interested parties should be represented on that committee, but the third group as well. That is to say, the State, which represents the nation. Then there is a third type of man whom the Minister has not taken any account of in this Bill, and that is the unskilled labourer. In the ordinary community, if a man is unskilled in his work there is always an opportunity for him to achieve the necessary skill and to carry out his vocation if he can comply with the necessary requirements, irrespective of age. If at the age of 18 or 19 I get into a different environment and I realise that there is an opportunity of making a decent livelihood if I am only allowed to fit myself and to comply with the requirements, I shall naturally go out of my way to do so. But as the Bill now stands no such opportunities are provided. The young man after a certain age can no longer become a skilled artisan. That is unjust. If I want to become an advocate and I pass my matric when I am 22 years of age, I can be an advocate when I am 26 years of age and I can start practising then, but in all the trades in the country where the Apprenticeship Act is in force it is provided that an individual has to be between 15 and 19 years of age to be allowed to receive his training. During that period he has to be under a journeyman and then he can be trained. But if he is 19 or 20 years of age and sticks to his work, if he listens to the journeyman and if he realises that there eventually is a decent livelihood for him in that particular trade, he can become just as skilled an artisan as he would have become had he started his apprenticeship a few years sooner. I know a man in Malmesbury who was working with pick and shovel. He could not make a decent living so he came to Cape Town. His wife was a good needlewoman, and they found that they could start a business here. When he was 24 years of age he started doing needlework and he and his wife are now making a decent living in Cape Town. According to the Minister’s argument he should have learnt his work between his 15th and 19th year. This Bill provides that the Minister may determine whether a man who is a major can be trained in the various trades. We on this side say that it is imperative that the Bill lays it down that there should be no age restriction, that there should be no restriction in regard to the number of apprentices who may be employed by the various industries. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) explained to the House that if we cannot get the various requests, which I have been trying to emphasise to the House, complied with, we may quite possibly after the war be faced with this position, that with great industrial development great industries and new industries may arise in this country as a result of the protection policy of this or some other Government in future, and that we may not have the necessary artisans to carry on those industries. We have had this postion in the past. From 1936 to 1939, 5,655 artisans were imported into this country. We must make this Bill so that in future there will be no such necessity to import tradesman from overseas. We as Afrikaansspeaking and English-speaking Afrikaners have only one idea before us and that is to see to it that our own flesh and blood will constitute the labour strength of this country, and when we study this Bill we find that the Minister does not take that aspect of the matter into consideration at all. I am making this appeal to the Minister: We know that in the past, in times of depression, thousands of people were idle in our labour market. Then we suddenly have a time of prosperity and we have to import people. The Minister’s department should provide against such times, and the artisans should be protected against that sort of thing. I fully realise that the artisan feels alarmed, I realise that he is nervous and afraid of times of depression because when there is a depression he is unemployed. We must try to put the artisans at their ease in this respect, but the Minister is not doing so by this Bill. The artisans have cause to be alarmed about this Bill because under this Bill we will again have a position where in times of prosperity people will be imported, and when times of adversity set in, men will be unemployed and our labour market flooded. I therefore want to quote from the report of the Planning Council. We find that this aspect of the matter is dealt with there and the Planning Council considers it is absolutely essential to take account of these factors. I therefore ask the Minister not to force this Bill down our throats. The men who framed this report of the Planning Council made a serious study of the position, and in spite of what the Minister has said here the Secretary of his Department is co-responsible for this report, because five of the meetings of the committee took place under his chairmanship. I should like the House to listen attentively to this report and it should make hon. members opposite help us induce the Minister not to continue with this Bill because it does not meet the requirements of South Africa’s development. This is nothing but a Bill which aims at effecting administrative improvements and we need a lot more than that. On page 102 of the Second Report of the Social and Economic Planning Council we find this—

That is a matter which I propose dealing with later on; and then the report goes on—

The Planning Council went out of its way to suggest five methods, but in spite of this we find that the Minister in framing his Bill completely ignored those methods and those recommendations. What have we a Planning Council for? Is not that Council there to look after the country’s future development in every aspect? Here we have a very important matter in connection with providing employment for the youth of South Africa, and the Minister of Labour does not hesitate to reject the report holus bolus.

Why don’t you resign?

That’s an idea.

Let me quote further. After the five possible methods had been enumerated the report continues—

There is a tremendous amount of new ground in industrial development in the world with which countries like America, according to Mr. Harris’ statement, are faced today, and to which they are giving their attention in connection with the employment of labour. It is in those industries where we have mass production that there is no longer any need to have such long apprenticeship periods. We get mass production in industry and an individual with noraml talents can learn the work expected of him within six months because he is nothing but a cog in the machine. He does a small special job which he can learn quickly. That has not been taken into account in this Bill either. The Minister knows that this Bill not only applies to certain trades and industries. That was the case in the Principal Act because annexure I only applied to certain industries. This Bill applies to all trades and industries, and means that in all industries and trades a long period of apprenticeship can be introduced, which is unnecessary in view of the present-day tendency for mass production. In many instances there is no longer any necessity to lay down such a long period for apprenticeship because the individual is able to learn his special job in a very short space of time. In this country we have already had that experience in connection with the furniture industry. The Minister himself told us that he found five years was too long and that it should be four years. I am convinced that if the Minister were to go to furniture factories and see how things are mass produced where each man does a very small part of the work, he would realise that even four years is too long. In 1940, when the Principal Act was introduced, the Minister said that the Committee appointed under that Act would be the axis around which everything turned. I think the Minister will remember having said that. He said that the Committees were so essential that the axis of the system of apprenticeship—those were his words— in this country was the system of apprenticeship committees. It is in connection with the committees where we differ from the Minister. The committees as constituted here are no different from what they were under the old Act, and we on this side of the House feel that it is in the interest not only of the two interested parties I have mentioned, but also in the interest of the country as a whole, that the State should be represented on the committees. The Minister of Education appoints certain boards. There are boards in connection with trade schools and technical colleges, but the Minister of Education sees to it— or let me put it this way, the law provides for certain technical college councils and trade school boards, but the law also provides for representatives of the State to be on those boards; and that it what we ask—we want representatives of the State on the apprenticeship committees. Otherwise those committees will be of no importance, because you will get closed doors, and you will have this position, that certain interests will always say who should be admitted to the trade or industry and who not. We want more than that. We want provision made so that the State, which eventually will have the main say, will determine that representatives of the State be members of these committees to see to it that not only certain particular interests are looked after but that the interests of the people as a whole will be looked after. Now there is another question. We have heard the arguments about the importation of immigrants, the importation of artisans from abroad. We realise that when we start a new industry like Iscor we must have skilled men. We realise we are compelled to get people in from outside to develop the industries, but as soon as the industry is established as a fixed key industry it belongs to the people. The people who have come here to teach us have been paid for their work, and we want to thank them for what they have done, but as soon as development takes place we must first look after our own people. In all the vocations in this country provision is made as to the manner in which strangers can come in to carry out these vocations in this country. If a doctor comes in from outside he has to comply with certain requirements before he can be allowed to practice as a doctor or a dentist. If an attorney comes in from outside he has to comply with certain requirements of the law before he can be admitted as an attorney or an advokate, but you don’t find that in this Bill. Oh, no; everything is left to the Minister’s discretion. We don’t want that. We want a body which will determine, and which will thoroughly investigate the question whether people coming from outside have had the proper vocational training. Can the Minister tell me today, assuming a mason or a cabinet maker comes in—or whatever artisan he may be—what test he has to pass before he is admitted as an artisan? Or is there a principle of reciprocity between our Trade Unions and Trade Unions abroad? I should like to know. As things are today it seems that a man may come in from Holland, Germany, Sweden, England or any other counntry; he can go to the Secretary of the Trade Union, or whoever it may be, and say: “I am an artisan and I want to be admitted.” We want this Bill to determine the procedure before these people are admitted. [Time limit.]

The criticism directed at this Bill seems to be that it does not provide opportunities for apprenticeship. But the Bill does not purport to widen the number of apprenticeships as a means of employment. It can only be what it purports to be, and that is an instrument that regulates the employment and training of apprentices. It cannot provide jobs for those apprentices, and I want to remind the House in case it thinks too seriously about the aristocracy of the workers that there were considerably more people knocking at the door of employment before the war than there was employment for them, and the aristocracy, so-called, is in danger every day that this war goes on of losing any title either imposed or supposed that it may have to be an aristocracy. I want to say this, that if we do get when the war is over, that accession of industrial activity that we all hope will come about, it will be the person who can work a precision machine who will be the person required, and that person will certainly not come from the ranks of the apprentices. Ever since I came out of my time I have never left my trade, and I have been in touch with apprentices ever since, and it was my experience and still is the experience of people like myself, that a boy who was trained as an apprentice does not want to be chained to a machine. The person who is trained wants to exercise some creative genius, and there is no creative ability wanted in the kind of industrial activity that is going to save South Africa from depression when the war is over. I want to assure my friends who are thinking that this Bill may be the means of finding more apprenticeships, that that is a vain hope. This Bill can only, as apprentices come forward and as they are found jobs, control their training and terms of employment. Something much greater is wanted to find the jobs for even the apprentices who are coming forward today. I want to tell the House as a matter of personal experience that I have under consideration the names of six boys whose parents have approached me in the hope that I may be able to find some place for them. I cannot do it, for the simple reason that employers are deliberately reducing the number of apprentices they are taking on. Employers have already fixed their arrangements, their ability to train appprentices is already taxed to the utmost, and it would be unjust and unfair if they took more boys than they could train. It is hoped that the end of the war will see a change. Well, we will go on hoping, but I do want to say that any hopes that the Bill can provide jobs are quite vain. We want something more than that, and that something more must come out of the plans that are being made to make the vista of employment greater than it is now. Obviously the Bill is chained to the system in which it has got to work. I do not want to be monotonous in saying that if you expect a very radical change in the arrangements for which the Bill is framed then you must do something radical about it. There is only one country, Mr. Speaker, and I claim the indulgence of the House for mentioning that country, there is only one country in the world today which has taken all its children and put them into jobs, and that country is Russia. There was a country before the war which found jobs for the great number of what are called operatives of varying degrees of skill. That country was America, and America has sounded the death knell pretty well of the apprenticeship system. Because American industry came late enough into the field to take advantage of all the progress that was possible, the machine was all important. Great Britain has fought her way from the time when there was no machine to the time when some kind of machines were in being. But they were machines upon which the workman could exercise a certain skill. The Americans came along when inventive genius was giving to the world the automatic machine, and America was able in a very short time to place in work a lot of people who became semi-skilled and more skilled as operatives. If our people here are going to set up this kind of machinery, then I say that all objection to this Bill will fall away, because it will not matter to anybody other than the apprentices how you train and employ them.

There should be opportunities for everybody.

If you give opportunities to everybody to qualify for 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. of the jobs in the country, only 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. of everybody can get them.

There must be equal opportunity.

There is no such thing. Is going to school equal opportunity? Suppose you set a standard of qualification in terms of a school certificate. All right, some people can send their children to school until they get a certificate, but others cannot, and the reason they cannot is because they cannot afford to. Then if a boy whose parents cannot afford to keep him at school wants equal opportunity, the only way is to give the man the means to keep the boy at school, and I say that I cannot see that happening in five minutes, nor in five years. The defects lie not in the intentions of the Bill but in the system, and the Bill cannot override those defects in the system. To talk of equal opportunity is a waste of breath, there is no equal opportunity in this world. I want this House not to confuse the issue. The Minister has spent his life in the purusit of an ideal; he has been praised; he has been kicked in the pants; he has had all the experiences of a man who follows an ideal, and he has hoped that before the end of his parliamentary career to have had a Government that would have shown the people how he and his party would have solved this problem. But the people have said: “No, we do not want that,” the people of this country have been content to carry on with the kind of system that you have, and I say that the Minister who works in this particular House and under this particular system, can only produce this particular kind of Bill, and if this House votes this Bill down you will have voted out of existence a genuine attempt to at least do something to modify the present position in a desirable way. I think the most desirable thing it sets out to do is to abolish all this absurd claim on the part of money-making institutions to teach a boy to be a skilled fitter and turner in three months or six months and to earn £18 a week. That is the one thing that it does which will justify the passing of this Bill. I hope the Minister will see to it that that particular part of the Bill is put into practic. I would also deal with this particular criticism of the artisan as the aristocrat of the workers. Ever since craft was craft you have had that craft in the hands of comparatively few. Ever since the dawn of history when man first became able to use his fingers to produce something, it obviously became a source of pride, and it became for the individual who could do the work, the prerogative that he should pass it on to whom he pleased, and all through history you have had that particular thing. The machine has assailed the craftsman in a general way, but it will never assail him in the particular way. There will always be craftsmen, but they will be in a minority, and there will never be room for more than a comparative few. In the new world which is talked of there should be room for everybody. There should be a radical change in our plans, and the man who has got to do an everyday monotonous task should receive from society what he needs to keep alive in him the hope that should be eternal in his breast. It is only the war that has given the craftsman ability to earn as much as £20 a week, and he has to work a lot of overtime to get that. Let us cast our minds back to the past, to the days of 1922 when the artisans in this country in the engineering industry were faced with an ultimatum. Their wages were suddenly reduced to £6 a week and they had to like it. How many of the gentlemen sit ting around me today would like to bring up a family of four children on £6 a week? How many here have tried it?

I have.

I tried it myself. That is the standard you are saying is an aristocratic standard. I say it is not; it is a standard that permits a man to do little more than keep his nose above water. And instead of being in a desirable position, the fact is that the mechanic had a hell of a struggle. There is no aristocracy in labour today. The only aristocracy there is today is the aristocracy of big salaries. The only hope that remains to us is to put our economic house in order.

I was rather pleased to hear what the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Payne) said, because he has expressed in clearer phrases than I can hope to do the conception of a desire to entrench the aristocracy of labour. The hon. member said two things, one was that there is no equal opportunity for the youth of South Africa to obtain skilled artisan employment.

Nor is there.

The second was that we are the victims of an economic system which, if it cannot be abolished, must be entrenched. That is the only logical conclusion from the contribution which the hon. member made. He said industry today is only capable of absorbing so many artisans; therefore one must see that no more opportunity is given for the training of apprentices than industry is prepared to absorb. The hon. member is perfectly correct, one must approach this Bill, not from the point of view of its ipsissima verba but from the background in which it stands presented to the industries of South Africa. What was the position when the parent Bill was introduced into this House? The Minister is aware that this Bill was the result of the balance of power held by the Labour Party in this House. It was the result of the Labour Party being able to say: “We control the government of the country and we insist on certain entrenched positions.” The hon. Minister knows it, he knows that the skilled artisan had his trades union and that he got just as much as the unions could squeeze out of the employer. I am a trade unionist, and I support the movement. The Minister knows that as a consequence of post-war development after the last war, it was necessary to give the employers and industry generally the right of determining the rate of wages and conditions of work of the skilled artisan. Our industrial legislation was designed for the purpose, and for no other purpose than to make it possible for skilled artisans to negotiate directly with employers.

And everybody else too.

It was for that object that the Industrial Conciliation Act was introduced, and what did the Labour Party say immediately after that? They said: “We have now got from the South African Party and the Opposition benches an entrenchment of the aristocracy of labour.” Let me say this. I was not a member of this House in 1923 or in 1922 when industrial conciliation was introduced, but its fashion and its model have been adopted in other countries and in South Africa and have been accepted as a charter for skilled employment, and an entrenchment with legal sanction of industrial agreements which have been entered inte at the price of great discomfort and hardship to the working people of this country. My criticism, the criticism of South Africa, and of the Labour Party, so far as this Industrial Conciliation Act on the Statute Book is concerned, is that it makes no provision for unskilled or unorganised industry.

For unorganised labour.

It was only your skilled industry which was organised and it was by the efforts of the Labour Party that this Industrial Conciliation Act and the Wage Act were put on the Statute Book. What was the position when the Wage Act was introduced two years prior to the Conciliation Act? The hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) has said that it had the effect of completely putting out of the industry the semi-skilled.

That is a fallacy.

The Minister knows that an ordinary employer paid his employees as much as they were able to earn—that is ordinary economics. Now, the objection I have to the Minister of those days—not the present Minister—was that he was prepared to sacrifice the whole of the semi-skilled employees in the industry.

Oh, no.

Mr. Thomas Boydell, who was then Minister of Labour, made use of an expression to the deputation at that time that you cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs. The Minister was prepared to sacrifice every semi-skilled man in the industry in an endeavour to entrench the position of the aristocracy of labour. There is no country in the world where the differentiation in wage between skilled and unskilled workers is as great as it is in South Africa. We have men here earning £1 per day, riding on the shoulders of others earning £1 per week. We all know that. Let our approach to this question be an understanding of the whole position. May I ask the Minister that if I were in his place as Minister of Labour, he would be prepared to give me the autocratic powers vested in him under this Bill?

No, because you are rather different from me.

So the hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood) is correct. He says he is prepared to pay the Minister the compliment that he is as vitally concerned in the uplift of these apprentices who are to go into industry as he himself is. He is prepared to give the Minister these powers. Have we any guarantee that this is not in the words of the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Payne) an attempt to entrench the present position? Is there any hope that the liaison between the hon. member for Cape Eastern and the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) is likely to bring us any nearer affording opportunities of employment to the poor of this country? The Minister knows that in three of the provinces we have a colour bar in regard to apprentices. Only as a result of the Apprenticeship Act has there been introduced a colour bar in the Cape, and everyone knows that there is no equal opportunity for the youth of South Africa to become apprenticed in industry today. How often has not the Minister of Education been asked to afford greater opportunities and wider facilities for apprentices to conform to their apprenticeship qualifications. How many times has the Minister of Education been approached on this question? As employers say, and say rightly, the terms of their apprenticeship regulations make it impossible for them to afford an opportunity to non-Europeans or to coloured people to become apprenticed, and to sign articles of apprenticeship. They are excluded by the very educational system of this country. There are no opportunities for them in the technical colleges—our technical colleges are colour bar colleges. I see nothing wrong with this Bill provided it is administered in the spirit which the Minister wants to have it administered in. It is merely an attempt to entrench the present system whereby the opportunity of skilled employment shall be given to the children of the aristocracy of labour. Let us face the position and accept the fact that the hon. member for Vereeniging was not so far wrong when he asked this House not to be prepared to go on entrenching this position. The more we blind ourselves to the fact that there is this real desire on the part of the youth of South Africa to find some opportunity of uplift, the more serious will the position become. We are tying down our youth to an unskilled inferiority, and while we are doing that our youth will be knocking at a shut door. Our economic and Industrial Councils have said that there are 40,000 unskilled today employed at uneconomic wages. I suppose that is directed at the so-called European labour or white labour employed in Government departments. Well, it is true. This House accepted the fact that a number of these unskilled labourers in Government employ were uneconomically employed, and the State paid a contribution to the uneconomic employment of such labour in industry. I take it that this Bill will pass, and that the Minister will be given the necessary powers for the entrenchment of the present position. Well, all I can say is that I hope that our whole approach to this position will give a wider scope for the youth of this country to find profitable employment in industry. But I say this, that before we introduced the legislation which we have on the Statute Book now, such profitable employment was open to semi-skilled artisans. Today that employment is closed.

What is a semi-skilled artisan?

There used to be semiskilled carpenters, semi-skilled bricklayers and so on.

No.

If the Minister does not know then he should know.

It is a misnomer, a man is an artisan that is a skilled man—if he is unskilled he cannot be an artisan.

Perhaps we have an unskilled Minister.

Will not the Minister be prepared to concede this, that prior to the introduction of the wage regulations for unorganised industry, there were labourers who today are classified as labourers, who are forced to earn anything up to £1 or 25s. per week who were earning up to £3 and more.

That it not the point. My point is that there is no such thing as a semi-skilled artisan.

Alright, shall we say semiskilled in industry.

I don’t say skilled or unskilled. The operative is not an artisan.

I am not concerned with what you call a man; what I am concerned with is what he takes home to his wife and children at the end of the week, and it was the Minister’s legislation which denied to many of these semi-skilled people the right to take home a well-filled purse at the end of the week.

Rubbish!

I don’t want to argue the point, so long as the Minister is prepared to accept the fact that his wage legislation has had the effect of reducing the wages of a number of people. People who used to be regarded as semi-skilled workers, and who were earning a good wage, are today regarded as labourers. The wage determination has had the effect of cutting the wages of semi-skilled workers by half.

Nonsense!

I say that the apprenticeship regulations and the legislation of this country have had the effect, and are having the effect, and will continue to have the effect of enforcing this economic paradise of the aristocracy of labour, referred to by the hon. member for Germiston. I say that so long as you have differentiation in wages due to apprenticeship regulations, so long as apprenticeship is limited only to a very small minority, many of the workers in this country and their families will suffer, and your aristocracy of labour will be maintained, and there will be this differentiation between those who get £1 per day and those who get £1 per week. Here is a deliberate attempt to entrench the present position. Is the present system right or wrong ? Is it a fair one or not. Does the present system afford workers in industry opportunities for their children such as they should have? I do not think there should be any reduction whatever in the present wage levels, for those who are classified as artisans or skilled workers. The trade unions will see to that. Of course, even today they get less than they are paid in the equivalent in American dollars. Our skilled artisan does not get as much as his fellow worker in America does. I say he is entitled to a high rate of wage but at the same time I say that the man who helps him earn that wage is entitled to more than he gets under our wage determination legislation. He is entitled to have opportunities for his children to enjoy that better wage and that greater chance in life. And I say that the approach to the present Bill before the House completely avoids that crucial issue and I do say that when this Bill becomes law I hope the Minister and his department will not be prepared to sacrifice all those who are denied opportunities of apprenticeship which is the essential qualification to employment as an artisan. One has to go much further than merely find out the ways and means of tightening up apprenticeship regulations and apprenticeship indentures. We have to approach this question from a wider front, and I do say that until we do so we shall be forcing those less fortunate citizens to perpetual serfdom in the field of industry.

I am very happy to be on my feet to support this Bill before us. I was a little amused when I heard the hon. member for Green Point (Mr. Bowen) tell us that he was a Trade Unionist. I was very pleased at hearing this because listening to this debate I felt that people who possibly knew least about the subject were having the most to say about it.

Like you yourself.

Actually I think the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Payne) was the only speaker who has had any practical experience as far as trade unionism is concerned, and for the benefit of hon. members opposite may I tell them that I have been a trade unionist myself. That may take the wind out of their sails.

It must have been a miserable trade union.

And I am an industrialist, too, of twenty years standing, and here we get farmers on the opposite side criticising this Bill.

What about it?

And we get women on the other side and lecturers at universities on the other side getting up and criticising this Bill.

And why not?

Well, I want to deal with some of the criticism which we have had.

Do you know anything about it?

I am very sorry having to deal with my great friend, the hon. member for Green Point. He was mixing up the skilled and semi-skilled—the operator class—he called them the semi-skilled artisan. I am speaking now as far as the engineering industry is concerned, with which I am thoroughly familiar. There is no such thing as a semi-skilled artisan. An apprentice has to be protected. He is prepared to serve his indentures. He has to serve five years, and eventually he becomes an artisan and then he gets top rate pay. But during the war, because of a shortage of artisans they brought in the operator class. And my hon. friend must not think that the operator class is being neglected in this country. The operator class and the semiskilled—which my friend rather mixed up— and to whom my friend from Cape Eastern referred to—get up to 1s. 9d. per hour in pay. The hon. member for Green Point was concerned about the amount of money a man took home at the end of the week to his wife. Well, if paid at the rate of 1s. 9d. per hour a man can take home a very nice pocketful to his wife. Today, these operators are put on to repetition work and they are on that job for a matter of six months and then they get 1s. 9d. per hour.

In how many industries?

I am referring to the engineering industry.

In which other industries?

I only speak about things that I am an expert on.

Then you should not speak at all.

Anyway, that is the position so far as they are concerned. The hon. member criticised the hon. member for Germiston for his remarks about the position of the apprentices being en trenched, and about the artisans being the aristocracy of labour. Are the hon. member’s remarks quite fair? Let the hon. member refer to Clause 20 which says clearly that no person shall directly or indirectly compel any other person to pay ….

Go on, go on.

The old scheme was that you had years ago to pay to indenture a lad, now that is changed altogether.

I don’t think vou have read this Bill.

As I said, I am a bit surprised at the pious pleas put up by the speakers on the Opposition benches who criticised this Bill. Particularly the hon. member for Swellendam. I wonder what he knows about this Bill. We even had a briefless lawyer getting up here and criticising ….

I hope these personal references will not be continued.

I withdraw that. It possibly slipped out in the heat of the moment. I should like to know from the hon. member for Cape Eastern whether she, when she referred to the lower paid people, had the natives in her mind, and whether in referring to this question of the entrenchment of the aristocracy of labour she was insinuating that in future we should have in industry this position, that natives should also be allowed to be apprenticed.

Why not? Are you making a racial appeal on that?

I am not making a racial appeal at all. I want to tell the hon. member that actually in trade unionism there is no colour bar whatsoever. The position as far as trade unionism is concerned is that an artisan, whether he is white or black, must be paid at the trade union rates of pay. There is nothing to stop a coloured boy or a native boy from becoming an apprentice.

Are you talking about the Apprenticeship Act?

Yes.

You are not talking about the Industrial Conciliation Act?

Yes, I am.

Then you are quite wrong.

The hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Sullivan), when he was making his eloquent plea in opposition to this Bill, spoke about the women in the C.O.T.T. scheme.

His plea was at least eloquent.

Natuarlly, when people do not like any criticism they do get personal. I got personal a moment ago, but I was asked to withdraw my remark, and I withdrew it. The hon. member for Durban (Berea) spoke about the women of the C.O.T.T. scheme. I want to know what the women C.O.T.T. scheme is. Quite a number of young men have been trained in the C.O.T.T. scheme but I have never heard of any women being trained through the C.O.T.T. scheme. May I say that actually, I think, a deliberate attempt is being made to wreck this Bill. I want to say this, that as far as this Bill is concerned, I believe that it is an improvement on the last Apprenticeship Act. The employers and the employees met and discussed the last Act, and this Bill represents an improvement that has been put forward by the employers and the employees. Both sections have agreed on it.

Name the clauses which represent an improvement.

It is clear that the hon. gentleman on the opposite side has not read this Bill.

That is exactly what you did not do.

There are 46 clauses in this Bill, and every clause in the Bill is an improvement on the existing Act.

It is quite plain you have never read the Bill.

There is only one thing that I want to say before I sit down—or one thing more before I sit down—and that is that I notice that the Minister has again brought in a provision which existed in the last Bill, and that is in connection with the part-time classes. I wonder whether we are encouraging the youths of the country on the right lines when we allow them to go off in the afternoons to attend classes. Before 1923 the position was that if a youth who was an apprentice wished to go to night school to improve himself, it was within his discretion whether he wanted to attend classes or not. Today they are all forced to go to school. The employer has to let them off one or two afternoons per week, and they are forced to attend evening classes also. They have to attend evening classes for the same number of hours as the employers let them off during working hours. My experience has been that the majority of lads do not appreciate that; they do not want to be forced to these classes; and I wonder whether we are doing the right thing by forcing them to do so. I think that the average lad who wants to get on will attend the classes, and if he has to go, he would rather go in the evening and have the satisfaction of knowing that he is trying to improve his position by his own efforts. I want to put that to the Minister. I know it is very late to suggest it at this stage, but I say that when you force a lad to go against his own wishes, he will never profit by that persuasion.

The hon. member who has just sat down made remarks about hon. members on this side. I can only say that if this is the exhibition and the explanation we get from someone who, according to his own statement, is a specialist in these matters, then I would prefer farmers, women and professors to explain matters to me in the future in connection with legislation in this House. It must surely be very clear to the Minister at this stage that the Bill which he is forcing on this House is very unpopular. It is not only hon. members on this side who feel that this legislation should not be introduced at this stage, but also hon. members on his own side, including front benchers have made a serious appeal to him not to continue with the Bill at the present stage. An appeal has also been made to him from the cross benches. I want to ask the hon. Minister why he continues with this Bill in spite of all the appeals that have been made to him, in spite of the fact that it must be very clear that everyone in this House is desirous of seeing that proper provision is made in this matter. Every member in this House who got up tried to suggest improvements. They are not intent on placing obstructions or stumbling blocks in his way. It is clear that every member wanted an improvement in connection with these matters, and I want to make a very serious appeal to the Minister. Why is the Minister continuing with this Bill? Why does he want to push it down the throat of a House, which does not want it? I also want to make this appeal to the Minister. Let us withdraw this Bill and let the Minister introduce a Bill on which the Planning Council has given advice, and let us alter the whole system. I am the representative of a platteland constituency. I cannot be expected to be intimately acquainted with the working of legislation such as this, but what I am interested in, and very interested, is the effect of this legislation, and the question which I want to put to the House and to the hon. Minister is this: To what extent does this Bill give relief to the platteland youth? I am a platteland farmer; I am the representative of a platteland constituency. Hundreds of boys from my constituency go to the cities every year. These youngsters cannot make a living on the farms which are gradually becoming smaller and in the small towns of the platteland, and for that reason I take an active interest in the opportunities which are afforded to those youngsters to qualify themselves in our big cities. I do think that it must be clear to the Minister, with all the elasticity of his imagination, that if he continues with this legislation there is no prospect for the platteland boy other than that of pick and shovel, and that is all we can expect in this direction in the future. We notice that from 1925 to 1938, 525,000 Europeans attained their majority; 50,000 matriculated; 19,000 were trained as apprentices; 21,000 received university training, making a grand total of 90,000. That means that there were 435,000 who in these fourteen years had to start life completely untrained. Nearly 30,000 Afrikaners have to start life every year without any training, and is it necessary that that should be so? Is there no opportunity to train these people properly? I really feel that there must be something radically wrong when 30,000 Afrikaners have to start life every year without any training. Between 6,000 and 7,000 artisans were imported into this country during this period, people who work here at a high salary while our own flesh and blood have to struggle on a salary on which they really cannot exist. As a plattelander I feel that from the very nature of things it is the platteland boy and girl who suffer most. The hon. Minister will realise that it is impossible for a parent on the platteland to send his child to the city at a youthful age. The Minister knows that that youngster remains on the platteland. When he leaves school he lives on the farm with his father. He tries to make a living on the farm, or he takes up employment in the town under the supervision of his father, and there he tries to make a living. But once he has gained more experience, he discovers that it is impossible for him to make a living in the platteland, and then only the platteland boy drifts to the city. We on this side want to make a serious appeal to the Minister to meet those Afrikaners who drift from the towns to the cities in these circumstances, and who, under the present circumstances, will always remain there as unskilled labourers, people who have to work for a wage with which they cannot keep body and soul together in the cities. We want to make an appeal to the Minister to do away with the age limit in connection with apprenticeship. I know that there is a clause in this Bill, Clause 21, which states that even a major person may become an apprentice, but with all the difficulties which are placed in his way, it must be clear that very few boys over the age of 21 years will ever become apprentices. We read this in Clause 21 (2)—

It is very clear that under these circumstances there will be very few grown-ups who will ever have an opportunity of being trained as artisans. Our party suggests that an opening be given to these people. It is not impossible. In 1940 a Basic Training Scheme was introduced under which medically fit people between the ages of 17 and 40 years could enrol and in six months’ time they are virtually trained to take up positions as artisans. Those people are paid at a wage of 3s. per day and a cost of living allowance of 2s., and 1s. for every child under 18 years of age in the case of married persons. The Industrial Act which lays that down should make provision for this state of emergency. It was done in this state of emergency in order to make provision for the necessary workers; but if it can be done in a state of emergency during the war, why cannot something of this nature be done for that section of the people who are in a state of emergency throughout their lives? My honest opinion is that all those unskilled workers in our large cities find themselves in a state of emergency throughout their lives, and we want to urge the Minister to make provision for the needs of these people as well. Then there is another matter which I should like to touch on. We know that the platteland child has not the same opportunity as the urban child of being trained as an apprentice. We had some hope of having our children trained as artisans, and that hope was our trade schools. We believed that in the course of time more and better trade schools would be established in this country and that the platteland child would have an opportunity in that trade school of receiving training as an artisan. Last year the hon. Minister was again in the Free State, and in one of the Free State towns he promised that he would take into account the qualifications of the youngsters in connection with apprenticeship; that he would take into account the qualifications which the youngsters obtain in the trade schools in fixing the period of their apprenticeship. He made that promise, but what do we find in this Bill? Here it is stated that the Minister can authorise a reduction. We take it that when a child has completed a course in a trade school the Minister can take that into consideration, but we on this side are not satisfied with that. We may know what the opinion of the present Minister of Labour is in connection with those matters, but we do not know what the opinion of the future Minister of Labour will be, and after the present legislation it is not even very clear to us what the opinion of the present Minister of Labour is. We object to this provision in the legislation of the Minister of Labour. Here we notice that the Minister is continually entrenching himself and assuming the powers of a dictator in the labour sphere. What we find is this. In this country we have a legislative body, and we also have an executive authority, of course. But we are drifting to the position where the legislative body is being used simply and solely as a means of giving the executive authority an opportunity of governing the country as it pleases; and we want to protest against the tendency continually to give greater rights to the Minister. Why cannot those rights which the Minister arrogates to himself be laid down by means of this legislation. We on this side plead for the creation of better syllibi for apprentices, that the syllibi should be fixed on such a basis that they will meet the requirements of a properly trained artisan. Then just this point. We on this side object to the basic idea contained in this Bill. The basic idea is this, that the apprenticeship is ulaced in the hands of those people who are directly interested in that industry. When such a committee is called into being, should that committee consist of the organised worker on the one hand and the organised employer on the other hand? We on this side maintain that that is wrong. It is fundamentally wrong. We maintain that this question of the training of our youth is a national matter, and we cannot allow the training of the youth of the country to be left in the hands of the organised worker and the organised employer. The State as such, ought to have a say so as to afford an opportunity to the youngster who wants to become an apprentice, and we therefore advocate that this question of the constitution of the committee should be viewed from a national point of view. We plead for a national committee, because we feel that justice would then be done to every section of the community. We can never completely ignore the human element when passing legislation. Here we have this state of affairs today that certain people in the cities are skilled labourers. Those people have to protect themselves, and their main fear will be that too many artisans will be trained in the country. It is no use saying that they should not look at it from that point of view. We know that they are human, and they will in the first place look after their own interests. That is only human. We therefore make an appeal to the Minister to make the constitution of the committee wider. Give the people as such a say in these committees, and then we on this side will be satisfied. In conclusion I want to make an appeal to the Minister not to continue with this legislation. The Minister has introduced a very bulky Bill; we have not had an opportunity of obtaining the advice of people who have made a study of this Bill. We know that the Planning Council recommended that this Bill should be properly investigated. Give us an opportunity to have these matters properly investigated, so that we shall have a Bill in connection with these matters next year which will really provide a solution and which will not only be a repetition of the existing Act.

I rise to congratulate the Minister of Labour most heartily on the introduction of this Bill. I think he needs a little congratulation and support after all the criticism so far.

A voice from the deep.

I cannot for the life of me understand why this Bill should be criticised when it is simply improving a system which is recognised practically throughout the world except in Russia where there is equal opportunity and yet we have so much opposition to Russia. We hear it preached from the Opposition benches that there must be equal opportunity for everybody and as was rightly pointed out by the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Payne) Russia is the only country in the world which gives equal opportunity to everyone. If the opposition to this Bill is that there must be equal opportunity for everybody then I cannot understand why the various speakers do not ask that there should be equal opportunity for every trade or profession. As far as the artisans are concerned I refute the state ments that they are the aristocracy of the workers in this country, and as the Minister has pointed out, they earn a miserable pittance of a matter of £6 per week, and I defy anyone to say that over a period of 12 months they earn more than £400. We find that a clerk in the Civil Service after a few years’ service can attain a salary of £400. The artisan who takes five years to complete his apprenticeship, after starting at 3d. or 4d. per hour, is surely entitled to a living wage at the end of five years. I submit that the artisan is not receiving anything but a mere existence. One hears hon. members advocate that there must be equal opportunity for all. I would like to put this to them. How is it possible to pay an unskilled worker the same rate as the artisan, when one takes cabinetmaking for example? They cannot all be cabinetmakers. You must have your skilled and your unskilled workers; and on this latter particular point the Minister has been condemned for not trying to uplift the unskilled worker. I would like to remind the House that the Minister of Labour actually lost his job as Cabinet Minister because he advocated the payment of 8s. per day to unskilled workers, and that treatment by a Nationalist Government.

This is a new argument that you must have unskilled labour.

I am quite satisfied in my own mind, having listened to the various criticisms, that this is an attempt to exploit cheap labour. We have heard from the Minister of the Interior that there is a shortage of skilled artisans. If this Bill is to be killed, and that is the object in wanting to refer it to a select committee, a great disservice will be rendered to both employers and employees. I am satisfied that there are very few members in this House who are competent to express an opinion on this Bill. As the Minister has rightly pointed out, the people who are vitally concerned, namely, the employers and the employees, after many years of experience are satisfied that these improvements are very desirable. The hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Sullivan) stated that we should fix a minimum of an 8th standard of education for apprentices. I would like to remind him that if a minimum educational standard is laid down, hundreds of Afrikaans-speaking youths, particularly the poorer youngsters in this country, would not have a chance to become apprentices, for the reason that not more than 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. of the youths of this country have the facilities to get the pre-apprentice training in the technical colleges. I would further remind the House that last year the City Council of Pretoria advertised for six apprentices. There were 362 applicants and only 20 from the technical college, and out of that number not more than 10 per cent. had a standard of education in excess of Standard VI. I maintain that if we have got to have the suggested minimum 8th standard educational qualification then it is up to the Government to build technical colleges on a large scale, in the same way as you have hotels all over South Africa. I would like to appeal to the Minister to seriously consider the question of appointing welfare officers in connection with the training of apprentices, because I do not feel that that is very necessary. The apprentices need a lot of looking after, and particularly in connection with vocational training. I found from my experience as a city counciller in Pretoria ….

But you have dropped out.

I know I have, but I will get back again next October. I find that as far as vocational training is concerned, where these youngsters have to go to classes after working hours, they do not always attend the technical college. We find that the present system is, in the case of some municipalities, that if youngsters do not have a certain percentage of attendances, a refund of the fees is not made, with the result that after the first quarter, before they can attend classes for the next term, the parents must again pay the fees. The result is that these youngsters get into hot water, and are severely dealt with by the employer. I feel that some sort of protection should be given to these youngsters. After all a youngster will be a youngster and he does not always like to attend evening classes. I, therefore, consider that it is necessary to have welfare officers to look after the interests of these apprentices. I would also urge that as far as possible the youngsters should get their vocational training during working hours. In conclusion I would like to appeal to the Minister to seriously consider whether it is not possible to make provision in the indenture agreement whereby the fees will be made payable by the employer.

In introducing this Bill, the hon. Minister stated that he anticipated considerable industrial expansion in this country after war, and that it was his object in introducing this Bill to ensure that trained workers will not only retain their employment in industry but will also be able to obtain increased employment. Mr. Speaker, it is said that this legislation will create additional opportunities in industry for employment. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson) supported the Minister and also stated that this Bill will contribute to obviate unemployment. It is generally accepted, however, Sir, that industrial conditions, not only in this country but overseas and particularly in the large scale manufacturing industries like those of America and other countries have undergone enormous changes during the war period; new types of products have been produced, new methods have been introduced everywhere, new materials are being used, and what one can describe as an industrial metamorphosis has taken place, and if we want to keep up with that change, if we want to make a success of our industrial position after this war, then surely we should be able to adapt ourselves, to adapt our labour conditions and legislation to those new conditions. Why should we then have this Bill in front of us which the Minister himself admits is merely a perpetuation of the old existing order? The whole world is undergoing industrial change, and when this is happening labour conditions have to adapt themselves to the change. If they do not they lag behind, and if they lag behind you get inefficiency and high costs of production in your industrial system, and we cannot afford that.

Whatever the change, we want artisans.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) has said that we want to obstruct this Bill and that by doing so we will close the avenues of employment to trained workers in the future. He referred to the use of intricate machines in the footwear industry. That may be so, but I would like to say that lie quoted an exceptional case. It is today admitted, indeed it is common knowledge all over the world, that the whole industrial system has been based on the system whereby the period of training can be shortened. In the biggest motor car manufacturies, in some instances I am told, a man can learn his job within a week, and what is more General Motors and Henry Ford’s works are concentrating on developing and organising their industries in such a way that training can be done in the shortest possible periods. If we want to compete successfully with these large scale industries in the future, we shall have to do the same in this country. Why then should we hang on to the old methods laid down twenty years or more ago? Why do that under these new conditions of today? In this respect I would like to quote from the Industrial and Agricultural Requirements Commission, which says, on page 84—

In view of the recommendations of such an authoritative commission as this, I wish to urge on the Minister that it is in the interests of this country not to press this legislation at this moment.

Why, what effect does it have on this?

I respectfully urge that the time is overripe to make a thorough enquiry into the requirements of this country, and the requirements of labour and not to perpetuate an unsatisfactory condition which exists today.

It is not unsatisfactory.

I differ from the Minister. The hon. member for Berea (Mr. Sullivan) quoted from the Planning and Economic Council, which went even further and recommended that no legislation be introduced until this thorough enquiry has been held.

That is a matter of opinion, but they do not say we must not have artisans; not one of them says that.

Why should this legislation be pressed when, as I understand, there is an inter-departmental committee examining this whole question of apprenticeships?

That is the question of unqualified trainers.

I will come to that later on. I agree with the hon. member for Berea that we need improved educational training and shorter periods of apprenticeship. That has been recommended by the Rural Industries Commission in a report of the year 1940, on page 70. That commission recommended—

These are the lines on which we feel on this side of the House that this matter should be tackled, and not by perpetuating the present position. All the authorities on the unemployment position all over the world, and all the American economists agree that a high standard of vocational training before entering specific trades is one of the best guarantees you can give your industrial worker against unemployment in times of economic stress. This new system of training which we advocate is extremely important, particularly in view of the fact that we shall, at the end of this war sooner or later again be faced with an industrial slump, whether we like it or not, and if we want to plan for that period and at the same time plan for a better South Africa, we must so arrange our industrial machinery and our labour machinery that we shall be able to withstand the depression when it comes. The present system is one of exclusion. We are not against the system of trades union, but we want their scope widened, and we do not want the present system of exclusion. We want to widen the scope for the South African youth, particularly for the young men from the platteland, as well as for the boys growing up in the cities. They want equal opportunity for getting employment and becoming skilled tradesmen. As was quoted by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren), in 1938 96 per cent. of the 30,000 European workers had to be satisfied with pick and shovel work. Surely, if our present system is such that only 4 per cent. of our Europeans who apply for employment can get skilled work, then there is something wrong with the system. A system that provides for only 4 per cent. of applicants in a year when this country was booming must have something wrong with it.

It is not the apprenticeship system that does that.

If we take the Minister’s speeches in the past it appears that he has been insistent on perpetuating this system of exclusion, a system of allowing skilled employment to a limited few. I quote from a report in August, 1940—[Retranslation]—

The Government should realise what it will mean to the Labour movement if it consents to this emergency measure. Under ordinary circumstances they would have felt obliged to have opposed any scheme so full of danger to the existing wage levels and service conditions. The fact that instead of having opposed it they have co-operated, goes to prove how determined they are to do everything possible to ensure the eventual defeat of the enemy. They realise that if democracy falls the trade unions will also fall and the world will be faced with a century of darkness. Out of a sense of gratitude for the willingness of the workers to co-operate the Government is prepared to take special steps for the protection of wage levels and conditions of service.

When the war is over the demobilisation of specially trained technical workers will be arranged in consultation with the officials of the Labour Department and the trade unions in order to ensure that the re-absorption of these workers into civilian life will take place without dislocating fixed standards.

Surely, Sir, that makes it quite clear why we have this Bill in front of us. It is in order to perpetuate what is unsatisfactory today. We want not only a wider scope, but we want the committees to have wider representation. There must not only be employers and employed, but representatives of the Government and the country on that committee, because the welfare, the employment and the training and the future of the youth of South Africa is a matter of national and not sectional interest. We are not opposing trade unionism; we have very often been wrongly interpreted as to that, but we feel that the trade union system should be expanded and widened, and it should give everybody a fair chance. At the present there is a very wide disparity between the wage rates of skilled and unskilled labourers. In this respect I have made some calculations, and I have found that at the beginning of the last war the average wage per European employee in South African industries was £170 per person. The average of the non-European who was practically always unskilled, was £35. Just before the war these figures were respectively £224 6s. and £52 1s. for the trained and untrained worker. The Industrial Legislation Commission, which reported in 1935, stressed the same point, and quoted the difference in wage rates between skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled. If I am not mistaken, I think the Customs Tariff Commission in its report of 1936 specifically stated that the high wage rates which the skilled worker gets in South Africa he gets at the expense of the semiskilled and unskilled worker.

What do you suggest; that the highly skilled man should come down?

I suggest that we should limit entry to the skilled field. Greater opportunities should be given to everybody. The Minister has raised one matter which fortunately or unfortunately I can agree with. He has mentioned the socalled private technical colleges. It is the fault of the Government that these unsatisfactory schools are existing, and that they have not been stopped before. They should have been stopped, because we have the power to stop them by regulation.

No.

Under war regulations.

I tried it, and it was ruled out of order.

I have such students in my own constituency, and I have found that the most criminal things have been done by these so-called colleges. They have signed contracts to give a student education to enable him to become a radio mechanic. No single radio has ever come into that particular school, and the man supposed to be headmaster does not know what is inside a radio. I think that is a scandalous state of affairs, and the sooner the Government acts to stop these so-called colleges, the better, even if it requires a special Act in this Session. There is one point which has been raised many times before, and which I hope I shall be forgiven for raising again, and that is the wide powers to make regulations which are being conferred on the Minister. In every Act that comes before us today there is a long list of these powers, and when you come to the end you usually see that the Minister may also make regulations which cover the whole field. The last one usually makes it possible to make any regulation which the Minister considers to be necessary or expedient in order to effect the purposes of the Act. I must say that that sounds very much like the thing we are supposed to fight, Fascism and Hitlerism or dictatorships. That is what it means if we allow our parliamentary system to develop in that way. Labour and employment regulations can be passed which amount practically to new legislation, because almost anything can be for the purposes of this Act. I feel that we should not stand any longer for the delegation of the powers of Parliament in this way. We have already allowed matters to drift. An hon. member has quoted from a committee appointed in Great Britain to go into this question of the delegation of powers, and I feel that a committee like that should be appointed in this country. The question of the employment of our workers in industry is mainly a question of employment in protected South African industries. With few exceptions, all our industries are protected. The careful study I have made over a long period of years shows that the cost of protection by way of customs tariff and other forms of direct and indirect taxation amounts to £14,000,000 per annum. That is what is paid to keep our protected industries going. That figure is quoted on page 39 of the Industrial and Agricultural Requirements Commission’s report, which says—

If this country pays so much money in order to keep our people employed in these secondary industries, then we want the maximum scope of employment to be given by these industries. From my experience of South African industrialists, I may say that the average man is only too anxious to give the best conditions to his workers, and particularly the larger industries. If we do not want to prevent these people from doing what they are desirous of doing, to give the best employment under the best conditions, then I feel we should not strangle it by a Bill like this, which merely carries on a system that has become outworn.

If ever a question required thorough investigation this Appreticeship Bill does. Not only should the Bill be amended but it should be analysed and scrutinised from beginning to end. We have in this country a problem which it is not so very easy to solve—the poor white problem. And if you go thoroughly into it you find that the main cause of all the trouble is the extent of the unemployment prevailing among the Europeans, and the lower types of work which the white people have to do in this country, with the result that the white man cannot hold his own in the battle of life. I am in favour of this question being thoroughly investigated because it does not only affect the subject of apprenticeships but also because it is a national question which affects the very being and development of our nation. If we want to tackle this question we must start with the very young, and when we talk about apprentices we should not lose sight of the fact that the education which our country offers our children does not fit more than 10 per cent. of the growing youth for the battle of life. We have old age pensions, poor relief, and all such things in this country, and these things could very largely be done away with if we started to properly educate the youth of the country for the battle of life. I want to suggest that when the committee of enquiry is appointed it should go thoroughly into the question of how many of our children have academic talents. You get numbers of children who are hardly able to reach standard IV or standard VI. Not because they are idiots but because they are not academically gifted. Yet among them are many who would make the most brilliant tradesmen you could ever get. In my constituency I know of instances of children who can scarcely get as far as standard VI, but it would be hard to get better mechanics. The artisans are astounded at the ability of these children, and I therefore say that we should equip our schools in such a way that they fit in with the needs of the people. I don’t say that the schools only do their work in a slipshod way, but the system is impracticable. It is no use producing a product for which there is no demand. It will cost a lot of money, but give every child a chance to fit himself for the trade for which he is fitted so that he need not necessarily take an academic course. That does not only apply to the boys, but also to the girls. We are spending millions of money on education but only 10 per cent. of the children who go to school learn anything which fits them for a career in life. There must be something radically wrong with the school and with the technical subjects. Let us spend more but let us give every child who shows, when it reaches standard IV, that it has gifts in a particular direction, a change to learn that subject and to fit itself in that subject. It should be the definite aim of the State, and the State should lay down that not one of our children on the school benches today shall leave those school benches until it is properly prepared for the battle of life. Let the child follow that direction in life for which its talents fit it most. I am glad that this side of the House has moved the appointment of a commission of enquiry. We are dealing with a national question here and it will be a great national asset if we give our young people the opportunity of fitting themselves for the battle of life. And this applies to the youth of the country districts as well as to the youth of the town. In the big towns we find that large numbers of non-Europeans have a roof over their heads. They are protected, while the Europeans have to work with pick and shovel. It is an unsound state of affairs, and a commission of enquiry can also give its attention to that aspect of the matter. I hope the Minister will agree to withdraw this Bill at this stage so that it can be thoroughly enquired into by the commission.

I would really be failing in my duty if I did not say a few words about this Bill. I have not the slightest doubt that the Minister of Labour himself was keen on bringing this Bill before the House in a much better form. If we look at the Minister’s remarks in his radio speech, quoted here today, if we judge by what the Minister tells us in the Lobby, and if we judge by his speeches at Labour congresses, well, those people who listen to him at the congresses and who then read this Bill will never recognise their Leader as the protagonist of the measure now before us. They will regard this Bill as the work of a man who calls himself a Socialist but who is in a capitalistic Cabinet, a man who is tied hand and foot in that Cabinet, a man who all day long is fighting against himself.

You’ll make me cry.

The Minister at one time used to cry about the poor man, but once a man takes the road of the Imperialist and the road of the Capitalist he no longer worries about the labourer and the poor man. I feel, however, that the Minister need not cry about his past but rather about his future.

I think the hon. member should come back to the Bill.

Here in South Africa we have perhaps gone too much in the direction of making our sons take their matric, their B.A. or M.A. and that is why we have this position today, that men with an M.A. degree have to apply for positions at £15 per month. That is why we have been looking forward to this Bill because this Government has been telling the country that we are on the eve of great industrial development, and that the people must be trained to be ready for that industrial development. We thought this Bill would create the opportunity for our people, and especially for our young men, to prepare them for this industrial development. Let me tell hon. members that as recently as 1938, 30,000 unemployed were registered with the Labour Bureaux and of that number of unemployed only 4 per cent. were skilled workers and 96 per cent. unskilled. One of the Labour Party members said here this afternoon that he wanted to ask the House how a man could possibly educate his family on a wage of £6 per week. I believe he spoke about a family with four children. I in turn want to ask him how a man can educate and keep his family—a family with six or eight children, on £1 10s. per week. That is what the unskilled labourers get. Now the Minister comes along with this Bill but he does not make it any easier for the unskilled labourer to become a skilled worker. Here in South Africa we send our young people to technical colleges and trade schools, and when they finish their courses there they are not skilled labourers. The people already in the various trades are given the power of seeing to it that, as few new people as possible enter their trades, and of course they are inspired by the fear that in time of depression they may be unemployed. Now, what is the position in South Africa? Let me mention two industries—the engineering industry and the building industry. In the engineering industry from 1932 to 1938 a total of 5,963 engineers were employed, and do hon. members know how many of them were South Africans? 3,459 were South Africans and 2,404 were immigrants who had come from elsewhere and found employment here. One would have expected the Minister to have remedied this shortcoming, but it seems that the Minister does not worry about the children of his own country, he is more concerned about the immigrants who come here. In any case he does not make it any easier for them to get those jobs. Let us take the building industry. During the years 1934 and 1938 there were altogether 4,057 skilled labourers employed in the building industry Imagine! Of those, only 1,754 were South African boys, and 2,204 had come from overseas. Let met put it this way : In the engineering industry, in the years 1934 to 1938—41.2 per cent. of the skilled artisans were imported.

At 6.40 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1944, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 18th April.