I move as an unopposed motion and pursuant to notice—

I second.

Agreed to.

I move—

1. (a) in which a parent has been awarded £13 per annum by the said Board in respect of a son or daughter killed whilst serving in the army;
2. (b) in which no pension under section seventeen of the War Pensions Acts has been granted by the Military Pensions Board in respect of the loss of a husband, wife, son or daughter who has been killed or died whilst serving in the army, or in which no sufficient relief has been granted;
3. (c) in which men discharged from the army through tuberculosis or other permanent disability and unable to work have endured months of privation, and in certain cases have died before any pension was awarded by the Military Pensions Board;
4. (d) in which a mother or father has been granted less than the maximum pension of £180 per annum by the Military Pensions Board in respect of two sons killed on active service, or less than the maximum of £120 in respect of one son killed; and
5. (e) in which there are other well-founded complaints; the Committee to have power to take evidence and to call for papers.

The proposition which I wish to state today for the consideration of a new Parliament aims at securing improved administration of the War Pensions Act for the relief and security of those families whose well-being ought constantly to be the especial care of this House. For the purpose of our present debate, which is concerned mainly with defects of Pensions administration, and their results, I propose to indicate briefly those provisions of the Acts which have caused most dissatisfaction—leaving the more complex question of what amendments are necessary to a future debate when the Minister of Finance introduces a further amending Bill. The necessity for a Pensions Act for the present war was first brought before Parliament on 6th February, 1940, by a motion introduced by me which asked for provisions not less generous than those applicable to members of the Southern Rhodesia forces. The disability pension scales of Southern Rhodesia were more generous than those which this House adopted in 1940 by amounts ranging from £230 per annum (highest) to £100 per annum (lowest) for the several ranks to which they applied in respect of 100 per cent disablement. Even the increased pensions of the Union War Pensions Act 44 of 1942 remained lower than those paid by Southern Rhodesia. Moreover the Southern Rhodesia scheme contained a proviso to the entitlement clause which had it been adopted by this House, would have obviated most of the complaints that have justifiably been made against the administration of our War Pensions Act and might have protected our soldiers and their dependants from much autocracy and misery and injustice. The proviso reads—

The Minister of Finance would not accept the Southern Rhodesia proviso whenever it was proposed to him in this House, but the Government of the United Kingdom in July, 1943, brought into effect a modification of pension conditions which, in its main features, closely resembles the Southern Rhodesia proviso, bringing untold benefit to the people who have suffered most in the war—

1. (1) The new Royal Warrant makes it clear that there is no onus of proof on the claimant;
2. (2) The United Kingdom adopts the view that if a man is accepted for service in a certain medical category that fact—
   1. (a) provides presumptive evidence that he was then fit for the kind of service demanded, and
   2. (b) in the event of his being discharged on medical grounds any deterioration in his health which has taken place is due to his service.

Under Section 17 of our War Pensions Act the only unchallengeable claim admissible for a widow’s pension is that made in respect of a volunteer (a) who is killed or dies whilst on military service outside the Union during the war. In three other categories where he (b) dies as a result of wounds or injuries received on military service; (c) dies, after discharge, of wounds, injuries or disease on service; (d) dies after discharge, of a condition aggravated by impairment of his physical condition, the result of military service, a widow’s pension may be granted, if he had been on military service outside the Union and the award depends upon whether the Military Pensions Board is of opinion that his death was attributable to military service. In one category only where he (e) dies as a result of a wound, injury, disease which arose out of or in the course of the discharge of military duty in the Union, is a widow’s pension ever awarded in respect of a death on military duty in the Union, but again the award depends upon whether the Military Pensions Board is of opinion that his death was caused by a condition aggravated by and in the course of the discharge of military duty. It will be seen that in four categories out of five, the matter rests on the opinion of the Military Pensions Board. It is possibly a matter of administration. In 1942 I roundly condemned the “finely drawn differentiations between one widow and another,” when the amending Bill was before the House and urged the amendment of Section 17 “so as to include thereunder all war widows who have lost their husbands whilst on active service, whether in the Union or beyond its borders.” Today, Sir, the tangled verbiage which we put into our War Pensions Act of 1942, to create fine distinctions which only makes the tragedy of death and disablement the more acute to those excluded from benefits, is being held up to the· contempt which it deserves by friends of the soldiers’ dependants whose views are entitled to be heard in this House. One of the most public spirited men in the Transvaal, Col. E. F. Rendell, M.C., the Mayor of Germiston, occupying a high admistrative position in the industrial life of the Witwatersrand, delivered a public address in Johannesburg during February last on the urgent need for a drastic change in the official policy relating to military pensions. He deplored the present position which he said was responsible for a great deal of preventable mental agony of soldiers’ dependants. He described as the crux of one grave problem the oft recurring phrase in Section 17 of the War Pensions Act, “died as a result of wounds or disease attributable to military service” and went on to say—

Thus in the case of a man who developed a fatal illness up North, a pension for his widow became a right, and the only criticism was the niggardly amount of the pension permissible. But if a volunteer contracted the same illness in the North, and was invalided to the Union where it terminated fatally, a pension to his widow ceased to be a right, and became a matter of official opinion as to whether the illness was attributable to or aggravated by military service. Col. Rendell declared that a position of that kind was especially indefensible in such a vital matter as the welfare of dependants, and should not be permitted to continue. I want at this stage to quote from a letter received by me only yesterday which gives an apt illustration of how this matter affects the soldiers’ dependants. The writer is a woman who writes from Cape Town on the 30th March—

That is an illustration of the class of case referred to by Col. Rendell in which he draws attention to the discretion permitted to the Military Pensions Board, to decide whether a volunteer’s death is attributable to military service or not. That shows you the kind of case which spreads the conviction among the dependants of the soldiers that it is becoming as difficult to get justice from the Military Pensions Board as it is for a camel to get through the eye of a needle. And then Col. Rendell went on—

Col. Rendell pointed to the four War Pensions Bills that will have been introduced within four years, and added that so many Pensions Acts in four years indicated that the Treasury by its tradition and outlook, was not the correct department to administer war pensions. That I very heartily say “hear hear” to. The Minister of Demobilisation, Col. Rendell said, would eventually be, presumably, the single authority for dealing with discharged soldiers and their dependants. At present there were far too many Government departments, bodies and committees dealing in a spasmodic and unco-ordinated way with the whole problem. I entirely agree with him as to the Treasury being the wrong department to administer pensions. With progressive evidence of the unsuitability of the Military Pensions Board for its task, I maintain that an immediate change in the personnel of that Board must be the first form of relief to be granted to the soldiers and their dependants.

Hear, hear.

What justification is there for dominating the Board with Treasury influence? It is not unfair to say that the members of the Board—Secretary for Finance (or his deputy), Commissioner of Pensions (or his deputy), Secretary for Public Health (or his deputy), estimable though they may be, are too close to the interests of the Treasury and too remote from those of the volunteer and his dependants. There is a volume of complaint throughout the Union as to the work of this Board, and I shall have some criticism to make from cases I have dealt with. Col. Rendell has said the Treasury is the wrong department to administer pensions, and has given his reasons. Col. G. A. Morris, C.M.G., who is widely known for his welfare work among volunteers and their dependants throughout the Union, in a letter addressed to every member of this House in December last, gave his reasons for the same conclusion, before he knew of Col. Rendell’s views, but there is an almost complete agreement between them as to the grounds of complaints. Col. Morris on Pensions—

These medical officers then assess the percentage of his disability. The final assessment of the amount of pension is left to an overworked group of Civil Servants who are handling many times more applications in this war with a smaller staff than they had in the last. The delay therefore, in assessing and paying the pensions is enormous and has already caused grave discontent and distress.

In 1942 I drew attention in this House to cases in which the Medical Pensions Board included men who were incapable of furnishing guidance to the Military Pensions Board on the cases referred to them. I drew attention to the case of a doctor who was relied upon to report to the Board in regard to a volunteer who was suffering from a disease to the middle ear. That doctor was stone deaf, yet the Board had to depend on his opinion. I have the case of another doctor—I quoted that case in 1942—who had been responsible for reducing a particular man’s disability from 70 per cent. at which he had been boarded to 10 per cent. The man in this case wrote a letter to the late Governor General and to Mr. Justice Feetham, both of whom worked for the restoration of the man’s proper percentage. That man in a letter written to me said that for twenty years he had been kept below the percentage of disability to which he was entitled and thus deprived of a pension. The doctor had an office in the Museum Buildings in Pretoria; he came out of that room, and he declared the claimant’s percentage to be 10 whereas a board of doctors had declared his percentage of disability to be 70, but the soldier did not see a board at Museum Buildings. That reduction of percentage led to the man suffering for twenty years, and it was only through the intervention of the late Governor General that relief was granted and his disability assessed at 100 per cent. As far as I am aware that doctor is still employed by the Military Pensions Board. There should be clean sweep, and doctors employed should be men who have been at the front and know what a grim and desperate business modem war has become. Col. Morris’ statement then goes on—

The letter says—

If the Military Pensions Board is to be judged by the results that are apparent throughout the Union, I maintain that their administration of the War Pensions Act is indefensible. Wherever a decision rests upon “the opinion of the Military Pensions Board” and this phrase occurs constantly in the Act, the Board has practised economy at the expense of fair-play. Recently I asked a few questions in this House, and the replies given by the Minister of Finance on 28th March, 1944, bear out the public impression with regard to the Military Pensions Board.

Were they in the Union?

Most were in the Union. It is an unchallengeable right for a widow to have a pension if her husband is killed or dies whilst on military service outside the Union during the war. Then I come back to another point. I asked the Minister—

The reply was 785. Out of those who appealed to the Military Pensions Board only 2 per cent. were successful.

Only two, not 2 per cent.; only six appealed and two were successful.

I am speaking of the total number, I think there were 785 rejections.

The Minister says that only six appealed, and of these two were successful.

Obviously then my statement should have been 2—not 2 per cent. I have met a large number of parents who have been granted the £13 per annum pension, and I have had correspondence with a considerable number of others, but I know of none who said they were satisfied with the award. I asked the Minister further—

The reply was 895. How many were rejected —623. How many were successful—272. I asked—

The reply was “613 out of 623.”

Are you referring now to appeals of parents or appeals under Section 17?

I am referring to appeals generally from September, 1939, to January, 1944, when the reply was given. The 613 out of 623 shows how large a part this question of disability being neither due to nor aggravated by military service plays in connection with the rejection of claims. That, Sir, as I have indicated before, is not merely a question of statutory provision, but a question in respect of which the Military Pensions Board is entitled to exercise a very considerable discretion. In reply to a question that I asked on the 27th January, 1942, the Minister stated that the main ground for the rejection of 615 claims of ex-volunteers was the fact that disability was neither due to nor aggravated by service. The main ground for the rejection of the widows’ 93 claims was similar to that of the ex-volunteer’s claims, besides which it was stated in the case of the 97 parents claims rejected that there was no dependency or no pecuniary need established. In connection with the case of Mrs. Rowe which I took before the Military Pensions Appeal Board, the Minister had indicated that the case, at his instance, would be referred back to the Military Pensions Board, not by way of appeal, but merely with the object of having the matter reopened. That was done, I think, on the 17th March, and on the 24th March the Military Pensions Board peremptorily decided to advise that Mrs. Rowe should appeal to the Appeal Board. I assumed that the case had been re-opened, and in my question to the Minister I wanted to know whether the person affected, Mrs. Rowe whose case had been decided, had been informed of the re-opening of the case and had been allowed to appear before the board. The reply was in the negative. I asked whether she was at any time invited by the board to appear, or whether she was informed that her case was being re-considered, and if so on what date. If the re-opening of the case did take place I suppose it was of a very nominal character. The board did not notify or invite Mrs. Rowe when the matter was being re-considered, and I think their action was almost discourteous to the Minister, who had suggested that the matter should be reopened. The case was returned with the suggestion that it should go before the Appeal Board. When it went before the Appeal Board there was considerable discussion, but the discussion was in the main devoted to an endeavour to prove that under the means test, which they evidently apply in such cases, this woman was evidently not entitled to any more. I was finally informed that the appeal had been unsuccessful, but the action of the Military Pensions Board was what intrigued me in connection with this matter. The reply was to this effect—

This decision was equivalent to a higher court allowing a lower court to alter its judgment after an appeal had been lodged. They heard the appeal, and their proper course was to decide on that appeal whether any improvement or amelioration was justified. They did nothing of the kind. They rejected the appeal, but they allowed the Military Pensions Board to alter their record and to give a higher award because of the change in the Act. My submission is this: The proper course would have been to have over-ruled the award and to have made a higher award or appeal, and to have corrected the obvious errors and omissions of which the Military Pensions Board had been guilty. I have maintained throughout and I shall continue to maintain, that the proper course in regard to pensions for a widow and parents is to give them the maximum pension, unless they themselves declare that they do not want it; and there is a very large class of people, I would say the majority of the people who have been awarded reduced pensions, who hold the same view in regard to this matter. They do not agree that it is fair in cases of this sort to assume that because a person possibly owns a house or has some resources, that they should be obliged to suffer an abatement of their pension. I do not think it is fair to effect any abatement of the pension in these circumstances. This House never intended that, say, the parents of a private in the Natal Carbineers or a sergeant of the I.L.H. should be subject to a means test When the widow of a colonel need not undergo any means test at all. In some cases where the pension was awarded in full, the persons who received it were fairly rich, and not as in the case of Mrs. Rowe one who had lost every breadwinner in her family, and who was dependent upon a very modest income. A great deal was made of the fact that Mrs. Rowe received a certain amount of money from the estate of her late husband. Her husband had had a lingering illness lasting for years. He had accumulated debts which were not disclosed whilst the estate was being administered, but which had to be liquidated all the same, and after the liquidation of those debts the most that could be done for the future security of the family was for Mrs. Rowe herself to buy a small annuity worth £50 a year, and to buy a house valued at £600, and to invest the balance of the money in building society shares. Is that sufficient reason for the abatement of a pension which at its maximum is only £15 per month in respect of two sons? I can quote the case of a colonel of a regiment whose civil pay ran into four figures and whose income from investments was considerably more. In that case was a word said about the abatement of his widow’s pension? No, and in my view the full pension was properly awarded.

You are mixing up two sorts of cases.

Was the colonel’s case that the hon. member is referring to that of a parent or a widow?

A widow.

Well!

I am merely dealing with the fair treatment of all soldiers’ dependants. It matters nothing to me whether the person concerned is the wife of a colonel or the wife of a trooper or a private, or the mother of a trooper. In many cases the case of the mother has a greater appeal to me. As far as she is concerned her whole life centres round the lads who have gone, and it seems difficult to justify the fact that in the one case, the case of a sergeant and the private, the board is so keen to abate the parent’s pension on the ground that she receives her phthisis pension or some other small sum. Last year it was stated in this House quite incorrectly that Mrs. Rowe owned property worth £1,300.

The most she has ever had in the way of fixed property was this small house that she bought for £600. But those are among the thrusts that are made by the Military Pensions Board to justify an unjustifiable decision. You cannot justify the treatment of parents on a severer basis than that of widows. There is no justification for that at all. The sufferings of the parents are just as intense, possibly more so, than those of the widow, because you have amongst them people who have lost practically every breadwinner, and they are left to face the world alone. I am sorry, Sir, to have occupied some considerable time on this matter, but it is a matter of first importance, and in regard to the future administration of these cases there is no doubt that until there is a proper separation of responsibility in the Cabinet of the affairs of the soldier and his dependants, and the placing of these matters under one Ministry, we shall have the constant recurrence of cases of alleged neglect on the part of the Military Pensions Appeal Board, and similar bodies. You have only to refer co the cases in which pensions for the nonEuropean people have been dealt with. They receive small meagre pensions. The questions that were recently asked by the hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming) show, I think the great volume of dissatisfaction that exists amongst the natives, and even more so amongst the coloured people. I do not propose to worry the House any further with figures, but there are cases on record in which volunteers discharged from the Cape Corps with 100 per cent. disability, suffering from tuberculosis, have had to wait for months before a pension was awarded notwithstanding the fact that the Adjutant-General had instructed in orders that not a single day must elapse between the men’s ceasing to draw military pay and the award of his pension. By way of questions I have drawn attention in this House to cases where men have died before any pension was awarded, and where no payment of any kind was made throughout the period of their sufferings. There is no doubt a great deal needs to be done to protect cases of this sort both among the coloured persons and among the natives, and that a more workmanlike scheme should be established.

I second.

If it were my duty to offer any congratulations for what we have heard during the last 65 minutes, I would be at a loss to know whether to congratulate the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick), his Worship the Mayor of Germiston, or Col. George Morris. I feel that the hon. member has done his own case a lot of harm by reading out pages and pages of material with which this House has been previously circulated, and with which everybody is well acquainted. I do not think anybody doubts for one minute the sincerity of the hon. member for Pinetown, and I think we all agree that the object he has in view in bringing forward this motion is a very genuine one, and deserves full support, not only of the members of this House, but of all the “pro-war” people in the country. He has spent probably more time on the investigation of the Pensions Act, and its various amendments over these last four years, than most people. And he realises as well as we on this side of the House that all is not well. The object of his motion is to put these things right and try and get a fairer and more genuine deal for the soldier, those who are disabled or their dependants, and in this we agree with him, I must however cross swords with him on his manner and method of approach to this very important subject. I am afraid that his method of approach leaves a lot to be desired. I disagree with him completely when he refers to the question of a Select Committee and approaches it from that angle at this late stage of the Parliamentary session. With his many years of Parliamentary experience he must know that it is impossible for any Select Committee to do justice to the terms of reference which he has put forward. He might say : “Why didn’t we move beforehand?” We have been busy as members of the United Party for some considerable time, and we want a Committee of Investigation just as much as the hon. member for Pinetown, but we do not want it to be confined of necessity to members of this House, we want to get the information and the opinions of other people who have devoted scores of years to this pension question—namely our friends, the B.E.S.L., the Moths and similar organisations, but by agreeing to this Select Committee one would exclude those other bodies from expressing any opinion as to the personnel of that Committee, and at the same time it would be made impracticable at this stage for that Committee to report. On those grounds, I definitely oppose the suggestion of a Select Committee. Later on I shall move an amendment which I hope the hon. member for Pinetown will accept. My second objection lies in the wording of his motion, particularly with regard to his recommendations for changes in the administration of the Act and its amendments. We on this side of the House do not for one moment think that he has gone far enough, with all his sincerity. We know how assiduous he has been in the course of years but we feel that he has not gone far enough in trying to bring about the changes which we feel are so essential. We on this side of the House want more than a change in the administration, we want a change in the Act. We want an Act which is more definite, which is more practicable, and gives the unfortunate official a better chance of doing what he would probably like to do, but finds it difficult to do under the terms of the existing Act. The hon. member only calls for a committee to recommend changes in the administration of the Act. I think the hon. member for Pinetown wás decidedly unfair. He was unfair to those people who are saddled with this very difficult burden of administering the present very difficult Act. He has used the word, in the course of his remarks; “autocracy”. I feel he is grossly unfair to those gentlemen who are probably working harder today in the administration of this Act than anyone else in the Public Service. I have had relations with the Pensions Board and with the Pensions Appeal Board, and I must say that I cannot under any circumstances attach the word “autocracy” to the relations which I have had with these individuals. They are in a most difficult position. Each and every one of them, I am sure, is out to do his utmost for those who require consideration and relief, but the hon. member for Pinetown after all these years must surely know that they cannot go beyond the letter of the law, and I think to use the word “autocracy” is going very much too far, and is casting a slur on a set of gentlemen who are doing all that is physically possible to meet a difficult situation.

You are a member of Parliament, and so am I, and you know how autocratic they are, when you go to them.

I have said that my experience and my association and relationship with the members of the various committees dealing with pensions definitely do not justify the use of the word “autocracy.” We on this side of the House do not care to criticise the administration although we realise that things are not as they should be. We want the Act changed. And we on this side of the House disagree with the hon. member for Pinetown in his motion here on the two reasons I have set out—primarily, that the Select Committee is impracticable at this stage. The hon. members knows after his many years of Parliamentary life, that it would be impossible for the Select Committee to do the job adequately. Further than that, we would like to persuade those in power to appoint a Committee to take into consideration the views of such organisations as the British Empire Service League, the Moths, the Governor General’s Fund and so on. If you had a Select Committee those people would be ignored. We respect what they have done, and we do not want to ignore them. Then we are not satisfied with merely an investigation into the administration, we wish to go further. We want an amendment to the Act to make the position more definite and not to leave so much to the opinion of gentlemen who are burdened with the administration of this difficult Act. Now I must be fair. The hon. member for Pinetown started off by referring to his second reading speech in 1942, and once again he quoted the enormous discrepancy between the pension rights in the Union of South Africa and those of Southern Rhodesia. There are discrepancies and there are differences. But since then, pensions in this country have been raised. What the hon. member for Pinetown however omits to tell the House and the country is that Southern Rhodesia does not have the alternative award and we do. And that question of the alternative award, if investigated, shows up the comparative rates of pension in a very different light. I know the hon. member is a fair minded man and it is difficult for me to believe that he has deliberately tried to put the worst aspect on it, but he will agree that he has been amiss in not referring to this alternative award which shows a totally different light by this comparison. Since he made the speech in 1942 —for which I admire him—we have raised our whole scale.

It is still lower than Rhodesia.

Not with the alternative award. The hon. member still goes back and he still quotes the 1942 figures. It is very difficult to understand just exactly what the hon. member is trying to convey to members of this House and to the country. I definitely, as one who is as eager and as keen and as sincere at any time in doing what is necessary to alleviate the conditions as they exist, cannot agree with him when he comes here to try and create an impression which is entirely wrong. We have heard a lot from the hon. member for Pinetown this morning about the Military Pensions Board, about the Military Pensions Appeal Board, and if we are to be guided by what he has said, we are forced to the conclusion that these two Boards are definitely two organisations which are set up deliberately and definitely to try and cut down every form of compensation for every claimant who exists. Let us try and throw a little different light on the position and on this particular organisation. We have the Military Pensions Board as the first step. If the Military Pensions Board reject a claim, it does not mean that that individual is definitely rejected for all time. The machinery set up permits of an appeal. An appeal to a Board with a totally different personnel. The Constitution of the Appeal Board is such that they have the benefit of legal experience, they have the benefit of a man with military experience, the benefit of a man of administrative experience. Men with no axe to grind, men who judge the position as it is, and the hon. member knows as well as I do that many of the claims are frivolous. I agree that very many of them are most Sincere, and I would like to see these claims granted. But when the Appeal Board rejects a claim it is not even yet all over. It is not the last court of appeal. The machinery set up goes further. We then have a Special Pensions Board. I never heard the hon. member mention that.

You mean the Special Grants Board.

I never heard him mention that. When the Military Pensions Board has rejected a claim, and when the Appeal Board has rejected a claim, you still have the Special Board, which has the right to make grants outside the Act. Well, as a fairminded man I feel that, if your Act is right, there should be very little chance of a genuine claim not receiving consideration or compensation which may be due to him. But I agree with the hon. member for Pinetown that a radical change in the wording of Clause 17 is absolutely essential, and I am sure that every member of this House feels that the hon. member did a great service when he drew our attention to the Act or to the regulation as it is in Rhodesia, and I would very much like, on behalf of this side of the House, to ask the Minister in framing these amendments to see if it is not physically impossible to have a regulation or a clause replacing this difficult one, this Clause 17, by something similar to the Rhodesian clause.

Is that the onus clause?

Yes; This is how it reads: “Provided that any injury received, disease contracted or death occurring during military service, shall be deemed to be attributable to, or aggravated by such service, unless the contrary is clearly proved.” Now, that is putting the boot on the other foot. If we could get something of that sort in our amendment we would throw the onus on the Department to prove to a man that he cannot be compensated, or we would throw the onus on the Department to prove that to the man’s dependants. It is not for thé individual to prove to the pension department that he is entitled to something.

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

Afternoon Sitting.

I do not intend to hold up the House very much longer in connection with the motion by the hon. member for Pinetown. I have endeavoured to make it clear that we sympathise very much indeed with the object which he has in view. We on this side of the House feel with him that something should be done to alter the present conditions which are certainly not healthy, but we are perfectly satisfied that he has not gone far enough, we are satisfied that his motion is impracticable, and if I speak for myself I classify it as somewhat hazy and nebulous and not direct enough to suit us on this side of the House. Consequently, I would like to move this amendment—

1. (a) that the difficulties and anomalies which have arisen in regard to War Pension matters have their origin in the terms of the present law as well as in the manner in which the law is administered, and
2. (b) that a Select Committee appointed at this stage of the Session would not be able to deal effectively with the matter, this House is of opinion that the Government should (i) take into consideration the advisability of appointing an independent Committee to investigate matters of administration and interpretation in connection with the law dealing with War Pensions, this Committee to commence its work as soon as possible after the end of the Session; and
3. (ii) forthwith proceed with legislation during the present Session with a view to the making of necessary amendments in the existing law.”

That, I feel, would attain very much more rapidly and efficiently the object which the hon. member for Pinetown has in view, and I move accordingly, and I would be very pleased if the hon. member would see his way clear to accept this amendment to his motion.

I second. There is nothing that the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) has said; there is no genuine complaint which he has made; there is no real abuse which he has shown up, with which all members of this House are not in entire sympathy. We all share with him a common indignation at the deplorable way in which, in the instances he has quoted, some few people seem to have been treated. I think he has shown a prima facie case at least, for enquiry of some sort into the administration of the Military Pensions Act by the Military Pensions Board. I think that one of his two cases seemed almost unanswerable. But I do think, too—if I might, with a certain amount of temerity, cavil at something said by an older member of this House—I do think, too, that even in this instance and particularly in the language which he chose to use he spoilt his case by overstating it. I am sure all of us here realise that any appeal board or pension board makes occasional mistakes. I know all of us are convinced and determined that these mistakes should be rectified. But I do not think that any of us in this House, or outside it, will on the strength of one or two disputable cases condemn “root and branch” the whole administration and personnel of the Pensions Board or adopt the attitude that has been taken up by the hon. member for Pinetown in regard to this whole matter. But I do urge that there should be some change, some change of attitude—perhaps a change of atmosphere—but definitely a change in the attitude of mind with which this Board approaches some of the problems that are put before it. I do not think that in many cases they regard these problems put before them in an unsympathetic way. I think they regard each case as a cypher. Something which has to be considered fairly of course, as far as they know, but essentially considered in a way which is something like this case: “X.Y.Z. has now to be considered, what is the least we can give this man within the letter of the law?” I think that I would not be unfair in saying that there is a lack of personal interest in some cases which come before the Board which must mitigate against due sympathy and consideration being given to it. I do feel that we should change, or cause to be changed, that attitude of mind. I do feel that those members of the Board who sit in judgment on a particular pension case should, if anything, err in favour of the applicant. That they should forget—I hope the Minister of Finance will forgive me— any consideration of finance. I think they should on all occasions, where there is the slightest doubt, give that doubt in favour of a soldier, the injured soldier, who is appealing to them for a pension, or in favour of the widow or the dependants of a soldier who is dead. I am thoroughly at one with the hon. member for Pinetown when he wishes that all the abuses which may have happened, should be cleared up. But why I find I cannot vote for his motion because I think that his method of approach to clear up these cases is wrong. I do not think it is practical enough, nor do I think it is constructive enough. The sum total of his speech—which I feel was rather lengthy but which can be excused on that score because of the obviously thorough way in which the hon. member tackled the problem—was a request for a select committee. I do feel that in asking at this stage for a select committee to be appointed, is asking for something which would bring us nothing. We need something more than a select committee appointed at this late stage of the Session, something more practical. The hon. member made out a very good case for the fact that the abuses were mere administrative abuses. But I, together with my proposer, go further than to ask for mere administrative changes. I say that I should like to see the law itself amended. I do not think one can, or should, at this stage or at any stage, attack the personnel of the Board. Certainly they seem to have made some bad decisions. I am, as I said, at one with the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) in agreeing that the administration and the personnel have been far from perfect. I think it wrong that the decision whether a soldier or a soldier’s dependant should receive some help should be just a matter of somebody’s opinion. I think that the hon. member has uncovered a septic wound, as he should uncover such a wound. I think he has shown this House and shown the public the serious conditions of the patient, but I do feel he has not done much to cure that patient. He has asked for a Select Committee. I should prefer a committee not quite so select—in the sense that it is not entirely comprised of members of Parliament —to enquire into administrative errors. I should like to see an independent committee established and begin functioning as soon as the recess comes—a committee in respect of which the Minister will not be limited in any way as to whom he should call upon to serve on it. A committee that will represent men and women outside this Parliament, who know their jobs and who are connected with organisations like the B.E.S.L., the M.O.T.H.S. and other organisations of that sort. A committee comprised of people who are divorced from what one might call any “political angle” in this matter. I think if we had such an independent committee we would get far more useful, far more helpful—far more revolutionary information, too. There is not one member of this House on either side—not one of the six odd members on the Opposition side—who I am sure does not agree with me that what we want is to see that the soldier gets a square deal in this war. Our Prime Minister has said more than once, with the approval of the country, that there is nothing too good for the soldier who went away to fight for South Africa. Surely we can agree with the Minister that there is nothing too good for the dependants of the soldier who fails to come back from fighting for his country. I should like to say that in voicing these opinions and in calling for an independent committee—calling for a committee composed of representatives who are prepared to make a drastic overhaul of the Pensions Act—I am not speaking for myself alone but I am speaking for my party, and in particular for a group within my party, the “Soldiers’ Group.” This Soldiers’ Group comprises some 30 members of the United Party under the able chairmanship of the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. Van der Merwe) and with a very thorough secretary in the hon. member for Nigel (Mr. Ueckermann). Since the beginning of this Session this group has worked tirelessly and laboriously on behalf of the soldiers. They have examined all cases meticulously, and in particular pension cases. I know that the group has been able to bring pressure to bear on the appropriate departments to set right many wrongs. I am glad to have this opportunity of telling the House and telling the country there is a group working in this way for soldiers. Perhaps I might say they have worked a little too unobtrusively. I know that each one of them agrees with the hon. member for Pinetown, agrees with his sentiments, and is whole-heartedly thankful to him for any genuine abuses he may show up. They all wish for more speedy and more effective action than the hon. member for Pinetown has indicated by the motion he has put before the House. I am sure that when the Minister of Finance comes to answer to this debate, he will accede to our demands for legislation—not just mere administrative changes but for legislation— which will alter in no inconsiderable way some of the difficulties and anomalies of the Pensions Act. I am sure when he does reply he will acknowledge that he has not been unmoved in regard to his decision to introduce the necessary legislation, by the blitz of demands and the barrage of suggestions which have gone forward to him from the Soldiers’ Group of the United Party. I do feel that now, at a time when the whole country is looking forward with intense interest to the formulation of and statement on demobilisation plans, that we should here and now resolve that, as a first instalment of these plans, which are aimed essentially at looking after the soldier who comes back from the wars, we should alter in certain vital ways our pensions laws. These aim and should aim and must aim at looking after those who come back debilitated and injured in mind and body, and looking after the interests of those who, through not coming back, have left as a charge upon our shoulders the welfare and the future of their children, their widows and their dependants. I have great pleasure in taking this opportunity in seconding this amendment, and I must apologise for going beyond the bounds of perhaps a mere formal seconding. But just as indignation was felt, no doubt, by the hon. member for Pinetown and moved him to excessive length, so my indignation makes me feel that the words I say should be cut short for fear that my reason and calmness may be affected. Lest my indignation at some of the cases he has quoted should get the better of me. We should above everything, try to remain rational so that we can do the best we can for those who need our care and attention most. I have great pleasure in seconding, and in asking the hon. member for Pinetown to accept this amendment, which calls, I think he will admit, for more drastic, more immediate and more effective action. Action which is likely to cause, immediately, some change not only just administratively but legislatively throughout the whole Pensions Act. A change for the better and for the betterment of the dependants of soldiers, widows, children, mothers and fathers. I think he will agree with us that a better purpose will be served in having in addition an Independent Committee rather than a Select Committee of this House. I have great pleasure in seconding this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, it is becoming more and more difficult for a member of Parliament to intervene intelligently in a discussion on soldiers’ disabilities and soldiers’ rights. That difficulty is being accentuated almost every day, because unfortunately there is growing up, and there have, as a matter of fact, been present in the Union for some time, certain individuals and certain organisations who appear to have only one purpose in front of them, and that is the purpose of seeking some kind of political preferment by holding out to the soldiers schemes and benefits which they know only too well could never possibly be fulfilled. In this connection I am not for a moment making any suggestions as to the sincerity of the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick), but it is a fact, Mr. Speaker, that his party not himself—and I am not necessarily referring to either of the members sitting on these benches—but the rank and file of his party when this House, by agreement, produced a very considerable increase in pay, stumped this country and took the whole glory of having accomplished this for the soldiers. Today the hon. member for Pinetown, either in excess of indignation, or in a fit of zeal, not only in my opinion overstated his case, but tremendously over-stated the case, and his is the type of speech to which I want to draw the attention of the House. I believe I am not exaggerating when I say that the soldiers or volunteers in the Union Defence Force are today very suspicious of this Government. They are very suspicious of politicians. They are definitely and frankly cynical with reference to the various promises that have been made to them, and this unfortunate frame of mind, I believe, has been engendered in them by the irrational speeches of various politicians, and by over-statements of the description which have today been indulged in by the hon. member for Pinetown. Listening to the hon. member for Pinetown, any unbiased judge who would have to reach a decision, could only come to one possible conclusion, and that is that the Pensions Act in this country is rotten, and that it is being administered by a crowd of nitwits who have no possible consideration at all for the soldier. That was the impression I got from the hon. member’s speech. He has spent a very considerable amount of time going over one particular case, one particular case which I feel, with all due deference we have not heard all about yet. But the impression given any unbiassed soldiers would be that the South African Pensions Act is a very bad Pensions Act, and that it is being administered by a crowd of very unsympathetic nitwits, whose chief idea seems to be, in the words of the hon. member, balancing the budget rather than looking after the soldier.

May I rise to a point of personal explanation. I was quoting from a letter circulated to members of this House by Col. Morris.

I gather that the hon. member agreed with Col. Morris. It often occurs that it is the thoughts of other people with which he is in entire agreement. Is the hon. member in agreement with this statement? The answer, Mr. Speaker, is silence, and in this instance we must assume that it implies consent. The fact of the matter is that the existing Pensions Act was placed on the statute book with the entire agreement of the three political parties which support this Government. It was an entirely agreed measure, and it was admitted at the time that the Act was passed that we had in this Act the best Pensions Act in the world. The hon. member when challenged by the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter) more or less agreed that the alternative pension in the Pensions Act is the thing which makes the South African Pensions Act better than the Pensions Acts of the other countries which form today the United Nations. It is because of this growing tendency to hold out glowing promises to the soldiers, and more so because of the suggestions made in so many speechs, that the soldiers are being badly treated and are going to be badly treated, that I am going to depart from an attitude which has been a guiding principle of mine in this House, and vote against the formation of a Select Committee. As you know, Sir, in many other cases I have suggested that the House should do the work of the country, but it does appear that so much suspicion has been engendered in the minds of the soldiers, so much has been made of various anomalous cases that have arisen — cases with which I and my party have the fullest Possible sympathy — so much has been made of these cases, and so little had been made of the otherwise beneficent operations of the Pensions Act, that I feel in this case a certain amount of responsibility for any amendment should be placed on the shoulders of the soldiers’ organisations, so that they will have some say in what is being done. It may appear that I am being unnecessarily severe, not particularly on the hon. member for Pinetown, but unnecessarily severe on a point of view which in this country is having more and more weight, but just to prove my point let me deal for a moment or two with the speech of the hon. member for Pinetown. Whether he did say some of the things he said in cold blood, I do not know, but he did make one or two astonishing, statements. Let me enter my most earnest objection to the attempt he did make on three separate occasions to engender into the minds of members of this House some idea that there was a difference in the procedure on the part of the Pensions Board between the wife of the Colonel and the Mother of the private soldier. I do not know who are the gentlemen who comprise the Military Pensions Board, but I am satisfied that any opinion he expressed on the procedure or machinery of the Pensions Board is really in respect of differentiation made under the Act. I think the hon. member for Pinetown did a disservice to his case, to the members of the U.D.F. and particularly to his party by suggesting that a state of affairs exists in this country whereunder a colonel’s wife receives particular consideration, whereas the mother of a private or a sergeant does not. Whether the hon. member knows his Pensions Act or not I am not in a position to say, but he was in any case wandering very far afield when he made this particular suggestion, because the hon. member ought to know that the pension which accrues to a widow in the case of her husband being killed in action, is a pension laid down specifically in the Pensions Act. That widow gets that fixed sum, or else she gets an alternative pension, which is based on her husband’s pre-war earnings. There is no question whether the widow is living in penury or whether she is an heiress. That pension is definitely laid down in specified figures, or at any rate the method of computing it is prescribed in the Pensions Act. But in the case of a mother she must, and I believe quite rightly, she must prove that she was dependent upon the deceased soldier before a pension is granted. That is the Act; and why the hon. member should deduce, because in the case of the colonel’s widow who is entitled under language in the Act to the grant of a pension, and in the case of the mother of the deceased soldier she had to undergo questioning or investigation in accordance with the provisions of the Act—why he should deduce from that that the colonel’s widow was receiving some particular consideration because she was a colonel’s widow and that the private’s mother was not receiving consideration because she was a private’s mother, I do not know. There is a provision that she must prove her dependency to the Minister. How can she prove her dependence if she is dumb? Incidentally that brings me to the point that when the hon. member receives a reply from the Minister, which he quoted in extenso, which stated that the Military Pensions Board had no information as to the amount of civil allotment paid to this lady by her two sons, he seemed to argue that it was because the military had not made sufficient enquiries that that information was not obtained; but he also told us that he spent three hours conducting the case on appeal. Surely it was the hon. member for Pinetown’s duty if he spent three hours at the hearing of that appeal, to prove that these particular allotments had been made.

That was the point I made.

Why ask the question subsequently when you yourself had proved the point? You were in charge of the appeal. Then, Sir, there is a subsequent case. I have the fullest sympathy with the case in question. I am rather sorry that the hon. member should bring cases of that description on to the floor of the House, cases which require careful and exhausting examination. I think he could have dealt better with the matter otherwise, because obviously he rather hindered us in some respects. More perhaps might be said of the attitude of the Board. Because of our sympathy for the lady in question, we must not forget that she is now being paid an annuity of £50 a year, that she is getting a pension of £105 from the military authorities, that she has money invested in a building society, and that she bought a house for £600 during the period of the war. These are the facts which the hon. member himself admits.

There is more still; that is not the whole story.

That is all he admits, and I can assure him I can quote him cases which financially at least are a great deal worse off than that.

Two wrongs do not make a right.

I am not saying that they do. My whole point is that single cases are being quoted not only in connection with pensions but in many other connections, in order to give members of the U.D.F. an idea that we have the worst treated army in the world, that the Government is not to be trusted, and that no component part of it is to be trusted. We can understand that kind of stuff coming from the Nationalist Party, and they do not indulge in it nearly as much as some of the members who are ostensibly supporting the Government. The Labour Party is sincerely interested in the soldier. The Labour Party’s interest in the soldier is not an interest in stumping the country and in saying: “We did it.” We do not care who did it or who is entitled to the credit, but we will support the rights of the soldier and we will not go round the country afterwards to say that if it had not been for us they would not have got them. That is a policy of prostituting the rights of the soldier for political ends; it is a policy we have never followed, and we do not propose to follow that policy now. The hon. member for Pinetown has nailed his colours to the mast and has told us that parents should get the maximum pension, which is £120 a year in the case of one son or daughter killed, and £180 in the case of two—that parents should get the maximum pension irrespective of the economic conditions of the parents. In other words, if there are parents whose son of twenty or twenty-tone is killed and the father is earning £10,000 a year—let us not make it so high but between £2,000 and £4,000, and there are many parents in this country earning that—automatically that parent should get this £120 or £180 as the case may be. The Labour Party and myself are very loth at any time to object to anybody getting any money, particularly when they are getting it out of the Government, but I do feel that is not commonsense. It is completely impracticable. You have a position, Mr. Speaker, of a man who has remained a bachelor till he is 28 or 30 years of age, who may not have been staying with his parents for many years, who in no way has supported them at any time, who in many instances possibly has not been in communication with them, and yet because he is killed the hon. member for Pinetown says that automatically, and by right, either the mother or the father should receive this pension. Supposing the mother is dead and the father is earning £60 or £80 a month, he must get this pension of £120 or £180 a year, as the case may be, because his son has been killed. Is the hon. member for Pinetown now advocating a policy of blood money; because that is what appears to me to be the case here, and it is here that I want to enter an earnest appeal to the Minister of Finance to abolish once and for all the £13 per annum pension, because that £13 cannot be looked upon in any other way than a meagre blood token given to the parent because the child has been killed. It is no use as far as the parent is concerned, and I cannot for the life of me understand why I did not object more strenuously when the original Act was introduced, but it has caused more dissatisfaction in this country than anything else I know. You hear people say: “What do you think; so-and-so’s son was killed and the Government has given her a lousy £13 pension.” Not knowing, of course, that that £13 means that it has been proved, or should have been proved, that the parents had never at any time been dependent on the son, so it is only a token payment which represents at the very best a form of blood money.

It is only for sons under 21 years of age.

Yes, and many people, of course, refuse to accept it; and in other cases it has caused a considerable amount of dissatisfaction, and I am sure the Minister will be in line with thoughtful opinion if he abolishes it in the amendments to the Act, which I hope he will introduce this session. Now, the hon. member for Pinetown wants all these people who get £13 per year to get £120 per year.

I did not ask for that.

Well, in 90 per cent. of the cases.

I did not say that either.

Well, that is a very low estimate. I hesitate to say it, but I believe that we have to use a little political courage and I am going to say now, just as the hon. member for Pinetown can advance cases in this House to show that the Pensions Board is unsympathetic, that a number of people have been unsympathetically treated—I can advance a large number of cases of people who to my knowledge have been trying to swing the lead, people who have made the gravest misstatements in order to get something out of the Pensions Board. I know of people who have tried to get into the Army, who have actually got in and have only been there for a short time, and when they come out sick and ill they have tried to get a pension for themselves, and they make more noise than the genuine cases. So the Board has to try and keep some balance. It is all very well to come to this House and to try and find public favour and say : “Give everyone a pension”—but it does not do. Now, let us come to this question, and it is a question in which an otherwise sound organisation goes astray. The hon. member talked about the Housewives League. I don’t know what it is, or what its membership is, or how much weight it carries.

It is the home front league.

Have you spoken to your wife lately?

No, nor to yours. But they are one of the organisations who have said that there should be no differentiation in the pension provisions for the volunteers serving outside the Union, and those inside the Union. All I have to say about that is that had that provision been portion of our Pensions Act at the outbreak of war, or had it been understood that that provision might subsequently be made portion of our Pensions Act, then between 30,000 and 40,000 men would never have been signed on in the U.D.F. It would have been impossible for the State in the existing circumstances to contract that liability, because we have signed on men during this war and are still signing them on not only in the A.l category —men up to 42 years of age—but we have signed on men up to 59 years of age; we have signed them on in B and C medical categories—right up to C.5. The man who was signed on in the C.5 category was not in a very good state of health, and if the hon. member for Pinetown suggests that a man of 59 years going into a recruiting office and being classified as C.5 should be treated in the same way as the man who is A.1 and is sent out of the Union on active service— well, it’s beyond me. A man of 58 or 59 years of age, C.5, usually joins up to do a bit of orderly duty or things of that kind. And to expect that on his death—which may take place at any time—his widow should get a pension on the same scale as the widow of a man who is on active service and gets killed at the front, well, it is just ridiculous. A man like that runs no risk of any kind. He, in joining the army, probably takes on a better job than he has ever had outside. So why should one now say that simply because a man has signed on under those circumstances his widow must get a pension? All these organisations such as the Housewives League want everyone to get a pension when the husband dies. Well, we as the Labour Party, are with them. That is what should be done, but the man who went along at 56, 57 or 58 and who died in normal circumstances, who died the death he would have died, whether he was in the Army or not, should not fall in the same category as the man who signed on A.l and who was killed up North. It simply cannot be done. It would have been impossible to have signed that class of man on, and it was very necessary in the war effort to sign them on, but strictly speaking, he was not doing any military duty at all. He was doing in the Union a class of duty which you could classify as a civilian form of military duty. There was no danger of his having to fight. He was exercising his ability to do jobs in the Union. And if these provisions had been laid down—if it had been laid down that his wife was to have a full pension, it would have been impossible to sign these men on. And that is what should be borne in mind. I could quote cases myself where men have died of what can only be regarded as natural causes, and claims have been put forward by the widows for pensions, whereas had these men been in civilian jobs no such claims would ever have been dreamt of. And yet some form of grant has been made to them. I am going to support wholeheartedly the amendment of the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter) but I want to ask the Minister to give consideration to some very important amendments of the Act. I also want to say that I still believe, as I did when the Act was passed, that we have the best Act of all the United Nations and while we are going to pass these amendments I hope at the same time we shall emphasise to the members of the U.D.F., that the House did its duty and did it very well when it passed the last Act, that all our sympathies are with the members of the U.D.F. and that anomalies which have occurred are anomalies which have occurred beyond our control, and possibly beyond the control of the original framers of the Act, and of the men who are called upon to administer it. I think a good deal of relief could be given if the provisions of the Rhodesian Act quoted by the hon. member for Springs were incorporated in our Act. I also think something additional should be done for the young man who has joined the army before he has had any real earning capacity. I do not think he is properly treated today. The man who had an earning capacity before the war, is fairly well treated in the alternative award, but the youngsters, who constitute almost the majority of our fighting forces, the youngsters who left school without any earning capacity, should be more generously provided for. Because where he meets with an injury which may affect him in his civil life, his capacity to earn is affected—and that capacity would have been an extending one, and so some further provision should be made for him. And I want to suggest that this £13 blood money provision should be done away with, once and for all. I think that would meet with very great satisfaction so far as the mothers and fathers are concerned. I am thankful, though, to the hon. member for Pinetown for bringing this motion before the House. I can assure him that his interest in the soldiers, the discharged soldiers and their dependants, is an interest which is looked upon as very sincere, and it is an interest in respect of which he can always call upon the Labour Party for its collaboration. But I think the time has come when we should make our statements in regard to returned soldiers with a little more care than has been the case in the past. We have quite enough divisions already without the various parties endeavouring to create additional divisions on the lines of ex-soldiers and those who have not been soldiers. That is a division which we should be careful to avoid. The soldiers should get a square deal of course. We can discuss intelligently in this House what is best for the soldiers, and in these discussions the soldiers will undoubtedly gain something worth while. But in the meantime I think we are doing a disservice to him and the country, and we are making it more difficult for the country, if we continue to breed in the soldier’s mind the idea that the Government or the House of Assembly is not doing anything for him, and that he will be unfairly treated. If I sense the temper of the House correctly it is the other way round. This is a House which will play the game by the soldier, and which will see that the promises made are upheld. When we talk about certain disabilities of the soldiers we should make it clear what is being done for the soldier and for his dependants.

We are discussing today a matter in which the sympathies of all right thinking members of this House are very naturally engaged. I am sure, however, that we shall all agree that it is important that we should approach this matter in the right way. If we do approach it in the right way then the result of this debate must be of value to those who have endured and are enduring personal sacrifices on our behalf, and to their dependants. I must say that I agree with hon. members who have spoken in their view that the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwcik) however laudable his motives have been, has not approached the subject in entirely the right way—his approach has not been a happy one—it has been destructive rather than constructive. He has been very anxious to criticise the officials who constitute the Military Pensions Board. As is common with him he has resorted to wide generalisations going much further than the facts and he has overstated his case.

He has quoted facts all right.

Yes, but he has drawn inferences further than the facts justify. He has talked of the autocracy of the Board, of the Board having practised economy at the expense of fair play, he has said that it is as difficult to get justice from the Board as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Obviously these statements are gravely exaggerated. Now the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter) in his amendment has criticised the motion on two lines, and I think he has rightly criticised the motion. First he has pointed out that the procedure suggested by the hon. member for Pinetown in his motion is, having regard to the circumstances, not likely to be a very effective procedure. It is, of course, not the fault of the hon. member for Pinetown that his motion comes at a late stage of the Session, but the fact is there and we have reached a stage of the Session when the procedure suggested by him, the appointment of a select committee, is not likely to be very helpful. That is the one criticism of the hon. member for Springs. The other is that the hon. member for Pinetown has concentrated only on one side of the question. It is true that after having moved his motion as a single barrelled motion, the hon. member in his remarks on the motion, apparently realising that he had been taking too narrow a view, did talk of the amendment of the law as necessary, but the motion which we have before us deals only with the administration of the military pensions law by the Military Pensions Board. Of course the Military Pensions Board does not really administer the Act, it is the Pensions Department which administers the Act, but let that pass. The real point I want to make is that in performing its function, in the deciding of claims, the Military Pensions Board is bound by the law. Now, the honmember for Pinetown was so anxious to attack the Military Pensions Board that he did not take adequate account of the limitations under which the Pensions Board has to work. The hon. member for Springs is quite right. The difficulties which exist today do not spring merely from the administration of the law, they spring to some extent from the law itself. I am certainly not going to claim that our present law in regard to war pensions is perfect. But it is a very considerable improvement on the law as it existed when the war began. It has been improved year by year. I have sometimes been criticised for introducing amendments every year. I think that has been happening in practically every belligerent country, but our laws have been improved year by year. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) in his frank, discriminating and courageous speech, reassured the House and the country as to the general quality and character of our law, as compared with those of other countries. When we passed it two years ago we had the right to say that it was the best law of its kind in the world. Since then we have improved it, other countries have also improved theirs. The hon. member for Fordsburg is probably right in saying that it is still the best law in the world, but even so I do not claim it is perfect, and I do not say that it does not require further amendment. It is, of course, also true that improvements can be made in the machinery through which the law is carried out and in the administration of the law. I accept that too. I accept that, though I have the greatest admiration and appreciation of the sympathetic and conscientious manner in which the Commissioner of Pensions and his staff are carrying out their duties in the present difficult circumstances. But the point I am making is that this matter has to be approached along two lines—there is the question of administration and there is the question of legislation. Now, the amendment seeks to approach this matter along those two lines, and it is along those two lines that I have myself for some time been seeking to approach the matter. But before I come to that side of the case I think I should perhaps refer a little more in detail to the motion of the hon. member for Pinetown and to some of the things he said in support of his motion. In his motion he has, apart from an omnibus clause at the end referred to four types of cases in regard to which particular enquiries should be made. I think I should say a word about these four types of cases. Firstly, he has referred to the case in which a parent has been awarded £13 per annum by the Military Pensions Board in respect of a son or daughter killed while in the army; what does the law say?

It says that a parent can only be awarded a pension for the death of a deceased volunteer in one of two sets of circumstances— either there must be established the parent’s dependence on the deceased volunteer. (That means actual dependence, not the fact that the man contributed.) Or, alternatively, there must be established the inability of the parents to support themselves owing to age or infirmity, and the fact that they are in pecuniary need. Now, one of these things must be established before the right to a parent’s pension accrues. But the law goes further. The law also provides for a payment of £13 per annum in other cases. That is not a pension—it is described in the law as an allowance. Now, I agree with the hon. member for Fordsburg that the provision in the law, which was a very well meant provision, has given rise to a great deal of difficulty. At the same time I am very loath to take anything away that has been given and I am not anxious to remove that clause from our law. It does serve a useful purpose. It is appreciated by many parents who use that money in order to enable them to make some small provision to keep the memory of those they have lost green, but it has another administrative function in that it does provide the machinery for establishing the claim of those parents to a pension in the event of their circumstances subsequently altering and their coming within the scope of entitlement for a parent pension. On that ground I am not prepared to delete that clause. But now I come back to the hon. member for Pinetown. I cannot see how the Military Pensions Board is open to criticism because it awards that allowance. It is simply acting in terms of the law and there is this striking feature, that of the 771 cases of parents who have been awarded an allowance of £13 only six have appealed. There have been only six cases of appeals. It is not a fact that only two per cent. of the parents have been successful. Only six have appealed and two were successful—but of the 771 cases only six were not satisfied. All the others apparently accepted the decision.

That is not the case.

I can only give the facts, even if the hon. member does not like that.

You are giving me your opinion, not the facts.

Then the next point which the hon. member raised is in regard to Section 17. I think I should read what he says in his motion. He refers to the cases in which no pension under Section 17 of the War Pensions Act has been granted by the Military Pensions Board in respect of the loss of a husband, wife, son or daughter, who has been killed or died while serving in the army, or in which no sufficient relief has been granted. That, of course, is a fairly wide statement, but it was clear from the hon. member’s speech what was the point to which he was referring and here, again, it is the question of the law and not of the wrong use of discretion by the Pensions Board. The hon. member referred to the fact that under the law the widow of a volunteer who dies outside the Union is entitled to a pension, whatever the cause of death, whether connected with military service or not. But in the case of a volunteer, who dies within the Union, connection between the cause of death and military service must be established. The hon. member for Fordsburg, if I may say so, has dealt very well with that aspect, but I just want to put it in its proper perspective, and I am going to do so in my own words. I might perhaps be regarded as prejudiced as the defender of the existing law. I have here a report which has recently been sent to me by the Governor-General’s War Fund. I asked the Executive of that Board to give me their views on the pension problem and they are in the position to give useful information in regard to that, and in this memorandum which has the approval of the National Executive Committee of the Fund, this particular question is dealt with. Now, I am going to read the statement in this memorandum dealing with this point. It sets it out extremely well—

And then the report goes on—

And then it goes on again—

It was a concession made to those who actually bore the heat of the day outside the Union. And then the report goes on—

I won’t weary the House with those anomalies. I shall go on with the next paragraph—

That, Sir, is the memorandum accepted by the National Committee of the Governor-General’s War Fund. In the following paragraph of that memorandum—I shall not read it—the suggestion is made that in certain respects the present position could be amended; and I would like to say that in regard to, those particular matters—and one is a type of case to which the hon. member for Pinetown referred—I think we shall be able to meet the position in the amended law of which I have already given notice. I refer to the type of case where a man has contracted a disease outside the Union and is then brought back to the Union and dies here. I think we shall be able to meet that particular case. But I entirely agree with what is stated in this memorandum that you could not simply wipe out altogether that discrimination which is made. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) has quite correctly pointed out that we have not recruited just an Al army; we have recruited an army over all the ranges from Al to C6.

But the C6 man is also entitled to live.

He is also entitled to live, but it does not follow that we should take exactly the same liability in respect of a man whom you recruited merely for the performing of, say, clerical duties in the Union as you take for the man who goes up North and faces the hazards of battle.

What about the Al man who is on parade and contracts pneumonia and subsequently dies in hospital?

That depends entirely whether or not the disease is attributable to military service. But the hon. member for Fordsburg is quite correct; if we had in our law the provision which some people would have wished us to have in the law, well, 30 per cent. or 40 per cent. of the people whom we took we would not have been able to take. Then the hon. member in paragraph (c) of his motion—I think he referred to this sub-paragraph in his speech only in passing, and I am not sure whether I understood him correctly—he referred to cases of men discharged from the army through tuberculosis or other permanent disabilities and unable to work who have endured months of privation and in certain cases have died before any pension was awarded by the Military Pensions Board. The standing direction with regard to such tubercular cases is that the Military Pensions Board must be communicated with before release is effected. There have been cases where a pension has not become payable until some time after discharge, but those have been cases where those people have been receiving hospital allowances at the rate of 100 per cent. of the pension. In that case surely there is no hardship. I do not know if the hon. member has any other cases in mind, but on the face of it I cannot from my knowledge bear out the correctness of the suggestion in this motion.

I put certain questions in regard to those cases.

My answer to those questions shows that where the pensions had become payable after discharge the persons concerned had been receiving a hospital allowance.

And there were a large number in which no allowance of any kind was paid except by charitable institutions.

I do not know of any such cases. Then in paragraph (d) the hon. member in effect comes back to the same point, although a different aspect of it, as he dealt with in paragraph (a) He refers to cases in which a mother or father has been granted less than the maximum pension of £180 per annum by the Military Pensions Board in respect of two sons killed on active service, or less than the maximum of £120 in respect of one son killed. I can only infer, like the hon. member for Fordsburg, that what the hon. member for Pinetown wants is that in all cases parents should as of right receive the maximum amount. I have already indicated what the law is today. The law does not treat the parents in the same way as the law treats the widow. The law of this country—and I think I am correct in saying that in this regard the same principle is followed in all other countries— the law discriminates between the liability of the son and the liability of the husband. It discriminates between the extent of the State’s liability in the case of the widow and the State’s liability in the case of the parent. In the case of the widow the pension is payable as of right; in the case of the parent the pension is only payable in certain circumstances. In that connection the hon. member has raised a certain case in which he has suggested that the Military Pensions Board in this case, supported by the Appeal Board, awarded a pension which he thinks is inadequate to a certain lady, a lady of whose family I happen to know something and who undoubtedly has my sincere sympathy. But what are the facts? This lady has a house which I am informed is valued at £800, unencumbered. My hon. friend says the house is valued at £600, but my information is £800. She has £500 invested with the Building Society. She has an annuity of £50; she has a miner’s phthisis pension of £64 and she has a war pension in respect of the last war of £46, and in addition to that the Military Pensions Board, supported by the Appeal Board has given her a pension of £105. Hon. members, of course, may differ in their opinions as to whether the award has been generous enough but I think we ought to have all the facts before us before we condemn the Military Pensions Board for its action in this particular case, and we did not have all the facts before us in the speech of the hon. member.

I had all the facts.

The hon. member may have had all the facts but unfortunately he did not give the House all the facts. The hon. member for Fordsburg gave what he thought were the full facts based on the speech of the hon. member for Pinetown. But in addition to that this lady is in receipt of two pensions amounting to £110 per annum. When one has all these facts before one I think at the least one will not be swept away quite as readily as one might have been otherwise by the representations of the hon. member in this particular instance. The hon. member for Fordsburg has dealt very well with this aspect of the matter, but I must also revert to what the hon. member for Pinetown said in regard to the discrimination between the corporal and the sergeant on the one side and the colonel on the other side. I do not want to say it is typical of the way in which these things are sometimes presented to the House, but it does give one an unhappy feeling. The hon. member draws a comparison between the widow of the colonel and the mother of the sergeant and of the corporal. He might have drawn exactly the same comparison between the widow of the corporal and the mother of the corporal or the widow of the colonel and the mother of the colonel. The distinction is not a distinction of rank, but is a distinction of relationship. We give a pension in the case of widows as of right; in the case of parents we give a pension subject to qualifications. In the case of widows we make no distinction in determining the amount according to rank except in so far as the law does that.

Some widows only get £180.

There would have been exactly the same examination of the financial circumstances of the mother of a colonel as there was of the financial circumstances of the mother of a sergeant or a corporal. I do hope that this impression is not going to get abroad in this country that in the administration of the law distinctions of this kind are made. Because these is a discrimination in the law between the widow and the parent, the hon. member has presented it in such a way that people think that we make a distinction between the case of a sergeant and the case of a colonel, and that is entirely wrong.

There is no provision in the law for a means test for a mother.

There is a provision in the law that in the case of the parents of any soldier, be he corporal or colonel account must be taken of the fact of dependence and the facts of financial need.

The law says the pension must depend on her dependence, and the dependence is that wholly or in part she must have been dependent on him in his life time.

The law says that parents’ pensions may only be given in one or two sets of circumstances, either dependence or inbality to be self-supporting and pecuniary need. In other words there is provision and that provision is applied in exactly the same way and in exactly the same spirit whatever the rank of the deceased ex-volunteer may have been. So much for the points raised specifically in the hon. member’s motion. May I now deal with one or two other matters which have been raised by him and by others. In the first place, the hon. member made some criticisms of our medical officers. Well, I think I should say in fairness that nearly all our medical officers today have had military service. I think that point should be made. Then he has talked of delay in dealing with pension cases. I am not going to deny that there has been delay, but I would like to repeat that the Pensions Department, like every other department and more so than most departments, has been struggling under a tremendous load with inadequate staff. I have done my best to enable that department to get the necessary staff, but it has been extremely difficult for it to keep abreast of its work, and while I admit that there has been delay, I hope that the House will regard that as a ground for sympathising with the department rather than for condemning it. Then the hon. member suggested that the department runs the Military Pensions Branch of its work with a view to balancing the Budget. I do not think that is a fair suggestion.

I quoted that opinion.

Apparently with approval.

I expressed no views on it.

At any rate, whether it is the hon. member’s opinion or not, that statement has been made that the Pensions Department is run with a view to balancing the Budget. I do want to dispel that opinion. Let me just point out this fact. Year after year I have had to come to this House with additional estimates, asking for a large amount of additional money for war pensions. If this department had been run with a view to balancing the Budget, they would have conducted their affairs so as to come out within the orginal limitations of the Parliamentary appropriation. That has not been so. Year after year I have had to come here and ask for additional funds. It has been suggested that the Treasury is not a suitable department for running war pensions. My own feeling is that the department which runs civil pensions should also run war pensions, and in my experience I would say that the fact that a department is a Treasury Department may rather be a reason for its getting more money than for its getting less money. Then we have had the question raised of the onus of proof. We have had reference made to the Rhodesian law. May I just say in that connection that there is nothing in the Rhodesian Act which fixes the onus of proof on the Department. That provision is made in a regulation. My information is that considerable difficulty has been experienced in Rhodesia in the administration of the regulation and the latest advice that I have is that they were considering an amendment of the regulation in Rhodesia. But in any case let us not forget that in Rhodesia they have been recruiting an army definitely for service outside the country and that their medical standards have therefore been a good deal higher than ours. The question has also been raised in regard to the British system under the new White Paper. The hon. member has referred in part to what that system is. Perhaps I might read the whole of the provision of the White Paper in that connection—

And that is exactly the position in South Africa. It is the duty of the Pensions Department to reach a decision based on the impartial review of all the evidence.

Will you read on what it says?

It goes on to say—

and this my hon. friend did not read—

The position in this country is that it is the duty of the Department to reach a decision based on an impartial review of all the evidence. I sympathise with the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) when he says that it should not be a matter of opinion whether a soldier or his dependants are entitled to a pension or not. It would be so easy if you could have a plain objective test in all these matters. It just cannot be done. You can restrict the field of opinion as far as possible and naturally one is anxious to do so, but ultimately you must be left with a field and a wide field in regard to which judgments must be arrived at on the basis of opinions formed as a result of an impartial review of all the evidence. I am afraid that the ideal which the hon. member for Woodstock has set himself is not an attainable ideal. I said earlier in my speech that I have for some time been approaching this matter along two lines, the two lines indicated by the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter). In doing so I have had the assistance of the members of the party who sit in this House behind me and in particular of the group of members to which the hon. member for Woodstock has referred. I have also had the assistance of soldiers’ organisations—the South African Legion of the British Empire Service League, which has given the most sustained and most detailed consideration to pension questions. Before the Session commenced the Legion submitted to me certain representations in regard to the amendment of the law. Likewise, also before the Session commenced although only I had left Pretoria, before the hon. member for Pinetown gave notice of his motion, the Legion addressed to me two letters, one raising various points in regard to the application and interpretation of the law and another dealing with the machinery through which the law is applied, more especially the composition of the Board, and particularly the composition of the Military Pensions Appeal Board which is really the most important Board in this connection. In view of the importance of the issues raised in that correspondence I asked representatives of the Legion to come and discuss the matters which had been broached in those letters with me in Cape Town. They were good enough to do so. The result was a frank discussion which I think was accepted as valubale and helpful on both sides. As a result action is being taken along three lines. The first is in regard to the organisation, the composition of the Military Pensions Appeal Board. The hon. member for Springs very rightly emphasised the fact that it was a mistake to concentrate as the motion does on the Military Pensions Board. Beyond that you have the Military Pensions Appeal Board, and beyond that still you have the Special Pensions Board. The representatives of the Legion have urged that the composition of the Military Pensions Appeal Board, which I say again is the most important of all those bodies, should be improved. That can be done without legislation, and I am proposing to take steps to change the composition of the Military Pensions Appeal Board. At present the Appeal Board consists of a barrister as Chairman, of a nominee of the soldiers’ organisations and of a representative of the Treasury. It has been felt that on a Board like this there should not be a representative of the Treasury, and it is therefore proposed—and this is based on the discussions with the representatives of the Legion, based on the agreement arrived at— that the Board should consist of an advocate of the Supreme Court of at least ten years’ standing, if possible with military experience, as Chairman and of two members of high standing and with military experience as the remaining members of the Board. No nominee of the soldiers’ organisations nor a representative of the Treasury would then have a seat on the Board. But the Pensions Office will consult the soldiers’ organisations in connection with the appointment of members of the Board. I feel that in that way we will get a Board which will be an entirely independent Board and which will be entirely above reproach.

Would you consider the appointment of a soldier on the Military Pensions Board?

No, I do not think that is necessary. The Appeal Board is the most important Board, and there it has been agreed that we shall have no representatives either of the soldiers or of the Department, but we shall have an entirely independent Board. The representatives of the soldiers and of the Treasury may state their case to the Board but they will then haVe to withdraw when the matter is considered. Then secondly on the question of administration and interpretation of the law which had been raised by the Legion, it has been agreed that after the session there will be appointed an independent Committee to go into these matters. That committee will also be entirely independent of the Treasury and of the Pensions Office. I have not yet reached the stage of deciding on the membership, but I have no doubt that the membership will be such as to give genuine satisfaction. I assure the House that my only object in appointing this Committee will be to secure a thorough and impartial examination of the whole position. The third point is in regard to legislation. When I first saw the representatives of the Legion I indicated that I was contemplating amending legislation to the War Pension Enactments, and I asked them to give their views as to the points in regard to which legislation was necessary, pending such investigation on the administrative side as I proposed. [Time limit.] I thank the House for its courtesy. I shall not detain the House for longer than another two or three minutes. I say the discussion on the question of legislation led to happy and fruitful results, and these are embodied in the Pensions Bill which this House read a first time today. I do not intend therefore, as that Bill will shortly be before the House, to touch on its provisions; but I would repeat that we have been working along these three lines: First, a changed composition of the Military Pensions Appeal Board; second, an investigation of the administration and interpretation of the law; and third, the legislative amendments which I have foreshadowed. That then is the position and in view of what I have said there will not be much doubt as to where I stand as between the motion and the amendment. I have already indicated that I do not agree with the approach of the hon. member for Pinetown to the subject. On the other hand I do agree that this matter should be dealt with along the two-fold lines indicated in the amendment. I agree that there should be an investigation, and I intend to take steps to arrange for the investigation, and I agree that the law should be amended in certain respects, and I have already introduced amending legislation. I hope sincerely that as a result of this approach substantial progress will be made in dealing with what is undoubtedly a very difficult and complicated problem.

I would like to say at the outset that the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) is quite prepared to accept the amendment moved by the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter). We are most grateful to him for that, because we feel that our purpose may be served by his amendment, but I would also like to urge upon the Minister the necessity of appointing a soldier of this war to the Military Pensions Board and a soldier as a member of the Military Pensions Appeal Board. We do feel that that is very necessary, and I feel sure that the soldiers throughout the whole Union would be most gratified if that was done and they were made aware that their interests will in that way be properly looked after. I would have liked to deal with a number of matters that have been raised in this debate, but I realise that my time is very limited, and I shall therefore have to deal with one or two matters only. There are only two matters to which I would like to draw the attention of the House. It is very illuminating and most interesting to find a representative of the Labour Party, the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) informing this House and through this House the army and the country that all is well with our Military Pensions Acts, that there is very little to complain about. That this motion introduced by the hon. member for Pinetown is putting forward schemes that are not practicable, that the hon. member overstated the case and that he is one of those unthinking politicians who are stirring up trouble in the army amongst the soldiers. That is certainly something new coming from the Labour Party who for the past 30 years have been making the most extravagant demands upon the country, promises that they knew they were not able to fulfil and at a time when they were not capable of fulfilment, and it is surprising to find these statements emanating from an irresponsible member of the Labour Party and then to find the hon. Minister practically in the same camp and the hon. member and the Minister scratching each other’s back.

Order, order! The hon. member must withdraw that personal remark.

I am sure the soldiers ….

The hon. member must withdraw that remark.

Well, should we say that we are surprised to find this mutual admiration. When the hon. the Minister states there were only six cases that went to appeal out of several hunderds, I should like to tell him in most of these cases that have come before the Military Pensions Board the dependants who are chiefly women, are rarely represented. They have no knowledge of the difficulties in connection with these cases, and if they are not taken to appeal the Minister must not tell the House that they are satisfied. The amount of work involved in taking a case to the Appeal Board is terrific, and very often it is said: “It is no good taking the case to appeal, and we will drop it.” A good purpose has been served by the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) in bringing forward this matter to the House and getting the Government more or less to accept it in principle, if not in detail. I feel sure that the country will derive a tremendous amount of service from the action of the hon. member for Pinetown, and although we have had support from the Government benches it is regrettable that the spokesman of the Labour Party has found it necessary to throw a spanner in the wheel and ridicule the hon. member for Pinetown, and to have as much as told us that the hon. member was not justified in bringing a motion of this kind before the House. I should like to say that I have had considerable experience with the Pensions Board, and I must say that when the hon. member for Pintetown, who has dealt probably with more cases than all the other members of Parliament put together, does express the view, with feeling, that there is some justification for the complaints he has made against the two Boards, we cannot blame him. I have appealed to the Minister to try and separate these two departments. The Pensions Department is grossly overworked, and the delay in regard to all pensions, old age pensions as well as military pensions, is too exasperating for the public, I am not prepared to blame the Pensions Department for that, but I blame the Minister for not enabling the departments to be staffed as they ought to be, so that quick decisions can be arrived at, and so that people may derive the benefits they are entitled to under the Pensions Act. I should like to touch on three cases that come to my mind. A young sailor joined the South African Navy, and after being out of South Africa for some weeks, he was blown to smithereens near Colombo. His little ship was bombed by the Japanese Air Force, and the lad was blown to pieces. The mother of that boy gets no pension whatever. She has given her son to South Africa, and he met his death in a terrible way. She receives no pension because her husband is earning something like £5 or £6 a week. It may, it is true, be possible for that mother to get a pension, a matter of £13 a year. I do say that the majority of people and the majority of members of this House are not satisfied with the State of affairs like that being in existence. Let me quote another case like that, particularly as the Minister has mentioned that in the new legislation he contemplates endeavouring to get over the difficulty of volunteers contracting a disease outside South Africa and passing away when they return to the Union. Let me quote from a letter I received the other day in connection with the Military Pensions Board— the letter reads—

I do not want to go any further with this letter on account of my time being limited, but I should like to ask the Minister in drafting legislation to make provision for cases of this kind—where volunteers leave the country, go up North, contract some disease there, return to the Union still full of that disease, and then die. Whether it was directly the cause of his death or not, that man’s health had been seriously injured by him having contracted that disease, and provision should be made in amending legislation to cover cases of that description. All these men are volunteers; none of them are conscripts. They have all given their lives for their country, and South Africa is prepared to give these men and their dependants a fair and square deal, and does not want to let their mothers and their wives to be made to live on charity. Those are the cases the hon. member for Pinetown has been enabled by this motion to bring to the notice of the Minister and the department, and I feel absolutely certain that nothing but good can arise out of, this motion, and that the volunteers will again be able to thank the Minister for another measure that will bring some relief to many hundreds of cases that unfortunately cannot be dealt with under the present legislation.

Might I deal, Sir, with the construction of the Military Pensions Board. It is quite a wrong approach to the matter to refer to a case as being settled on the recommendation of the Military Pensions Board. The Board speaks for the Minister. In other words, it must be officials and not Government servants who advise the Minister. The last Military Pensions Board had on it not just one ex-serviceman, but ex-servicemen were represented by four members. The Chief Military Pensions Officer is himself a colonel. The present Commissioner of Pensions is a serviceman, Maj. Perry, and another member is Capt. Macintosh. Four out of the five members of this Pensions Board are military men. The point that is being directed against the Board is the discretion they exercise in accepting or repudiating claims. There I do feel some greater latitude will have to be allowed in order to permit these sympathetic administrative officials to advise the Minister more in the terms they would like to do on the evidence produced before them. We were told last year that they could only act on evidence, but it was difficult for the claimants to bring that evidence. “I would rather this evidence had been brought to us in the first instance,” the Board would tell an applicant, “then there would have been no question about it.” The Minister will have to find a way of allowing these members of the Board to use more discretion. Another suspicion that fell on the Board— not on this Board but on the last Board— arose through there having been some hundreds or thousands of pensions granted originally, which were not made permanent pensions by virtue of the fact that they did not fall under the five years’ clause.

At 4.10 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1944, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 14th April.

The House thereupon proceeded to the consideration of Government business.

In the short time at my disposal yesterday afternoon I dealt with the report of the Secretdry for Agriculture, and I put a few questions to the Minister to which I hope he will reply this afternoon. This afternoon I want to discuss another question, also in connection with the Agricultural Department; the matter I want to discuss is the report drafted by the Senior Officials of the Minister’s Department. The report is signed by Mr. P. R. Viljoen, Secretary for Agriculture, Mr. C. H. Neveling, Dr. A. M. Bosman, Dr. J. F. W. Grosskopf, Mr. J. C. Rose, Prof. H. D. Leppan and Mr. J. C. Serfontein. It’s a very important report and I should like the Minister to tell us whether it has been adopted by him. To begin with I want to say that I hope he is not going to wait months and years before giving effect to the report, but that it will be put into operation straight away. I am saying this because 98 per cent. of this report constitutes the policy of the Nationalist Party and I shall therefore be pleased if the Minister will accept it. There are a few points in it which I cannot agree with, and those points I propose referring to this afternoon. These are the points: There is a recommendation which is tantamount to a restriction of wheat growing, and which also says that farmers must be satisfied with a lower price for their wheat. I agree that rotation crops are essential but there are other parts of the country, too, where the wheat industry can very definitely be extended. If we should have another war, and if we do not produce wheat in the way we have done now, we may be faced with a famine. I therefore hope that that part of the report will be so amended that the wheat industry will be encouraged and the farmers get reasonable prices for their products. I also do not agree with that part of the report where it is stated that the opportunity for the development of the meat industry is not very good. I differ from that statement and I think if we fence off the Bush Veld properly there are still certain parts where cattle breeding can be considerably developed. There is another part of the report which I do not agree with, and that is that Crown Lands should be transferred to individuals, and should be held under lease which one generation will inherit from the other. I think one of the most important things is that farmers should have a love for their land inculcated into them, and that being so it is essential that the farmers should become the owners of the land. Now let me say briefly that so far as the main recommendations are concerned I am in entireagreement with the Report. I do not think I can add anything. There are just a few points I wish to deal with. For instance there is the question of soil erosion. This is a matter which the Nationalist Party was dealing with, but it is now being neglected. There is nothing new in it. The old Nationalist Party started it. The question of camps and fencing and the conservation of water—we proposed and tackled all these subjects. We built a lot of dams, but today they are only building dams on paper. I hope the Government will stop just doing these things on paper, but will take immediate steps. I also hope that they will continue boring for water without further delay. Then I come to the control system by means of bores. We have always been very strongly in favour of that. The only thing I cannot agree with is the suggestion that the control system should be extended and that the consumers should have more representation. Is there any Body, the Chamber of Commerce or any similar institution, where farmers are appointed to the Boards? Then the milk and butter scheme. That is a scheme of the Nationalist Party. The Cattle Improvement Scheme also originated with the Nationalist Party. That has been practically stopped now. It is still carried on on a small scale but I hope the Minister will extend it again. The strengthening of the Veterinary Department is something we have always aimed at. Then the taking over of factories— when one raises that question I do not only think of the taking over of factories but also of cold storages. That is one of the things we feel very strongly about. The placing of Municipal Markets under State control is the declared policy of the Nationalist Party. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux) in setting out our policy last year again strongly urged that particular point. We feel very strongly about it. Then I come to the Farm Mortgage Redemption Scheme— that is also something which the Nationalist Party has been pleading for for many years, and I am glad to see that the Minister’s chief officers make a recommendation on the same lines. Short and long term loans— well, that also is a policy which we approve of. The only thing we still hope for is a big Economic Council which would be able to assist the Government with the necessary advice. Then I come to sound labour conditions. That too, is a matter with which we associate ourselves. Regionalisation as far as possible, suitable individuals to be placed on Settlements—all these are things on which we shall support the Government. We have had our magnificent agricultural schools but they have now been closed down; we are told that many of the farmers are not fit for farming, but the Minister closes down his training centres. The Commission goes further and advocates better pay for officials. All these are matters which are contained in our policy. I think the report has been misnamed. It is called the “Reconstruction of Agriculture”. It should have been called the “Reconstruction of the Nationalist Party’s Agricultural Policy”, which was destroyed by the present Coalition (vatmekaar) Government during the past few years, with the result that the Department of Agriculture is unable to function. I want to tell the Minister that so far as I know the officials of the Department of Agriculture, they are officials who know their work, and the starting point of this report is that the farmers during the past few years have been pushed into the background in a most disgraceful manner. Don’t always say that the war is responsible. Most of these schemes could be tackled even during the course of this year, and the longer the Minister waits the more difficult will the problem become, because the Minister should realise that it takes longer to start things going in the agricultural line than in any other line. For instance, if our agriculture has to be converted into cattle breeding on a large scale it must take three years before it will show any profit. And that applies to every branch of farming. It is no easy thing to turn from one branch of farming to another. I hope the Minister will appreciate the services of the senior officers of his department who are thoroughly familiar with agricultural conditions. They have been employed in the Department for years and they know where all the little difficulties and troubles lie; they know where the shortcomings are, and seeing they have put in such a concise report as this, which from beginning to end is closely argued, I hope the Minister will not hesitate for one moment but will take immediate steps to give effect to this report. It is a very important report and if it is carried out I am convinced that our farmers—and not only the farmers but the consumers as well—will benefit considerably. The farmers will produce more if they know they have a Government which will see to it that the farmers get a reasonable price for their products. They will be satisfied if they have proper marketing facilities and if their prices are properly fixed. For the very first time I notice a reference to minimum prices in any report. We want stabilised prices; we do not want prices which one day are high up in the air and down to the ground the next day. [Time limit.]

I was very interested in the speech of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson). The question of soil erosion is a national one, and the townsman as well as the farmer is interested. It was my privilege last year to attend the congress of the Cape Eastern Public Bodies at Queenstown. This was the thirteenth congress. The members of the congress are drawn from all parts of the Eastern Cape. It is not a political body, and local as well as national matters are discussed. Politics are debarred. The congress each year has been opened by a Cabinet Minister. The members of the association represent towns, divisional councils, farmers associations and other bodies in the area. All members, without exception, are animated by one aim, the advancement of the area they serve and incidentally the whole of South Africa. At the last congress the following resolution was passed unanimously, namely—

The first matter was “conservation of our water supply.” That is a matter of grave importance to the coast towns. As the towns grow, more and more water is needed, and we find from statistics that we have not the flow of water in our rivers today that we had many years ago. This matter is a very grave one as far as we are concerned, and I should like the department to take a serious view of this matter, because it is really not a matter that affects not only our part of the country, but is also a national matter. The second point in the resolution was “Protection of our river sources.” This is a subject that is practically on the same level as the conservation of our water supply. We find that there has been a great deal of denudation at the sources of the rivers and this fact that the rivers at their sources are denuded of vegetation is responsible for a decreased flow. I say that the time has arrived when the sources of the rivers should be controlled by the department and not left in private hands. A very important question was touched on in the third paragraph of the resolution, “Combating the serious evil of soil erosion.” That was a matter on which the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) touched on yesterday, and I must agree with what he said. During the forty years I have been in this country I must say that in the course of my travels, and I am very fond of nature study. I have observed wherever I have gone that in many places soil erosion has been on the increase throughout that period. Fertile lands have disappeared, and in their place there is nothing but dongas. I look upon soil erosion as South Africa’s public enemy No. 1. In this connection I should like to draw the departments attention to a statement made by the chairman of the National Veld Trust recently, when referring to the position at Vlekpoort near Hofmeyr, which I am told by members of this House was, not many years ago, one of the fairest and best farming lands in that part of the country. But what is the position today? The Chairman of the National Veld Trust said—

In view of facts such as these, I think I can rightly claim that soil erosion is South Africa’s Enemy No. 1. Then the congress I have referred to suggested that the time has arrived when serious consideration should be given to pasturage improvement and soil fertility, also afforestation, and lastly, the eradication of noxious weeds. I know that some years ago we passed the Noxious Weeds Bill in this House, but on the question of noxious weeds, though the farmers are keeping their lands clean, I am sorry to find, as I travel along by rail, that the chief sinners, as far as noxious weeds are concerned, are the South African Railways. Farmers do their best to clear their lands but you find all along the railway line in some places an abundance of noxious weeds. In fact there is an abundant crop of them, and they are a menace to the farmer. One other matter I want to touch upon is this. The people in the Eastern Province have been wondering where all the fresh fruit has gone, and why the poor quality stuff that arrives fetches such high prices. It seems that the Deciduous Fruit Board has made a lementable failure of its job of taking over the marketing of fruit. The policy and practices of the Board are condemned everywhere, and there is a clamour for investigation, either by a Parliamentary committee or preferably by a commission of enquiry. On our local market at East London some years age there was no difficulty in disposing of thousands of boxes of fruit of every description, but we cannot get that today, because of the quality of the fruit that is being put on to the market. The Control Board has fixed such high prices for fruit that certain grades are excluded from the local markets, fruit which in normal times found a ready sale. We are told that tons of fruit go to waste in cold storage. What is the result? The public is prevented from getting an even and adequate supply of high grade fruit and even second-grade fruit at reasonable prices. Looking at the financial statement of the Deciduous Fruit Board for the year ended 31st July. 1943, I find that the Board lost £340,000 in handling the fruit crop. [Time limit.]

I want to raise a question with the Minister. I want to refer the Minister to this Proclamation at the beginning of this year with regard to food regulations. These regulations were contained in the Gazette of the 23rd January—there was a Gazette issued altering the whole position, and appointing a food controller under the Minister, and appointing the Secretary for Agriculture to certain functions. I want first of all to put it to the Minister seriously whether these Boards are really worth while, or whether this particular Board is worth while—I am referring to the Food Control Board. Under the Board which was appointed in March, 1942, of which I had the honour to be a member, we were instructed to deal with a very serious situation. And I think the advice which members of the Board were able to give was very helpful at the time when the Board was created. I know that various members were able to assist the Minister in overcoming a number of difficulties. But as time went on more and more work devolved on the Food Controller who was the Minister of Agriculture and the Board met on fewer and fewer occasions. Last year we only met twice. One of the most difficult problems we had to deal with was this question of meat on which the Government subsequently appointed a Commission which has now presented a report, and that report, I believe, is to be given effect to. The difficulty which the Government had on the evidence submitted was such that it was found very difficult for the Committee to function usefully and to help the Minister in any way. That was the position which arose at that time. But I want to suggest that the Board itself, that this Council, is not of much value at all. We met seven times in over two years, and I doubt that during the last year or so they have served a useful purpose. I felt more and more in going into this that what you want is to appoint a person—as they have done now—with a knowledge of business who will co-operate with the Department itself in tackling some of these very serious problems which arise. Now, in passing I want to refer to an act of discourtesy. I want to refer to what has happened in this matter, because I find in the Gazette of the 4th January that that body was wiped out, and the first knowledge we had of it was this notice in the Gazette. It seems to me that something was due to the members in at least advising them that their services were no longer required. Well, it shows of how little value the old Board was, either to the Department or to the Minister. Now, it is proposed to create a new board with fifteen members. I doubt whether it will be of great value. But there is something I am concerned about, and I think it is a matter which may be the cause of very great trouble in the future. Last year the Deputy Food Controller was called on on many occasions to go round the country to explain the policy which was being adopted and to attend a great many meetings, and I can well remember how he was criticised in public. His statements were criticised, and he was also personally attacked for the measures he had to take to carry out the policy of the Government. I submit it is very unfair to put any official in the position where he may be personally attacked for carrying out what is Government policy. He is there to carry out the policy laid down, and he should not be put in a position of his own actions being attacked. In this particular measure—this regulation—I see the Secretary for Agriculture is appointed, and he has several special powers. In Section 6 he is given the power in regard to research into the preservation of foodstuffs and so on. It may be right for the Department to have these powers, but these are powers which the Minister should bear responsibility for, and the Secretary of the Department should not be liable to be called to account by the public and held responsible for doing these particular things. It is part of the process which has been going on for some time—officials are being held responsible for various things for which the Minister should be held responsible, and I consider it is wrong for the Minister to delegate such powers to an official which may put him in the position of being publicly criticised and condemned for any action he may take. As hon. members will recollect severe criticisms were levelled last year. I don’t think this Board serves the purpose for which it was really intended, and I therefore hope the Minister will go into the whole position again.

When the Agricultural Vote was under discussion yesterday it struck me that some members considered it very unreasonable and unfair and even ridiculous for anyone to speak about 20s. per bag for mealies. May I be allowed to remind them that during the last Great War, the war of 1914 to 1918, mealies were sold in this country for from 27s. to 30s. per bag, and that was not due to scarcity or under-production but it was simply due to the increased cost of living and increased production costs. In these days the market price was fixed by the natural factors of supply and demand. Today, however, our prices are fixed by the Control Board and the final say in the fixation of prices rests with the Minister of Agriculture. The Minister of Agriculture therefore has the power to see that the farmers are paid a payable price, and he can also allow the farmers to be landed in an uneconomic position. I want to express the hope, however, that the present Minister of Agriculture is not going to let the mealie farmer be landed in an uneconomic position, because if that happens the immediate effect will be seriously to restrict the future production of mealies. It will result in the farmer losing faith in his own industry and it will lead to the farmer turning to other things to try and make a living. I also notice that as soon as anyone talks about mealie farmers in this House, people only think of the big rich mealie farmers in the Free State and Transvaal. That seems to be the first thought arising in people’s minds. Let me assure those hon. members that those big mealie farmers only constitute 7 per cent. of the whole. When I speak of big rich mealie farmers I refer to people producing more than 1,000 bags of mealies; those only constitute 7 per cent. of the total. The other 93 per cent. produce 1,000 bags and less. It is on behalf of those 93 per cent. That we are pleading here, and it is for them that we ask the Government to fix a payable price. It is true that the few big mealie farmers will also benefit. But surely in a matter of this kind one cannot consider individual circumstances. You have to consider the question as a whole. The 93 per cent. of the farmers who grow mealies on a small scale, who produce 1,000 bags and less, have to make their living out of growing mealies and nothing else. They are usually people who own a small bit of land, a farm and a few span of oxen, and a few head of cattle. They usually have a family to look after—they not only have to feed and clothe their family but they are also responsible for the education of their children and the health of their family. The rich man clearly has no difficulty in paying for all these things. We also find that the very poor man who has nothing at all can send his child to a high school hostel; he can get a bursary to do so, but the middle class farmer has to pay for these things himself. If he needs a doctor he has to pay for it himself. All these things come as a heavy burden on the middle class mealie farmer. We cannot get away from the fact that production costs have gone up tremendously. A precedent has already been created in regard to wheat, the price has been raised from 30s. to 36s. per bag. There has been an increase of 20 per cent. in the price of wheat. If we look at the last item on the production cost account of mealies— that last item which the farmer needs just before he can take his mealies to the stores— the grain bags which he needs for his mealies —we find that the farmer this year has to pay almost 2s. for his bags, which will give hon. members some idea of the way production costs have gone up. The mealie farmers particularly have gone through very difficult times. During the ten years from 1930 to 1940 they have had very hard times. They have had to struggle to keep their heads above water. The hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. De Wet) quite rightly said yesterday that it is only in abnormal times when conditions are all awry that the farmer can make a little money because when things are normal he can never make his farming activities pay. The farmer has to avail himself of these abnormal and disjointed times to get on his feet. Hon. members talk very frivolously, they even joke, when we discuss the insect plagues with which the mealie farmer has to contend. It is mostly the townsmen who are disposed to joke about these things. But that attitude shows pure ignorance. They have no conception of what the mealie farmers have to go through, and it is the mealie farmer in particular who is exposed to insect plagues, and people who joke about these things have no conception of what they mean. Let me remind them of what happened about two years ago in the Transvaal—I believe it also happened in large parts of the Free State—when we were inundated by the Commando Worm—let me remind hon. members of the fact that the mealies farmer, after having incurred heavy expenses, had to stand by and see his mealies block after block, destroyed and eaten up in a very short time. Those farmers had to meet their commitments. They had to maintain their families, and look after the education and health of their children. In a few days their whole year’s income was destroyed. If the towns people would only realise these conditions they would not talk so frivolously about increased costs; they would not joke about insect plagues. The townsmen are generally referred to as the consumers, and they are the people who usually oppose us, particularly when we ask for payable prices. The farmer has never raised any objections to wages and salaries being increased. The farmer has never had anything to say against cost of living allowances being paid. No, the farmer wants everybody in the country to have an income on which he can live, but as soon as the farmer asks for a payable price people from all sides raise objections. I want to go very briefly into the question of who are the consumers of mealies. As I said on a previous occasion, when we come to the natives the mealie farmers refuse to accept any responsiblity for them. The mealie farmer does not consider the native should be his responsibility—the natives should not be a burden imposed on the mealie farmer. The mealie farmer is not going to produce cheap mealies to feed the natives. That is a matter for the State. So, for argument’s sake, let us cut out the native entirely as a consumer. Who then are the consumers of mealies? Primarily, the mealie farmer himself is the biggest consumer of his own product and he naturally is not going to complain if, he has to consume mealies at 20s. per bag. The second biggest consumer is the cattle farmer. If we look at the position of the cattle farmer and remember that the cattle farmer has been getting £30 and more for a slaughter ox, that the sheep farmer has been getting from £2 to £3 for slaughter sheep, and that the poultry farmer has been getting 10s. and 12s. for a miserable little rooster—surely if we bear all this mind we can say that it is most unfair of those people to begrudge the mealie farmer a decent price. The cattle farmer therefore is in a very good position. He should use his position to see that the mealie farmer can also make a living. The third consumer is the mines. So far as I know the mines have never raised any objection to a proper price for the mealie farmer.

What use are they if they cannot pay £1 per bag.

They can pay £1 per bag and I am quite sure they are prepared to pay £1 per bag?

Do you recommend £1 per bag?

Yes, of course. I have already mentioned a few of the biggest consumers. Then people talk about the poor man and we are told that the burdens weigh very heavily on him. Now who is the poor man? In the first place it is the poor mealie farmer and he won’t mind. If I look further to see who the poor man is who consumes mealies I find it is the man working on the Railways or the mines, the man employed in the towns by the municipalities. They are not among the big consumers because they only eat a little mealie meal for breakfast. A family like that does not consume more than two or three bags per year. If the Minister gives us a payable price it will put the farmer in a sound position and he will be prepared again to put his hand to the plough and produce the food South Africa requires. And when after the war he is called on to supply food for large parts of Europe, for those parts which have been starved, he will be able to respond to the call. It should also be remembered that when a depression sets in it is the farmer who is affected first of all, and he is the man who recovers last of all, and these are the reasons why he should now be placed on a sound footing. [Time limit.]

I have been instructed by the Farmers Association of my constituency to urge the Minister to fix a minimum price of £1 per bag for mealies. There is a further recommendation which I want to place before the Minister. The Free State co-operative societies have had a conference and the Board of those societies have also instructed me to urge the Minister to fix a minimum price of £1 per bag. Now why are the farmers asking for £1 per bag? We should bear in mind that only a small crop is expected this year. Weather conditions have been very unfavourable. When mealies had to be planted the country was flooded, so much so that the farmers could hardly get to their lands. The result was that ploughing started very late and the little bit of mealies those people managed to sow was destroyed but cut worm, with the result that the farmers had to sow two or three times over. Those are the reasons why only a small crop is expected. The farmers have told me to convey a message to the Minister. They are not making a threat but they just want to tell the Minister that there are other factors too, which contribute to their attitude and they say that if they have to produce and sell at present prices they cannot see their way to continue producing, because it will mean that they will be working at a loss. Now, what are these other factors? First of all there is the shortage of fertiliser. They quite realise that conditions are very difficult. There is very little shipping space, and as a result they get less fertiliser. That however is not the main trouble. The main trouble is that the fertiliser is ordered and a large percentage arrives only after the time for sowing and planting is over. The orders are either not executed at once or there is trouble about transport and the result is that the fertiliser arrives so late, as it did last year, that it is practically useless. Then the next difficulty the farmers have to contend with is that of plough shares. It is scandalous to see how the farmers are exploited by having to pay unheard-of prices for a very good quality of plough share. Those shares cost £2 5s. per pair, and if the ground is at all hard the shares do not even last six days. One of these cutlers who does this type of work of sharpening the points of shares told me the other day that the steel used is so poor that to try and sharpen them is like putting a new patch on an old pair of trousers. If the share strikes a stone it simply breaks behind the point. That shows the way the farmers are exploited. These shares are made of inferior quality steel. Then the next factor is transport. Practically speaking, the farmers are dependent on private lorry owners. Today these people cannot get tyres and the Government lorries are not available in sufficient quantities to remove all the grain. Hon. members may ask why we do not use oxen but the roads have been gravelled and if a span of oxen has to carry three loads of mealies a distance of 12 miles over those roads, their feet are finished. Those gravel roads are very hard on them. Then there is another factor—the implements, threshing machines and things like that, which the farmers need, and the spare parts which they cannot get or which are made of such inferior metal that they are useless—and yet they have to pay unheard-of prices for them. I made a suggestion to the Prime Minister the other day and I want to bring the matter to the notice of the Minister of Agriculture now. It is this, that it is highly desirable to have a workshop erected at our Iron and Steel Factory, with a mechanic attached, to repair farmers’ implements and tractors, and also to repair broken spare parts. We notice that the annual report of the Department of Agriculture says this—

We have the finest steel in the world in our Iron and Steel Works, and it would be worth while erecting such a workshop and manufacture those spare parts which have to be made of good steel in that workshop. With these facts facing them the farmers don’t see their way in future to produce on the same scale as they have done in the past unless the necessary provision is made in the way I have indicated. That much for the mealie farmers. There is another question I want to bring to the Minister’s notice and it is this, that in the Free State and parts of the Transvaal we find that the bush tick plague is increasing in the most alarming manner; particularly the ear tick is on the increase. It is highly desirable for the Minister to take the bull by the horns and do something. We took a drastic step some time ago in providing for compulsory dipping against scab. The only solution lies in making dipping compulsory for the eradication of this plague. The ear tick is doing a lot of damage. It eats right into the animal’s brain and farmers sire losing a lot of cattle. Animals are dying and people do not know what the cause is. And what is more, the animal is eaten up to such an extent by these ticks that it can never get into decent condition. The farmers are urging the Minister to introduce dips where the people can dip their cattle so that we may be able to cope with this bush tick plague. There is yet another question I want to raise. In my constituency farmers used to be subsidised for the purchase of bulls. That system has lapsed now and no more subsidies are given. I have been asked to urge the Minister to extend the period for subsidies because otherwise all the good work that has been done will be undone.

The hon. member can raise this question on the next vote.

There is another small point which I have forgotten and which I want to bring to the Minister’s notice. It is in connection with a drying apparatus. In the North Eastern Free State we have two crops, a summer crop and a winter crop. And unfortunately the finely sown crop always comes in the summer months, in the rainy season. The result is that heavy damage is suffered and people have to struggle very hard to get their grain dry. The rain comes in the middle of it all and the farmers cannot get their grain off the lands in time. So far as mealies are concerned there sometimes is a considerable delay in getting the crops in because the farmers cannot get to their lands. The farmers are quite willing to pay so much per bag for the drying of their grain. If such an apparatus can be put up even if it has to be in some central place on the railway line, the farmers will be willing to pay for the drying. Today they are struggling hard and they are suffering a lot of damage. [Time limit.]

I want to preface my remarks by congratulating the Minister on the very welcome remarks he made the other day, when he said that he was going to try and keep agriculture out of the political arena. I was also glad to hear that that statement was welcomed by the other side of the House, and, as somebody else has already said, I trust the Minister of Agriculture will remain human when dealing with agricultural matters. Somebody said here the other day that immediately anyone becomes a Minister, he becomes a Statesman. I trust the Minister will not become merely a Statesman—I trust he will not be a politician but will remain human when dealing with agricultural matters. It seems to me that the Minister’s remarks and the good reception accorded them, have made many consumers nervous. Consumers seem to be afraid that co-operation between the producers may possibly result in the consumers having to suffer. May I, as one who for many years has been a consumer, and who is still a consumerfarmer, remove that fear. We thoroughly realise that the consumer cannot exist without the farmer. But we also realise that the farmer can perhaps exist even less without the consumer. I want to recommend very strongly to the Minister to look at the matter from such an angle that the lowest possible price should be fixed for the farmers’ products and the highest price for the consumer. By doing that we shall be able to arrive at a compromise on this question. In our part of the country, as hon. members know, we had a tragedy when East Coast Fever broke out on the 23rd July, 1942. I am sorry the Minister’s predecessor, the last Col. Collins, is no longer with us because I wanted to express to him the thanks of my constituency—and I also want to thank his department, for the very excellent manner in which they handled this whole business. We have argued a lot but I think we have got to the stage when we understand each other, and what I am going to say here is more in the nature of a plea on behalf of the farmers who have suffered as a result of the East Coast Fever epidemic. These people have had special treatment meted out to them. We know for instance that they have been paid out on a certain scale for their slaughtered cattle. We know that afterwards the department also paid the people whose animals had been slaughtered 8s. per 100 lbs. for transport. We know that the Department took the slaughtered animal’s skin, and also the offal and we strongly object to that. These things are the property of the farmers and not of the Department, and if the Department wants to take the offal and the skin and the 8s. from the people who did not destroy all their cattle. Then the Department to my mind should also accept full responsibility. My constituency feels very strongly on this point, and it feels that when the area was closed and when all removal of stock was stopped, the Department took all responsibility upon itself for East Coast Fever and its consequences. I therefore want to recommend very strongly that the Department take responsibility for the cattle that died after the farmers had applied for the animals to be killed. Let me explain why I say that. A farmer asks for his cattle to be slaughtered on the 15th of this month but the Department has not got the apparatus or the staff to slaughter until the 15th of the next month. In the meantime a large number of the farmers’ cattle die. Many farmers feel —and I feel with them—that the Department is responsible for the animals which have died in between the time that the farmer has asked for the destruction of the cattle and the time the Department did so. Now, there is this further question of the 8s. for transport costs which was refunded to the farmers who slaughtered all their stock. What is the position? I have already brought this to the Department’s notice. Take for instance the position of the farmer who could not get all his cattle slaughtered because his permit had lapsed before he could locate all his cattle in the bushy areas of my constituency. Say a man has 300 head of cattle which he wants to slaughter but eight of them cannot be found. The result is that the Department refuses to refund the 8s. because he has not slaughtered all his cattle. I don’t think that that is treating those people justly. Now we come to the tractors, which the Department supplied. We are very grateful because supplying those tractors assisted those people who have no income as they had no oxen for ploughing; they had nothing to help them get something out of the soil. But now a state of confusion has arisen. There is the farmer, the man whose stock has been slaughtered, and there is the farm, the place on which all the stock has been slaughtered. There is a great difference between the two. The Department has now refused to help the individual who slaughtered on farm A where his oxen used to run, with which he ploughed on farm B—the Department has refused to assist that man to plough on Farm B. I want to appeal to the Minister to do something for those people when ploughing time comes at the end of this year, because these people have no income at all. At the moment they are living on their capital. When it comes to paying income tax the Minister of Finance refuses to grant them any abatement. I want to appeal to the Minister of Agriculture to make representations to the Minister of Finance to try and get him to agree not to make those people pay income tax on the capital which they have been paid for the cattle which have been destroyed, I think it is an injustice to those people who have already suffered severly and on whom the responsibility has been imposed of protecting the rest of the country against the spread of East Coast Fever. I think it is a great injustice to these people. Let me give an instance. Say A has slaughtered all his stock —I am just giving an instance—if the money he has received by way of compensation is not included for income tax purposes he will have to pay say £98 in income tax, but now that it is included he has to pay £601. It is not just to those people, because one of these days they will have to buy cattle again—they cannot farm without cattle. They are cattle farmers. If they have to carry on without cattle they will spend their capital and they will have to fall back on the Government for help. I also want the Minister of Agriculture to make representations to the Minister of Railways about transport in my constituency which is stricken by East Coast Fever. These people cannot inspan a wagon to transport their goods to the market; the district cannot get its cattle and its products to the market because the whole district has been closed. The result is that these people have no income from the cattle left to them. Consequently, it is essential to come to the assistance of these people to save them from complete ruin. [Time limit.]

I hope that before this somewhat protracted debate is concluded, the Minister will recognise the importance of giving a full reply to the point raised the other day by the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger). That question which the hon. member put was on exactly what basis the price of maize is fixed? She pointed out that according to the report of the Department of Agriculture the steadily rising price of maize since 1940 has been due to increases in the cost of production. When she put a question in the House as to what exactly these increases consisted of, and what the costs of production were, she was told that they varied from district to district, and from farm to farm, and the impression was given that it really was not possible to say what those costs were. This is a very important point indeed, especially for those of us who sit on these benches. Maize is the basic food of the vast majority of those we represent. They, in their turn, are the poorest of the population of this country. Any increase in the cost of maize represents a very serious cut in their incomes; it is equivalent to a wage cut, and it affects not only those Africans who work for wages in European areas and on farms, but those who live in the reserves also. There is no reserve in the country that I know of that normally grows sufficient maize to support its local population. All native reserves are maize-importing areas. We have never had any objection to the primary maize producer receiving a price sufficient for him to make a living, sufficient for him to make what the Minister has referred to as a reasonable profit. What, however, we do feel we can reasonably ask him, and the people of this country can reasonably ask him, is that full data shall be placed before the country which will justify any increase in the price of this basic foodstuff to the majority of the people in this country; that before increases in the price are sanctioned, that the details of the cost increases upon which those increases of price are based, shall be made clear to the community as a whole. I personally, Mr. Chairman, have great difficulty in conceiving a general objective price at which we can say the farmer can make a living. Obviously the big maize farmer can make a living by virtue of his large turnover on the basis of a lower price than the small farmer. The mere fixation of a price, and to say that that is necessary for the farmer to make a living, seems to me entirely meaningless. Any assistance to the maize farmer should be graded in such a way that the smaller producer receives more assistance relatively to the larger maize producer, and that principle, Mr. Chairman, cannot be observed by simply fixing an over-all price. We also feel entitled to make this stipulation : whenever minimum prices are fixed for the primary producer, they should be accompanied by maximum prices to the consumer which are within the capacity of the consumer to pay. There was a time when maximum prices were not fixed at all. During the last few years maximum prices have been fixed, but it is my strong contention that they have not been at reasonable levels from the consumer’s point of view. I have some figures here which are based on returns of native commissioners in the native areas of various parts of the country, comparing the pre-war price of maize —which we always contended to be too high —with the price of the consumer as it stood last year in 1943. In the Ciskei the average price to the consumer in 1939 was 13s. a bag; in 1943 it had gone up to 19s. 6d. per bag. In the Northern areas, including the Transvaal and Bechuanaland, the price had risen from an average of 11s. per bag in 1939 to 21s. per bag in 1943. I contend that these increases do constitute a vicious slash at the standard of living of the poorest people of this country. The general cost of living is supposed only to have gone up by 26 per cent.; that is the general cost of living in the country as a whole. The prices of this basic foodstuff to the consumer have gone up from 50 per cent. to 90 per cent. in one part of the country or another, and we contend, and contend most strongly, that those prices are not being fixed in a reasonable manner, having regard to the capacity of the consumer to pay. Assuming the strength of the maize producer’s case for the present minimum price of maize, the only remedy to reconcile the figure at which the maize producer says he can produce, with the figure that we know the consumer can afford to pay, is to resort to the principle of direct subsidisation of maize from general revenue, as has been recommended by the Social and Economic Planning Council. The recommendation has not been carried into effect. The Prime Minister the other day made a statement which I interpreted as indicating some intention on the part of the Government to carry this into effect, but this is a matter which I submit to the Minister brooks no delay. For years now the principle has been accepted in regard to the consumption of bread which has been directly subsidised in order to maintain the consumers’ price at a reasonable level. That principle has not been extended to maize, and we feel it is a matter of justice that if that principle is applied in the case of bread, it ought to be applied in the case of maize also. Mr. Chairman, I also want to ask the Minister what steps the Government are taking in order to avert the serious difficulties, comparable to those encountered two years ago, in relation to the threatened shortage of maize in the native territories. My information is to the effect that there is in the Transkei and Ciskei a threat of a very serious shortage of maize indeed. [Time limit.]

I don’t want to start off in the usual way by congratulating the country on the new Minister. I prefer to congratulate the Minister on having become a Minister, and to postpone my congratulations to the country until such time as one can see what the Minister is going to do. I have not got up to criticise the Minister either, because he has just become Minister and that being so he is not responsible to a very large extent for what has happened. But I do want to bring a few points to his notice. He and I are in the same position, in that we are not farmers, and that being so I can tell him that he should take advice from people, who are practical farmers, on this side, and on the other side of the House. The know what is best for that part of the population which the public as a whole is dependent upon. Having said this I want to bring to the Minister’s notice something which even I, as a non-farmer can understand. If you have no fertiliser, no artificial fertiliser, to produce the products which we want to produce, it’s no Use being able to get a good price for your products, when you cannot produce them. All these measures are of no avail if you have not got the stuff to produce, if you cannot supply the goods. The farmers are having a lot of trouble in obtaining fertilisers, manure and so on. I have a letter here, a portion of which I want to read to the Minister, and I want to ask him to use his influence in this connection. It is a letter from a prominent farmer which explains the position as it is today—

There is a farmer who has to pay heavy taxes—

There are certain areas where farmers from particular parts of the country have to get their fertiliser, but they are not allowed to go across the line—

His complain is that he cannot get any concession on trucks although other farmers who are further away from the station do get it. I want to ask the Minister to use his influence. As fertiliser is scarce I want to ask the Minister to consider this aspect. There is another question I also want to bring to the Minister’s notice; when the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) was Minister of Agriculture, fertiliser and seed wheat were lent to farmers on a reasonable basis. Unfortunately some crops failed and the Government again lent farmers fertiliser and seed wheat. For five years farmers in the South Western Districts had one crop failure after another, so that instead of the farmers getting over their difficulties, they are now in such a precarious position that not only have they not been able to use their seed wheat and their fertiliser, and lost everything, but on top of that they are continually getting letters of demand for this money and the interest. These people are anxious to pay but they cannot do it. If the Minister would discuss the position with his officials who know the conditions there, he would find that there have been constant crop failures and that it is impossible for these farmers to pay their debts. I want the Minister to remember that the fertiliser and the seed wheat were given to the farmers with the object of helping them, but unfortunately they are in a desperate state now. I therefore want to ask the Minister to consider the question of writing off these loans. The position now is that they have to come into the town and explain to the magistrate how they are situated. The magistrate then gives them more time to pay and they only have to pay 2s. 6d. It is not only the 2s. 6d. They have to pay, but often they are far from town, petrol and motor tyres are scarce, and some of them have not got a car, and then they have to travel long distances merely to tell the magistrate they cannot pay. The Minister will do these farmers a great favour if he writes off those loans. There is another matter where the farmers are experiencing great difficulties Farmers’ associations are passing one resolution after another about the transport of their products. Take a place like George. The products put on the train there only arrive in Cape Town five or six days later. I have documents here to prove that that is so. By the time these products arrive here they have gone either stale or they have been squashed. I should like the Minister to give this matter his attention and to get into touch with the Minister of Railways to see if other provisions cannot be made about the transport of vegetables. Some of these people send good fresh vegetables from those parts of the country; yet when they arrive here they fetch very poor prices. Unfortunately the housewife has to pay big prices if she buys her vegetables in the shops here, but the farmers get a very poor return. The profits go to the middleman. I, as a consumer, do not want to pay high prices for the things I buy. I hope the Minister will realise that all these things mean that the farmers lose money, and if the Department could remove these drawbacks, that part of the country would have reason to be grateful to the Minister. I hope when Parliament meet again next year we shall be able to congratulate the Minister on the great services he has rendered the South Western Districts.

A very wide field has been covered in this debate and some difficult points have been raised. I, however, want to confine myself particularly to the farmers of the Western Province and more particularly to the grape farmers, the wine farmers and the fruit farmers. So far little has been said on their behalf and in their favour, and I would not like the House to think that they have no grievances. They are a long-suffering community, and I do feel that I should bring to the notice of the Minister some of the difficulties that they have to contend with. I would like to thank the hon. Minister for so readily complying with my request recently regarding the new tax on wine. The Minister agreed not to impose a tax on fortified wine to be exported, and he has thereby earned the gratitude of a large section of the farming community. The first point I would like to bring to the notice of the Minister is what I consider to be either an injustice or an anomaly in our law. I refer to the regulations appertaining to the Government water boring machines which are placed at the disposal of farmers throughout our country. In these regulations or in the Act itself—I am not quite sure —it is stipulated that these machines are not for use within any municipal area. I do not know whether there are many other towns such as the town I represent, that wonderful Paarl with most valuable farms within municipal boundaries.

I think the hon. member should raise that matter under Lands.

The next point to which I would like to refer is a matter concerning control boards. Let me say to my farming friends that those who are under the impression that one can bring the producer and the consumer together as though they were brother and sister, and cut out any form of distribution, are living in a fool’s paradise. I do not think that will be possible, but I do say that there must be a better system of control than we have had up to the present, and in my opinion the fault has not been mainly with the control boards. They have to contend with a very difficult problem bearing in mind the perishable nature of the product with which they deal. But we would like to see the consumer better represented on the board, and we would also like to see better representation of the distributor and better representation of the table grape farmers. I am not now referring to the grape export farmers. But I think the table grape farmers should have better representation on the control board. I repeat that the idea that the producer and consumer must co-operate like brother and sister and cut out any distribution, is one which is impossible of attainment. There must be distribution on a reasonable basis of profit. One can regulate the whole position, however, by fixing the price which the consumer must pay and arranging for a reasonable margin of profit to the producer as well as to the distributor. The fact that control of fruit and wine is absolutely necessary has been proved beyond doubt. Since the K.W.V. has had control they have saved the wine trade. The wine farmer does not get a tremendous price but he gets a reasonable price. That is one point I would like to bring to the notice of the Minister. Then there is the other point to which I referred the other day and that is the assistance which should be given to farmers to enable them to build houses for their labourers. That is a position which is very actutely felt in these towns in the Western Province where industries have sprung up and where the labour question is acute. The farmers realise that in order to keep their labourers they have to pay high wages. They realise that they must provide better housing but it is beyond the means of many of them. And surely the Government can arrange to provide loans to these farmers of, say, £500 to £1,000. I would impress that very seriously on the Minister. Then the Minister did deal the other day with the question of giving a subsidy to farmers, who have to hire their farms. Ï would approach that matter from this point of view. We have many farms which have been leased for the benefit of minor children or for the benefit of widows. I do not say that there should be a subsidy where a man hires a farm for speculation, but where a man hires a farm for 5 years or more, the rent he is called upon to pay is almost analogous to the interest which the farmer has to pay on his mortgage bond. I would like the Minister to see whether some relief by way of a subsidy on rental paid cannot be granted to farmers where they have hired farms on a long lease. Then I would like to congratulate the Minister on the way he met the argument of my hon. friends opposite in regard to the question of appointing a non-farmer as Minister of Agriculture. I would like to remind my hon. friends opposite that one of the very best Ministers of Agriculture we have ever had in this country before Union was the late Sir Thomas Smartt.

That was after Union and he was a farmer.

It is true that afterwards he became a farmer.

Your facts are wrong.

It is not necessary therefore to be a farmer in order to be a good Minister of Agriculture. Our farmer friends come to us members of the legal profession with all their troubles and I think we know as much about the requirements of the farmers as the farmers themselves. The point has been raised in regard to shortage of veterinary surgeons. We should strive to induce more young men to qualify in veterinary surgery. I know of a youngster who passed his matriculation well and he was anxious to take up a veterinary career, but he did not have the means. I think that if the Government would provide a scheme whereby young men who are unable to afford the expense to qualify as a veterinary surgeon will be able to obtain loans to cover the costs necessary to become veterinary surgeons, it will be of very great assistance and lead to an increase of men taking up this profession. I would urge that point very strongly upon the Minister. [Time limit.]

May I invite the attention of the Minister of Agriculture to a pledge that was given by his predecessor to reorganise the Deciduous Fruit Control Board. That pledge was given in this House on the 27th January, 1944, in reassuring terms. The previous Minister indicated that he was far from satisfied with the Deciduous Fruit Board, and he had notified them that it was his intention to reorganise that body. May I ask the hon. Minister’s intention in regard to some disclosures that have been published recently in the “East London Daily Dispatch” in the references to the activities of this Board. It shows that according to their own financial statement the Board admittedly suffered a loss of £340,000 in respect of the year ending July, 1943. £55,000 was lost on pears, £30,000 on plums, £2,364 on peaches and £121,000 on grapes. The position is that those losses were largely suffered through the destruction of the fruit and an incident is disclosed which is probably without parallel in the field of “orderly marketing.” In the “East London Daily Dispatch” of the 17th March it is stated that the Deciduous Fruit Control Board authorised a transaction of this kind. Their representative at Port Elizabeth wrote to a firm in Johannesburg in these terms—

That is one of the methods by which those large losses were incurred. They suffered a loss of £380,000 and the taxpayer was called upon to shoulder that burden.

I thought you said £340,000.

Yes.

You have just said £380,000.

It is my mistake; it is £340,000. I was dealing with big figures, and I think the Board will probably think nothing of an extra £40,000. I want to show that the charge made against that Board by responsible people of 34 years of marketing experience who are not afraid to give their names in connection with this publication, is that the Board has made a lamentable failure of the job. There are two main reasons for the failure. It is stated that the markets have been deliberately starved in order that the price should be maintained on a high level. That has resulted in thousands of pounds of export quality fruit going to waste in cold storage sheds, and secondly the Deciduous Fruit Board which is composed largely of producers introduced unnecessarily high standards, mainly of size, for marketable fruit. Those standards conform to export trade standards. The whole of their business was characterised by reckless indifference to what happened to the fruit that they did not market. There is no doubt that a thorough overhaul of the operation of this Board is called for. I know that there was an enquiry into the Deciduous Fruit Board but it seems to have been held very largely in secret, and I hope that in future enquiries the public will know what is being said and what is being exposed, because this Board is really a blot on the landscape as far as the marketing of its products is concerned, and I think that the time has arrived when members of this House will have to decide whether they are going to vote any further money to be thrown down the drain in this manner. It is for members of this House to use their own judgment in matters of this kind. Are they to condone the sending of admittedly rotten fruit on the railways of the country merely for the reason of satisfying an extraordinarily curious whim of this Board. Here they consign fruit saying that it will probably arrive in a rotten condition, unfit for human consumption. It is more than a joke to find that the railways are being used for purposes of this kind.

What about the shortage of transport facilities?

Here you have a board sending rotten fruit about the country which it admits to be in that condition and it says—

What is the date of this letter.

The consignment was sent in April, 1942.

Is this not rather late to bring it to the Department’s notice?

This disclosure was only recently made. In addition you have the statement there that tons of good fruit are destroyed, that a portion of the crop is marketed at high prices and that the result in loss has to be paid by the taxpayer. We have come to a stage at which the price of fruit today is higher on the Witwatersrand than it was 40 years ago when the railways did not extend up to Johannesburg; the last part of the journey had to be performed by mule wagon. At that time the fruit delivered in Johannesburg was better than the fruit they get today and the price was lower. That is surely a terrible reproach to these Boards that are never tired of boasting about their marketing excellence. We find that everything has gone backward in connection with the marketing of fruit during this season. I have never known fruit to be more expensive than it is this year, and that is surely the very apex of the work of the Fruit Board. I hope the Minister of Agriculture will give an indication to the public as to what his policy is going to be, whether he endorses the pledge given by his predecessor and whether he will give effect to that promise at the earliest possible moment.

I have been instructed by a number of farmers in Natal to bring a certain matter to the Minister’s notice. The people who have instructed me are farmers living in the neighbourhood of a small place named Winterton. The point is that a particular company, Nestles, established a factory at Winterton in 1940 for the manufacture of milk powder. When they established that factory, milk powder had not yet come under the control of the Dairy Control Board. After the factory had been established, the Government by proclamation in 1941—that was nearly a year afterwards— also brought milk power under the control of the Dairy Board. The factory eventually, after having made representations, was granted a licence to establish a milk powder factory, and to proceed with its business. A number of restrictions were, however, imposed on the factory and it is to one of those restrictions that I want the Minister to give his attention. The point is that consent to supply milk is only given to those farmers who before the establishment of the Milk Powder Factory had been delivering their milk to the Nestles Factory. This provision especially affects nineteen farmers living in the neighbourhood of Winterton. They are no longer allowed to deliver their milk to this factory. The position therefore amounts to this, that permission is only granted to certain people to deliver their milk to the factory. It means that if one of them dies or leaves the district, that right lapses because that right has not been granted to a certain farm, but only to a certain owner. Eventually therefore it has to go altogether. But the important point which I want to bring to the Minister’s notice is that discrimination is exercised here against a small number of farmers. Some of them live a mile away from the factory but they are not allowed to deliver their milk there—they have to send their milk 16 miles away to another factory. These people have appealed to the Minister but their appeal has not been granted.

When was that appeal made?

In 1942. According to the documents in my possession they had an interview with the previous Minister and they were told that they need not bother their heads about this restrictive clause. I can only judge from the documents before me. It appears that a deputation approached the Minister in May, 1942, and that the previous Minister told them that they need no longer bother their heads about this restrictive clause, because it would be removed. That was the report which was subsequently made to a meeting of the Farmers Association where the delegates who had been to see the Minister stated that they had been told that they need not worry themselves about this restrictive clause because they would in future be allowed to supply their milk to the factory. In 1943, however, the licence was again granted by the Dairy Board and the restrictive clause was again inserted. It seems most unfair to have this small number of farmers treated in this way and not given this right. The milk factory is in their immediate neighbourhood. The factory is getting its milk from all around but these 19 farmers who are near the factory are not allowed to supply their milk there. I have the report of the meeting which was held at Winterton on the 23rd December, 1943, where Col. Park Gray told the meeting what the Minister had told them, and this is what he said—

In 1943, however, the same provision was again inserted. It would appear from the documents I have before me that that is the position and on behalf of these farmers I want to ask the Minister to go into the whole matter and irrespective of anything which happened at the time the factory was established, to grant those farmers the right to supply their milk to the factory. To my mind it is no more than right to give those people the privilege of doing so. One can understand that they are suffering heavy losses as a result of this restrictive clause. The danger of their milk getting sour is very much greater now that they have to transport it sixteen miles to another factory. The costs of transport are higher, and it gives the farmers a lot of trouble, and if what they say is true that the previous Minister promised them that this restrictive clause would be removed, then I hope the Minister will act accordingly. Perhaps the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mr. Abrahamson) who represents that part of the country, can tell us what the position is. He can tell the House whether he was also under the impression that the farmers were promised that this restrictive clause would be removed. I know that the hon. member for Drakensberg, according to the documents which I have here, also did his best to help these people. Perhaps he knows more about it than I do. I have raised this question because a number of farmers have asked me to do so and I hope the Minister will give the matter his attention.

I am sorry to have to raise a matter of a personal nature but the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) referred to me in some remarks he made yesterday and I should like just to say a few words in reply. When I raised this question of the Baynesfield Estate, I made the statement that they were a thorn in the side of the farmers of Natal who were trying to co-operate, that they were holding up attempts to bring about improved milk marketing conditions and my reason for saying that was that while I was President of the Natal Agricultural Union I spent the whole of one day in trying to bring about an agreement between these various interests that were cutting each other’s throats, and were trying to get a better system of marketing. That meeting ended in failure and the cause was that the Baynesfield Estates were not willing to bring about the desirable state of affairs which I was trying to establish. I have had many representations from people since and I feel that this is a matter which should be brought to the notice of the Department. The principal reason is that this estate is a very valuable one on which a very considerable amount should have been paid in death duties, but it escaped on account of its being a charitable bequest. My contention is that the terms of the bequest are not being carried out and it is the duty of the Government to investigate the whole matter. The Government is particularly interested. I don’t want to weary the House with what is more or less a local matter, but I feel that I should make a suggestion to the Minister that he should appoint a Commission to investigate the statements I have made.

You have not mentioned a single fact in this House, and you know that very well, Sir.

I should like the Government to appoint a Commission.

On what grounds were you asked to intervene. It is no use coming here with a lot of tittle tattle.

I have brought this matter forward in a responsible manner; I have made certain statements which I am prepared to substantiate, but I do not expect this House to act as judge and jury. This is a matter in which the Government has the right to adjudicate because a very large sum of money has been left for public purposes, and in my opinion the wishes of the testator are not being carried out, and that estate has actually been operating in a manner detrimental to the marketing of milk in Natal. And that is a matter which I think the Government should investigate.

In what respect has the estate interefered with the marketing—you are unable to reply, Sir.

I don’t think one can judge a matter of this importance bv means of answers to interjections. It is a matter which I am prepared to bring forward before any independent commission, and I hope the hon. member is prepared to do the same.

Ask Tommy Boydell, he’ll deal with him.

I would simply ask the Minister to have the whole matter investigated by an independent commission, and I shall be very pleased to lay before that commission all the facts in my possession.

You have not said yet what the matter is.

The hon. member can reply if he wishes to; he must not interrupt.

Can he reply now?

No.

I understand the hon. member agrees to an investigation. I do not wish to enter into any personal discussion or to make acrimonious remarks. I simply state that this is a matter in which the Government is interested, and I appeal to the Minister to hold a thorough investigation into the Baynesfield Estate in the public interest, and on the ground that it is interfering with the progress of co-operation. That is my request. Now, if I might leave this slightly contentious subject, and refer to another matter. I want to refer to the question of consumer representation on Control Boards. That is a matter which I think farmer representatives are agreed should be extended considerably, and we find many people claiming to speak on behalf of the consumers. I suggest that the consumers of South Africa should try and organise themselves so that they can indicate to the Government the most representative body to nominate their representatives on the Control Boards. We have members of the Labour Party; we have the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) who has criticised the actions of the Deciduous Fruit Board, and I feel that the body he would probably suggest as the one to nominate a member of the consuming public would be the Trade and Labour Council. I think a lot could be said for that contention, and I think if we have people like the hon. member to go on those Boards, they would probably be of great assistance, and we would find that the experience gained by them would be of great assistance to this House when any criticisms are levelled against these Boards. I think that is a suggestion worth trying. I also think the Minister would be wise to recognise the women’s organisations. The National Council of Women might be able to suggest a representative for such a Board. I don’t say that the National Council of Women is the most representative body and is the right body to nominate a representative—it would be dangerous for anybody to say which is the most representative body. But the Minister would have to take the responsibility. But if our women would organise and indicate to the Minister whom they want to represent them on these Boards, it would be very helpful. I make these suggestions in order to meet a situation which is developing very rapidly— the demand for increased consumers representation on the Control Boards. A lot of people want to represent the consumers. I think a little discussion on this question, as to who should really represent the consumers, would be all to the good. These Control Boards are very much in the limelight, and I know they are of tremendous assistance to the Government, particularly during this abnormal period, and I think any suggestions which we might make for a more efficient working of these Boards would be to the benefit of the whole community.

This debate has been going on a good while now and I think the country and the House are entitled to expect a statement of policy from the Minister—and not the type of assurance: “Wait a bit, I am going into matters, we hope things will improve.” I think the country now expects the Minister to make a statement on behalf of the Government, it expects the Minister to tell it that the complaints voiced here about the distribution of fruit and food will not have to be repeated in future; we expect a statement that there will be no cause for us to complain again of the destruction of fruit and other foodstuffs. I was given that assurance three years ago, but nothing has come of it. The same process has gone on all the time. Earlier on this Session we were told by the fruit growers that they had been prohibited from sending their fruit to certain places. I want the Government to make a statement now that the destruction of fruit which would have been distributed to the public will be regarded as criminals. The way this debate has been handled so far cannot be allowed to continue, I am afraid, and I feel that we must now insist on a declaration of policy. We want a statement that the Government is in principle opposed to the destruction of food and that it will take steps to prevent its happening again. It is no use producing facts here to prove that fruit and food have been destroyed. It is no use placing figures and facts before the House and telling the House that means of transport are not available. There is no point in our bringing further proof here. The House should be more than convinced that those things have happened and that we can no longer tolerate this situation. The time has come for the Minister to make a declaration that this state of affairs will now be stopped. As I have said, I have a mass of information here and the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) gave us further information earlier on. We can give the House a lot more information, but there is no point in our doing so. The time has come for the Minister to tell us these things will not occur again, and that Boards of Control which do things of that kind will not be tolerated. May I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that we have had a lot of talk about the prices of foodstuffs. Some members want prices to be higher, others want them to be lower, and that is the way we argue and have endless debates. The one section is continually trying to get prices raised, whereas the other section wants prices reduced, and there is no stability. Let me tell the Minister what to my mind will constitute a sound policy, and what he should accept as a standard for the farming industry. Let me draw hon. members’ attention to the sugar industry; all of us feel and know that so far as the sugar producers are concerned the costs of production have also gone up. They also use agricultural material and labour, they also pay levies on materials and other things they use; they also pay cost of living allowances, but sugar is one of the commodities which in this country has remained stable in price. It is one of the commodities which has not been dumped into the sea in large quantities. There is effective control in that industry so far as price and distribution are concerned, and I now ask the Minister: What is wrong, why cannot his control boards apply the same effective policy to the other products in South Africa? Why cannot they have effective fixation of prices, effective distribution to the consumer, so that we shall no longer have this destruction of foodstuffs in this country? I have given sugar as an example because the system of control in force in that industry might well serve as a model, it might be used as an example which our farmers might try to emulate. The sugar industry, rightly, is very proud of what it has achieved in South Africa. But when we state in this House that that position does not apply in regard to meat, wheat, mealies, fruit, milk and eggs some kind of an explanation is put forward and we have to listen to all kinds of stories and all kinds of arguments to try and explain the position to the consumer. And then the representatives of the consumer in this House have to be satisfied with this type of statement from the Minister. “Just wait a bit; we shall put things right very soon.” We have listened to this “wait a little” story for four years. We have been waiting for four years for conditions to be remedied, but instead of improving it seems to me they are getting worse day by day. I also want to say a few words on another subject. I have a memorandum before me by the Citrus Board: “The Citrus Board’s policy and achievements.” Hon. members cannot say that we have no information to go on. This memorandum was specially drawn up for members of Parliament to give them some information about the position. Among other things I notice there is a diagram here showing prices in this country as compared with other countries, and they try to make out here that citrus fruit is sold here cheaper than anywhere else in the world—this memorandum is so convincing that we might even believe it. It says here that oranges in South Africa are sold at an average of l½d. each, and then they tell us that the price of oranges in Australia is 8d. per lb., in the United States of America 5d. per lb.

How do you know it is not so?

We know it is not so; it is an artificial truth. There is an old saying that figures cannot lie. but we know the other side of that picture. The position placed before us here is an artificial one. When we are told that oranges are sold at l½d. each, the total quantity given as sold includes all these oranges which were never sold. The small number sold to achieve the globular sum received for the oranges would not work out at l½d. per orange. I deny it most emphatically. I say that the man who wants to tell me so should go and tell his stories to school children. It is too ridiculous. I say that 80 per cent. of the oranges sold are at 6 for 1s. and even more than that, and to come and tell me that the price of oranges is l½d. well, it is absurd. I repeat that the figure is an artificial one, because it includes the oranges given away for nothing, and also the oranges ploughed into the soil. The small quantity sold to the consumers in the normal way was not sold at that price. The Minister represents a Rand constituency as I also do, and he knows that meat prices today are higher than they have ever been before, at any rate higher than they have been in my life-time, and I want to tell the Minister that the consumers are looking to him to bring them down to a reasonable level.

What is a reasonable level?

Surely the hon. member does not want to tell me that 1s. 6d. and 2s. per lb. for meat is reasonable in this country. I say so especially after the figures which the Minister quoted about the increase in the number of cattle in this country, and about the tremendous increase in pigs. We are all glad it is so, but last year we were told that there was a serious crisis ahead and that there was going to be a shortage of cattle in this country. But what will happen if we go on in this way. If the war finishes tomorrow we shall have the Control Boards in four months’ time telling us that there is over-production and that we must send our meat overseas and that subsidies are required. That is what we are going to get. We are going to get an immediate drop in prices, so that cattle and pig farmers will go bankrupt, because they are all buying animals today at high prices; that being so it must be clear that after the war there is going to be a tremendous drop and some of those people will go bankrupt. An artificial position is being created. Instead of the Control Boards advising the farmers to sell their cattle we find that they are hanging on because they have been told that there is going to be a serious shortage. [Time limit.]

I want to say a few words arising out of the remarks by the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart), and I want to give some information to the Minister regarding the position at Winterton. Years ago Nestles set up a milk processing factory at Estcourt. The milk production increased an towards the end of 1938 Nestles said that they could not take more milk than they were then taking, and at Estcourt the factory placed a quota on its suppliers. They thereupon made an application for a factory at Merrivale. That application was granted, but they, Nestles, did not erect the factory, with the result that that section of the producers who were on the Winterton and Bergville side had no alternative but to send their cream away. Union Milk, an American company, made application for the establishment of a factory at Bergville, which application was eventually granted. This was towards the end of 1939 or the beginning of 1940. The licence was granted in April 1940, provided they started work at once and opened the factory. They started building the factory towards the beginning or middle of 1940 and they were producing in 1941. I am giving this information so? that the Minister may know the position. When the factory was being built at Bergville, Nestles stepped in and asked for permission to open a factory at Winterton, eighteen miles from Bergville and 28 miles from Estcourt. The object of the factory at Winterton was to knock out competition by Union Milk. When they had a monopoly they put a quota on the farmers, but as soon as Union Milk opened a factory at Bergville they wanted to open up another factory at Winterton. The Dairy Control Board warned them that they could not do so, but being very ingenious people they discoverd that the Dairy Control Board could not prevent them manufacturing milk powder, and in spite of the warning by the Dairy Control Board they opened a factory at Winterton.

They had the right to do so at the time.

No, I say they did not have the right to do so, because until Union Milk opened at Bergville they refused to accept those farmers’ milk in their factory. Had it not been for the fact that Union Milk started in its factory at Bergville there would have been no factory at Winterton. The farmers who are now suffering because of their support of Nestles know that it would give rise to difficulty and they themselves are to blame for the position. After various efforts to arrive at a compromise certain suppliers were allowed to send their milk to Winterton, but not to Bergville. But if the Dairy Control Board were to allow this they would not be playing the game by the American Company which has started the factory at Bergville.

The Dairy Control Board did not give a guarantee.

No, but the factory was opened with the Dairy Control Board’s consent and if it now cuts them off from certain of its milk suppliers, it will not be playing the game. Union Milk went out of its way to start up a factory there to meet the farmers. A a result of this factory—started by Union Milk at Bergville—the price of the land there has risen considerably and farming generally has improved, and the farmers at Bergville today are in a much better position than they were in before. They have not got Nestles to thank for this but Union Milk, and I say that the Minister is compelled to protect the interests of Union Milk as far as possible so that it can get its milk supplies, as Estcourt has that whole part— even beyond Merrivale, up to Mooi River and beyond. Nestles can exploit that whole part. I am saying this for the information of the Minister so that he may know what the exact position is. There is one other point to which I want to draw the Minister’s attention. The war will be over one of these days —we hope it will be soon—and large quantities of material will be available which will have to be sold by the Defence Department. I want the Minister to sell the corrugated iron and wood to the farmers before anyone else gets a chance. He must see to it in good time that when the camps are broken up the corrugated iron and wood are made available to the farmers for the building of sheds. We have seen what the position has been in regard to mealies. The grain elevators were full and there were no sheds on the railway stations. If the farmers had had sheds on their farms they could have stored those mealilies and large quantities would not have been ruined as was the case. It is in the national interest that the farmers have proper sheds, and I therefore ask the Minister, at the end of the war, to see that this material is placed at the disposal of the farmers.

I notice the hon. member for Paarl (Mr. Faure) is in his seat. I don’t want to say much about him because he himself did not say much except that he was acting here on behalf of the wine farmers; beyond saying that he said very little about the wine farmers. The first thing he said was that the Minister of Agriculture need not be very nervous because he was not a farmer. He said that before Union Sir Thomas Smartt was Minister of Agriculture and he was not a farmer either. But for the fact that Sir Thomas Smartt was not Minister of Agriculture before Union and that he was a farmer, the hon. member is quite correct-The hon. member, speaking on behalf of the wine farmers, also said that the wine farmers wanted to show their “unending” gratitude to the Minister of Finance. Surely that was not the impression which the hon. member for Paarl could have received when he attended the protest meeting that was held there? He savs they should be grateful to the Minister of Finance because he is going to impose the tax on sweet wine, and not on wine that is to be imported. According to him this is going to be a great relief to the wine farmers, and that being so he wants to convey the thanks of the wine farmers to the Minister of Finance. When the hon. member returns to Paarl he will find that that confession will not be a cause for great gratitude on the part of the wine farmers. It will have very little effect in improving the position. The only consolation the wine farmers will have is the kind of consolation a man who has been sentenced to death gets when he is told that instead of being shot he will be drowned. So much for the hon. member. The Minister of Agriculture, in the short while he has been in office, except for the fact that he has had to listen to a number of long speeches in this House, has had a comparatively easy time. I do not think hon. members wanted to worry the Minister too much, and that is the reason why this debate has not been so very heated and so very lively. The only liveliness in the debate was provided by the private fight this afternoon between the hon. member for Griqualand East (Mr. Fawcett) and the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick), and nobody knew what it was all about. I doubt very much whether those hon. members themselves knew what it was all about. Anyhow the Minister of Agriculture has had an easy time, but now I want to warn him that it will depend on himself whether he will have an easy time in future. It will depend on his own actions in future whether in days to come he will continue to have an easy time as Minister of Agriculture. And the degree of the criticism levelled against him in future will depend on his own attitude as Minister of Agriculture in the year ahead of him. He will have to go very carefully in regard to a few matters, matters which will give him a lot of trouble. There is a great struggle ahead in days to come so far as agriculture is concerned, and when I say this I am talking in what one might call the political sense of agriculture. There has of late been a conflict between the primary producer and trade. A serious conflict has arisen on the question whether the producer is to have the right to control the product he takes to market, or whether he, as in the past, should not have any power of control. I admit that in the attempt to secure control the primary producers so far have done foolish things. The primary producer has not always made a success of it, partly because he has not had the necessary machinery, and partly because of lack of experience. Those facts are used now to undermine the whole system of control. The great struggle is ahead, and I want to warn the Minister. The opponents of control are to be found in his own Party. His own Party primarily is not a farmers’ party, but a party of commercialists. The commercialists in his Party will desert him if he proves to be a friend of the farmers and they will undermine him. We are going to watch the Minister in the year ahead of us, and at the end of the year we shall see whether, as Minister of Agriculture, he has stood on the side of the farmers or whether he has given way to the influences which· are already making themselves felt by members on his side. There is another crisis ahead and that is the labour problem. We in the coastal areas particularly, have many difficulties in regard to the labour question. I am not so well acquainted with the position up country but I understand that there, too, it is serious. Farmers are experiencing the greatest difficulty in securing sufficient labour to enable them to carry on their ordinary farming activities. The Department during the last few years has told the farmers that they must produce more because a food crisis is developing in South Africa. Now the question is: What has the Government done to improve the labour position in the rural districts? Nothing at all. What the Government has done in the Western parts and in the coastal districts is to draw thousands of workers into the army and to leave us practicaly without labourers. I don’t know what they are doing up North, but when I see that £1,850,000 is now being given to the Mines as a subsidy to pay better wages to the mine natives to enable them to get more natives for the mines, we must realise that that action of the Government’s will have the effect of more natives being drawn away from the farms to the mines. We in the coastal districts have had a little assistance through prisoners-of-war being made available; but for that farming would have come to a standstill to a very great extent. One of these days these people will be gone. What then? The labourers who have been paid, enormous wages, enormous for them—are they going to be satisfied to return to the farms? Those who have been drawn away to the towns to work in war factories and other places at temporarily high wages, will they be satisfied to go back to the farms? Will they be satisfied with their old wage, or even with higher wages, wages in accordance with the ability to pay? A serious crisis is ahead, so serious that agriculture is going to be handicapped most severly by it. The position after the war will even become worse than it is now. We want to know what steps the Minister is taking in regard to this question. Then there is another class of farmer who has great trouble in the marketing of their produce. I refer to the vegetable farmers. The vegetable farmer is always looked upon as a humble type of farmer. I don’t know why. Perhaps it is because he farms with the humble old cabbage, potato or other type of vegetable, but if one takes the production of vegetables in South Africa, the value of the vegetables produced, and if one takes four or five of the most important classes of farming one soon finds how important vegetable farming is. If one compares it with fruit farming, which we hear such a lot about, one soon finds that fruit is nowhere in comparison with vegetables. With the exception perhaps of potatoes the marketing position in regard to vegetables is very unsatisfactory. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) has raised the question of the Winterton Dried Milk Factory. The Estcourt Condensed Milk Factory, the Winterton Dried Milk Factory, and the Bergville Condensed Milk Factory are all in my constituency and this is a matter that has gone on for some considerable time. The hon. member for Klip River (Mr. Friend) has put the Bergville side of the question to the Minister, and in doing so I think he has been hardly fair to the Estcourt Condensed Milk Factory. The position is that representations have been made to the department and to the Dairy Control Board for some considerable time; and I have always taken up the standpoint that in trying to settle that dispute between the two condensed milk factories, neither the Dairy Control Board nor the department were justified in penalising the producers who were supplying the Winterton factory. The position is that the Dairy Control Board have made a terrible mess of this whole question. They were either justified in granting that licence to the Winterton Dried Milk Factory or they were not; but having granted that licence they were not justified in penalising any of the producers who were sending their milk to that factory. I have always maintained that to be the position. To place the blame on Mr. Marshall, the manager of the Escourt Factory, for setting up that factory there, is not a fair way for them to meet their troubles. If they had the courage of their convictions they would have refused a licence to that factory if its grant was not justified; but they should not penalise the farmers supplying that factory, as they are doing now. The Minister, acting on the advice of the Dairy Control Board, has now granted a licence to the Winterton Dried Milk Factory on a restricted basis. That means preferential treatment to a number of farmers who live in that area.

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

HOUSE RESUMED:

The CHAIRMAN reported progress and asked leave to sit again; House to resume in Committee on 5th April.