In this clause provision is only made for volunteers who were serving articles with an attorney at the time they attested. As I have already said during the Second Reading, I think that this kind of consideration is dangerous for the person himself, because he will not be properly trained. But as the law society thought fit that there should be consideration for this class of person, I don’t know why they did not go further to meet the case of volunteers who, when they attested, were registered law students at the universities, or who had entered for the B.A. Law Degree of the universities. As you know, there is such a degree, and the person who possesses his B.A. Law and who wishes to become an attorney must serve articles for three years. They must also be considered. I think it quite unfair that these students receive no consideration from the law society. I hope that the Minister will realise that and that he will assist those students. Since I have made this suggestion in this House, I have been approached by letter and by telephone by numerous people with children who went on active service, and they say they feel their children should receive consideration. I am very sorry that the law society was not open and above board with the Minister of Justice. They made no investigation at the universities to find out how many of that class of student would come under this provision. According to my information, they just went to him and said that they are inclined to have an Amendment Bill drafted, and that they would agree to that; but they never emphasised this aspect of the matter to the Minister of Justice. On the contrary, what they did when the matter was brought to their notice, was to say that there were only two or three students who would come under the provision. It is said that the person who was serving articles and who then went to the front, would get experience there and consequently he should serve for a shorter period. They would have more experience. Well, the students who went before they wrote their examination, will also have more experience and a deeper knowledge of life, and if consideration is shown in the other cases, then it should also be done in their case. I hope that the Minister will make a statement to the House that he will investigate this matter and that next year he will introduce an amendment to meet this class of student which I have mentioned.

I wish to raise the same point. What is being done here is very unfair. If a person studies for his B.A.-LL.B, he then volunteers and spends three or four years at the front in Egypt or in Italy, this consideration is not shown to him. They get no relief under this Bill. That person returns and if he then completes his course at the university, he still has to serve the full period of articles. I want the Minister to give immediate attention to the matter, and not to wait until next year. Would it not be possible for him to introduce an amendment in the Senate? If the law society objects to that, they do not deserve the reputation of wishing to assist these people. What I consider should be done is that in cases where these people study at the university, then go and fight, and on their return complete their degreee, they must be given the privilege, under this Bill, to serve articles for a shorter period. I hope that the Minister will consider the matter and see what he can do. Why differentiate between students who are perhaps still at the front, and others who are perhaps already discharged. I know of such people. There are many of them and we must assist them. We must not wait until next year, we must see if we cannot pass an amendment in the Senate now, to put the matter right.

Since the point has been raised by the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie), I have gone into the matter, and I must admit that I think his point of view is reasonable. I have also been approached by attorneys in the city, and I intend to approach the law society. I do not think it is desirable now to introduce an amendment on this point. I will approach the law society, and I intend to draw up an amendment on the lines suggested, and then to add it in the Senate. I had intended to leave the matter over until next year. It is, however, such a reasonable matter that, although I cannot introduce an amendment now, I undertake to see that it will be done in the Senate.

I wish to point out to the Minister that in the Act of 1934, in connection with the admission of attorneys, the period was increased at that time. There were certain people who had vested rights, and to them consideration was shown because they were already articled clerks. The same consideration was shown to law students. It appears to me, therefore, that it will be an easy matter for the Minister to introduce an amendment on the same principle as the provision in the Act of 1934.

Clause put and agreed to.

Remaining clauses and title of the Bill put and agreed to.

HOUSE RESUMED :

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill without amendment.

Bill read a third time.

I move the amendment standing in my name as follows—

The purpose of this amendment is to insert the word “maintain” and that is being done merely to bring the amendment into line with the opening phrase which refers to institutions “maintained” by the Government. It is purely a drafting amendment.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 7,

I move the amendments standing in my name—

1. (c) by the insertion in sub-section (4) after the word “child” of the words “or cause it to be removed” and after the word “there” of the words “examine it or cause it to be examined or”.

These amendments are also in the nature of drafting amendments. It will be noticed that in the previous paragraph the phrase is used: “If a reasonable period specified in the direction.” It is simply proposed to insert these words which were obviously omitted. The others are drafting amendments.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 10,

I ask the Committee to amend paragraph (b) of this clause. The amendment is on page 624. After further consideration, and after consultation with representatives of the National Council of Child Welfare, it was felt that the proposed amendment in the original Bill was unnecessary, and I therefore ask the Committee to drop this particular provision. I move—

Agreed to

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 11,

Before the House agrees to pass Clause 11 I would be glad to know if the Minister does not intend to introduce a amendment to Clause 30 of the Act. The day before yesterday on the second reading the Minister said he would consider an amendment to Clause 30 to meet the criticisms that were put up from all sides of the House to this so-called Apprenticeship system. At the time the Minister suggested that we might amend this clause to the effect that contracts of apprenticeship entered into on behalf of children of 15 years or under should be subject to the consent of the Minister. That in effect would leave a gap between the provision in respect of children of 15 years and Under, and children of 16 years and over. I would suggest that the Minister should put in a new clause to provide an amendment to Clause 30 paragraph (2) in the following terms: “Provided further that all contracts of service entered into on behalf of children under sixteen years of age—be subject to review by the Minister.” My original proposal to take the age of 15 as the dividing line was based on the provisions of the ordinary Apprenticeship Act which are now under amendment in this House. The age of 15 is still maintained as the minimum age at which a child can be apprenticed and I had in mind that we should bring this class of apprenticeship under the same age provision. That was the only ground for taking 15 as the age. Actually if you are going to put in this clause that no child should be apprenticed without the Minister’s consent, then you must take 16 as the dividing line. And if the Minister is not prepared to accept my original proposition that this whole type of “Apprenticeship” be dropped out, I hope he will accept my suggestion that every contract entered into in respect of a child under 16 should be reviewed by the Minister. I know that these contracts are reviewable by the Commissioners for Social Welfare, but it is a fact that we need some strengthening of control over these contracts and I hope that such control will operate against allowing the continuation of contracts of apprenticeship, particularly in rural areas. If these contracts were confined to urban areas, the position would not be so dangerous as it is now, because the machinery for social welfare control is steadily being built up in urban areas, and I think the type of contract could be of a more constructive character, which is only possible if it is limited to urban areas. It should be possible, in view of the changing character of our industry, to find avenues of employment for these children in trades and industry which would not be dead end employment. This would get over the difficulty of this apprenticeship system which was, it is claimed, the only system we had to fall back on in the days when the Children’s Act was being tried out. I do not know of any other way of getting round the difficulty if the Department is not prepared to accept my suggestion that apprenticeship be stopped altogether. But I would urge that the Minister should accept this amendment to give him the power and the obligation to review these contracts with the understanding that the line of policy of his Department should be to see that children are not apprenticed to farmers in rural districts where there is no supervision and that these children shall be put into avenues of employment with some constructive benefits which means that they will be apprenticed in urban areas and not in rural areas. I shall be glad to know what the Minister has to say to that proposition.

I am most anxious to help the hon. member who has just spoken and other hon. members who raised this matter on the second reading. At that time, the Committees will remember, I threw out the suggestion that a way of meeting the difficulty, for the present at any rate, would be to introduce an amendment in the principal Act enabling the Minister to cancel existing and any future contracts of apprenticeship. I also threw out a suggestion that no contract of apprenticeship, in respect of a child of 15 and under, should be entered into without the consent of the Minister. Well, since this question was discussed, I have gone further into the matter and the advice I am given is that amendments of that nature would introduce a new principle into the Bill. Under the Rules of the House the only way I can introduce this new principle would be to withdraw the present Bill altogether and start de novo by introducing a completely new Bill. But I hope hon. members will bear with me when I say that in view of the stage we have reached in the Session, in view of the time factor, I do not think I would be justified in taking that step now. There is however, another way in which I may be able to deal with the matter, but in order to make the position of the Department of Social Welfare quite plain, in order that the Committee may have the view of the Department clearly defined and guage how it may administer the Act in future, may I set out briefly what the Department considers are the advantages and disadvantages of the scheme. In the opinion of the Department the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. The system of apprenticeship was something which the Department inherited. Now the following advantages are possible under this system: the child may be removed from unsatisfactory home conditions or from an antisocial environment to better living conditions. The child may receive disciplinary training and be taught useful occupations and, thirdly, the child is saved from reformatory detention where he comes into contact with all kinds of vicious characters. These are the arguments in favour of the retention of the system if it is administered in the spirit in which it was intended. But the department considers that the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages, and among the disadvantages are the following: First of all the relationship between the employer and the apprentice is that of master and servant, with the result that the emphasis is on the usefulness of the child to his employer. The main consideration is therefore not what the employer can do for the child but rather what the child can do for the employer. Secondly, this relationship of master and servant opens the door to a system which amounts to nothing less than the exploitation of cheap child labour. Thirdly, the child is denied the opportunity of attending school. Fourthly, the child is denied the opportunity of ever learning a trade; whether he likes it or not, he must be either a general domestic servant or a farm labourer. And then, finally, the child is compelled to spend many years on a farm, cut off from all his family connections and persons of his own class and race. I have set out the one against the other, and I hope the committee will agree with the view of the department when it considers that the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. The department is not in favour of the retention of this scheme, but, as I pointed out on the Second Reading, the difficulty is that entirely to abolish the scheme might lead to many practical difficulties when we have not available accommodation suitable to meet the needs of some of these children. What I want to aim at is the abolition of the system, and as soon as possible. In the absence of complete aboilition, in the absence of the power which I had hoped to obtain under the suggested amendments to the present Bill, it is proposed that the Department of Social Welfare should circularise all magistrates, all commissioners of Social Welfare and Institutions urging them not to apprentice children unless in the opinion of the court there is no alternative. The Social Welfare officers will also be instructed to report to the department on cases of apprenticeship where the conditions are unsatisfactory. On the receipt of such information the department will communicate with the Commissioner of Child Welfare and recommend to him the termination of the contract. The Commissioner has the power at present of terminating contracts, he can do it at the request of either party, but what we contemplate is that the department should take steps to bring to the notice of the relevant Child Commisioner any unsatisfactory conditions which may exist, in a particular case, and then recommend that he cancel the contract. As soon as the Bill is placed on the Statute Book the department will have to take the necessary steps to establish additional institutions for non-European children. By increasing these institutions we shall be able to put an end to these apprenticeship conditions—at any rate such apprenticeship will become unnecessary. That is as far as I can take the matter this morning. I think that by taking this administrative action we shall—at least I hope we shall be able— to get the same results as we would by taking the powers under the suggested amendments to the Bill which the Rules of the House debar. I admit that the goal we have to aim at is the abolition of this system.

I wish to thank the Minister for the expression of opinion he has given and for the determination I know he and his department have in mind that this very unsatisfactory feature shall be removed, if not legislatively at any rate in actual practice. We on this side of the House have taken a keen interest in the subject and have asked the Minister to take some definite steps during the recess in consultation with the National Council of Child Welfare to deal with this position. And may I suggest also that he should consult the Cape Coloured Advisory Council so that the step which we hope he will take during the next Session of Parliament may be final and satisfactory having regard to the interests of the children. One point arises in my mind, and that is that emphasis should be laid upon the necessity for a substantial increase in the number of institutions where these coloured children can be cared for. There is a large increase in the number of coloured children so committed and that particularly refers to the situation which arises in the Western Province where there are so many poor people. So far as the Europeans are concerned, from the figures that were given during the second reading, it is perfectly obvious that they are to a large extent catered for. When we consider that out of 550 children so dealt with, 500 come from the coloured section of the community, and a very large proportion from the Western Province, it is plainly a matter not only for the Government but one in which public-spirited members of the community might take definite action and co-operate with the Government in making provision so that there will be that outlet for the children in need of care adequate to provide for all such commitments as are made. We thank the Minister for the information which he has given to us that the department will take action with the view to seeing that the system of apprenticeship is used as little as possible and that every endeavour will be made to find homes for the children.

I should like to support the hon. member for Roodepoort (Mr. Allen) in the movement. It is unfortunately the position that to a large extent coloured children in the large cities are without schools. Especially is that the case in Port Elizabeth when you find a large number of coloured children roaming the streets, very often without care, and I would appeal to the Minister to see that the Government set up more homes where these children can be looked after. It will largely assist to solve our social problem.

I would fail in my duty if I did not object to the remarks of the hon. member on the other side (Mrs. Ballinger) in connection with the non-Europeans who are apprenticed on the platteland. When she alleges that non-Europeans should only be apprenticed in the cities she does not know what she is talking about. I often see the non-Europeans who are apprenticed on the platteland. They are well looked after. In many cases they are problem children who must be removed from the cities, because if they remain in the cities there would be trouble. Where those children are apprenticed to farmers, they are well treated, very often better than they are treated in the cities. I think the platteland would take exception to it if the Minister would give effect to the hon. member’s suggestion to stop the apprenticing of children on the platteland and to confine it to the cities. It will not be to the advantage of the non-Europeans because on the platteland they are properly educated. There they come in contact with decent people. All classes are found in the cities and the children come in contact with them, and it is not to their advantage.

And the inspectors go round on the platteland.

Yes, and the magistrate keeps an eye on it. I want the Minister to understand that we on the platteland will take exception to it if the apprenticing is limited to the towns. The children are better off on the platteland and the Minister must pay no attention to the hon. member.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 12 put and negatived.

On Clause 14, On the motion of the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation, an amendment was made in the Afrikaans version which did not occur in the English version.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 15,

This is another Clause which, on reconsideration, it has been felt advisable to drop. The difficulties consequent upon these new provisions might in some cases lead to complexities not contemplated, and it is felt wiser to drop it altogether.

Clause put and negatived.

On Clause 18,

I move—

The amendment is inserted for the purpose of clarity. The word “absence” occurs four times, and it is, therefore, necessary to state where the amendment is to be inserted.

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 21,

As a result of representations it has been felt by the Department that it is unwise to make this amendment. Where a child is certified by a medical practitioner to be in need of an operation and where there may be serious danger to life, if the parents are alive and they do not consent, the Minister is asked to give his consent to an operation. Even where the parents refuse their consent the Minister may be asked to give his consent. It was the intention to drop the words “with serious danger to life,” but, in view of the representations made, it has been decided to leave the Clause as it is at the present time.

Clause put and negatived.

On Clause 26,

I move—

1. (d) by the substitution for the expression “section fifty-six and sub-section (3) of section fifty-seven” of the expression “and section fifty-six”.

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 27, On the motion of the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation, an amendment was made in the Afrikaans version which did not occur in the English version.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 28 put and negatived.

On the Title,

I move—

That is consequential upon the dropping of Clause 28.

Agreed to.

Title, as amended, put and agreed to.

HOUSE RESUMED:

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill with amendments.

Amendments considered.

Amendments in Clauses 1, 7 and 10, the omission of Clause 12, the amendment in Clause 14 (Afrikaans), the omission of Clause 15, the amendment in Clause 18, the omission of Clause 21, the amendments in Clauses 26 and 27 (Afrikaans), the omission of Clause 28, and the amendment in the Title put and agreed to, and the Bill, as amended, adopted.

Bill read a third time.

The hon. the Minister yesterday doubted mv statement that the water in a public furrow belongs to the riparian owners. I would like to draw his attention to Section 11 of Act No. 8 of 1912. If he reads that section very carefully he will see that the water in a public stream belongs to riparian owners. A riparian owner is defined therein. It was also doubted that we could do what we liked with the water in a public furrow. Section 9 lays down—

The water belongs to the ground. That is the point. That is a right which has existed for hundreds of years. It existed before the Act of 1912, before there was any Act at all. The water in a public furrow belongs to the ground. You cannot sell it or take it away. The riparian owners are entitled to it, it must remain there and be used for the riparian ground.

Who doubted it?

You people. The only right you have is to sell water from a private borehole. With that you can do as you like. That belongs to you. That also applies in the case of fountain water which you have on the farm and which is not the source of a river.

That can also not be sold.

I think it would be well for the hon. member to study the Act. The fountain on your farm, which is not the source of a public river, is private water. With that you can do as you like.

You may not sell that off your ground.

Then I will again have to read from the Act. The hon. member persists with that. It is Section 8 (1)–

Every person is entitled to the exclusive and unlimited use and enjoyment of all water rising on his own land: Provided that nothing in this section contained shall affect the right of a riparian owner to a reasonable share of water which, rising on the land of an upper owner, flows down for the greater part of the year beyond such land in a known and defined channel and has for a period of at least thirty years been used by such riparian owner, or shall affect any other existing rights.

All fountains flow to a river, surely?

No, not at all. I will take you here in the Cape to fountains which do not flow to a river. There are hundreds in my district.

When does a fountain become a public furrow?

When it becomes part of a public furrow. It seems to me I must start a school to assist hon. members. The position is clear.

Can the hon. member explain what all this has to do with the Clause?

Yes, Mr. Chairman, it has a lot to do with it. I wish to prove that you cannot do with the water of a public furrow what you like. The Minister now wishes to change it and wants to have the right to lay down how much water he can grant in respect of this piece of ground, and how much in respect of another piece of ground. In my opinion that is an infringement of the rights of riparian owners. Here a change is made to amend the existing Section 7 of the Act. Section 7 deals with the building of Government dams and the construction of furrows. Now the Minister wishes to change that also in respect of furrows leading from rivers, and he then wants to lay down how much water can be given to each farm.

From the dams? That is surplus water.

That is public water. The owners of the ground have a right to that water. Naturally, if they want to lead it out they have to block the river.

And your argument is that the Government may not do that?

The Minister now wishes to obtain the right to divide the river as he thinks fit. That is his reason for proposing the amendment of Section 7.

Were the dams which were constructed in the past, constructed illegally?

There was a division according to reguation under the existing Act. I will read Section 7 to the Minister—

Now the Minister wants to change it. He wants to add after the word “may”, the words “subject to the provisions of Section 7 bis.” It is altogether a new right which he wants to have. The Minister now says in this clause that it must not be regulated by regulation, that Section 7 must be changed. He thoroughly changes the Act to obtain the right to do as he likes. In other words if he constructs a furrow leading from the Orange River, then he lays down how much water the farm over which the furrow runs, will get. That is clear from section 7 bis. That is the right he takes and if a furrow falls within an irrigation district then the Minister wants to lay down how much irrigable ground below the furrow will be granted to the different people.

Do you think the position was fair? Then it was possible for one person to get everything and another one nothing.

That is not the point now, but here people are deprived of rights. I am not discussing the fairness of division now, but the fact that the Minister is removing rights and that he will now be the only person who will have the right to divide as he likes. It will not be done by the Minister personally but his department will do the surveying and make the recommendations. We have experience of engineers in the past. The hon. member for Rustenburg knows the position quite well, and that one has no right to go to court and say that they are taking water to which one is entitled. You have simply to do what the Minister tells you to do. The only protection there is is to come to Parliament and the Parliament has to approve of his action. But he lays down how much water will be granted for a specific piece of ground, taking into consideration the rights of the people. [Time limit.]

I am aware that the hon. member for Swellendam knows a lot about matters connected with water, but we want to rectify what is wrong. Yesterday I quoted that in the past it nas happened that a dam was constructed—this is not a figment of the imagination but actual fact—and that one man possessed one-third of the ground below the dam. Is it right and fair that a few people should be benefited? Those were things that were wrong in the past and it is our duty to rectify them, and that is what the Minister is doing. He wants to obviate these conditions from continuing. I cannot see what the objections of hon. members are against this clause. The hon. member for Swellendam does not want to listen to reason.

I am listening to you although I do not accept it.

I maintain that the Minister has adopted the right attitude. If we accept the Bill, it would be more equitable. In the past you found the position that if a man owned a big piece of ground, he was allotted a big portion of the water and his neighbour perhaps did not get anything, there was no water Is that right? This Bill makes provision for a fair division for the greatest possible number of farmers who will benefit. This is the most fair Bill we could expect. The right thing is being done here.

I regret that I cannot conduct the fight with the hon. member for Swellendam, who is a lawyer, on a legal footing. I am an ordinary farmer, but I can say this, that if the hon. member takes his objections to a logical conclusion, then it means that in future no water could be taken from the Orange River or the Vaal River, that it must all go to the riparian owners to provide for their requirements, and that the rest must flow to the sea. The hon. member’s objection is that the Government is taking surplus water to allot to other people who are not riparian owners. That, in effect, is his objection. I hope that the farmers will make a note of the objection which he raises in this connection. If water were to be taken away from the riparian owners so that their requirements cannot be met, then I would agree that it is wrong. But we are dealing with surplus water which we want to use in the interests of the country, water which otherwise would go to the sea. The riparian owners are not robbed, but in the national interests the Government wants to irrigate the ground with the surplus water which otherwise must flow to the sea. South Africa needs as much water as possible for irrigation. That would enrich the country, benefit farming, and increase the rainfall. I agree with the hon. member when he says that we must not rob riparian owners of water.

I want to know from the Minister whether it is considered to be economical, for instance to the Karoo, which parts the Minister had in mind especially, to build long canals. Does he consider that would be an economic proposition? The Minister must have in mind more in particular the Karoo, because he refers to fodder banks. From a practical point of view, if you build a dam at a very large expenditure and these long canals have to be built for a few farms, will it be a payable proposition? Say for instance these farms average 5,000 morgen, then the furrow you have to build from one farm to another may possibly be three miles long, and another three miles to the next farm. The expenditure in connection with the building of these canals will be huge, and I doubt whether it will be practicable in those extensive areas. Will it be economical to build such dams in the Karoo, and then to give to each farm possibly only 20 morgen irrigable land?

The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) did not refer to Act No. 36 of 1934. That is the Act which amended the Irrigation Act of 1912.

It was not necessary for me to refer to that Act.

It deals with the surplus water and the right of the Government to take away surplus water from riparian lands. The hon. member says that water is taken away from riparian owners, without compensating them.

I still say so.

There was a time when the riparian owners had all the rights to take the surplus water and the normal flow from the river. But in that connection I want to point out to the hon. member that the Act of 1934 deals with the rights of the State to take away the surplus water, to be utilised on land which is not riparian land. In Section 1 of that Act we find that Section 2 of the Irrigation Act of 1912 was amended as follows. I now read Sub-section (2)—

That includes land which was not considered previously to be riparian land, land now adjacent to a stream. It is laid down here emphatically that water may be taken away from riparian lands, if a scheme is built and then the water may be used on other land. Then I ask what we are fighting about. It grants the direct right to the Government to take the surplus water. The hon. member wants to prevent the Minister to do something which South Africa desires him to do. He should rather plead that the Government should have the right to do that, because the whole country will be grateful if surplus water can be used in that way, water which today is running to the sea and which can be stored by the Government and then taken to farmers in the dry parts of the country.

The 1912 Act contains the necessary provisions.

I thought I could draw the attention of the House to this fact, because the hon. member intimated that the Government is now taking away rights which it does not possess, that is to say that the Government is taking away rights from private people.

The trouble is that hon. members do not realise what they are doing, and it is not my duty to teach them. All I have to do in Parliament is to point out that this Bill is an infringement on existing rights. The 1912 Act provides that after all the riparian land has been irrigated, any surplus water may be taken to be used elsewhere. But that can only be done if there is surplus water available, after the requirements of the riparian lands have been met. If a dam is built in a river, not only the surplus water is stored, but all the water, and if we pass this clause as it is now, it will mean that the Minister will have the right to tell any farmer how many morgen he will be allowed to irrigate of his riparian lands, and that is the reason why I contend that rights are being taken away from people.

And suppose there is not enough water for the riparian lands?

Then everybody gets a pro rata share. I would like to advise the hon. member to leave this question alone, because apparently he knows nothing about it.

I have grown up on an irrigation scheme.

The position is quite clear. The Minister comes to Parliament to alter the existing Act. That is quite clear and hon. members cannot deny that.

What about the 1904 Act?

That does not go further than the 1912 Act, because it only applies to surplus water.

Why then was it amended?

Ask the Minister. The Minister wants to amend the Act because, where a sloot runs over my property, I want to have the right to say how much land I shall be allowed to irrigate. Read the 1912 and 1934 Acts and you will see that only after all land which is entitled to water has been irrigated, surplus water may be used. That is quite clear. Prior to 1912 you were not even allowed to take out floodwater. But because it was realised that water was running to the sea, that right was given to the Government that after all the requirements of the riparian owners were met, the surplus water could be taken away and used on other lands. If the Government built a dam for that purpose, I can build a dam higher up if I want to conserve floodwater. Moreover, it became necessary to get protecting rights in respect of a dam. Now the Government comes along and says that the Government is going to lay down what land can be irrigated, and the rest of the water will then be used by the Government. If such a procedure were subject to the approval of Parliament, there might be something in it. But now the position is going to be that any farmer under a Government scheme will be in the hands of the Minister, because the Minister can lay down how much land he will be allowed to irrigate, and the Minister can take the balance of the water to irrigate land which is not riparian. For that reason I say that private rights are being taken away from these people. In this way the Minister is interfering with vested rights. Twenty years ago no Minister would have dared to bring such a Bill before Parliament to take away these rights, as he now wants to do. Parliament would never have granted such a right, because in those days people were not prepared to whittle away rights of other people. If I am in possession of a farm and I have certain rights on my farm, what justification is there for the Minister to come and prescribe what I must do and how can he take away my rights?

That is an old-fashioned idea.

Then we understand each other. The standpoint is that the Government should have a say over the farmers’ property. I wish the hon. member would tell that to the farmers of Worcester and in my constituency that the Government should have the right to lay down how many morgen a farmer may irrigate. He would not come out alive.

But there vou have a private scheme.

What is the difference? The water which is being taken away belongs to the farmer. When I have a private scheme, I cannot do what tne Government does. Neither can an Irrigation Board. Where you have an Irrigation Board, the land is surveyed and then the water is divided up over the land falling under the scheme. If they do not allocate to the farmer the water he thinks he is entitled to, he can go to the Water Court. But here the Minister is asking for powers to distribute the water as he likes, and we cannot take the Government to court.

If I build a dam in the Breede River can I take all the water if I have sufficient land?

Naturally not. If I build a dam in Breede River, I am entitled to my share of the normal flow, and I can take that out and utilise same. Do you understand that?

The hon. member should address the Chair.

I want to say to the hon. member that if I build a furrow to use the water on my riparian lands, then the water in that furrow is mine. If five or six farmers build furrows, they are entitled to use the water on their property, and if the water is not süfficient for all the land, each one gets his pro rata share. But the Government is now going to build a dam and utilise the water and the Government is going to tell the farmer how much land he may irrigate. The balance of the water, the Government can take to land which is not riparian. If an Irrigation Board does not give me my due, I can go to court. But I cannot take the Government to court. Where an Irrigation Board divides the water—well, I prefer an Irrigation Board to distribute the water, rather than to leave it to the Government. I would much rather be under the control of the Irrigation Board than under that of the Government. The Irrigation Board consists of people who know the rights and the farms of the people, and they are in a position to distribute the water on a fair and equitable basis. The Government knows nothing about the conditions. The Government has to be advised by officials. These officials go to examine the position and they have not got the experience our farmers have. That is why I say that I would much rather depend on the judgment of an Irrigation Board than on that of the Government. It is quite apparent that the Minister comes to this House to alter the existing law. All this talk about settlements, about water which has to be divided, of water which has to be taken from a river, in order to prevent it running to the sea, and of water being given to other people, is so much nonsense. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Bill. The Act simply lays down that the Government may establish schemes and that it can stipulate how the water is going to be divided. Now they are going to change all that and are going to give the water to whoever they like. If they do not want to give me any, I cannot fight them.

Do you think they would be so unreasonable?

I wish the hon. members would read the Bill. It says quite clearly that the Government may determine whether a farmer should get water and how much, and then the farmer will have no appeal to a court of law. That is the position. That is what the Minister is asking here. I have a lifelong experience of engineers of the Department of Irrigation. Ask the Minister how many Bills have been introduced on the advice of engineers, Bills which had to be withdrawn. The engineers do not care about private rights. Wherever they see an opportunity of building a dam in a river, they want to build that dam, take out the water and dispose of the water. They do not care whether other people’s rights are at stake. That has been my lifelong experience, and if they are honest, they will admit that themselves. Now he asks me to agree to discard my rights and the rights of owners in my district where a scheme is built, or rather he asks me to subject my rights to the discretion of the Minister. I cannot vote for that. It is no use talking about settlements and fodder banks and such things.

This is not for settlers, but for farmers.

You have referred to people who are settlers under such a scheme. One almost gained the impression that the Government schemes are only there to provide for settlers. There are also private owners. If we are dealing with Government property, I do not care how the water has been disposed of. But there is also private property falling under these schemes, and those people are entitled to those rights they have held for hundreds of yeàrs. The Minister comes along and wants to appropriate these rights by an Act of Parliament, and I say that that should not be. You can argue that the Government has obtained the right in respect of surplus water in 1934. That right was also granted in 1912. I am not concerned with surplus water, the water which cannot be used by the riparian owners. But those dams are not confined to surplus water. All the water is being stored there, the Government schemes also store the normal flow.

Are riparian owners deprived of their rights?

Naturally. As a riparian owner, he has a claim on the water in the river. The Government can now take that water and inform a riparian owner that he will get so much and no more. [Time limit.]

It appears that we are talking in circles. The fact remains that the amendment in the Act of 1934 does refer to works which can be established, and the powers given under that Act are only meant for State irrigation schemes. A private man cannot make use of those powers to deprive riparian owners of water. The Government has the right to establish such schemes. I now put this question to the hon. member: Will the Goverment, through any schemes it may establish, deprive the people of water if there is not sufficient water for them? The hon. member can put such a thought out of his mind. The Government will not do that if there is not sufficient water for the people who own riparian ground.

Under a State scheme, the Government has the right to take water away and to remove it from the river. Private people do not obtain the right to rob, as it is called, people of their rights. It only applies to schemes which are established by the State, where the possibility exists to bring more ground under irrigation. I think the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) must accept that. If the State does something of that nature, the Minister must be able to justify his position to this House. The fact also remains that under the Act of 1934, if the State establishes a scheme, it can regard ground as riparian ground, although it is not reparian ground. That means that he has the same right to the normal flow as to the surplus water. The riparian ground is entitled to all those things. The hon. member for Swellendam takes up the attitude that the riparian owners are entitled to all the water, whether they utilise it or not. I am not a lawyer, as he is, but it really appears to me that he is raising an unnecessary objection to the Bill.

I want to reply to the question put by the hon. member for Klerksdorp (Mr. Wilkens). He asked me whether the principle of damming up water and making it available to farmers in order to assist them to establish fodder banks and to increase the productive capacity of their farms, is more economical than the old scheme or the ordinary way in which it was done in the past. Yesterday I explained to the House over and over again how water was used in a most uneconomical manner in the past. We have had the spectacle of the results of the system of irrigation boards. The board system was a hopeless failure, and we must do away with it. The boards applied for loans to construct an irrigation scheme and the people who were the members of the board, incorporated as much land as they liked for irrigation purposes. This had two results. First of all we had speculation on an unprecedented scale. A few farmers became rich and were enriched and afterwards sold their land at a very high price. The people who purchased that land could not make ends meet with the result that in the course of time none of them met their obligations towards the State, so that millions had to be written off. I can mention the case of Olifants River where every penny had to be written off. As I already said yesterday, we wrote off £380,000 on the Breede River scheme. The board system not only was uneconomical and the cause of large scale speculation taking place, but also resulted in a few farmers waxing rich whereas others became impoverished. A further result was that the people to whom the land was sold very largely did not pay for the land. The Government therefore got those peole on its hands for the second time. I do not think it is necessary to provide further proof to my hon. friend for the bad economy of that system. As long as I may be Minister of Irrigation I shall never recommend the board system. The second point was the question of settlements. There we took the water. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) now argues that we should not take the water from the riparian owners; we should not take water out of the river because it belongs to the riparian owners. At Vaal-Hartz we are taking the water out of the river.

But for that a special Act was passed.

That is why we now again introduce a Bill to enable us to take the water. This Parliament is sovereign and it has the right to do so. In the past people possessed rights as far as the surplus water was concerned, but this Parliament had the right and made use of it, to dispose of the surplus water. In connection with the irrigation settlements I want to say that these are so expensive and so uneconomical, and if we have to continue with the settlement system, the result will be that the farmers of our country will shortly have to be ready to compete against the produce of the settlements where the people are being subsidised 100 per cent. The result will be that both the settlers and the other farmers will be ruined. The people on the settlements are being subsidised 100 per cent. and the ordinary farmer cannot make a living if he has to compete with those people. I therefore say that we should also have ordinary schemes to give water to the ordinary farmer. I just want to mention one case. We have obtained all the data. It is not in the Karroo but in one of the provinces where there is sufficient water, water which flows into the sea, and where the possibility exists to make that water available for the ordinary farmers. If my hon. friends are against that, I can only say that the farmers are not against it. This water nowadays runs to waste into the sea and in this case that water may be used to irrigate 60,000 morgen and the water will be allotted amongst the farmers.

Where is that?

In the Free State. That means that we can give water for 20 morgen to every one of 3,000 farms. I can assure you that this will be an economic proposition, because those farmers who obtain water, will be able to pay their water levy on the 60,000 morgen. Every penny of the water levy will be paid by them, whereas under the ordinary schemes we find that not a quarter of it is paid. I refer to the board schemes. On the settlements we also had many difficulties, as hon. members know. It now boils down to this. If my hon. friend maintains that we are robbing the people and that we are not entitled to take that water, then I want to point out that we dare not allow that water to run to waste into the sea without it being used. The riparian owners are entitled to the normal flow.

How much is that?

That can be measured. We know what the normal flow is. Before a weir is built, surveys are made over a number of years to determine what the normal flow is. Those rights are not to be taken away from them. I want to say at once to the hon. member that where the Government has built a dam, the normal flow in the river has been increased three or fourfold, and in some cases such as the Vaal, increased more than a hundredfold. The normal flow has increased to such an extent that the Hartz River which used to be a dry river, now is a permanent stream. We can imagine what that means to the farmers along the banks of the Hartz. No, the advantages of this policy and of taking the water in the manner we suggest, are going to be incalculable to the country. Our scheme does not aim at harming the riparian owners. They are entitled to the normal flow and they keep that right. We have no right to interfere with that. We know on the other hand that thousands and thousands of cusecs and even millions of cusecs run to waste into the sea and that this water carries with it valuable soil. The Government says that we should build a weir across those rivers and that we must prevent the scoring out of the river bed and that we should allot water to the farmers in the dry parts. Yesterday I said already that during the last three droughts the direct losses in cattle alone amounted to approximately £15 million. Is there anybody who can calculate the indirect losses? It cannot be calculated but I make bold to say that it is much more. There is no scheme which will cost us so much. Vaal-Hartz is the largest scheme and that did not cost us so much. Just think of how many schemes might have been built with that £15 million. No, I think that the scheme which we propose here is going to be the most economical. It is something which will increase our national assets, which will strengthen the agricultural population in South Africa. It will increase our productive capacity three or fourfold and that is in the interests of the country. Agriculture is thereby being developed and strengthened. We must look to the future and we must secure our future by making our country strong in regard to agricultural and farming matters. We all know that South Africa is at present a poor agricultural country. We are dependent upon the gold mines as otherwise we cannot carry on. The time may come when the mines give in, and it is our duty to make use of the opportunities now available to strengthen our agricultural industry. One of the best ways to do that is to make use of the water in our rivers. The hon. member for Swellendam cannot make use of the water but he does not want us to make use of it in the interests of the country. We have to make use of our water in order to develop agriculture. We should make use of the water in order to improve our agriculture, so that when the time arrives when the mines will no longer be working, the country will be financially strong enough to do without the gold mines. I cannot advance other arguments. The hon. member for Swellendam is trying to split hairs in regard to a section in the law. We are now engaged in altering the law, even if that should bring about a change in the rights of the people. This Parliament is sovereign and it can do so if it is in the interests of the country.

As I understand the matter, there are three different types of schemes. There is the private scheme, the construction of which is undertaken by the farmer himself, with small dams and furrows. The farmer bears the cost himself. In the second place there are the ordinary schemes we have today, where for instance 10 or 20 farms are situated on both sides of a river, perhaps 40 farms in all, and where the water is brought to the farms by means of drains. Then there is the large irrigation scheme as for instance that of the Olifants River. No outlying farms are served thereby; there are no farms away from the river which fall under the scheme. Furthermore we have the Breede River scheme. These schemes one might call the narrower undertakings.

I want to point out to the hon. member that we are now discussing Clause 1. He should confine himself strictly to the Clause.

A scheme such as the Vaal-Hartz is of a different nature. There the idea of riparian owners falls away. Let us suppose for instance that the Government were to undertake the damming up of the Orange River and to spread the water over a very vast area, far away from the river. There is for instance Bushmanland. I know one owner there who has 30,000 morgen of land. To me it seems quite impossible to provide that man with water for 30 morgen.

The hon. member should now discuss the Clause. He is not allowed to discuss the principle of the Bill.

I suppose I will be allowed to speak about the restrictions put on the riparian owners by the Minister. The Minister will have the right to allot water for a certain area of land only and not for surplus land.

We are now discussing Clause 1.

I am discussing the encumbrance of permanent flows. The adjacent farmers always had the full use of the water from the river.

The hon. member should now come back to the Clause.

I should like to congratulate the Minister on the introduction of the Bill. Thousand and thousands of head of cattle are lost every year in this country because we have not sufficient fodder for them. Here the Minister makes provision for saving such cattle. We who live in the warmer parts of the country …

Can the hon. member tell me what that has to do with Clause 1?

I should like to explain that if we dam up the water in the rivers, as the Minister proposes, then we shall be able to provide the necessary fodder for our cattle.

That has nothing to do with the Clause.

What the Minister said just now is quite true. As soon as you dam up the water, you enrich the water sources. I want to give you one instance.

The hon. member must confine himself to the Clause.

I do not want to accuse the Minister, but he and the hon. member who told us that he had read the Bill, are now talking of the normal flow as if it is the dry weather flow. The normal flow includes all the flood waters and all the water of the direct stream.

No.

Allow me to read it out once more—

In other words, all the water you can take out of a river by means of furrows and which you lead direct, is the normal flow, including floodwater or otherwise. If the ordinary flow in the dry season is enough to irrigate all the land, good and well, but normal flow includes flood waters. The Department already came to Parliament in connection with normal flows. This of the utmost importance to my constituency in the southwestern districts. For that reason I told the Minister at the beginning that he should introduce new legislation, because there are various types of rivers.

I must point out to the hon. member that I have allowed a rather full discussion on certain principles. I have to ask members now, however, to confine themselves strictly to the clauses.

Every word I say relates to the proposal contained in the first clause. The first clause actually should follow after the second clause.

Then the matter should be discussed under the second clause.

No, once we have passed the first clause, it is the end of it. If your ruling is that I cannot discuss it and the Minister and other members may talk as much as they like ….

Order, order! My ruling is that the hon. member may discuss the details of Clause 1 but not the principles of the Bill. For that he had an opportunity during the second reading.

But surely I may say what the results of the change are. They are the details of the clause.

The hon. member should confine himself to the particulars of the clause.

I shall bow to that. The Minister drags in everything in connection with settlements in order to obtain sympathy for his measure.

Order, order!

I should like to remove a misunderstanding. It seems to me that the Minister did not understand what I said. I was thinking of the statement of the Minister last year that the Karoo would be transformed into a paradise, and I now ask whether it would be economical to grant 15 or 20 morgen irrigable land for farms in the Karoo which are miles and miles apart.

That depends on the number of morgen you can irrigate.

But the Minister does not reply to my question. What do you think is the average extent of a farm in the Karoo? You are a sheep farmer yourself.

That varies. On an average perhaps 5,000 morgen.

Take a farm of 5,000 morgen and in order to give the farmer there 20 morgen under water you will have to construct miles and miles of canals.

A tremendous area is going to come under irrigation.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 2,

I move—

We now come to the question which causes the main difficulty, i.e. the right which the Government assumes to divide water as it pleases. I want to move as an amendment—

1. (4) If the person affected by the action of the Minister is dissatisfied with his decision under this section, such person shall have the right of appeal to the Supreme Court.

I have another amendment to move—

I should like my second amendment to be put first. If it is rejected I should like the other amendment to be put in connection with the right of appeal. I do not want to cover the whole ground again, but I think it is a far-reaching right which the Minister is taking unto himself. If we had been able to frame a comprehensive Bill which deals with all these matters, we could have gone into the position of big rivers as distinct from small rivers. It must be remembered that all the rights of riparian owners in the case of small rivers are also applicable to big rivers. You have two types of rivers, namely, public rivers and other rivers which flow into public rivers. Irrespective of their size, they create certain problems, and if we framed a proper Bill, all these things would be unnecessary. But now the Minister wants to have the same right in connection with small rivers as in the case of big rivers. In the case of big rivers there is probably surplus water, but the position is different in the case of small rivers. The first clause has now been passed, and we can do no more. I move these amendments, however, which I think are essential. The man ought to have the right, if the Minister makes a division with which he is dissatisfied, to go to court to show that he did not get his rightful share. The other amendment is self-explanatory. If the Minister accepts my second amendment, however, I shall withdraw the first one.

I should like to move the amendments which stand in my name on the Order Paper—

1. (4) The provisions of this section shall not apply in respect of the Government irrigation works described in paragraph (a) of the First Schedule to the Olifants River Irrigation Works Act, 1943.

The first amendment aims at a small restriction of the powers given to the Minister. It provides that sub-division may not take place under 50 morgen. Then there is a further concession in connection with my second amendment, which softens the stringent nature of this clause. Then I also provide in this amendment that when you have a holding of, say, 60 morgen, the central land board may be called in, and if it recommends that it will still be economical after it has been divided, that concession can be granted. I therefore move.

I want to move another amendment, as follows—

We are dealing here with the principle that the Minister of Lands may, where a man has, say, 500 morgen give him sufficient water to irrigate 50 morgen. Yesterday I advanced the argument that if I had 3,000 morgen of which 50 morgen were under irrigation, and I wanted to bequeath it to my two sons, I would be prevented from doing so by the Minister; because the Minister would withhold that water from me. After I had put this hypothetical case the Minister, while I was out of the House—I have other work to do—attacked me in my absence and created the impression in this House that I had made a personal attack, and that I had said that my personal interests were involved. The Minister said: “There you have the proof; there is the hon. member for Kuruman; he has too much land, because he now wants to sell part of it.” It would be just as well if a responsible Minister, before making such accusations against other members, first acquainted himself with the full facts. If the Minister will ascertain who the landowners are under the Kraaipoort scheme, he will discover that I do not own a square inch of land under that scheme, and that I never possessed or bought a square inch of land there. But if I must reveal family matters in this House, I want to say that I am interested in a small piece of land. But I did not raise this matter in order to protect my own interests.

Were you not granted water for 50 morgen?

Not a drop of water was granted to the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier). But when one lives in a glass house one should not throw stones. The Minister of Lands does own land there—a good deal of land. He has a farm adjoining the one in which I have an interest. There the original owner had 100 morgen under irrigation and the present Minister bought the land. Today there is again a long row of tents which are occupied by people who are going to dig a canal for another 50 morgen. It is not necessary for the Minister to sub-divide his land, because he has enough land. A little further up along the river he has another farm with 400 morgen, and it is so situated that it can be cut up into four strips of less than 100 morgen each. Separate transfer has been taken in respect of each one, and each strip can get water for 50 morgen. There would then be 200 morgen under irrigation. Then there is a farm just higher up in connection with which the. Minister is today instituting proceedings, so that he can get hold of that too. The Minister lives in a glass house. What right has he to attack me? It is true that he bought this land. He went to an area where an irrigation scheme had beep built for people who knew nothing about irrigation, who have never irrigated previously and who do not know the value of irrigation—but the Minister does know the value—and he bought land there. I do not hold it against him.

Why the insinuation then?

The Minister attacked me because he stated that I had too much land and that I wanted to divide. The Minister has so much land that it is not necessary for him to divide. I do not know whether he has enough children for every 50 or 200 morgen which he has under irrigation. It has already been divided for him. That is why he can introduce this Bill and support it. But in other cases people are prevented from bequeathing the land to their children. I do not want to be unreasonable. I want to assist the Minister in preventing the creation of an uneconomical proposition. For that reason I move this amendment—“provided that if it is uneconomical …” If it is not uneconomical why do you want to deprive these people of their rights? I know of various cases along Kraai River where the owners have a few sons. The land has already been bequeathed to them, but transfer has not yet been taken because the father is still alive. I know of one case where there is a farm of 6,000 morgen of which 80 morgen are under irrigation. But now the Minister refuses to allow the owner to divide it into two farms of 3,000 morgen, and to give each son 40 morgen under irrigation. Is that right and fair? No. That is why I made this plea, not in my personal interests. I have no interest in the matter. I only wanted to express the hope that in future the Minister will not make charges against members unless he is in possession of the full facts.

I cannot allow the statement which the hon. member has just made to pass unchallenged, because he made an accusation in connection with my private business.

But you did so first.

I did not do so. I never attacked the hon. member. We were dealing with the sub-division of irrigable land, and I said that the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) asked why he should not have the right to divide irrigable land between two sons; and I then said that if the hon. member wanted to sell his land, it was a sign that he had too much land. That is all I said.

If a father has three children and he bequeathes his land is that a sign that he has too much land?

Our idea is to give only as much as the person requires, and no more. If there is anything over, we want to give it to his neighbour who needs it.

It is not a question of giving; it is his already.

Now I come to the accusation which has been made against me. I bought my land in the open market less than a year ago. I can still buy land there today. No one can prevent me from doing so.

But you are continually warning against speculation.

I am farming on the land. If I buy land there under the existing law …

How many morgen did you get under irrigation?

You have nothing to do with that. The hon. member for Kuruman stated that he has not got a square inch of land under that scheme and that he was not given a drop of water. If that is so, he approached me under false pretences when I met the riparian owners along the river, more than two years ago, I think. I called the farmers together and the hon. member made representations on his own behalf. He did not say that he was making representations on behalf of his wife or in respect of another man’s land. We discussed the matter, and he made representations. He did not say that he was making representations on behalf of his wife. He did not say that it was his wife’s land. Now he states that he does not own any land there.

What representations?

He made representations for water for the land, and as far as I know the land is scheduled in his name. He did not say that the land was not registered in his name. If that is the position, he had it scheduled under false pretences.

Just listen to that.

The land is scheduled in his name.

On a point of order, is the hon. Minister entitled to say that an hon. member had land scheduled under false pretences. Is the hon. Minister entitled to accuse an hon. member of false pretences?

No, the hon. Minister must withdraw that.

I withdraw it. But then I say that he had no right to bring me under the impression that the land was registered in his name.

I did not do so.

I think the land is scheduled in his name. He should have said that it was not his land. He always spoke to me of his farm, and now he says that I am giving wrong information to the House. That meeting of which I spoke was attended by the hon. member for Böshof (Mr. Serfontein), Mr. Havenga, who built the dam, Mr. S. le Roux and all the members of Parliament who were interested, because most of them had land there; and at that meeting it was solemnly agreed—and that agreement will stand— that we would give 50 morgen to every farm where transfer had been taken, to every farm which was registered under a separate deed of transfer, not to people who still wanted to divide. Who is G. H. Olivier? Is it my hon. friend, or who is it? Here it shows that 58 morgen were scheduled in the name of G. H. Olivier.

I am P. J. Olivier; I am not G. H.

I was brought under the impression that it was his land. He made representations and he did not say that he was not making those representations on his own behalf. What is wrong in my saying that the hon. member owns that land? I do not know who G. H. Olivier is.

And here you make these accusations.

What is the difference? At that meeting a solemn agreement was entered into that every farm would get 50 morgen on condition that those 50 morgen would be given in the interests of the farm in order to establish fodder banks for the cattle, to increase the farm’s productivity, that no owner would have the right to divide or subdivide the land. That is the agreement which was accepted, and if was unanimously accepted by every person who attended the meeting that day This amendment which is now being introduced contemplates division, does it not? Here it is clearly stated—

My hon. friend now wants to insert “provided that if it is economical.” What he now wants to do is to show that his 50 morgen is economical, and that therefore he can divide, and he now wants to depart from the solemn agreement which he entered into. I resent it that he should put it to the House as though I bought land before water was available.

On a point of order. I did not use those words. I did not say that the Minister had bought the land before that time.

That is a point of explanation.

The hon. member cannot get away from it. That is the veiled insinuation.

There is no insinuation.

My hon. friends who sit behind me understood it that way, because many of them whistled and said: “Is that so!” I have not done anything which cannot see the light of day. I bought land less than a year ago. I bought two and a half years after that division took place, and any citizen is free to buy land there.

Are you getting water for 50 morgen only?

You only get water for 50 morgen.

If you have 200 morgen do you get water for 50 morgen only?

I have said that each farm which is registered under a separate deed of transfer—there are owners who have two or three separate farms—gets water for 50 morgen.

Irrespective of the size of the irrigable land?

Irrespective of that. I explained yesterday that the Irrigation Commission stated that the quantity of land to be scheduled would be scheduled according to the size of the farm and according to requirements of the person concerned. It goes up to 50 morgen, but it cannot exceed 50 morgen. The amendment which the hon. member moved contemplates this, that where it so happens under the existing schemes that a person wants more than 50 morgen, he can apply to have it divided, but only on the recommendation of the Land Board, which will then report where the man has more than 50 morgen and he wants to divide it. But that recommendation can only be made provided that that part can be economically cultivated. What we want to guard against is the sub-division of farms, because if a man starts dividing his irrigable land he also divides his farm; he also divides his grazing, and that leads to disaster, to that evil which was the downfall of the farmers and the cause of the greatest poverty and impoverishment of our farming population in this country, where a father divided his land between two sons who also had families, and who in turn also divided and subdivided, until we came to the point when there was so much overcrowding that the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) had to introduce an Act in 1937 in connection with unbeneficial occupation.

How big are the holdings in the irrigation schemes?

It differs. In Loskop it is 30 morgen; at Vaal-Hartz it is also 30 morgen ; at Karos-Buçhuberg it is smaller. I think it is seven morgen there.

It is ten morgen.

My hon. friend will know better than I do. I am speaking subject to correction. It is from 10 to 12 morgen.

Do you regard that as sufficient to enable the settler to make a living?

Karos-Buchuberg is an old settlement. That division was made some years ago. If the setlers are industrious they can make an income out of ten morgen which will give them a decent living.

Then it seems so unreasonable to make it 50 morgen at Kraaipoort.

The difference is that there are stock farmers at Kraaipoort, and one has to make provision for their cattle. I admit that perhaps we should not have made it 50 morgen. But I want to say this. Below Kraaipoort there are not sufficient farms for the water to be led further. We established a settlement from Jacobsdal up to Modder River, and at that time we only had farms along the banks of the river between the dam and Jacobsdal. Those farms are restricted. Not a single farm was left out. Every farm received 50 morgen, but let me say this for the information of the House. The riparian owners were granted 50 morgen for irrigation, but there are numerous farmers above the canal who have not got the privilege of receiving water. Many of them came to us and pointed out that just over the line their neighbours had beautiful patches of lucerne, and they asked why they could not have it. Those people have to make provision for their cattle. They asked whether we could not assist them. My reply was that we could not lead the water up-hill. But we felt that we still had water which we could spare, and these people begged and prayed us and asked whether we could not let them have ten morgen. The department bought approximately 200 morgen from a man below the dam. His name is Van der Merwe. He had 250 morgen. The department then bought 200 morgen from him with a piece of land for grazing for the cattle of these people, and those 200 morgen were cut up into 15 holdings of 10 morgen each, and in addition the farmers received a small piece of land for grazing. The farmers above the canal begged and prayed for those ten morgen, and that is why we did this. They now have ten morgen plus a piece of land for grazing. Those farmers are each going to get ten morgen. We are not going to make any profit on it. We are going to sell it to them at the price which we paid for it. These people were only too grateful to get it, and they accepted it with open arms. They buy these ten morgen on the same terms as the settler buys land, but the conditions will be that these ten morgen will belong to the owner of farm A, and that may not be alienated, it may not be divided in any manner except when it is regarded as an integral part of the farm in question. This man may in the future sell the farm, but those ten morgen have to go with the farm. The people accepted it with pleasure and gratitude, because on ten morgen one can do a great deal. I am sorry that my hon. friend now wants to move that an opportunity should be created for the land to be divided. The amendment which the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) moved, and which I accept, because he discussed it with me previously, is this, that where a man has more than 50 morgen he can divide it, provided the Land Board recommends it as an economical proposition.

The difference between the Minister and myself is this, that when I go to him to plead for a cause or when I get up in this House to plead for a cause, I do not do so in my own interests. I do so in the interests of my constituents or in the interests of the country. But apparently the Minister thinks that when anyone makes representations on behalf of a certain cause, he is necessarily doing so in his own personal interests. I would like to refresh the Minister’s memory. He has apparently forgotten that I was the chairman of the meeting to which he referred, and that I made those representations to him on behalf of all the irrigators. Can he deny that I, as well as other persons who attended the meeting, met him after the meeting and that we pleaded for the interests of those people. He now states that I did so on my own behalf. The Minister himself furnished the evidence in this House. We will see what is stated in Hansard when it is published. He made certain charges against me while I was out of the House; he said that I had so much land that I wanted to sell a portion of it. He said a moment ago that hon. members on his side regarded it as an insinuation.

Why do you speak of my private business?

I shall tell the Minister if he will give me a chance. While I was out of the House yesterday he made that charge against me. Every member whom; I afterwards met said to me: “We did not know that you had so much land, that you were such a big speculator.” That is the impression which the Minister created, and he cannot deny it.

I did not do so.

Why did you mention his name at all?

The Minister went even further. He said that the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) was still fortunate in that he came under the 50 morgen scheme.

Yes, you are fortunate.

Where does the Minister get hold of that? He is drawing on his imagination.

Why do you not apologise?

I made no insinuations.

He mentioned the name of a certain G. H. Olivier. I can give him the assurance that G. H. Olivier never has been and never will be a relative of mine, apart from the fact that it is not I. I made no insinuations against the Minister. I only said that if a man lives in a glass house he should not throw stones. The Minister must not accuse me of speculating and of wanting to become rich through the State, because he himself is the one who owns such a great deal of land there. I did not say how he came to possess that land; I did not say that he acquired it in a manner which was not right. He bought it. I have no fault to find with that, but he must not make those insinuations against me.

I suppose he has more than 50 morgen?

As far as I know he has 300 or 400 morgen.

Is that not speculation?

The land which the owners have in that part is not land which they bought; it is not land which was bought for speculative purposes. As far as I know no one bought land in that valley except the Minister. All the other farms are farms which the people already had. The Minister spoke of an agreement which we entered into at that meeting. The Minister stated at that meeting that they were going to give 50 morgen to each farm, and he outlined the conditions. We accepted them. Did the Minister think the people would be stupid enough to tell him that they did not want it? They were only too thankful to get it, but that does not mean to say that it is an infallible thing. It is for that reason that I rose yesterday and advocated this principle, a principle which the Minister himself has now accepted. He stated that he was going to accept this amendment of the hon. member for Rustenburg; and that is the same principle, is it not? And that is what we are advocating. We want those people who are established owners, people who did not buy land for speculative purposes, but who own land in that area because they have been living there all these years, to have the right if their farms are big enough and they have 50 morgen under irrigation, to divide that irrigable land into two lots for their sons provided it can be done economically. These people have already drawn up their wills; they want to divide the land amongst their sons. By means of this Bill, the Minister is now destroying the wills of those people.

Why did you not pass such a resolution at that meeting?

Just listen to the hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. H. S. Erasmus). What is the use of passing resolutions at the meeting? We had the Minister with us, and we tried to obtain certain concessions from him. The Minister was there in 1939 or at the beginning of 1940, and even today we still have to ask the Minister to carry out the promises which he made at that meeting. We have had to send deputations to Cape Town. And then the hon. member for Hoopstad asks why we did not pass a resolution at the meeting. It is of no avail passing resolutions. The Minister was there; he made certain statements, and thereafter the people had to send deputations to Cape Town to ask him to carry out the promises which he made there. No, I hope after this unpleasant incident which we have had here, and which was started by the hon. Minister of Lands yesterday, in that he attacked hon. members before he was in possession of the full facts, that an end will come to it and that we will not in the future have such distasteful incidents in this House.

I deny once and for all that I made an attack on that hon. member, and his colleagues who were in the House know that I did not make an attack on him.

You no longer know what an attack is.

The trouble with those hon. members is that they do not want to keep quiet and give me a chance. All I did was this. I said that the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) had spoken here and that he had stated this: “If a man has two sons, why should he not be allowed to divide his land?” I then stated that if the hon. member wanted to divide land, it was a sign that he already had too much.

I said if he had a farm which was too big.

I do not want to discuss that insinuation any further. The hon. member denied that he has any interest in the land and that he ever brought me under the impression that it was his land.

On a point of order. I said that I did not own land in that area, that no land was scheduled in the name of the member for Kuruman. I said that I did have an interest in a small portion—if the Minister wants me to reveal my family affairs here.

The hon. member came to me and asked for sluices to be shifted. He asked for furrows to be moved. What am I to infer from that? Whose land is it? I can only gain the impression that the land was granted? to him. Who else?

The land of his constituents, of course.

Do I understand correctly what the idea of this Bill is? If a man obtained 50 morgen under this scheme for irrigation, is he not allowed to sell a portion of it?

He can sell his whole farm, if he wants to.

It does not seem fair to me. If 50 morgen is regarded as big enough for one man, why is another man allowed to have 300 or 400 morgen? The Minister did not buy this land for the Government. He bought it for himself. The position under this Bill is quite clear. The list of irrigable areas will set out the various pieces of land. If there is one owner he gets the water in his name. The irrigable area is scheduled in his name, not under four different farms. It is the owner of the land whose name appears on the irrigation list. It seems to me that this is a cunning plan to encourage speculation. If the Minister is so opposed to speculation, I am not opposed to it. I say that if a man has 300 morgen he must get water for 300 morgen, and if he wants to sell it ….

He can sell it if he wants to.

You are fortunate ; you have four farms.

This Bill only states that you may not sell a portion of the land, but you can sell the whole. This Bill provides that when water has been granted for irrigation purposes, you cannot sell a portion of the farm.

That is not so. You are not allowed to divide the irrigable land. If a man wants to sell a portion of his farm the irrigable land as a whole must go with it.

Sub-clause (3) reads as follows—

It is quite clear that if the man has a piece of land and he has 50 morgen of irrigable land and he sells a piece of it, the man who buys from him cannot get water.

The water is taken back.

But where you have bought four pieces of land you are allowed to sell them.

They are separate farms.

If the Minister is anxious to prevent speculation, he will amend this clause. He is now encouraging speculation. It does not seem to be fair. I should also like to hear this from the Minister : Has he any objection to giving the right of appeal to people to whom irrigation land has been granted, if they feel that the Minister has acted unreasonably, so that they will be able to go to the Supreme Court to obtain redress? Has he any objection to that?

Yes, I would not accept it.

That shows how unreasonable he is. He has often spoken of Hitler’s dictatorship, but he is even worse than Hitler.

Hitler takes all the land.

And then you are still expected to love him.

That is clear proof that the Minister wants to do as he pleases. He is afraid to have his discretion judged by an impartial authority. He wants the right to do as he pleases. It is clear to me what is at the back of this. He and his department want to do as they please. They want to have control of the land. It is quite clear that that is the case. But he still leaves an opening for speculation. If four pieces of land are together, you only get water for 50 morgen, irrespective of the size of the irrigable land, but if the land is cut up into four pieces you get water for 200 morgen. That leaves an opening for speculation.

You could also have bought.

It is not my intention to speculate. I want to see justice done.

And moreover, you did not know these things beforehand.

Even if I knew it beforehand I would not have done it.

Business suspended at 1.0 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

When business was suspended we were discussing the fixation of the 50 morgen. It is tantamount to this, that a farmer who has land below the furrow will be entitled to a certain quantity of water. I would like to know from the Minister whether a man who has 5,000 morgen below the furrow will only get water for 50 morgen, while the man who has 100 morgen will also get 50 morgen. I believe 50 morgen is the maximum, and that does not seem to me to be fair. I think there should be a proportionate distribution of water. Then it also seems to me that the Minister misunderstood the question of the hon. member for Klerksdorp (Mr. Wilkens) when he asked whether this system would be economical. Assuming one farmer gets 20 morgen under irrigation, the furrow has to be taken up to his farm, then to the next farm which also gets 20 morgen under irrigation, and so it goes on. That would mean that a very long furrow would have to be made. It would be all very well if the State bore the expense and made the water available on payment of a reasonable water tax. But it cannot be economical. Apart from the original cost of the furrow, the Minister surely knows that it costs a great deal to maintain a furrow. Such a furrow has to be cleaned two or three times a year and it must be kept in order; and after 30 or 40 years it has to to be completely repaired. If 5,000 morgen has to be irrigated and the canal has to be made 50 miles long, it would cost much more than it would if those lands were adjacent and the furrow was a half mile or a mile in length. I take it the State will bear the expense in connection with the furrow, and charge the farmers a reasonable price for the water. Then I should like to hear from the Minister whether I understood him correctly, that he is opposed to any development by means of irrigation boards; is he against every type of irrigation board?

You know what I have been doing recently.

We know that in the valley of the Breede River the irrigation boards are functioning well, but where schemes can be undertaken in the southwestern districts, it would be better if they could be carried out by irrigation boards. Take the scheme at Gerberspoort, where 10,000 morgen can be brought under irrigation, and where the scheme, including the furrow, would not cost more than £1,000,000. I think in such cases the Minister should consider irrigation boards. It would be a pity in a case of that nature if the people could not get the money, because there we already have a scheme which can be carried out under this system.

I just want to explain that it is not the intention not to help irrigation boards at all—but not under the policy which has been followed in the past. I have explained that time and again. Where they can meet their obligations, they will certainly be helped. But we do not want them to ask for monies to be written off immediately after the completion of the scheme, with the result that a few persons will have hundreds of morgen scheduled. Then I come to the question whether the new plan is economical or not. The hon. member spoke of long canals. It is true that the canals will have to be long, but as against the cost of the canals there are the costs in connection with the settlements. Take Vaal-Hartz. There we had to buy 100,000 morgen at two or three times the ordinary market value. Those costs are now being eliminated. The Government will not buy land in this case.

It would be cheaper.

Yes. With regard to the maintenance of canals, I want to say that they will all be lined with cement.

But that would still involve expense.

That is so, but the costs involved in that case cannot compare with the costs in connection with irrigation settlements. That is the difference. With regard to the 50 morgen I want to say that that is the maximum. One man may get 5 morgen, another 10 morgen, and the maximum is 50 morgen. If we give more to any person, we deprive other farmers of water who also need assistance. Fifty morgen is enough for any farmer, whatever the size of his farm, if he cultivates it well and intensively. It is no use giving one man 100 or 200 morgen, while 400 other farmers cannot be assisted at all. That is the policy we are going to follow.

I cannot quite understand the attitude which the Minister adopts. There are certain settlements where there is so much water that nine-tenths of the water flows to the sea. I agree with the Minister’s attitude in those cases where there is a shortage of water. But in those places where the Government furrows overflow and where there is irrigable land, the Minister now says that he cannot give water for more than 50 morgen. He prefers to let the water run into the sea, notwithstanding the fact that the farmers are continually being told to produce more and more. We try to produce, but the Minister now says that he is going to reduce the supply to 50 morgen. The position is— to take the Minister as an example—that he bought a number of pieces of land, and he will get water for four or five times 50 morgen. I know of another man who has 300 morgen under irrigation. Is the Minister going to reduce the 300 morgen? At Rustder-Winter there are lands where large quantities of water are available for the people. Is the Minister going to reduce that irrigable land to bring it on a par with other people who are restricted to 50 morgen of irrigable land? If there is no water, I shall not say another word about it. Then the Minister would be right in saying that there is no land for the other owners, and that he cannot allow one farmer to be granted more than a certain quantity of water, that he is going to limit him to 50 morgen, so that he can also assist the other people. Take the case of a person of whom I know, who has 600 morgen under irrigation. Is the Minister going to decrease it? I personally come under this stream, and I am restricted to 50 morgen. But there is not a shortage of water. The Pongola is so strong that apparently only one-tenth of the water is being used for the settlers. Assuming that half the water will be used for settlement purposes during the next 50 years, the other half will flow into the sea without being put to any use. Where circumstances permit, will the Minister grant more land to the settlers? I agree that where there is no water he should restrict the supply to 50 morgen. But what I object to is this. Where a dam has been built at great expense to the State, and the State gets a return of £1 per morgen, let the Minister then say that if there is water available this restriction will not apply. But the Minister insists on 50 morgen. He refuses to give anyone more, even though the water flows into the sea. I think that where water is available the Minister should be prepared to grant more irrigable land.

With regard to people who have more than 50 morgen of irrigable land, they are covered by the amendment of the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) which I have accepted. The man who has more than 50 morgen of irrigable land is not prejudiced but if he wants to sub-divide and sell he can only do so if the Land Board reports that the land proposed to be divided can be divided into economic units.

What happens when there is more water?

I am coming to that. The hon. member spoke of the Pongola scheme. I know of the case where the man concerned has 600 morgen of irrigable land. He will retain it. It was duly scheduled, and he pays the tax, and he can sell anything above 50 morgen. He is covered by the amendment of the hon. member for Rustenburg. But when he wants to sell, he has to convince the Minister that the land which he wants to sell constitutes an economical holding. We will not allow him to sell one morgen or two morgen. Then I come to the other case. The hon. member asks what the position is where nine-tenths of the water flows to the sea. I want to draw the hon. member’s attention to the fact that 50 morgen represents a big piece of land. As far as Pongola is concerned, it is not a dam. There we are dependent on the normal flow of the river. One does hot know, therefore, how much water will be available. One has to limit oneself to the normal flow of the river. But apart from that, 50 morgen is more than enough for a farmer. Today you may be able to help ten farmers, where otherwise one person has all the irrigable land.

But there are no other farms there.

One man may have eight pieces of land of 50 morgen each.

I do not say how it will be distributed. The policy is laid down on the recommendation of the Irrigation Commission. The land will be granted on a scale in accordance with the size of the farm. If the farm is 500 morgen, the farmer will get a little less than he would have got if a farm had been 5,000 morgen: but 50 morgen is the maximum. Every farm is taken separately, every farm which is registered under a separate deed of transfer. If the hon. member wants more farms nothing will prevent him from buying as many as he wants.

I just want to put a question to the Minister. The debate in regard to this scheme has lasted the whole day, and I take it that a farmer receives water for 50 morgen in respect of any piece of land in connection with which there is a separate deed of transfer. I assume these people have to pay water tax in the ordinary way?

Yes, they have to pay.

If there is not sufficient water at such a scheme for the land falling under the scheme, no one would object to a restriction of 50 morgen per farm. One cannot insist on hundred morgen being placed under irrigation in respect of every piece of land, if there is only sufficient water to grant 50 morgen in respect of every farm. But I have a number of difficulties. In the first place I Want to say this. I think it is extremely unsound that a Minister, especially the Minister of Irrigation, should buy land under such a scheme. The Minister should never have done it. Assuming the occupiers under the scheme under which the Minister also comes, as has often happened in the past, apply to the. Government for debts to be written off. Would the Minister be their advocate?

It is not a Government undertaking; no debts are written off.

The people might say that they are not able to pay the taxes, and then approach the Government for a portion of the debt to be written off. What would be the Minister’s position in that case? The second unfortunate feature is this. The Minister states that 50 morgen is more than enough for each person, because 50 morgen is as much as he can cultivate properly. If that is so, how does the Minister justify his action in having a few hundred morgen under irrigation under this scheme—300 morgen to be exact? He says it is not reasonable that one person should get more than 50 morgen because he cannot cultivate it properly. But the Minister himself goes along and buys 300 morgen under the scheme.

Three hundred and fifty.

How can that be reconciled with his statement? I am going on his own statement. He does not give more than 50 morgen to one man because one man cannot properly cultivate more than that. But the unfairness of it is this. “A” has 4,000 morgen which falls under one deed of transfer; he can only get 50 morgen under irrigation. But the Minister—to take him as an example—for the sake of argument, also has 4,000 morgen, but under 10 separate deeds of transfer. He can get 500 morgen under irrigation because he has 10 separate pieces of land. The other man who has 4,000 morgen in one block can only get 50 morgen, but the Minister with 10 holdings can get 500 morgen.

If you can pay for 10, you can also get 500 morgen.

But that is not the point. I am dealing with the principle. One man with 4,000 morgen may have 500 morgen of irrigable land, the other only 50. What sense is there in that arrangement; is it fair? It is an extremely unsound principle. Then I come to the third point. During the course of the debate I asked the Minister how many morgen were allowed to a settler on a land settlement scheme. He replied 7 to 10 morgen on some schemes, and 15, 20 or 30 at other schemes. They regard that as sufficient for the settlers to make a living. Why should 50 morgen be given under this scheme? The Minister says that the man cannot cultivate more than 50 morgen. I also know a little of land and irrigation. 50 morgen of good land under irrigation is worth £100 or more per morgen. You will not find one irrigation scheme where you have irrigable land and sufficient water, where you can buy land for less than £200 per morgen. If there is any farmer here, an irrigator who has land under irrigation and who is prepared to sell it for less than that, let him get up here so that we can see what he looks like. I say that every irrigator will confirm that 15 morgen or 20 morgen or 25 morgen of good land under irrigation is a wonderful proposition. On that one can become a rich man, and the Minister refuses to have it sub-divided. He is promoting capitalism. I agree with the proposition that one must not allow land to be sub-divided in such a way that it becomes uneconomical, but it is ridiculous to lay down 50 morgen of irrigable land as a basis. Take any irrigator in this country, every one from the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie), who has a knowledge of irrigation. They will tell you that it is not necessary to have 50 morgen under irrigation to make a decent living. And if you have a farm of 4,000 morgen under one of these schemes and it happens to be in one block, so that it is limited to 50 morgen under irrigation, you cannot divide it between your two sons. How ridiculous! If the man so divides his 4,000 morgen that each son has 2,000 morgen with 25 morgen under irrigation, it is as good a proposition as one can expect, and it will enable the two sons to make a good living.

The amendment makes provision for that.

It provides that one has to come to the Minister hat in hand, and then he does as he did in the case of Mr. P. E. Erasmus.

I shall still find out whether that is correct. The cases which were mentioned by two hon. members on that side were incorrect.

Take alluvial ground, Karoo land; the land which comes under irrigation must be good land. Take that part where you have rich alluvial ground. Is it not possible to make a living there on less than 50 morgen under irrigation? The whole thing is unsound from A to Z.

I agree to a large extent with what the hon. member for Waterberg has said. He has experience thereof and so have I that if you have valuable irrigation land, 50 morgen is too much for one person. For that reason provision is now made in the Bill for exceptions by means of my amendment. There we name for example the Olifants River. Every man who knows something about irrigation will know that you can make a very good living out of a piece of ground that is from 10 to 15 morgen in extent. However, this scheme that is now being discussed so much in connection with the 50 morgen is the Kraaipoort scheme. I have also been there. I do not profess to be an expert, but as an ordinary irrigator I can give hon. members the assurance that the soil there is not nearly as good as that at Orange River or Olifants River. It is subject to brackish spots and it is half Karoo-soil, and 50 morgen will not always remain good irrigable land; there must be an opportunity for variation. Now it is being laid down that the basis is 50 morgen. This Bill wants to prevent that the mistakes we see now are not made in the future. 50 morgen were granted irrespective of the size of the land. Hon. members on the opposite side, also the hon. member for Waterberg, will agree that it is the duty of the State to look after the possessions of most of the citizens. You should not have a scheme under which one man gets everything and another nothing. The hon. member for Waterberg will agree. If according to the proposal of the Minister you are acquainted with the irrigable land, what objection can there be against it? I cannot see what objection hon. members have against the principle of the Bill. In principle it is correct. It will be very difficult to rectify the mistakes that exist today and it is not expected of us. I cannot refrain from protesting against the fact that, after the explanation by the Minister and the statement by the hon. member for Kuruman, the matter cannot be considered as disposed of and be left in peace. Hon. members on the opposite side are still harping on the fact that the Minister had bought land there. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad or any other man could just as well have bought it. He had not been there prior to the construction of the dam. What I object to is that it is made to appear, wittingly or unwittingly, deliberately or not deliberately, that the Minister by virtue of the office which he holds purchased the land to profit at the expense of the State. I must object to that. It is a mean accusation. The Minister bought in the open market as anyone can. He said that the arrangement of the farmers there was that 50 morgen would be granted in respect of each deed of transfer. Unfortunately the lots the Minister purchased there are small farms.

Why “unfortunately”?

Because he is being accused, it is unfortunate. Mistakes were made; let us avoid speculation in future So that one person cannot gain possession of practically a whole scheme.

After the Minister has already purchased.

The hon. member for Wolmaransstad is a big landowner along the Pongola. I do not blame him. He purchased in the open market. The Minister of Lands purchased under the Kraaipoort scheme.

I can only get 50 morgen for my farm of 4,000 morgen.

Will the hon. member also add that the Nationalist Party Government refused him one morgen, whereas we granted him 50 morgen.

If the hon. member for Waterberg will be consistent, I can perhaps support him. Let him propose to limit one owner to one lot of 50 morgen. We want to prevent speculation; we want to obviate the possibility that one person may gain possession of the whole or half of a scheme. We want to prevent it in future.

Why just for the future?

In the Bill certain principles are laid down. If the hon. member is in favour of 50 morgen under schemes or less than that ….

The Minister has four times 50 morgen.

The hon. member for Swellendam sits and sleeps and suddenly wakes up. If we want to rectify all the mistakes of the past, we will cause a revolution in the country. But the hon. member will create a great sensation in his district if he advocates his standpoint regarding the matter. We want to prevent that the mistakes made in the past are not repeated in future.

I am sorry that this debate has come to personalities, but the Minister of Lands is the scape-goat. It is a pity that he always becomes preposterous whenever his department is under discussion. If he would behave in a more composed manner, he would make much better progress with his legislation. Here the Minister had a very good case to put forward, but he spoils it by the attitude he adopts. He stated that he wished to provide water to the dry parts of South Africa and to prevent speculation. He wished to give to every farmer 10 or 15 or 20 morgen of irrigable land. That is a fine object to have in view and an excellent idea, but now the Minister comes along and frustrates his own aims. He himself buys quite a few plots of land. Our aim should be to help everybody and not to afford the opportunity to the man with the money of buying all the land. I agree with the principle that each man should as far as possible be given 12 or 15 morgen of irrigable land, so that he may be in a position to establish silos. That is a very good principle. Now I want to put this question to him : if he does this, what will happen to the old established irrigation schemes? This is a new principle and it is an excellent one, but the manner in which the Minister himself acts, amounts to himself frustrating these aims. He does not want speculation, he wants every farmer to have a piece of irrigable land in order to be protected against drought as far as possible. Nobody has anything against that. But why does the Minister frustrate it himself? I am sorry that he has done that. He most probably did not intend it in that sense, because it will be said again that the rich man is getting a monopoly and the poor man is left out in the cold. But if he makes these canals now, what would be his attitude towards the old established owners. You have Lake Arthur and Grass Ridge, for instance. Say for instance these canals are made there, will he see to it that sufficient water will remain for the old irrigation scheme? Will his act encroach upon that, on the existing rights of the farmers under these irrigation schemes? If he would give me the assurance that they will be protected, then I will be satisfied. I want to tell the Minister once again that his personal remarks directed against the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) were undesirable. He is now trying to explain away the points on which he was wrong. Let us admit when we make mistakes. If the Minister makes a mistake, let him admit it. He must not try to explain away everything. I want to know whether the same protection will be given to the old schemes as they have had in the past. As a matter of fact, some of these schemes were not completely successful because there was not sufficient water. What is the position going to be now?

In reply to the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) I do not think he is deliberately misrepresenting me, but it is not really so that I attacked the hon. member for Kuruman. I never did that. The hon. member is complaining now that I have more than One farm. The 50 morgen is not allocated per person, but per separate farm.

It should be per person.

You cannot do that.

Why not?

Because two or three persons might get together and each one of them could then get 50 morgen in respect of one farm. As far as the old established schemes are concerned, I have repeatedly stated that this Bill only applies to Government schemes. The scheme to which the hon. member referred, the Fish River Valley scheme, does not fall under this Bill at all.

Will you give water to this scheme?

Now the hon. members ask me whether I will give them water. The hon. member knows what I have done for that valley. I said that we know that their dams silt up and that there will not be sufficient water. In that respect their future is not very bright, unless they received assistance from the Government. I also told them that the Government would see to it that they did not go under and that it would assist them in providing an adequate supply of water for the future. When we get to the relative vote in Committe of Supply I will tell my hon. friend what is going to happen. I only hope that he will not go and say to people that if a man has two farms under the irrigation scheme that we should give him water only sufficient for one farm. We could not restrict these people in that way.

One person should have only one plot.

As far as the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) is concerned, I do not want to be personal, but I only want to point out that he made a plea in connection with Pongola and said that more than 50 morgen should be given to one person. I remarked by way of interjection that the farms were allocated by the former Government of which he was a member. This person applied for more than fifty morgen and it was refused. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad bought a farm there and I personally granted the fifty morgen. He got fifty morgen and now he is asking for more. I got the information from the head of my department that he has requested that twenty morgen should be taken off the schedule.

That is not true.

I got this information from the head of my department that he has requested that the area for which he has to pay should only be thirty morgen.

I said that I have only cleared thirty morgen and I am busy now clearing the remainder and that is why I asked whether I could pay in respect of the thirty morgen only for the time being. He cannot read.

The hon. member wants to pay only for thirty morgen, whereas he has fifty morgen under irrigation.

As soon as the remainder had been cleared I would have paid for it.

No, the payment is due as from the date on which the land is scheduled.

All right, then I pay, but the head of the department should not tell lies.

The information he gave me was : “Asked that the area on which rates are paid, be reduced to thirty morgen.”

Amendment proposed by Mr. S. E. Warren in line 40, put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—29 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, H. S.

Grobier, D. C. S.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Le Roux, J. N.

Louw, E. H.

Ludick, A. I.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Malan, D. F.

Mentz, F. E.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, C. R.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Wilkens, J.

Tellers: P. O. Sauer and J. J. Serfontein.

Noes—67 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, J. C.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Carinus, J. G.

Christie, J.

Christopher, R. M.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, P. H.

De Wet, H. C.

De Wet, P. J.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Eksteen, H. O.

Faure, J. C.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Goldberg, A.

Gray, T. P.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Henny, G. E. J.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hopf, F.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Latimer, A.

McLean, J.

Maré, F. J.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Morris, J. W. H.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Pieterse, E. P.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sullivan, J. R.

Tighy, S. J.

Tothill, H. A.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H.J.L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Wanless, A. T.

Waring, F. W.

Warren, C. M.

Williams, H. J.

Wolmarans, J. B.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and W. B. Humphreys.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

I still have the other amendment which I proposed this morning.

I regret that I am unable to accept this amendment. It is not fair to say that the decision rests solely in the hands of the Minister. Ultimately the decision is in his hands, but the allocation of irrigation lands will be made on the recommendation of the Irrigation Board. Supposing that a scheme is undertaken under the new system of extension, then I would first of all have to come to Parliament before that scheme could be constructed, and in that Bill we will then have to determine on what scale the land will be allocated to the persons coming under that scheme. I think that my hon. friend may safely leave it as it stands in the Bill at present, because as I have already said, I will not be able to have any dam of that nature constructed without having a Bill passed in Parliament first and then, in accordance with this new system, Parliament has to lay down in that act the scale on which the land will be allocated.

I do not think the Minister understands the point. This clause provides that the Minister may extend or reduce the area of the land. After a scheme has been approved of by Parliament, the Minister may decide, as it pleases him, whether the land should be extended or reduced. I may be prepared at the moment to give the Minister that power, but if any person feels that he has been done an injustice, that he has been given ten morgen or nothing at all when he should have received thirty morgen, then we should give that person the right to appeal to the Supreme Court against the ultimate decision of the Minister. It does not seem to me to be an unreasonable request and it seems to me that the Minister should be reasonable and meet us on this point. An injustice may be done to somebody and then we should give the court the right to decide. I do not think there will be many court cases. The Minister will endeavour to be reasonable, but one sometimes gets unreasonable people. If the Minister gives me a promise to have this matter put right, to give these people the right of appeal to the court of law and to move an amendment to this effect in the Other Place, then I will be satisfied. Any person may make a mistake and it does seem to me to be unfair not to give these people the right of appeal to the court. I think the Minister will agree with me that if the position is that whenever the Minister is unreasonable, these people will have the right of appeal to the court, then he and his department will make every endeavour to be reasonable. I am not so anxious that the amendment should be accepted now; I will be satisfied if the Minister undertakes to move it in the Other Place.

I am not unwilling to meet the hon. member’s point in this connection, but I must have time to consider it. How must the court judge whether it is reasonable?

Taking all the circumstances into consideration.

That is the snag. But I am prepared to discuss this matter with the hon. member and the Law Advisers before the Bill goes to the Other Place and if it is possible I will meet him halfway.

If the Committee will allow me, then I am prepared, in view of the statement made by the Minister, to withdraw my proposed amendment.

With leave of the Committee, the amendment was withdrawn.

Amendments proposed by the Minister of Lands and Mr. J. M. Conradie put and agreed to and amendment proposed by Mr. Olivier put and negatived.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Remaining Clauses and Title having been agreed to, HOUSE RESUMED :

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill with amendments; amendments to be considered on 28th April.

It is rather significant that when this debate on bilingualism is in progress, and on an amendment by the Prime Minister that bilingualism should be introduced into schools, the only Minister who is present in the House is one who does not understand A or B of Afrikaans. Under these circumstances I want to move the adjournment of the debate in order that we may get a Minister here who can understand Afrikaans. I move—

I second the motion of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom). According to the motion and also the amendment by the Prime Minister, we are discussing here one of the two main questions over which the last election was fought. It is a matter which has been dragged into politics by the Government and has made one of the most burning questions we have ever had in our political struggle in South Africa. What is more, it is a question affecting the Afrikaans-speaking section in particular and it is of a complex nature. It is a question in which members on this side of the House are doing their best to convince the people on that side and through them also the Cabinet. We are endeavouring here to put our side of the case and to address ourselves to members of the Cabinet, who are responsible in the last instance, and now we must behold on the opposite side a member of the Cabinet who does not comprehend one single word we are saying here and he is the only representative of the Cabinet present in the House. I regard it as no less than contempt for this side of the House.

I believe the hon. member for Waterberg moved on the 4th March that the debate be adjourned. An hon. member who has moved such a motion, may not move the same motion again in the course of the same debate.

I have only a few minutes left and in order not to forfeit my turn to speak, I will continue. I am sorry that the Right Hon. the Prime Minister is not present, because I would like to reply to a few denials made by him. I accused him of opposing, together with the English-speaking people, the attempts made by the late Gen. Hertzog to establish double medium education in the Free State. He said that was not true. Let us examine this. In the Press reports of the 5th August, 1910, I read the following—

I have been under a misapprehension. I understand now that the debate was interrupted by a sessional order and that the hon. member did not actually move the adjournment of the debate.

May I just say that I hope that this preliminary part of my speech will not be regarded as part of the five minutes still at my disposal.

The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) has seconded the motion for the adjournment of the debate. He may now proceed.

What I wanted to say in connection with the adjournment I have already said.

I just want to say this in connection with the motion for the adjournment of the debate. The Government has been asked whether it will give more time for this debate in view of the importance of the question under consideration. The Government promised to give more time, but the manner in which this time is being given is definitely a disgrace to this House. In the first instance they came along and granted an extension of time for this debate on a Friday afternoon. I think it was on a Friday afternoon, so that only one or two speakers could have a turn to speak. In the second place they give an extension of time today and they treat the House like this. I only want to say this, that greater contempt for the Afrikaner and his mother tongue than has been shown here this afternoon, we have never seen. The only Minister who is present here cannot understand Afrikaans. He must have an interpreter and even then he cannot understand it. When this debate was under discussion the Right Hon. the Prime Minister said this—

And it is definitely a matter of great national importance about which a lot of propaganda has been made recently by that side of the House, it is a matter of great national importance of which they are boasting and on which they fought the election, and today we have to witness this state of affairs here in the House. I only want to say this in connection with the adjournment, that the entire Afrikanerdom from the Cape to the Limpopo are taking note most emphatically of the contempt for the Afrikaner and his mother tongue which is being shown here today.

If ever in my life I was convinced of the attitude of the Opposition, that they want to use the language question for propaganda purposes only, then I am convinced of it now. In this House we get obstruction to such an extent, that you never know when you are going to dispose of a Bill. We saw what happened in the case of the last Bill. There was a lot of obstruction and when it came to voting the opposite side remained silent.

On a point of order; I think it has several times been ruled from the Chair that a member may not accuse another member or party of obstruction, because it is the prerogative of the Chair to state whether there is obstruction or not.

I understand that the previous Speaker had ruled that it must be wilful obstruction.

May I ask whether there can be anything like obstruction which is not wilful?

That was the ruling of the previous Speaker.

An hon. member on the opposite side accused us of obstruction on every Act. I ask whether the hon. member is in order to say anything like that.

Of course there can be obstruction to any Act as long as it is not wilful obstruction. Any wilful opposition to a Bill is obstruction.

The accusation from the other side side is that there is not merely obstruction, but that there is mass obstruction, and there cannot be mass obstruction without there being an agreement to do so, and then it must be wilful obstruction.

I would like to ask you to reconsider that statement that any opposition to a Bill or any measure is obstruction. Every member in this House has the right to oppose a Bill, not in the sense of it being obstruction, but every member has the right to oppose a Bill and I would be very sorry if the ruling was that any opposition to a Bill was obstruction. I want to ask you to reconsider that statement.

I am only giving effect to a ruling which the former Speaker gave from the Chair.

I am convinced that the time for discussing a Bill is in the hands of the members of the Opposition; it is in their hands when the Bill is to be disposed of.

Who arranges the agenda?

I say dispose, not introduce. The discussion is in the hands of the members of Parliament and with the attitude of the Opposition it is impossible to say when a discussion is going to be concluded. We have seen that the discussion on certain Bills collapsed after this side of the House took up the matter. It collapsed suddenly when no one could have expected it; and, is it reasonable to expect, when Ministers are busy with important affairs of the country, that they should sit in the House and listen to what the Opposition has to say? Is it reasonable to expect that they should sit here and wait from morning till evening to hear what the Opposition has to say on matters of minor importance. They do not know when their presence will be required. I therefore take strong exception to the fact that propaganda is made against something which we all cherish, and that is our language. The language question is a matter of the utmost importance and a football should not be made of it.

The hon. member must confine himself to the reasons for the adjournment.

I shall do it. I now want to come to what was said by hon. friends on the opposite side. Hon. members on that side accused us of using the language question for propaganda purposes—of introducing it into the political struggle. The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) said so just now. I can remember that last year before this House dissolved, the then member for Victoria West brought up a motion in the House regarding the language question; was it not he? He brought up this matter for discussion. Is that not so? Now they remain silent., The hon. member introduced a direct motion in this House which dealt with the matter. Of course, it was a private motion.

What are you discussing now?

It was a private motion but it had to be approved of by their caucus.

On a point of order; is the hon. member now busy with the question before the House or is he discussing something else?

I want to ask the hon. member to confine himself to the motion before the House.

May I not react to what the hon. member for Humans dorp has said? May I not reply to the accusations he made against us?i

No, the hon. member is going too far.

If is perhaps necessary that the Opposition should enjoy protection.

Order, order!

It is à reflection on the Chair.

Withdraw what you have said.

The hon. member must withdraw that remark.

I withdraw it. I would just like to say this, that when this side of the House discusses the language question we do not speak of one language; we speak of two languages, but when hon. members on the opposite side discuss the language question they only think of Afrikaans. The hon. member raised objections because there was only one Minister in the House. I want to give them the assurance that when they speak in Afrikaans there are quite enough members on this side who can understand them and assist the Minister. We will protect our language. They need not worry themselves about it.

In view of the fact that our protest has been effective and that there are now two Ministers present in the House who understand Afrikaans, I shall withdraw my motion.

With leave of the House, the motion was withdrawn.

I said just now that the Prime Minister had denied that he had opposed the : efforts made by the late Gen. Hertzog to introduce bilingualism into the schools of the Free State. Let us now examine his statement. In the newspapers of the 5th August, 1910, I read the following—

There you have it from his own mouth, showing how he opposed the legislation of the late Gen. Hertzog.

[Inaudible.]

I want to tell the hon. member who made that interjection that he might as well go back to London. I further accused the Prime Minister of treating the Dutch language in a miserable manner. I said that the late Gen. Hertzog expressed his sincere disappointment about the fact that the present Prime Minister gave the Dutch language in the Transvaal such miserable treatment by making English compulsory and Afrikaans optional. [Interjections.]

But you stabbed him in the back.

You did that.

I hope that these minutes will also be deducted from my time.

Cry, Baby, cry.

I hope that I am speaking to people in this House who have some intelligence and not to people who should be in another place, like the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow). I said that the late Gen. Hertzog expressed his disappointment of the stepmotherly treatment of the Dutch language in the Transvaal by the Prime Minister, by making it optional in the schools, while he made English compulsory. Now I will read it from the life history of the late Gen. Hertzog—

Now I say once more, in view of these historical facts, it is clear to me that not only can one take very little notice of the statements by the Prime Minister in connection with this question, because he is belied by his statements of those days, but one can neither take any notice of his statements otherwise. Let us hear now what the experts say about this matter. What do the experts say about this bone of contention, whether a child should receive his education through the medium of his mother tongue or whether we should have double medium education? A few days ago a conference of experts was called here in Cape Town by the Administrator, a conference of English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking inspectors, and this conference of inspectors, of experts, without a single dissentient vote, expressed the opinion that education should be through the medium of the mother tongue and not through a double medium.

To what stage?

Up to Standard IV.

That is not true.

You are squealing now.

Order, order !

Then there is this last point. The question here is whether this dispute about education through the medium of the mother tongue, that is, this opposition to double medium education, is coming only from a political party or whether it is coming from everybody who dares to and who may speak on behalf of Dutch-speaking South Africa.

You are exploiting this matter.

I only wish to draw the attention of the House and of the country to the fact that it is not merely we as a political party who hold this view. Here we have the judgment of a conference of inspectors, a conference of experts, and we also have the judgment of the Dutch churches.

And of the Broederbond.

Yes, and of the Broederbond.

We are not talking about the Jewish freemasonry of the Minister of Lands at the moment.

Hear, hear.

Tell us about the freemasonry of the Broederbond.

I am now talking about people who belong to the Afrikaans church: I am not talking of the hon. member for Rondebosch (Dr. Moll).

I belong to the Afrikaans church.

We have here the judgment of the three Afrikaans churches. Their judgment was in favour of education through the medium of the mother tongue …. [Interjections.]

I want to ask you please to use your influence to see that the proceedings are conducted in a more orderly manner.

The pot calls the kettle black.

Have you appointed yourself as Deputy-Speaker?

We are discussing a most serious matter here and we are trying to deal with it seriously, but hon. members opposite are apparently not prepared to take the matter seriously and they are making it very difficult for a proper discussion on this question to be held.

The Standing Orders of this House provide that members shall not interrupt the member who is speaking and I trust that I shall have the co-operation of both sides of the House in maintaining the rule. Constant interruptions make it difficult for a member to make a speech and difficult for Mr. Speaker to maintain the dignity of the House.

I would like to react to what was said by the hon. member who has just sat down. I want to commence by saying this in connection with the speech of the opener of the debate when he spoke of the dual medium schools. I must say that the exposition by the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) was very rational. I would like to express my regret that, when he was later followed by the Leader of the Opposition, that measure of rationality completely disappeared. Something which particularly struck me in the speech of the hon. member for Winburg was when he said that members who today speak on the question of dual medium ignore the circumstances of those days, namely, the times in the past. I would like to raise this point. Hon. members on the opposite side got quite excited here. I was at a meeting at Brits where the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) spoke and called the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister a traitor of his nation.

But it is absolutely untrue what you are saying there now.

If I heard wrongly then I beg the hon. member’s pardon.

On a point of personal explanation, what the hon. member said there is absolutely untrue, and may I remind him of the fact that he was invited to put any question he desired to put and that he did not accept that invitation. He did not put any question.

I may say, just in passing that that invitation never reached me, but it struck me how certain things are dragged into the political arena for the purpose of making propaganda. We heard the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition talk about an assassin. The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom), referring to the Prime Minister the other day said: “And does he want to pose now as a champion of Afrikaans?”—or words to that effect.

And what is wrong with that?

It is an insinuation.

And now the hon. member makes allegations against the Prime Minister in connection with his Education Act of 1907, in the Transvaal. The Hon. the Leader of the Opposition almost every year when addressing meetings at Somerset Strand has declared that the 1907 Act clearly establishes that the Prime Minister is all they allege him to be. And what is the position so far as that law is concerned? The 1907 Law lays down that mother tongue medium instruction will only go as far as standard IV. That is correct. After that it is to be Englsih.

No.

I do not doubt the hon. member’s word, but that is what the laws says. I have a booklet here: “Report from ‘De Volkstem’ of the Volkskongres, held on July 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th, 1905, at Pretoria.” And when we talk of history, I hope the hon. member for Waterberg and the Leader of the Opposition will accept what is written in history, even on the subject which the hon. member has now raised in regard to the education question which cropped up in 1910. We had there one of the first congresses held in the Transvaal after the Boer War.

It was the first one.

Yes, the first one.

In Pretoria.

All our old Boer Generals were there. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad was there to. These are the words of the Chairman of Hoofd Komitee of “Het Volk,” the Leader of the Boers, who was Chairman of the Congress—[Translation]—

They advocated independent control in the Transvaal. I have to raise this matter in this debate so as to explain the history of the language question to hon. members. The Mayor of Pretoria, Mr. Johnston, was asked to say a few words to welcome the delegates. This is what he said—

The hon. member for Winburg was quite right when he said that we were disposed to lose sight of the conditions prevailing in those days. We go further. In those days the Legislative Assembly was an elected House. The other Chamber was a nominated House, nominated by the British Government of the day. In order to obtain a majority in this first Parliament of the Transvaal, it was necessary to make certain agreements. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad can correct me if I am wrong. They had come to an arrangement to make sure of their majority, they had to come to an agreement with the “Responsible” Party of the Transvaal. What was that agreement? This is what we read in Clause (1)—

This was a sacred agreement. Clause (2) goes on to say—

That means that you are now admitting what we have been saying.

But you are putting all the blame on the Prime Minister.

Clause (3) goes on to say this—

This Act of 1907 is the outcome of the agreement which was entered into by that Congress with the “Responsible” Party in the Transvaal with the object of getting a majority under self-government, with the object of getting a majority both in the Legislative Council and in the Legislative Assembly on the side of the Government. And now hon. members opposite say: “There is the sinner; he is the assassin, he is the man who has forgotten his language.”

Let us hear the names of the men who were present on that occasion.

Who were the men present? Who were the members of the Hoofd Komitee? Gen. Botha was the Chairman, Gen. Smuts, Gen. Beyers, Gen. Burger, Gen. de la Rey and Messrs. A. D. W. Wolmarans and Ewald Esselen. They were the leaders in this agreement which was arrived at—prominent Generals and men prominent among the Boer population of those days. And that agreement was made with the “Responsible” Party. It was a sacred agreement. The agreement was to this effect that if they got into power, they would pass certain legislation. That agreement was made in Pretoria and Responsible Government was granted as a result. I do not quarrel with the view that the rights given to the Afrikaans language were perhaps too small, but it was a sacred agreement and the Prime Minister had a hand in this agreement. To show that it was unanimously adopted by the Congress, I just want to read the resolution. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad is going out now—he apparently does not want to hear the true history, because he does not like it. We did get self-government but the agreement with the “Responsible” Party was largely responsible for our coming into power under self-government, and for hon. members opposite to say all these things now, is going too far. I can give the Leader of the Opposition this booklet—if he would like it. The following resolution was passed unanimously at the Congress—

It was passed unanimously and amid applause. What then becomes of the charge that the Prime Minister was the sinner? What was the position in those days? I was still at school at that particular time. We had English at school as medium of instruction, but up to standard IV the “moeder” tongue medium was allowed. I am sorry the hon. member is not here, because I may be able to convince him if he knew what the true position is. The foundation was laid there, however, for the 1907 law, and I hope hon. members opposite will now realise that their accusations against the Prime Minister are incorrect and devoid of all foundation. The hon. member for Waterberg was present at the meeting to which I have referred, and the Leader of the Opposition when speaking in this House the other day also mentioned the attempts made by Lord Charles Somerset to anglicise the Boers by importing Scottish parsons.

Who spoke about Scottish parsons?

The hon. member for Waterberg did, and he mentioned some names. If the hon. the Leader of the Opposition says that he did not speak about Scottish parsons, I accept his statement. I only want to ask whether these parsons who were imported from Scotland ever did anything that was detrimental to the language. I want to ask hon. members whether they do not agree that these people were among the best men ever brought out to this country? The impression created by the hon. member for Waterberg was that they came here with the object of anglicising the people. That is incorrect. He did not actually say so but that was the impression which he created at the meeting. I hope hon. members will recollect what the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) said—that we must remember what happened in those olden days. The hon. member for Winburg spoke about the uselessness of Dr. Malherbe’s book on the language question. Several names were mentioned and the hon. member challenged us to produce a single educational expert who would confirm Dr. Malherbe’s contentions and arguments. I have an extract here from “Die Huisgenoot” of 25th February, 1944. This is what Prof. Ben Taute said there— [Translation]

In your issue of the 4th inst. under the heading of “Dual Medium Intrigue” (Dubbelmedium-smousery) it is contended that at an N.O.B. meeting I, along with other gentlemen, had “shown how unreliable his (Dr. Malherbe’s) methods of investigation were in many respects.” I did not do so. What I did do was primarily to agree with Dr. Jansen van Rensburg that Dr. Malherbe had not published sufficient data in his report to prove that his seclection of schools complied with all the requirements necessary for such comparative study. I have said repeatedly that I do not contend that his selection was unsatisfactory but that his details in that regard were not sufficient.

Will you also read what the Editor said in reply to those remarks?

Certainly. But that shows what becomes of it if you want to make propaganda. The Editor replied as follows [Translation]—

That, however, was the opinion of a paper which was partial.

Prof. Van Rensburg belongs to your party.

Who are the witnesses, the experts? The Minister of Finance has told us who the witnesses on this side are. He mentioned Prof. Eybers, Professor of Education in Bloemfontein, Prof. Smit, Professor of Psychology in Bloemfontein, Dr. B. C. Bosman, Prof. Rayburn and others. Hon. members opposite are laughing now. Yes, if they are told something they do not like, if one quotes anyone supporting this side of the House, they laugh at him. Those experts have been studying this question for years, but as soon as they dare support the views which we on this side of the House hold, they are experts no longer in the eyes of hon. members opposite. The hon. member for Winburg issued a friendly challenge—he suggested that everyone should take the same examination; that was to be the test, if I remember correctly.

My challenge was that everyone sitting for a public examination, must pass in both languages, and the Minister of Finance said that he refused to accept it.

I do not knowhow it can be done.

That all candidates sitting for their matric must pass in English and Afrikaans.

Why? The candidate for matric is given the choice to take certain subjects. The hon. member knows that some people are good at languages and others are not. Candidates are given the choice, and all experts agree that candidates for matric should be allowed to choose the subjects they want to take. We on this side, and I, speaking for myself, certainly are very much in favour of the ideal that everyone should be bilingual, and that people should be urged to become bilingual, if it is necessary to do so. But to say that we on this side are not in earnest in regard to this matter, that we have sinister motives and that we are, practically speaking, making an attack on the Afrikaans language is absolutely untrue. I can assure the House and the country that if ever there were any idea of such a thing being done, everv Afrikaans-speaking member on this side of the House would get up at once and object. I go further and I say that every English-speaking member too would object. That is where we are ahead of the other side. We represent the feelings of both English and Afrikaans-speaking sections on this matter. We do not want to make only the Afrikaansspeaking people bilingual, but also the English-speaking. That is the difference. Hon. members opposite only want something to be done for the Afrikaans-speaking child. We say that justice must be done to all children. Some hon. members opposite send their children to English schools.

Where are your children?

They go to the English school; I don’t deny it.

And you are speaking as an Afrikaner?

My home language is Afrikaans. I want to bring up my children to be fully bilingual. Where they do not have the opportunity of speaking English to me, I want them to learn English at school. But what do hon. members opposite do? They talk about the schools. When my poor children were in Standard IV they spoke English very badly. They said: “We cannot understand the English of the teacher who is teaching us English in the English school.” That was the position. We want a proper system of bilingual education. I am not speaking about the Jan van Riebeeck school now. There are exceptions. I am speaking of things generally. We must start at the very source. We must see to it that people have a thorough knowledge of both languages and in my district there are certain schools where I could almost say that the whole standard has gone down. In what? In the English language. I am very sorry, not only for the parents, but for the children that they have to be put back a year. What is going to be the effect on the country if these things happen? Quite possibly these conditions do not prevail everywhere, but let us create something uniform throughout the whole country. Our attitude is that we want to equip every child in the best way possible for his future life. No one can say that under present circumstances that is being done. I know of many parents and of many children who would give anything to be bilingual.

Will the English-speaking people also want to learn Afrikaans?

Of course.

What do you think of Natal?

Natal made a start of its own even before this question had been raised. They said: “Although we English-speaking people do not know Afrikaans, it is our duty to see that our children know it.” And if there are English-speaking people who do not want to learn Afrikaans, as the Opposition contends, we must bring pressure to bear on them to learn Afrikaans. But I say that they are quite prepared and even glad to become bilingual. What is it that hon. members object to? Their assertion that we are making an onslaught on the Afrikaans language, that we are attacking Afrikaans, is unfounded. They want to create the impression in the rural districts, for propaganda purposes and nothing else, that this Government is intent on making an attack on the Afrikaans language. I say that if we want to have a happy people, we must be a bilingual people, and everyone must have some of our Afrikaans characteristics. The children must be educated to become fully bilingual.

I do not want to devote a great deal of time to the hon. member who has just sat down, but that hon. member who is putting up such a strong plea now for bilingualism, will perhaps remember that when this side of the House a short while ago proposed that the members of the Board of Trade and Industries must be bilingual, his whole side voted against it. That is what they do in practice; that is how they act; that is how they carry out bilingualism. The hon. member has been quoting here from a booklet and he has been telling us about a sacred agreement of 1905. Just let me say that there were a great many sacred agreements made in 1905. But what happened in practice? What has been done about education? Has the hon. member forgotten all those sacred agreements since 1905? Now he talked to us about the so-called agreement of 1905—well, I better leave the hon. member at that. Let me come back to what the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister said when he took part in this debate. He commenced by remarking that this was a great national question and he said this—

There I agree with him. It is a great national question and that is why we want to regard it in that light and discuss it from that point of view. But when you deal with great national questions, you have to lay down certain fundamental principles. Knowing that he could not get past certain points, the Prime Minister said—

He started his speech by laying it down that the mother tongue must be the medium of instruction—exactly what we have been saying all the time; but after that he made a proposal, the object of which was to wreck the medium of instruction. Now what is behind that. They suddenly come along and say that the other language must gradually be made the supplementary medium of instruction. We know the Prime Minister. He is always blowing hot and cold at the same time, and that is what he did on this question too. The start of the speech was only intended to mislead the people, to give the impression that he too was in favour of the mother tongue as medium of instruction, but when it came to the practical application of the principle which he at first admitted as being correct, and which he told us had been unanimously accepted as a principle, when he got to that, he wrecked it by the amendment which he proposed. The Prime Minister made a great case of the doctrine that if we in South Africa wanted to establish absolute national concord, we should introduce the dual medium of instruction in our schools. Unfortunately the Prime Minister is not here, but I want to tell him that in his absence, and I also want to tell hon. members opposite, that there is only one way of achieving national unity and that is to have people here who will adhere to a definite principle, people who will learn the one great lesson, and that is that you must be an Afrikaner with both feet planted solidly on South African soil. Now, what has the position been of late years—in fact, what has it been for almost a hundred years? Attempts have consistently been made to turn the Afrikaners in this country into Englishmen. That has been tried in all spheres of life and just as little as the attempt to turn the Afrikaner into an Englishman has succeeded in the past, just as little and even less successful will that attempt be in the future. Now what is the basis on which national unity can be established and developed? Do not turn the Afrikaner into an Englishman, but make the Englishman into an Afrikaner. If we do that we shall be one in this country. Hon. members opposite are laughing. When you are in Poland you are a Pole, when you are in Germany your are a German, and when you are in America you can be an American and no longer a Britisher. But they expect that when you are in South Africa you must be a Britisher. That is the effect of the Prime Minister’s policy. Arising out of the Prime Minister’s speech, I want to refer to this point. In support of his proposal that we must have dual medium schools in this country, he quoted principally from a report of a Commission of Enquiry, dating back to 1910. He referred to the report of the Select Committee of 1910. What has become in practice of the principle to make the country bilingual since 1910? In our Constitution it is made compulsory to carry out the principle of bilingualism throughout. What has the Prime Minister done? He misinterpreted that same paragraph which he quoted from the report. The Commission whose report he quoted from, suggested that above standard IV provision should be made for instruction in both languages. The parents could choose in which language their children were to be instructed, they could be instructed through one language or through both languages. They could choose whether they wanted one or other subject taught through the one or the other language. But the Committee did not lay down as a law of the Medes and Persians that there was to be dual medium; education throughout the country. The parent was given the right to choose on behalf of the child, to choose what was best for the future of the child. After the Prime Minister had quoted this in support of his contention he proposed an amendment which amounts to this, that with a stroke of the pen he wipes out the parents’ right to choose on behalf of their own children. Now let me just say to the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. Van der Merwe) and other members opposite, that the Afrikaner in South Africa from the very earliest days has had to fight strenuously for every inch of his right of existence. In every sphere of life he has had to fight for his right of existence—even in the sphere of education. We have had to fight for our right of existence in the matter of language and in every other sphere. It has been a hard struggle. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister has during his lifetime seen many national movements. He has seen the first language struggle and the second language movement. A mighty fight has been waged to get our Afrikaans language officially recognised. A mighty cultural struggle has been waged by the Afrikaner for the upbuilding of his own national culture and for the development of that culture, and through all those years that this struggle has been going on, I challenge hon. members to name me one single place and one single instance where the present Prime Minister has taken an interest in assisting the Afrikaner in that fight for his culture and his language. No, it has always been the very opposite. He has always been the leader of the antagonists, one of the opponents in that struggle which the Afrikaner has had to fight. And what is so peculiar in the Prime Minister’s attitude is that he has never worried his head about these things. He has never concerned himself about the Afrikaner getting his own language, about Afrikaans being recognised, about it being introduced into our churches, into our schools, into our education, and as an official language. He has not taken the slightest interest in it. Since when this sorrow which he has told us about? It dates back to 1920 when, so he told us, a dangerous political struggle developed. Since those days things have been going wrong. Do hon. members know why things went wrong for the Prime Minister since those days? The Prime Minister, and the S.A.P. started going wrong since 1920. As a result of the war reaction and as the result of the diminishing influence of the Prime Minister and his party in this country, things started going wrong, and that is why he tells us today that things have been going wrong since 1920. That is why things are wrong so far as he is concerned—and why? Because he beholds the same phenomenon in our political development in South Africa—a phenomenon which will fully show itself after the war is over. He is concerned about his own political skin if the Afrikaans langauge and Afrikaans traditions are upheld and if the Afrikaner has the right to be what every human being has the right to be—and that is himself and nothing else. That is what the Prime Minister is afraid of, and that is the reason why he now wants to make the Afrikaner into a being with a dual personality by means of his proposed dual medium schools. While I am dealing with the Prime Minister, I want to say this very briefly. His participation in the history of our people so far constitutes an unpleasant memory in every Afrikaner heart, an unpleasant memory for everyone who has an Afrikaner heart. Just let me say this again. We have had Afrikaner leaders in our history, who have renounced their country, who have not been prepared to fight side by side with the Afrikaner for his rights, for his language and his tradition. Those leaders have gone into the limbo of forgetfulness. And so will the Prime Minister vanish into the limbo of forgetfulness. He is reaching the end of his career now, and where he is an old man today, I want to tell him that here in South Africa he has released a struggle, a commotion the end of which he will not see. He comes before us under the guise of wanting to foster national unity. But under that guise and the false banner of national unity, he has released the bitterest fight, the bitterest discord the country has ever seen.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, is an hon. member in order in stigmatising the Prime Minister as false?

The hon. member did not do so.

I say this in all seriousness, I say that as a result of the Prime Minister’s actions and attitude, towards the Afrikaner’s language and traditions, his name is arousing unpleasant memories in the minds of a large section of Afrikanerdom, if not in the minds of the overwhelming section. I want to ask him this in his absence, I want to ask him not to force this atrocity, which he has proposed, on the country and not to enforce it on these educational institutions which are teaching our mother tongue in the right way for the development of our national life and for the upbuilding of the Afrikaner nation. The history of the struggle to get Hollands and Afrikaans recognised in our schools is a long one. We cannot refer to everything, but I do want to read a few quotations. Since 1902 a deliberate attempt has been in progress to anglicise our schools and our people. Those responsible for that effort could not succeed in their efforts—but they tried very hard. In the Transvaal and the Free State they made attempts to anglicise the Afrikaner by means of the schools, and thus we find in 1902 that the British representatives in the Transvaal and the Free State occupying the position of Director of Education, made the following statement—

That is the policy which they wanted to pursue with their British reconstruction policy in South Africa. They wanted to bribe the Afrikaner by getting him to change his religion. What did we find here during the Crown Colony days? It was laid down that every week three hours were to be devoted to instruction in Hollands and two hours to Bible instruction. If we wanted more instruction in the mother tongue, we had to give up part of our time for Bible instruction. As a matter of fact, an effort was made to do so. They tried to give religious instruction by means of the English language in the schools which members on this side had to attend in those days. In that way they tried to spoon-feed us in English. They did not succeed. I have the highest respect for the recognition of Providence and the only means by which any individual can get into touch through his heart with Providence is by means of his own mother tongue, by his own God given mother tongue. They made us pray in English. I am stating this with all due respect and deference. But I want to show that the children did not understand what went on, and in one particular case where they had to recite “Our Father” in English, it was mutilated to such an extent that it became a farce from the point of view of religion. They did not understand it, because they did not hear it in their mother tongue. Give every human being the opportunity of making contact with the Almighty by means of the God given medium which is his own, and only in that way will he establish that contact. Now I want to deal with the resolution of this House which was adopted in 1910. The Prime Minister only quoted one single paragraph in that resolution, but it contains a number of things. If ever there was a time when an attempt was made from the very start to secure this so desirable unity in South Africa, it was in 1910, and what was the instruction of the Committee of Investigation of 1910. That Commission had to find out what the position was in the various provinces on the subject of language matters, and it was instructed to make recommendations as to the most effective way of promoting bilingualism without disturbing the good relatipnship between English and Afrikaansspeaking. And what did that Commission recommend? I want to mention one of the fundamental principles of its recommendations, but not a single word has been said about that on the other side of the House. The basis of the Commission’s recommendations was this: You must recognise the parents’ right to choose for himself. Now the Prime Minister comes here with an amendment, completely destroying that right. He is acting in direct conflict with the very basis of the Commission’s recommendations because he is not giving the parents and the local bodies the chance to choose although the Commission recommends that that is the way to avoid bitterness and discord. What does the Prime Minister want to achieve by his proposal? He wants to prevent local bodies and even the Provincial Councils from making a choice by a resolution of this House. He wants to persuade them by a resolution of this Parliament. All the local bodies are to be pushed aside and a resolution of Parliament has to be forced on to them, in conflict with the basic recommendation of the 1910 Commission from which the Prime Minister has quoted. That Commission clearly recommended that in order to avoid bitterness, we should, wherever possible leave the decision to the local bodies and to the parents. Now they are to be prevented from doing so under the guise of so-called national unity. What did the Commission find in regard to the language o.uestion in this country? It found that the Free State was the most bilingual province in the Union, and it is still so today. I say that that is the position in the Free State because there we have less of this conglomeration of dual medium schools than in the other Provinces. That was the position in 1910 and it still is the position in spite of all the efforts which are being made here. Yet, notwithstanding all those facts, we are now asked to pass a resolution aiming at destroying and eradicating, branch and root, what has been achieved in the Free State and in other parts of the country, and in place of those schools which have provided those results we are now asked to put these hybrid dual medium schools. The results which have been achieved in the Free State have been achieved as a result of the educational bodies and the leader of education considering this a matter of the utmost importance—they have been achieved as a result of the efforts to secure bilingualism on the best educational basis. That was the most effective way of promoting bilingualism in the country. In 1917 a report was published in the. Transvaal in which it was contended that the most effective way of bringing about bilingualism was by mother tongue medium instruction. In 1919, another Commission was appointed which went very thoroughly into this subject. It was after the last war, and that Commission produced a unanimous report from which I should like to make a few quotations. I repeat, the report was unanimous and it contained this, inter alia [Translation]—

And then the report goes on—

Thirdly—

Because they are formed in a school which will turn them into hybrid beings, the result of which will be that every one of them will lose his soul. And then the report goes on—

Consequently, what the report says is single medium schools in accordance with the choice of the parents. In 1936, there was a report by the Director of Education of the Transvaal, and that report amounts to this, that if you want to foster bilingualism the most effective way of doing so is by single medium mother tongue instruction and the best evidence in support of that contention is to be found in the fact that as more single medium schools developed in the country, so the country became more bilingual. That is a generally recognised result right throughout the years. Now I want to draw a brief comparison between what we on this side want and what hon. members opposite want. We on this side want: Keep our education on the recognised sound educational basis, by educating the children by means of their own mother tongue. Nobody dare deny that. Even the majority report of the most recent Commission stated: that the majority of the educationists of the world favoured the adoption of that principle. Now we have put forward this proposition and no one opposite dare deny that it is the sound and correct educational basis. We are pleading for a sound and correct basis, and to that we add: After that teach the child a second language, so that it will also know the second language. That being the verdict of educational experts, we none the less find that hon. members opposite come and pose here today as experts. It reminds me of the old saying of the Hollands poet, Staring—

Although educational experts, and experience too, have proved to us that the principle of mother-tongue instruction is best, hon. members opposite pretend that they know better than all those educationists. The next point which we put forward in our motion is this: We say that we must not destroy anything. Separate medium schools have been built up in this country. Schools have been built up with English as medium and other schools with Afrikaans as medium bearing the imprimatur of those sections of the population. Since those schools have come into being we have had peace and quiet so far as language is concerned. Since those days there has been no question of media of instruction in our schools, but since that peace and quiet, we now find this great struggle, this great fight started throughout the country by the agitation which for propaganda purposes has been set in motion by hon. members opposite. As I have already said, in our proposal we urge that nothing should be destroyed; we want to be constructive, so that the Afrikaans-speaking child will be able to receive an education making it possible for him to be himself. Now what is the attitude which hon. members opposite take? They simply want to destroy in conflict with sound educational principles, these schools. While the Afrikaans child in these schools is getting what he is entitled to get—education in his own mother-tongue—they want to deprive him of that right. They want to force that resolution on the provincial councils as well. They simply want to pass this motion of theirs and to thrust it on the rest of the country. We also propose that provision shall be made for compulsory education in both official languages. The hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) has said very clearly that an examination test should be put in both official languages. That they refuse. Let the examination prove that every child knows the two languages of the country.

The Public Service does it.

They do not all go to the Public Service.

We want to make absolute provision for bilingualism and we are quite prepared to test the child. I just want to make a few short quotations from remarks by experts in this respect—also from experts in other countries who have had experience of this difficulty and are familiar with the results of dual medium schools. We find, for instance, that Owen Edwards, speaking at the Imperial Education Conference of 1911 said this—

In 1927, Professor Alfred Hoernle made the following remark—

C. F. Schmidt, a man with experience on this subject says that the hybrid dual medium schools have had the following results—

And then I come to Ballard, a well-known English educationist, who says this—

It is a most effective means of developing a nation’s national culture. It has been so throughout the ages. There is no better instrument to help the child in his education to be himself and to develop what is in him. I also want to point out that from the very earliest days the church in South Africa has played a great part in the education of our people. Cannot the Prime Minister see that by this proposal of his, by this atrocity which he has proposed, he is putting the Afrikaans church up in arms against him? I have before me the decision of the Synodical Commission of the Free State Church. In the resolutions of the Synodical Commission it is clearly stated why the church feels that it has to interfere in this matter, and among other reasons, this reason is given [Translation]—

Then the next reason is this—

That is the verdict of the Synodical Commission, and the resolution then goes on—

Mother-tongue medium is the nation’s vital right. And then the Synodical Commission goes on to explain the whole position. We find that the Synod of the Free State Dutch Reformed Church passed a resolution on the 24th April of this year on this subject.

That resolution was passed unanimously and I want to tell hon. members opposite that if they think they can go to the Free State with this proposal of the Prime Minister’s they will get into trouble. The Free State accepted the following resolution unanimously [Translation]—

The Church claims that it has promoted bilingualism wherever it has been able to do so. But now the Prime Minister comes along with this proposal of his and by wanting to introduce this principle of dual medium schools is causing everyone who has promoted bilingualism and has thus contributed to national unity, to get up in arms. Let me say this to the Prime Minister and to hon. members opposite, that this agitation for dual medium schools will rend itself to pieces against the Afrikaner nation which in all spheres of life is trying to live its own life and to develop itself. This onslaught of the Prime Minister is an onslaught on everything dear to the Afrikaner, on everything to which the Afrikaner nation is entitled. Why did this struggle break out in the Free State in the first instance? It was because after the last election the Free State sent Nationalists to this House. It was because of that that the othèr side is now trying to introduce a policy which will cause hybrid, conglomerate and anglicised citizens in the Free State. And that will be the result if we do not allow our people to be themselves and to be proud of what is their own. We fight for what is our own. When we deal with the Nationalist, we deal with the man who stands for what is his own. Somebody recently asked a Nationalist what a Nationalist really was. And the reply was that a Nationalist was a person who loved what was his own. We love what is “own” to us—our language and our Church—we love those God-given institutions and because we love what is our own, we only want to be what we are. If we have to be something else then we are nothing and then people will say about us—as is written—

(Be yourself I say to someone, but he could not because he was no one.)

Such a person is neither an Englishman nor an Afrikaner. He is something in between the two because he cannot be both at the same time. Let me just say this to the Minister sitting over there and to the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. Van der Merwe) who have proclaimed that their ideal of an Afrikaner is someone who knows both official languages equally well, and who has the conception on life of both sections of the population. Let me lay down this doctrine, that you can no more have two mother tongues than two mothers. Just as you have one mother you have one mother tongue. We know that in Flanders a, terrific fight has been waged on the language question and let me quote what a great man from Flanders said about this language struggle—

That is the sentiment which we find in every country where everything that is national, everything that belongs to the nation, has to be fought for. And we here in South Africa will take up that fight and we shall see it through so that the Afrikaner will be a man who can be a true Afrikaner, a man who has developed into a true Afrikaner because he has been educated in his own mother tongue.

I have listened with great interest to the remarks of the hon. member who has just sat down, the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein); and I must be quite frank that there were portions of his speech which recalled to my mind the poem of Alexander Pope—

He talks about the church. He says the church will do this and the church will do that and in the same breath he tells you that what is truly national is to love that which is your own. I read the English and the Afrikaans Bible, and both teach you to love your neighbour as your own. And then the hon. member says that in the past few years the English-speaking folks have moved in one direction and the Afrikaans-speaking in another direction in their schools and in these days it was all amity and peace in the country—or words to that effect. To my mind there has never been greater discord in the country than there is at present. I am one of those who considers that because this part of the House has more members than it had in the last Parliament, that does not mean that there is more concord than there was before. I know what is going on behind the scenes, and sluggish are the people who sit behind the majority they consider big. The Union has never before been more divided on this and on other questions than it is at present. And the the hon. member said that the church will use all its might at its disposal to do away with any idea of dual-medium schools in the Free State. Well it is not my usual procedure to try and destroy what my opponent has said. I rather want to view this question with the modicum of knowledge of educationalism which I happen to have. I would venture to suggest that this is one of the most important motions presented to this House in the last decade.

We have had so much of them.

Pardon me if I say that it is even more important than the decision taken on the 4th September.

Hear, hear.

And my reason for thinking so is this, that on that occasion this House took a decision to defend and throw in its lot with the British Commonwealth of Nations to defend its destruction from forces of evil. But this motion does not involve destruction but construction. This motion has in mind the upbuilding of something. That is why I want to consider the matter as dispassionately as possible and to put forward certain arguments which I hope will carry some weight. We have seen what wrong influences on the minds of children have done in other countries. We have had abundant evidence of that in the last 20 years in a certain European nation. Now seeing that I spent a great many years in the educational world, primary, secondary and higher, I feel that I am somewhat at home in this subject. As a matter of fact I mooted this subject some years ago in the Provincil Council chamber. The Minister of Education has already formulated some powerful arguments on the amendment. I shall pass them over very cursorily, and had it not been for the fact that the Minister spoke some weeks ago, I would have passed them over altogether. But there are three fundamental points. The first is that every single person in the country shall be at home in the second language. That surely is acceptable to every one.

You don’t apply it in practice.

I must ask the hon. member just to follow me. I have said that every South African child should be at home in the second official language.

Merely words as far as your party is concerned, the words you mentioned just now.

If you will allow me to put my point. The second very important point is the medium of instruction, and the third is the association of children in the same school. About the first point I have nothing further to say, for there can surely be no South African, worthy of the name, who will disagree with this postulate. I say that no one will disagree with me when I say that everybody should be thoroughly bilingual. Today we have numerous Afrikaans-speaking people who cannot speak English and even more English-speaking people who are not familiar with Afrikaans. The reason is that while some have had ample opporunity to learn, they have not taken the opportunity, and in other cases people have had a very little opportunity to learn the second language. Here is a little joke which comes from an Afrikaans-speaking schoolboy. A friend of mine received this while discussing bilingualism, and it comes from a boy who was an Afrikaans-medium scholar and is seventeen years of age—

This is not a matter for laughing; indeed, it is a matter for extreme sorrow.

I receive letters in English which are no better.

In regard to the second and third points, there may be diversity of opinion, but I am convinced that using the second language as a medium for acquiring knowledge is sound, not only for the student but also for the teacher. In this I am supported by none other than Prof. M. C. Botha, who is now Rector of the University of Pretoria. He stated that the standard of the second language is deplorably low, and gave it as his opinion that this was due to the fact that the second language, English or Afrikaans, was not used as a medium but as “something to be learned.” This statement appeared in Government reports on languages in our schools in 1941, and Prof. Botha was supported by Sir John Adamson, who said it was futile to expect a child to acquire a reasonable knowledge of the second language if he were taught only through that language and nothing else. That is the reason why I am in favour of teaching other subjects through the medium of Afrikaans, or English, as the case might be. I know from experience that if you take an English-sepaking boy and take a subject in which he is most at home, whether it is geography, mathematics, chemistry or anything you wish, and you teach that boy the subject in Afrikaans he learns far more Afrikaans than he would learn by merely learning Afrikaans as a subject. Once a child has acquired some foundation in his mother tongue he should learn some of his subjects in the other language. Some think that we could overcome the difficulty by merely teaching a language through the medium of that language. This is a fallacy, because to the child it still remains a subject to be “swotted up.” And here we get the value of the dual medium school. With regard to the third point—the association of the children in the same school. I have had experience of how the English-speaking child goes to the platteland, and the platteland boy comes down to the town, and they mix together. If these children are left alone, unfettered by political influences either exercised by the teacher or the parents, these children will themselves solve the problem far better than the wiseacres whom the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) wants to choose. Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to make it plain in this House that I am not blaming any Afrikaans-speaking man for growing wrathful on this matter, because I want to tell my English-speaking friends that they are almost as much to blame for the position in which we find ourselves today.

Almost as much, or more.

I want to say that the English-speaking South African must not think for a moment that I am supporting the attitude that some of them have taken up, because they have contributed considerably to the difficulties that we have to face. I would be failing in my duty if I did not point out to the English section that they, too, in years gone by made it difficult for the authorities. Previous to 1924 the other language was Nederlands, which was looked upon as a foreign language of little use in every-day life in South Africa. Even for some years after 1924 they were tardy; but now we have abundant evidence that they are willing and even anxious to co-operate. What are they doing now? They are sending children to the Stellenbosch University. In fact, the English-speaking section, as I shall prove shortly, are extending the hand of friendship, and it is the English-speaking section today that are making the sacrifice.

What sacrifice?

If all the schools are to be bilingual the English-speaking section is making the sacrifice. Dr. Malherbe has been subjected to some severe criticism in this debate, especially by the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart), but certain of the facts which Dr. Malherbe has established cannot be readily be gainsaid. His first point is that the mother tongue does not suffer in a bilingual school; if he learns the second language the child does not suffer in his use of the mother tongue. The more comparison there is between the idiom, vocabulary and structure of a language the more does it enrich the pupil’s linguistic knowledge. Secondly, he examined 18,000 children and he has made it clear that 43 per cent. of the school children in the Union of South Africa are bilingual. If that is the case, then straight away we have a demand that the school shall be 43 per cent. bilingual. Surely that is a simple, logical deduction. But what do we find? Of the other 57 per cent., 25 per cent. were entirely unilingual on the Afrikaans and 32 per cent. on the English side. Thus if the school medium should correspond to the home medium, 43 per cent. of our children should be at bilingual medium schools. These figures relate to statistics in 1941. The hon. member for Winburg asked whether there was a single person who agreed with Dr. Malherbe. I do not blame him for saying that, because he was working up a very big case, and he is a protagonist for one view, while Dr. Malherbe is a protagonist for the other. There is one man whose intellectual attainments are highly respected both here and overseas; I refer to Prof. H. A. Rayburn, whose shoe latchets some of the so-called academicians are not worthy to loose. He says—

I want to tell the hon. member for Winburg that this criticism came to me unsolicited however, Prof. Rayburn is a man whose opinion is respected throughout the length and breadth of the country.

Is he bilingual?

Substantially so. There are also other authorities who support the contentions of Dr. Malherbe. A few of these are Prof. E. Eybers, Professor of Education at Bloemfontein; Prof. Schmidt, Professor of Philosophy at Bloemfontein, whose thesis for his doctorate was : “Mother Language Medium”; Dr. P. A. W. Cooke, Director of the National Bureau of Education; Dr. M. L. Fick; and Jrof. J. C. Bosnian, Professor of Education, Pretoria University. Now I want to ask the Opposition, where do some of the protagonists of single-medium: schools send their children? I submit four names of such people—Mr. Pellssier, Dr. Van Rhyn, Rev. D. van der Merwe and Dr. Pretorius. I would ask those hon. members; do they know to which school these people send their children; every single one of them sends his children to the bilingual Grey College in Bloemfontein.

They take all their subjects through the medium of Afrikaans.

There is an Afrikaans-medium school in Bloemfontein, and why are not these children there? Mr. Hayward’s children, the leader of the Opposition in the Provincial Council, his children were in the English-medium school at Port Elizabeth. These people are wise, Mr. Speaker. Nothwithstanding they are pro-tangonists of the single-medium.

They don’t take the dualmedium; you are quite wrong.

I don’t care what they take or don’t take; they send their children to the best school. The hon. member for Boshof said the parents know what is best for their children, and these parents evidently know what is best, they send their children to a school in Bloemfontein which is not an Afrikaans-medium school. What must I deduce from that? Dr. Cillie has said that twelve out of 160 of the high schools in the Cape Province are Afrikaans-medium, but this is misleading. They say that a half truth is worse than a lie. Now if we admit that the number of Afrikaans-medium schools in the Cape is low we must look in another direction for the facts of the case, and I will give you the figures with regard to the pupils. We don’t look at the school. We look at the number of pupils, and if you do that you will see that you get a different picture. Thus for 1939 we find the following in the bulletin of Educational Statistics for 1940. In the Cape Province the English-medium: pupils are 36.9 per cent. of the total, Afrikaans-medium pupils 46.3 per cent. and bilingual 16.8 per cent. In the whole Union the English-medium pupils represent 39.2 per cent., the Afrikaans-medium pupils 51.5 per cent., and the bilingual 9.3 per cent. This shows that the children are steadily being separated into two distinct camps. The bilingual pupils in the Union are only 9.3 per cent., whereas in the Cape Province they are 16 per cent. Members of the Opposition have made great play with the fact that the percentage of essentially English-medium schools is high, and if that is the case who is making the sacrifice? The sacrifice is being made by those people who are willing to abolish the English-medium school, and I am one of them. I am willing to abolish them forthwith, and I am also in favour of abolishing the Afrikaans-medium school. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) said, amongst other things, that when an Afrikaans-speaking person is educated in the country and freely moves in urban areas thereafter, he tends to become de-nationalised. What about the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan)? He further remarked that 90 per cent. of the schools in the Cape Province were English-medium. Surely there could be no better argument in favour of this side of the House than that. It is in itself proof of the sacrifice which the United Party is willing to make to further the cause of true bilingualism. The hon. member also threw out a challenge to me in regard to successes of students in Afrikaans and English medium schools. In the South African College High School, 67 students took Afrikaans B. in Junior Certificate and not a single one failed, and in the matriculation 49 students took Afrikaans B. and three failed. A total failure of three students out of 116 for junior and senior certificate is a reasonably good record. I am of opinion that these results are even more outstanding than those cited by the hon. member for Gordonia. He selected the Jan van Riebeeck School, where Afrikaans-speaking boys live and move in an English environment, and so have greater opportunity outside the class room to acquire a knowledge of the other language. The Jan van Riebeeck School is a magnificent school. I admit it and I am proud to admit it. It also has very fine teachers. It would have been a fairer comparison if he had selected the results of English B. in country schools where the surroundings are Afrikaans, and then compared it with Afrikaans in schools like S.A.C.S. and St. Cyprian’s. Apart, however, from statistics, it is common sense both in citizenship and in education that our children should get to know one another and one another’s language in the schools. Let us get away from sentiment. Common sense must prevail in growing volume until it has swept away obstructions that are being placed in the way of real South Africanism. If we leave the choice to the parents, uncorrupted by so-called experts, I am certain that not only today but increasingly in the future, they will demand bilingual education with proper safeguards for the mother-tongue. Never let us give voice to the sentiment expressed in “Die Huisgenoot” (14.5.43) that love of your own language is incompatible with love of another language. Never let anybody imbibe such a venomous statement as that. We know perfectly well that if we allow young children of seven or eight years to meet in the schools they will go forward from strength to strength, learning each other’s language idiom and grow up as real, true Afrikaners. How are we going to do all this? It is useless to recognise a disease unless you are prepared to suggest a cure, and I only now indicate my plan of campaign. There should be an immediate establishment of bilingual training colleges and faculties of all education; all schools throughout the entire country should be completely bilingual from Standard IV ; parallel classes in all primary schools with mother-tongue up to Standard IV ; all examination questions in all subjects except of course in English and Afrikaans, from Standard V upwards to be set in alternate languages and to be answered in the language set; all subjects other than modern languages to be taught in both languages on alternate days. Thus, and only thus, shall we obtain to a true bilingualism, a true understanding of each other’s positions and a true value of our fellow men.

It appears to me, Mr. Speaker, that a tremendous amount of heat hás been generated during this debate. I cannot understand why, seeing that the aim of everybody is bilingualism. The one section says that it shall be through single medium schools; another section says that it shall be through dual medium schools, but after all what is the difference between the two sections? Very little indeed, as far as I can see. The only thing that comes out of these discussion—and from the text of this motion—is the fact that everyone is in too much of a hurry. As a matter of fact, we have been in too much of ä hurry ever since 1902. I want to take the case of a boy who grows up in the Cape or in the Transvaal in a country district, and then compare him with a boy who grows up in a unilingual province such as Natal—or it was until 20 years ago. Here in the Cape the boy grows up with two languags within his hearing every day. He uses those languages according to the circumstances in which he finds himself, and in that way he becomes bilingual to an extent— I do not say fully bilingual—and whereas he excels in his home language he can at least express himself in the other language.

Take the case of the boy who never heard Afrikaans until fifteen years ago.

In Natal!

That does not apply to Durban only. It was just as bad in Dundee and Newcastle. I travelled through Dundee and Newcastle some 20 years ago. I want the House to realise that these boys never heard a word of Afrikaans, unless inadvertently there were Afrikaans scholars in the same schools. But in their home and in their play and in their social life they never heard a word of Afrikaans. I can assure hon. members that when I leave Cape Town and go to my home in Natal, I do not suppose I hear half-a-dozen sentences from the time I leave the train until I come back again. I would like to impress that on the House. How are we going to get over this difficulty? I have pointed out that it is merely a question of environment. We have the example that from 1923 onwards the Government practically stated that everyone in the Public Service and in the Railways must be bilingual and they gave them five years in which to quality. Many qualified, but more did not qualify and are not qualified today simply because outside their association with an Afrikaner, they never hear the Afrikaans language, and it is very hard indeed to accustom oneself to the cadences and the pronunciation of a language, the meaning of which one does not understand. Natal has, as a matter of fact, taken a step which I believe is one in the right direction. That is to say, two or three years ago they passed an ordinance that from 1941 one subject should be taught in Afrikaans in Standard I. No, I am wrong. In 1942 in Standard I they taught one subject in Afrikaans; in 1943 they taught one subject in Afrikaans in Standards I and II. This year they are teaching one subject in Afrikaans in Standards I, II and III, and eventually they will get up to Standard X, and it will take ten years to arrive at that position. This amendment seeks to have thoroughly bilingual teaching within five years. I say that is a mistake. From the very outset everyone has been in too much of a hurry. They have left too little time for the acquisition and study of this language. And may I quote Prof. Malherbe in this connection? He stated that to the child it was as easy as falling off a log, but when one has attained the age of 30 or more, it is more difficult as time goes on to acquire a knowledge of the second language. I find today that when I hear my colleagues speaking in Afrikaans I cannot follow one sentence of what they are saying. I cannot get the gist of what they are saying, and may I say that I consider that a tremendous disadvantage? I would like to be able to understand it, but at my age it is absolutely impossible to acquire a knowledge of the second language. If you start early, as has been done in Natal, and if you get the children accustomed to hearing Afrikaans daily in the school they will in that way acquire efficiency in pronunciation, and they will acquire the necessary vocabulary. That, to my mind, seems to be the best way, and I wish the Government would alter its five-year plan to ten years so that the people may be given a longer time in which to acquire proficiency in the second language. I am not going to say whether a dual medium or a single medium school is the best. I leave that to people who are more acquainted with educational matters than I am, but I do say that environment counts for more than most people realise, and if an English-speaking child is in an Afrikaans environment he will learn to speak Afrikaans as well as the the next person, and more and more if an Afrikaans child is in an English environment, he also will acquire a knowledge of the English language. As far as English is concerned, we are going to get a rather atrocious accent that is if the languages are mixed too much in teaching, and the teachers are not proficient and cannot pronounce either language correctly. Then the child suffers. May I just point out to hon. members one or two things that I have noticed during this debate. There is a tendency to drop the aspirate in English when one is conversant very much with Afrikaans. There is a tendency to pronounce the latter “i” as “e”; there is a tendency to pronounce “ted” as “det” or “tet,” in words such as “drafted, wanted,” etc., There is a tendency to pronounce such words as “scientific” as “sinetific.” Those are things that are going to be prominent in the speech of the country, and the only way to correct that sort of thing is tuition by teachers who are proficient in the language which is taught and who can pronounce it properly. I think that Natal has made a good start and a start which might be followed by the other provinces in the Union, but for heaven’s sake do not be in too much of a hurry. Five years is too short; ten years is very much better.

I think it was very appropriate that the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) (Dr. L. P. Bosnian) was chosen more or less to round off this debate for the United Party, because he gave us a very striking picture this afternoon of the real motives behind this cry for bilingualism. I say that he gave us a most striking picture, because here we have an instance where Stellenbosch has now become “Stellenbush” to the hon. member and no wonder that Bosman has become “Bushman” to him. The hon. member has reminded me very strongly this afternoon—and not only he, but also the Prime Minister—of the story of the fox who had lost its tail. They are trying to persuade us to go the same way.

If there is one thing that has stirred up the feelings of the people and that has made them run very high, then it is definitely this sudden agitation for so-called bilingualism. No one can deny that during these last years we had entered a period of peace, a period of rest and development, a period of healthy interaction between the two European sections of the population. If there is one thing that creates the right relationship between the two European sections of the population, then it is that they should acknowledge each other’s culture, that they should appreciate each other’s language. That is one of the essential requirements. But this agitation has created an uneasiness; it has created discontentedness; it has created a degree of suspicion such as the country has never experienced before. The symptoms are apparent over the length and breadth of the country. We have the case in Pietermaritzburg which is definitely a warning to the country and to the people that this agitation for so-called bilingualism should be stopped immediately. This has been proved generally and we find the evidence today that it can only lead to an aftermath of great bitterness in South Africa. We must bear in mind that racialism only results from a disturbance of the development of the spiritual treasures of the people or where the danger for such disturbance exists. And that is what is happening. There is an interference with the spiritual treasures of the people and particularly with the language of our people. The Prime Minister made the statement here that the people had given its judgment on this matter at the last election. I deny that. I dispute that statement. I want to emphasise hat it is not correct. We should not forget that ministers of the Afrikaans churches approached the Prime Minister about this matter and the Prime Minister gave them the solemn assurance which throughout the country created the impression that the mother tongue medium schools of the Afrikaner and the Englishman would not be touched. He gave the impression that the existing system would not be disturbed. That assurance was indeed so solemn that one of those ministers actually reassured the people in public on this matter. So solemn was that assurance that the “O.B.” published an article in which it praised the attitude of the Prime Minister and bitterlv attacked the Herenigde Nationalist Party because that Party sounded a warning note about the actual motives underlying this matter. After the last election we found Afrikaans ministers of religion going round and advising people not to vote. I can mention the name of the Rev. Grobler of the Hervormde Kerk at Potgietersrust. He advised the people not to cast their votes, because he said to them that he could give them the assurance that the Prime Minister will not touch the mother tongue medium schools in South Africa. If this statement that has been made here by the Prime Minister, had been prior to the provincial election, then I am convinced that these things should not have come to pass and that we would have had a different result in this country. Then the Prime Minister would have been in a position to declare that the people had had the opportunity of giving its judgment on this matter. This statement by the Prime Minister has not brought peace and calm to this country. On the contrary, it has only brought a bitter conflict in this country. And the worst aspect of the matter it that this agitation is still continuing. So often when those people get up on platforms in public, one after the other gives the people the solemn assurance that it is part of the Government’s policy not to disturb the existing system of mother tongue medium schools, but the fact remains that in some or other manner the mother tongue medium schools are affected by this policy of the Government. It will not be a mother tongue medium school as recognised by the scientists. We had the example recently in the juvenile paper of the United Party that the assurance was given to the Afrikaans-speaking youth that the United Party was now acting in the role of the champion of the mother tongue medium school. I say that is the impression created in the country. It is not fair towards the people and the time has come that the United Party should be honest in regard to this matter and declare openly that that is not their object. If that is not so, what meaning can be attached to words, what is the value of educational concepts. There are certain educational concepts the purport of which cannot be distorted arbitrarily, and one of these is education through the medium of the mother tongue. It has so often been tried to create the impression in the country that the Herenigde Nationalist Party is not in favour of bilingualism. That is the impression created everywhere by members of the United Party. Let us be very clear on that point. There is the history of our party which provides the evidence that we do want bilingualism and what is more, that we put that principle of bilingualism into practice. And now I wish to make this further statement, that boys and girls who received their education in mother tongue medium schools, very often speak a better English language than 10 per cent. of the English people in South Africa. And that is a very conservative estimate. There is every reason for paying more attention to the kind of English spoken by many English people in South Africa. I go even further and I maintain that these same boys and girls speak better English than 15 per cent. of the English-speaking people in England itself and again I make a very conservative estimate. We must not forget that the language we are writing and speaking here is the language of London, the language of Samuel Johnson. Go to East End, go to various parts of England, and what do we find there? There we find dialects which many English people themselves cannot understand properly. I personally had the experience in England that I had to act as interpreter between one Englishman and another. Further, I want to make this definite claim that our Afrikaner youths who come from the mother tongue medium school know more about English literature than a very large percentage of the English people themselves. We have learnt to appreciate the culture of the Englishman. We have learnt that it is our duty to make ourselves as fully conversant with that culture as possible, and not only with the culture of the Englishman, but also with the culture of other nations. We are not only trying to be blingual; we try to become polylingual. And one finds the position here that there are more polylinguists amongst the Afrikaans-speaking people, then there are bilingualists on the opposite side of the House. The time has come that we should also learn one native language at school. We are in favour of polylingualism. We are in favour of having more than two languages at our command. If the Government and that party are really serious with this matter, then they would put that principle into practice; then they would apply that principle in the public life of the country. And we must not lose sight of the fact that the school is a reflection of the social life of a country; the school is also a reflection of the political life. If the Government put Section 137 of the Act into practice in every sphere of our life, then a position will be created in which the schools that do not produce persons who are able to satisfy those requirements will simply have to be closed. Then it would not be necessary for the Government to dictate to the schools what they have to do. The school would simply have to adjust itself to the national life. There lies the sound course to adopt; there, as the Englishman would say, lies the royal road. It has been pointed out here often enough that in recent times the Government has not followed that course. On the contrary, it has violated that act point by point. Step by step it has violated that act. I do not want to digress here on the numerous examples furnished by educationists in connection with this matter. Quotations have for instance been made here from Saer and Ronjat. But we must not forget that they did the spade-work. There are today approximately thirty countries in the world which have to contend with this problem of bilingualism and polylingualism. We find it throughout the world, and the policy that has been pursued in the other instances is the same policy that has been pursued here, namely the policy of assimilation; and what has been the result? There is the example in Europe and there are also examples in other places. In those countries the only result has been an aftermath of the greatest bitterness. There is Europe’s greatest problem—the problem of the minorities. What is the origin of these problems? The origin of these problems lies in the fact that no recognition is given to the spiritual treasures of the minorities, that no recognition is given to the language of the minorities. That is the root of the problem and also here in South Africa we will learn that lesson. Mention has been made here of Saer and Ronjat and Bovet, but we must bear in mind that they only did the spade-work. Prof. Bovet admits that this question is only in its early stages of research and that the final judgment has not been given. The work started by Saer had the result that the mother tongue was granted much fuller recognition in Wales. This fact has been proved throughout the world, and it is being admitted today by hon. members on the opposite side, that the child who does not start with his education through the medium of his mother tongue, is affected detrimentally if instruction in the second language is given to him at too early a stage. It affects him detrimentally throughout his life. If that is the result as far as the child is concerned, then we can assume that there may also be detrimental effects as far as the further stages of development are concerned. There is this further fact which is laid down by educationists throughout the wrold and that is that the best results in any subject are achieved if the instruction in that subject is received through the medium of the mother tongue. One achieves the best results if that subject is taught through the medium of one’s mother tongue. And here we find this phenomenon that the Government comes along and it is prepared to sacrifice all the ideals of science, all the ideals of culture, to the idea of bilingualism, irrespective of whether it will succeed or not. That takes us back to the Middle Ages or even the period before the Middle Ages when Latin and other languages were the languages of education. In those days too we found people who objected against it. Our policy should be to obtain the best results for the sake of science ; our policy should be to achieve the best results for the people and we can only get the best results if they put that principle into practice to its full extent; that can only be achieved through the medium of the mother tongue. That one finds persons here and there who received their education through the medium of their mother tongue and who are not bilingual, that I will concede, but if we have in mind the interests of science in South Africa; if we have in view the interests of culture in South Africa, and not only the culture of the Afrikaner, but also the culture of the Englishman, then we can only adopt this one course, namely that the two European sections of the population in South Africa should be taught through the medium of their mother tongue throughout their lives— there is on doubt about that fact. Where we have the two sections living together the Afrikaner youths will take the opportunity of becoming properly proficient in the second language. But I go further. We have the enquiry made by Inspector Botes and others in the Transvaal where the evidence was produced that the ideal of bilingualism is not furthered where the children go to the same school. Also there we find a reflection of the conditions prevailing in the social life. There we have the proof in the Transvaal. In the Transvaal the Afrikaans-speaking children play together and the English-speaking children play separately. I saw this with my own eyes last year. In one of the schools of Pretoria I saw it with my own eyes. The English-speaking children play with each other and the Afrikaans-speaking children play amongst each other. What was the result? The result was that on more than one occasion they went for each other and nearly killed each other on those playing grounds. Race-hatred is engendered in that type of school and the course being followed by the Government today is one which will bring to South Africa only the most bitter race-hatred it can possibly get. Let this point be very clear to us. For the Afrikaner people it is something sacred. The Afrikaner people have a long period of struggle behind them. The Afrikaner people are not going to give up that principle. They dare not give it up. It very closely affects our religion; it affects our churches. If that principle is interfered with, then the churches of the Afrikaner people are also being interfered with. I may refer to the judgment given by philologists who laid down this thesis that one’s language can only develop to its fullest extent if the principle of education through the medium of the mother tongue is applied throughout one’s life. Take the culture of the Afrikaans people today. It is to a large extent the result of the mother tongue medium school. The Afrikaner people had that military achievement; it provided one of the greatest military feats of the world. But not only did it perform a military feat, but also as far as its culture is concerned, it performed a feat such as is unknown in the history of any other nation in the world; because no other nation has ever achieved so much in the sphere of culture in such a short time as the Afrikaner people. Why must the Government now come along and disturb this achievement? If there are any schools of the English-speaking people who feel that they want more bilingualism, let them proceed. We will not hinder them. On the contrary, we will encourage them, but let them for goodness’ sake allow the schools of the Afrikaans-speaking people to continue in the manner they feel that they should, the manner the churches feel that they should and the manner that the educationists recommend that they should. The Afrikaners are determined to be only what God destined us to be. We will not lend ourselves to any policy which endeavours to make us of two kinds ; then we would rather prefer to die.

When we talk about the language question, we should be a little more composed. It is a very serious question and we have to use our brains. I want to put one question today to the Opposition, and particularly to the Free Staters, who boasted here of the bilingualism of the Free State. When our language was in danger, in 1902, where was the Opposition then? They may laugh now. Many of them are older than I am. I will tell them where I was. When we had trouble about our language, I followed the late Gen. Botha and Gen. Smuts, and we established the C.N.O. schools and where were our friends of the Opposition then?

Where are vou now?

I will tell you where I am.

We also had C.N.O. schools in the Free State.

I will tell you where the Free State stood. They unconditionally accepted the Milner system of education. Instead of the Transvaal accepting it, we established the C.N.O. schools under the leadership of Gen. Botha and Gen. Smuts. We sacrificed a lot for our language and for those schools. We had to borrow money and I travelled hundreds of miles in connection with those schools, because right from the start to the finish I was a member of the school management of the C.N.O. And what were the constitution and the syllabus of the C.N.O.? I will tell the Opposition that. It was mother tongue medium up to Standard IV and after Standard IV it was double medium. Both languages were used. Do they want to deny that?

That is not correct.

That hon. member was not on the head committee of the C.N.O.; I was there; he was then a major.

That is not true.

We proceeded with these schools and made good progress under the leadership of Generals Botha and Smuts. We got what we wanted. Our grievance was that we did not have equal rights for both languages. That was what we demanded, because we wished our children to be educated in both languages. That was our only demand. We got self-government and we got Section 137 and then we were satisfied. The Free State was also satisfied and we continued. But what was our undoing? It was the split that came in our ranks. We started hearing of all the complaints against our education. Then we heard from all sides that our system of education was no good and all sorts of trouble arose. We even heard of racialism that was stirred up in the schools. We had to witness our schools being dragged into politics. And what was further done? I sent four children through the high school and what happened there? If a child was put into the Gymnasium it was said that we are making a Dopper of him. If we put him in the Boys’ High, then it was said that we are making an Englishman of him.

Who said that?

The political leaders of the Nationalist Party said that. They all said it and I am not excluding one of them. It was a platform slogan of theirs. The school is near to the heart of the Afrikaner, and they attacked the school for political purposes with the result that the Afrikaner cause had to suffer the consequences. I personally took children to Johannesburg in order to find employment for them and what did we find there? Sorry, but they do not know enough of English and therefore they cannot get the appointments.

Were you a Sap in those days?

I have been an Afrikaner all my life and I will continue to be an Afrikaner longer than that hon. member will be one. We have to be calm about this question.

You look very calm!

I am calm. When I am really serious, then I am much more serious than this. It has been mentioned here that the church is opposed to this proposal made by the Prime Minister. I want to say that I am whole-heartedly in agreement with this proposal and I will tell you why. The proposal by the Prime Minister is to have the double medium, just like the C.N.O. schools, from Standard ÍV. The mother tongue of the child will continue to be its mother tongue whether it is English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking, and it receives its first stages of education through the medium of that language. But when he goes to higher standards then the double medium is applied. What objection could we make to that? Could we try to cultivate racialism thereby, as the last speaker maintained. If that were to be done, then I must say that I deplore the fate of my fellow Afrikaners. If we have to make racial politics out of a matter of this nature and create race hatred, then I feel sorry for my Afrikaner people. I whole-heartedly support the amendment of the Prime Minister, therefore. He provides the opportunity to the child on the platteland to become proficient in both languages. The future of the country is in the hands of persons who have both languages at their command. We want our children to become efficient citizens of our country, to take our places and to work together joyfully in this country. For that purpose they have to be bilingual. But if there is one thing that hurts me, then it is when we talk about race hatred? Where are we going to draw the line between the races? We refer to Englishmen and Afrikaners, but where are we going to draw the line? I can tell you personally that my daughter-in-law comes from an absolutely English family. They cannot talk Afrikaans. I am proud of that daughter-in-law and today she is Afrikaans. I think she may serve as an example for us all, because she is doing her best to educate and to help our people. She is a nurse and she does more for the poor than many of us. Then the church has also to be dragged into this question. Let me tell the House at once that my church takes no part in the politics which the Opposition is trying to drag this matter into. The Reformed Church takes no sides in this matter. When the Rev. Rautenbach signed that document, I went to the Moderator and he told me that the Rev. Rautenbach had taken it upon himself ….

So your church is divided?

He did so as an individual and not on behalf of the church. I have a letter here from my church to the effect that our church is not going to concern itself with anything of a political nature.

Do you agree with the Rev. Dreyer?

He is not the chairman of my church. This proposal of the Prime Minister will mean the end of all this whining about the Grey College about which these friends have so much to say; and especially all the talk about the Boys’ High or the Gymnasium with which we had such a lot to do. If we agree to this proposal of the Prime Minister and we eliminate racialism, then we will make our people in South Africa happy.

The hon. member who has just sat down, when he started his speech really brought me under the impression that he was a great educationist.

He is a good citizen of the country.

He got up and told us that he was one of the founders of the C.N.O. schools, and he then asked us where the Free Staters were at that time. Does the hon. member not know what happened at the time?

He knows better than you do.

The C.N.O. schools were established, as the hon. member said, with mother tongue education up to Standard IV, and thereafter the dual medium. But what happened shortly afterwards? His Leader, Gen. J. C. Smuts, then came along and, through his Act of 1907, destroyed the whole system of C.N.O. schools.

That is untrue; what do you know about it?

I do not feel inclined to listen to the hon. member to Johannesburg (West) (Mr. Tighy).

You cannot tolerate interjections.

Allow me to say this to him, since we are discussing educational questions today, that I quite appreciate why the church had to write off his study fees, because he achieved no success through his studies.

I must ask the hon. member not to make such personal remarks.

I felt that the hon. member was looking for it.

On a point of order, I think something has been said here which is scandalous. I was talking to the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. Van der Merwe) and I did not immediately hear what the hon. member said about me. I shall give him the opportunity to make that remark to me outside the House.

That is not a point of order.

As I have already said, the present Prime Minister, through his Act in 1907, destroyed the whole system of C.N.O. schools. Can the hon. member deny that in 1907 we reached the stage when all the subjects had to be taught only through the medium of English, and only if the School Board wanted it and the parents requested it, a maximum of two subjects could be taught in the mother tongue. I want to come to what the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) (Dr. L. P. Bosnian) said here. He started by defending the Government, but he concluded by referring to English single medium schools which yielded wonderful results. I congratulate them on it. That is precisely the attitude we should like to see. This subject with which we are dealing is very important and interesting, and in that connection it is necessary to make a study of the experience which has been gained in the educational sphere, not only in South Africa but also in other countries. It is interesting to see what educationists in England and also in America and Europe have to say in that regard. I do not want to read long quotations in this connection, but I want to refer to a few of those educationists. In the first place I want to refer to an educationist like Wackernagel in Germany, like Charles Bally in France. Then there is an English educationist whose views we find in the book: “The teaching of English in England.” In the fourth place we have Dr. Langenveld in his “Language and Thoughts.” Without quoting from the works of these persons, I can say that they came to the very same conclusion, namely, that the mother tongue is the natural element in which the child can develop its intellect, its aptitude and its character. Language is not only the medium of culture but it is also the means to culture. World history has taught us—and our own history has also taught us—that as long as a conquered nation can retain its language, so long does it retain its culture, its religion, its traditions, its history. There is another great authority to whom I want to refer, namely Michael West. What does he say in his journal “Bilingualism”? [Quotation Read.] It is a fact which no one can dispute. We have great German and Nederlands educational authorities who tell us that it stands to reason that the mother tongue must be the medium of instruction and that the mother tongue must be the key to all education.

But there they have only one nation.

I shall come to that. If we deprive a nation of its mother language, we deprive that nation of its highest intellectual gifts. If a conqueror wants to do that towards a conquered nation, it can only expect the most bitter opposition on the part of the conquered people. That stands to reason. If the child receives his education through the medium of a foreign language, the soul of that child becomes completely embittered, and the logical consequence is that if the child’s soul becomes completely embittered that embitterment is reflected in the soul of the whole nation and not only of the child. It is an indisputable truth that when we go to our English-speaking friends, we find that English-speaking people, just like the Afrikaans-speaking people, desire a single medium for their children from the depth of their hearts. We cannot get away from that, and as a result of the discussion which we have already had in this House, that feeling has become very much stronger. We find that when the great expert who was quoted by members on the Government benches, Dr. Malherbe, recently attended a conference of English-speaking teachers in the Transvaal, he did his utmost to persuade those teachers to go in the direction of the dual medium, and I want to ask my friends on the other side whether any resolution was passed by those teachers. No, he could not persuade them. They share our views, and they are right. Why should we attack each other’s language in this manner? If an English-speaking person respects his own language and defends it, I take off my hat to him. I respect the Englishman’s language and I expect him to respect mine. In dealing with this dispute it will be just as well if we face the facts. There is a historical background to it. We are now experiencing the third language struggle in South Africa. We had the first language struggle in our country in the nineteenth century. With the conquest of the Cape in 1806, one of the clauses of capitulation was that citiens would retain their language rights. What happened there? In 1811 Sir John Cradock stated publicly that they should immediately start attempting to anglicise the Afrikaner. Is there anyone here who can deny that? After him came Lord Charles Somerset, and he continued to build on that foundation, and it went so far that eventually only one language was recognised, namely, English. He went even further. Only persons who had a sound knowledge of English and access to appointments. The official language was nothing but English, and Hollands was hardly recognised.

That was wrong.

We therefore have the position, that in spite of that clause in the capitulation agreement that the Afrikaner would retain his language rights, he has had to fight from 1806 to this very day for every inch of his rights in South Africa. He has had to fight for the maintenance of the Afrikaans language. The hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) (Dr. L. P. Bosman) got up in this House and stated in a melancholy manner that if it had not been for the Prime Minister, we would not have had an Afrikaans language today. I challenge him to prove what part the Prime Minister played in the Afrikaans language struggle in South Africa, or what part the Minister of Education had in that struggle.

He obtained equal rights at Vereeniging.

So the Afrikaner has had to struggle along. He had to struggle along step by step to protect his language rights, until we came to the second language struggle. That came when Lord Milner arrived in this country and introduced his policy, and we had the same thing over again. In the Treaty of Vereeniging one of the clauses was that the language rights of the Afrikaner would be guaranteed. But what happened? I think Ramsay McDonald was right when he said—[Retranslation.]—

That was the whole motive. The Prime Minister stated in his speech the other day that he wanted to go back to the days of 1914 and 1915. Let us see what the position was in the language sphere in the years 1914 and 1915. Those were the days when I and many others had to wear dunce caps because we spoke Hollands, and we had to write the line: “I must not speak Dutch” a thousand times. It was in these years when we were not allowed to write our examinations in Hollands in any single subject.

Where was that?

That was the case in the Cape. There are many members here who shared that experience with me. I want to ask my hon. friends this: Assuming the Afrikaner had to govern in South Africa today, would they like to see us doing this towards the English children?

No.

Nor would we do it.

We are too civilised and educated to do that.

That was done to us. If the Prime Minister really wants to go back to the days of 1914 and 1915, I can tell him that I am one of those who will say: “Never, even though the world comes to an end.”

It was not the case in the Transvaal.

I had got to the second language struggle. I referred to the Act which the Prime Minister passed in 1907. What happened when we got our dualmedium schools? That was the time when the English-speaking people in the Free State sent a deputation to London in an attempt to deal a mortal blow to the dual-medium system. Why do they now want the very thing which they wanted to abolish at that time? They are not logical in connection with this whole affair. When they could not have their way in London, they sent a deputation to Bloemfontein to demand that the dual-medium schools be abolished. They did not succeed, and what was their attitude in connection with the Brebner school? They proceeded to establish their own private single-medium schools, and today there are approximately 280 of those single-medium schools in South Africa. That is an Act on their part for which I take off my hat. We do not begrudge them the right to establish single medium schools, but then they must also respect it if we establish such schools. I find it strange that those very people who are today engaged in this struggle for dualmedium schools, sent a deputation to London at that time to do away with dual-medium schools. Why this change? There is not the slightest educational foundation for this change. The whole motive is a purely political one.

That is true.

I am glad that the hon. member on the other side admits it. We have now reached the third language struggle in South Africa, and we find that two Afrikaners are at the head of those against whom we have to wage this struggle. In the first place, I want to put this question. Who threw the bone of contention amongst us; who started this struggle? No one on the other side will have the courage to say that the Nationalists did so.

You introduced the motion.

I want to say this, that the Re-United Nationalist Party is fighting today for the maintenance of the law of this country, and the S.A.P.’s are attacking the law of this country. You are making this attack. The journal of the Minister of Finance, the “Forum,” has been dealing with this subject for the past two years, in order to incite the public in favour of dual-medium schools. The Minister knows that himself. What happened then? We found that one S.A.P. congress after another raised this question. That started two years ago, and now the hon. member on that side states that we introduced the motion. They know what happened. An attack was made on the Afrikaans-medium schools, and it is strange that that happened in a Nationalist area. It also happened in my constituency. There was an English school next to an Afrikaans-medium school. The English-medium school was attended by fewer and fewer children. Later on there were only a few class rooms left. It was not decided then to transfer to another school, and to give the Afrikaners, whose numbers were increasing enormously, a chance to use this school. No, they took the Afrikaans children and placed them in that school. It was said that the School Board of Johannesburg had passed a resolution to that effect.

Which school was that?

In Newlands. You do not know much about it. In the end it appeared that the school board had never passed a resolution to that effect. The instruction had come from above. Can you show me a single English-medium school which was attacked in this way? And then the Minister of Finance talks of Natal and says that Natal set a wonderful example. Can Natal be quoted as an example when it tramples underfoot the handful of Afrikaners in that province? Is it any example to trample upon these few Afrikaners economically because they want to save the soul of their children? We know the history, but the scope of this struggle is a wide one. It does not only affect political life; it affects the whole right of existence of Afrikanerdom, and that is why one finds today that every Afrikaner organisation, its cultural organisations, its educational bodies, its church, its other organisations, are fighting for the retention of the single-medium school, with the Re-United Nationalist Party in the forefront, because we know that this decision must be taken in this Legislative Assembly, and we stand here to plead for the preservation of the soul of our people. I ask what the real reasons are for the movement of hon. members on the other side ; what is the real reason why the United Party threw this apple of discord amongst us? It is clear, and no one can deny it that they threw this apple of discord amongst our people. We have had years of peace, of free intermingling, and today the United Party is setting in motion a racial struggle, the end of which we cannot visualise.

You mean the struggle which you started.

This struggle already existed in 1902, when our people were thrown into the concentration camps, and what happened during the subsequent years? Notwithstanding suppression in every respect Afrikanerdom developed; and the leaders of the United Party and their newspapers are afraid of the increasing influence of Afrikanerdom. They realise that the young people of today can no longer be pushed into the imperialistic stream as easily as they could be some years ago. Young South Africa has become nation conscious, and nation proud. That is one of the main reasons why they let loose this struggle. They share the view of Lord Charles Somerset; they think with the brain of a Lord Milner; they want to subdue the spirit of Afrikanerdom by an attempt to get hold of the educational system of South Africa. That is the long and the short of it. They now say that the English-speaking child should also be bilingual, but that is only an excuse. They are only advancing that argument because the Afrikaner child is beginning to obtain positions everywhere. We know that, and the Afrikaner child gets those positions because he is bilingual. They realise that. They are not prepared to compel the English-speaking children at school to become bilingual, unless it be by means of an attack on the Afrikaner organisations. That is the position today. The leaders of the United Party realise that their influence is waning. There are splits in the party, and those splits are becoming greater and greater. They are trying to stem the republican tide, to keep it in check, and that is why they say that we must be broad-minded. They want to retain the pro-English character in South Africa. That is the most important reason. Let us deal with the arguments of hon. members on the other side. What is their main argument? That the two races should be thrown together and that they should mix freely in the schools. They will then learn to understand and respect one another better. What has the past taught us where children of both races were thrown together? There was no peace. Cliques were formed inside the schools and on the playgrounds. That argument on their part does not hold water. Assuming the children were thrown together in one school today, what would the position be? You will find that one section of the children would be left in the cold. We saw what happened in Johannesburg on the occasion of public festivities. Assuming Heros’ Day or Kruger Day were to be celebrated tomorrow, what would happen? What would happen if the Afrikaans child displays his Vierkleur and the English-speaking child hoists the Union Jack? The position will simply be that there will be quarrels not only amongst the children, not only amongst the teachers and the parents, not only amongst school commissions and parents, but a struggle will develop in this country which we will regret for many a day. And what about the platteland? is it stated that the dual medium school is necessary so that the Afrikaner child can be educated to hold his own in the city, in commerce and in industry. But the fact remains that the Afrikaner is fast gaining a foothold. We see that everywhere, and the reason is that the Afrikaner child is bilingual. We say let the other side be more concerned about their own children. Let them see to it that the English-speaking child becomes bilingual. Then things will come right. They have no real arguments. Their only motive is fear. We are being frank; we do not come here under a false cloak. Hon. members on the other side say that we must have dual medium education to make the people bilingual. Dual medium education has nothing at all to do with bilingualism. What does bilingualism mean? Bilingualism is the internal command of one’s mother tongue and the technical command of the second language. The one has nothing to do with the other, but it cannot be denied that a child does not learn any subject well through the medium of any language which is not his own— arithmetic, history, etc. This system which you propose will prejudice the children, the Afrikaan-speaking children and also the English-speaking children. You are only causing bitterness and you are prejudicing the children. We have lived in peace and quiet all these years. Let us continue to do so. Do not try to throw the apple of discord amongst us. Reference has been made here to the report of the latest commission of investigation. What were the conclusions? The majority and minority reports both tend towards single medium education; if it had not been for the fact that Mr. Guschke, the chairman, was transferred and had to leave the Commission, the majority report would have become the minority report.

At 6.40 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1944, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 28th April.