In paragraph (a) after “native” to insert “except a native in permanent employment on farms”.

To add at the end of paragraph (a) “This tax shall not be paid by any native who is assessed for income tax or who occupies premises assessed for local rate by any local authority”.]

In connection with native taxation I just want to say that our difficulty in the Transvaal is to get labour. We in the Transvaal would prefer to see the tax higher than lower. The tax which the natives pay is the only lever to get them to work. It is different in the case of the mines, because there natives are introduced from elsewhere. By the hut tax which is specially imposed in winter the natives are forced to go to work. As soon as the time comes that they have to pay they go out to work, and in this way the farmers get hold of them. It may be different in the Cape Province, but the farmers with us will be most dissatisfied if the tax is reduced, because then the inducement to the natives to work will be reduced, and we shall not be able to get any labour in winter. Therefore I am opposed to the tax in the Transvaal being made less than it is to-day.

I am very sorry that the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) introduced his motion. I do not think it is desirable to exempt the natives. All must contribute to the burdens of the State, the native as well as the white man. The proposed system of taxation differs completely from that existing now in the Transvaal. There you have a tax of £2 on every native who has not worked for SO days’ on a farm. If he can prove that he has worked 90 days on a farm he only pays £1. The general feeling in the Transvaal is that the taxation should not be reduced, but rather that it should be increased. We find that in the new proposals that the native tax in the Transvaal is being reduced, and in the Cape Province a little increased. I do not wish to speak about the Cape Province, but in the Transvaal it is felt that we will have little service from the natives if we tax them less, because it is the taxes that drive them out to work with the farmers. The native works possibly only 12 days or so, and then he has the £1, and goes away again. The custom is that the employer pays the tax if the native works 90 days for him. It is therefore a relief to the native if he works there. I think that the reduction will cause dissatisfaction in the Transvaal, and I am sorry that the Minister has proposed it. He ought rather to have extended the Transvaal system to the other provinces. Another thing which we feel strongly in the Transvaal is that the coloured people entirely escape. The Union does not tax them, and the provinces have not the power. The white man and the native have to pay for their protection. I cannot see why the native taxation in the Transvaal should not also apply to them. The white man has to pay £1 10s. poll tax, but the coloured man entirely escapes that. I do not think that it is fair that he should not contribute his share.

I only wish to say a few words in support of what has been said by the hon. member for Middelburg (Mr. Heyns). I believe that it is in the interest of the farmer and the natives themselves that the tax should not be reduced. It would mean that contrary to the interests of the natives they would just lead a comfortable life and the farmers would suffer thereby, because ray experience is that the natives must be forced to work otherwise one cannot get any work done by them. The tax has in many cases caused the native to go and look for work, but if that lever disappears then he will be satisfied to sit by the mealie porridge and not to work. Therefore it is in his own interests that the system of taxation should not be so altered as to reduce the tax.

I cannot entirely agree with what hon. members from the Transvaal have said. All the natives that have hitherto worked on farms were subject to a tax of £2, of which £1 was deducted on a certificate from his master that he had worked 90 days in the year. Therefore the tax was actually only £1, i.e., the amount now proposed. I think that this is quite a good principle to impose an extra tax on natives living in locations, and who do no work in consequence, and pay absolutely no rent. It has been urged that the tax will be used for the education of his children and other local requirements, but in any case the tax must still be paid by them. It was not correct—what the hon. member for Middelburg (Mr. Heyns) said—that the natives who have four or five huts pay more. A native in a location pays £2, and then according to the existing law a further £2 when he has more than one wife, but not a single native has to pay more than £4. Natives who pay £8 or £10 now no longer exist. As soon as a native has six wives he will in addition to his £1 have to pay 10s. for every hut or dwelling. Therefore for six wives £3 is added. That is £4 in all. Only natives who have more than six wives will therefore pay more than formerly. But from a broader point of view I think that it is necessary to consolidate the native taxation throughout the whole Union, as was also done with the income tax and estate duty for whites. I have always felt that it was an injustice that natives throughout the Union were not all treated in the same way. I think that it was unjust that in the Transvaal a native has to pay £2 a year while it was only 10s. in the Cape Province, 14s. in Natal and £1 in the Free State. If we look at the statistics of the revenue coming to the treasury from the natives of the various provinces we see what an amazingly large sum comes from the Transvaal. I wish to say nothing in connection with the pass system, because it is always said that the master really pays the fee, but I am speaking of the direct tax itself. The tax from Transvaal natives is annually nearly half a million pounds sterling. I think last year it was £450,000, and I do not believe that in the Cape Province it reached £100,000, and yet there are more natives there. In the Free State it was also but a small sum, and in Natal with its large number of natives there was only a few hundred thousand pounds. I am therefore satisfied with the proposals of the hon. Minister, because uniformity as regards native taxation will now be obtained, and because it removes an injustice to the Transvaal natives.

This is a matter which concerns me more than the Minister of Finance. I will say at once that I appreciate what the hon. member for Lydenburg (Mr. Nieuwenhuize) has said. I entirely agree with him. There is not the least doubt that we cannot wait any longer to remove the inequality in native taxation. There is no reason why the natives should pay £2 in the Transvaal, £1 10s. in the O.F.S., and 10s. in the Cape Province. As long as this inequality continues to exist the native will say that the white man is to blame for this unequal treatment. As the hon. member has said the white man would not tolerate one part of the country contributing a larger share to the costs of administration of the country. The native also feels this, and my department has felt that steps should be taken to equalize the taxation in the country. There is no reason why the natives in the Cape Province should only pay a quarter of what the natives in the Transvaal do. I do not, however, wish to go further into this side of the matter. Now it is said here that the interests of the farmers demand that we should tax the natives still higher than in the Transvaal. That argument does more harm than good to the farmers. We must appreciate that if the Government were to do anything which is unjust to the native in order to further the interests of the farmers then the feeling would eventually arise that the farmer wants to be unjust to the native to advance his own interests. I am fully convinced that that is not the feeling of the farmers. In my opinion the arguments mentioned are very unsound and weak. The natives pay 10s. in the Cape Province, and here I have never yet heard that the natives will not go out to work. In the Free State they pay £1, and I have not yet heard the complaint that they will not go out to work. I have never yet heard that it is necessary to tax the natives to make them work. I know very well that in the past when the natives had not yet learnt to go out to work there was in various places the general feeling that the natives should be taxed in order that they should go out to work. It is no longer so to-day, and the position even is that we had to take away the natives from the place of employment. Members have said that we only tax the natives £1 10s. As the hon. member for Lydenburg (Mr. Nieuwenhuize) has shown, the natives on the farms are still taxed at that amount. The natives in locations pay £1 10s., but we make further provision that there shall be local boards which can impose local taxes on natives in locations for local purposes. Although the natives impose these themselves still they are imposed. I hope that hon. members will not insist on this motion. I think that the equalisation is absolutely necessary, and I do not think the farmers will gain anything by the amendment. I just want to say a few words to the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger). He has mentioned a case of natives who live and work next door to coloured people. He wants to know whether the tax will also apply to them. Of course it falls directly under the proposal—[The speaker here found that the Dutch version of the definition of “native” was incorrect.]

Read the English.

Yes, I will do that—that is also wrong. I am beginning to get impatient at the way in which this work is being done. [The speaker read the relative portion from the English version of the Bill.]

The hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown) gave me the impression that he thought the tax was going to be very unfair, but I wish him to consider the question from this point. The whole policy in South Africa has almost from the commencement of history been that your native and your native races have been looked upon for legislative and administrative’ purposes as a community by itself. We have, for instance, as far as legislation is concerned, in the Transkei, government by proclamation, and the native is taken out of the provincial council as far as taxation is concerned. I am now mentioning the general laws in that respect. We find numbers of other laws all making exceptions so far as the native, is concerned, and we find the Native affairs Department specially concerned with the native, and with his government, with all the expenses connected therewith. But you have not that as far as the coloured man is concerned. The coloured man is in a very unfair position as far as that is’ concerned. If there is any body of men which have reason to complain of not being properly looked after it is the coloured men and not the natives. In this Bill we are asking that the natives shall be subject to the general tax and the local tax. It is really only your general tax against which, from the point of view of the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown) anything can be said. Let us look at what it means. It means that your native is taxed £1 for the purpose of contributing in the first place to the administration of the native. In the second place he is being taxed with the object of having one-fifth of that £1 to go to the development of the natives. We have, therefore, these monies to go to native administration and development. When once we look at it from that point of view you see at once there is nothing unjust and nothing unfair in it whatever. My hon. friend will say, as probably the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), will say, “We have here to do with the native who is educated.”

Hear, hear.

Well, I am glad to hear my hon. friend say “Hear, hear,” because I want to meet him at once. By what right does the native who is educated claim to be exempted from a tax which has to go to the administration of the affairs of the native races to which he belongs, and, in the second place, which is to go to the development of the native races of which he is a member? As the natives get educated they will be withdrawn from native laws, native taxation, etc., and be taken up with the Europeans. Is that right? Let us consider where this goes to. If there is anything which your native to-day feels and any man who takes an interest in the native feels the position is this, that instead of having the energies and abilities of the educated native developed through his own race, unfortunately, you find your educated native tries to throw in his lot with the white man, and he wants to spend his energy and abilities amongst the white men in matters having nothing to do with his own race. Is it not a far better policy when men come and say what we ought to do is to let the native understand there is a vast field for the exercise and employment of his energies and talent amongst his own people and to help them forward. Every one will admit we ought to be very careful what we do in assisting the native to get further and further away from his own folk, rather should we do everything in our power to get him to devote his attention, his energy and scope within the circle of his own people. Only in that way shall we succeed in helping the native to progress. Don’t let us ask that the native be exempt. Let them pay the £1. It will be hard sometimes to find them, and sometimes you will find it difficult to discriminate between the native and a coloured person. In that case it is left there.

The remarks of the Prime Minister are more like a sermon than dealing with the question of taxation. The Premier says we must work out a system whereby the native must assist his own fellows and bring them altogether. The amendment I propose deals with a different aspect of the question. I was informed on the authority of a member of this House that he knew a native worth £20,000, and we know there are natives paying the income tax, men who are entirely disassociated from native location life. I ask the Minister to deal with a district I know well. You have in the vicinity of Port Elizabeth a place called Korsten, which comes under the Act for location purposes. There are a large number of natives who own their own houses and who are separate and have nothing in common with location life whatever. I am not talking about education but about the right to be assessed and the right to pay taxes. The question of education does not enter into it. These persons are assessed for every rate and they have to pay every claim and demand that every kind of European pays, but they will have to pay this extra. These are the people I ask to be exempted. Wherever a person is in a location receiving vast benefits under the administration of native affairs it is right they should be asked to pay, but by what claim can you make it out that the persons I name should be called upon to pay. You get in the stores and manufactories round Port Elizabeth, native and coloured men working side by side at the same rate of pay, each liable to pay the same rates, yet my hon. friend demands from the coloured person all the taxes liable to be paid by the European and from the native in addition to these demands he is asked to pay £1 extra. The amendment I put on the Table meets the whole objection. I do not see how the Prime Minister can defend that. It is all very well to talk about a moral plane and the lifting up of his fellows, but human nature is not constituted that you can make a man believe that by paying £1 more than his fellows he is lifting up his own race. These people know nothing about native life and have never lived in it. In Port Elizabeth they are in the fourth generation of people who have worked in the stores and on the railway. I asked the Minister of Finance last night to go into the question. If you pass this tax to-day you are doing a great injustice. I have no doubt it will be passed, but if it is I shall raise my voice against the injustice of it. I have a good deal of sympathy with the amendment of the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler). The hon. member for Albert has put an amendment that every man in the employment of a farmer should be exempted. That is a reasonable amendment, because those men are not in locations and are not receiving any of the benefits extended towards those in locations. I think I should be failing in my duty towards a large number of those interested in this question if I did not ask the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to see the logic of the position. I submit that if the Minister forces this through and also does not accept the reasonable amendment of the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) he will be failing in his duty. I think that the Minister means well, but I do say that neither he nor the Prime Minister could get up in this House and defend upon logical and consistent grounds the tax which is now proposed. The natives whom I have in mind live in a state of comparative civilization, they pay duty on the clothes that they wear the same as a European is paying, and their children are educated in the mission schools, not in public schools, and a very large proportion of the cost of that education is raised by the people themselves, a far larger proportion than is raised on behalf of the European children. I have no doubt that the Prime Minister means well by his department, but what can that department do for five million natives in this country? It is like having a pipe in your mouth and blowing a bubble out of it, so far as any effort can be made to deal with such a mass.

There is another point of view that I would like to submit to the House and to the hon. member (Mr. D. M. Brown), and then I think he will see that there is not so much force in his arguments as he thinks. His amendment deals with two classes of natives. The first is the one who pays income tax. I informed him last night, and I informed the House, that that native would be exempt from this tax if he pays income tax to the extent of 30s. Then, as I understand, the other class of native to which he refers is the man who lives in a town and pays municipal rates, rates in respect of fixed property owned or occupied by him. The amendment of the hon. member deals with the man who pays income tax, and also with the man who pays local rates, municipal rates.

Who may own a freehold farm and pay divisional rates.

The man who holds a freehold farm does not pay the local tax.

May I explain to the Minister, the native has to pay in the Cape the divisional council tax even if he is a freehold farmer.

The divisional council tax is another matter. We have first got a general tax of £1 to be paid by every adult male native, and we have got a local tax of 10s. which is to be paid in respect of every hut or dwelling in a native location, by the man who occupies it. It is not a tax really. He is paying for property occupied by him belonging to the Crown. The hon. member (Mr. D. M. Brown) will see in the same way that if he occupies property in a municipality, he has to pay a tax for the privilege of occupying that property. Then we come to the general tax. By resolution passed by this House we have prohibited the provincial councils from levying a poll tax on natives. What is the equivalent of that tax? In two provinces to-day, the Transvaal and the Free State, a poll tax is levied on all poor white persons and coloured persons. There is no equivalent for that as far as the native is concerned. Why should not the native pay this tax which the white man has to pay? If we had not taken that right away from the provincial councils, they would probably have levied this tax. The wants of the native are not the same as those of the white man, and he does not pay indirect taxation on various articles that he consumes to the extent that a white man does, and the only way of reaching him is through this poll tax. Poor whites to-day in two provinces are paying a poll tax for educational purposes. We are reducing, as I have already pointed out, this particular form of taxation in the case of many thousands of natives in the northern provinces. In the Cape we are getting increased revenue by reason of the fact that many natives are not paying the same rate and many natives have not paid a tax at all. I do not think that on the whole it can be shown that the incidence of this tax is really more burdensome on the native than it has been in the past, in fact, I think that we are making the tax less burdensome upon these people. It does not seem to me that there is much in the hon. member’s allegation that we are singling out the natives for burdens which are not imposed so far as the white man is concerned.

I fear that hon. members do not understand the position of the farmers and of the farms. We have the greatest difficulty in getting labour. In the villages and towns we constantly hear the complaint that the natives stream to the towns and villages. We wish, as the motion of the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) clearly indicates, to encourage the natives as much as possible to come to the farms, and the only way is to exempt them from the £1. When we had the drought commission, as hon. members will remember, it was suggested that the members thereof should also make enquiry as to unemployment on farms. Anyone that is acquainted with farming knows that there is no unemployment on farms. The farmers are all sitting with their hands in their hair to get labour. The motion of the hon. member for Albert wishes, by exempting from the tax those who work permanently on a farm to encourage the natives to come to the farms to work. I have on a former occasion rebutted all the arguments that farmers pay starvation wages to the natives. It is not so. We pay the same as in the villages, but the difficulty is that the attractions of the villages and towns are so great that it is a difficult matter to get the natives on to a farm. For this reason I hope that the hon. Minister of Finance will accept the amendment of the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) to exempt natives in permanent work. This will, from a financial point of view, not make so much difference, and it will help to get labour for the farmers.

I omitted to inform the hon. member as I intended to do that in regard to the divisional council rates, in the case of the native in the native area who pays the 10s. local tax, the divisional council rate will be paid to the council out of the native development fund. A man who pays only the £, of course, will have to pay that himself. It must not be forgotten that this 10s. local tax is not payable by the man in the native location in the town but only by the native in the reserves, the few reserves that we have.

I was very much interested in hearing the Prime Minister’s answer to several objections to this tax, but he omitted one very important aspect of the case, and that is that the proposals before the committee will have the effect of increasing native taxation by about 50 per cent. I understand from the figures given by the Minister of Finance that the native taxation at present brings in about £900.000. If these proposals are passed, they will bring in about £500.000 more. In view of that very material increase in the taxation of the natives, is it not reasonable to ask why the Government, in the same session, is endeavouring to restrict the field of employment for these natives who have to pay the tax? We have the colour bar Bill, which undoubtedly is to exclude natives from certain spheres of employment. We also have the Wage Bill, which has been introduced in order indirectly to increase the field of employment for white men and coloured men. It will necessarily have the effect of excluding natives from some of the employment which, at present, they enjoy. How can the Minister justify this very largely increased taxation of the natives at the same time as he is preventing them, or intending to prevent them, from earning the money which they have been in the habit of earning? It is all very well to say the native must develop in his own sphere: but, Sir, supposing the educated native, the man who is a skilled tradesman or a semiskilled man, goes back to the native location and tries to develop there, he is more likely to go back to the position of the aboriginal native. There is no field for him in his native location; at any rate, if there is it is a very limited one. We have in the past been inducing the native, by means of education and otherwise, to raise himself in the scale of civilization. Now it seems to me, if the policy that the Prime Minister adumbrates is to be carried out, he is to be thrust pack among his own people, told to develop, told to pay more taxes and, at the same time, have less scope for employment. I do not think it is reasonable; I do not think we, as Europeans, are doing our duty to them. At the same time that we increase taxation we take means to diminish their chances of earning a livelihood and of thus getting means to pay these taxes.

I have a few points which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister. We see that natives from outside the Union have first of all to work here a year before they pay taxes. I should like the Minister to alter this. The Prime Minister has talked here of justice, but the natives come in in thousands and take away the work before the noses of our natives. The Minister of Finance will not get a penny from them, because they will work here for ten months and then return to evade the tax. The Minister must make it eight or six months. In the Transvaal the farmers will feel very dissatisfied at the proposed alterations. The farmers believe in taxing the natives to make them work. We know that the native, as soon as he can pay his tax, lies and sleeps by the side of his hut, and the wives have to do all his work for him. He only works when he has to work for his master. The Prime Minister says that we must have uniformity. I think that he has gone far enough that he should not accept the amendments. The hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt) says that the taxes have been enormously increased. In the Transvaal they have been reduced by 50 per cent. irrespective of the position of the natives who have more than one wife. Let us assist the native in civilizing himself. We must let him understand that he must not have more than one wife, by making him pay a tax for every wife he has more than one. Members from the Cape Province plead so much for the natives that it seems that they are so civilized there that they have not got more than one wife. With us they sometimes have five or six. I feel that we in the Transvaal will have difficulty about this alteration, and we shall then only be able to say that there had to be uniformity. The hon. member for Witwatersberg (Lt.-Col. N. J. Pretorius) has said that the coloured people in the Transvaal do not pay taxes. He is wrong. They pay the poll tax. But if the coloured man lives and marries among the natives then they pay the native tax. We have many of them on the country side, and they pay the same taxes as the white man. I cannot agree with the proposal of the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler). In the Transvaal a native gets a rebate of £1 if he has a certificate from the farmer that he has worked for 90 days. Where the natives, however, work a year with the farmers, the tax is generally paid for them by the farmers. The farmers in the Cape Province can also do this and let us get this uniformity and abide by the £1.

Did I understand the Minister rightly, to say, when he introduced the taxes, that the £1 general tax would go to consolidated revenue fund.

Four-fifths of the £1 only.

I wish to point out to the Minister the difficulties he is going to have round about here. We have natives living amongst us, just the same as the coloured people, and exactly on the same level. I know natives who have been here for three generations, and they are entirely unaccustomed to this tax. With some of them, you can hardly say whether they are native or coloured. There is going to be difficulty in collecting this tax, and there is going to be a considerable amount of dissatisfaction caused; because, certainly, you cannot justify taxing these people here, even if four-fifths goes to native development.

Why?

On what grounds can you justify it? I have not heard a single word being said to justify it. These people are not exempt from other taxes. The Prime Minister said that the provincial councils have been prohibited from taxing the native, well it cannot tax the native areas and cannot levy a poll-tax; but in all other respects the natives pay exactly the same taxes as Europeans. Pleas have been put up here, for exemption from income tax, up to £500, and some hon. members were very eloquent, I might almost say noisy, over taxing auctioneers and canvassers for shares; but today when it is intended to put a special tax on these poor people, who pay exactly the same tax as the Europeans, and not a word is said on their behalf. They pay income tax; they pay provincial dog tax, provincial wheel tax, which is fairly heavy, and they will have to pay their £1 tax also. None of these people are exempted. I really think the Minister could have devised some other way. He might have limited it to the native areas alone, and not have made the tax higher, to bring in more revenue as he did. He is justifying some of this taxation by saying he is reducing the taxes in other provinces; but he is not reducing the general tax. He is very careful to see that the total amount of revenue he gets is more.

It is for the natives themselves.

No, we tax those natives in amongst us; but what benefit do they get from this development? You cannot give them any special development; because your native development fund will only be used effectively in the native areas. You are not making any special provision for your natives living here.

We do not want them here.

A little while ago the hon. member who was sitting beside my hon. friend who has just interjected, was pleading for a higher tax on the natives so that he could get them to his farm. This tax might be a means of getting revenue, but I consider it is unjust.

The hon. the Prime Minister has represented matters as if the apparent object of the Transvaal farmer was to tax the natives more heavily only to get labour. But we also urge it especially in the interest of the natives themselves. We are acquainted with the conditions there and unfortunately the natives in the Transvaal only work to-day if they are compelled to. They say: why should I work? They only think of to-day and not of the future, and if we compel them to work then it is therefore chiefly in the interest of the native himself. It is of importance to the country also that the natives should work and not only lead a pleasant lazy life. If we compel him to pay £2 then it is necessary for him to work. We do not say that the money should be used for public purposes. We wish it to be used in the interests of the natives themselves to buy ground and for other objects in their interests. But the natives must be compelled in this way to work not to be a burden on himself and on the State. We accuse the previous Government of making it impossible for the provincial councils to tax the natives. That is so. The natives enjoy all the privileges of the hospitals and all the other things that the white people have, but they pay nothing for them, and I can assure the hon. Minister that there will be great dissatisfaction in the Transvaal about the proposal to reduce the native taxation. The Transvaal and the bodies which are there entrusted with the administration know very well what the capacity for taxation of the natives is, and we remember that a year or two ago we had to specially raise the tax for white people to £2 10s. in order thereby to make the native pay 10s. extra, because they can pay that best. We have not heard of any native body protesting against that. They are satisfied with it. The poor whites who have to pay £2 often find it very difficult to do so and have to sell donkeys to pay the tax. And how can we now go back to the Transvaal and say that the natives have obtained a 50 per cent. relief from taxation while the poor whites have to pay the same? I hope the hon. Minister will reconsider this matter again, and not reduce the tax for the natives in the Transvaal. The money as already stated can be used in their own interests. It has been stated here that they will pay £1 10s., but the natives on the land of companies who have the use of the whole farm only pay £1, and that is just what causes so great dissatisfaction. They pay no hut tax, and they are now being further exempted. I will in the meantime support the amendment of the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler), to exempt permanent workers on farms from the tax so that natives may be encouraged to remain at work on farms, and I hope that the hon. Minister will also accept it.

So many different opinions have been expressed that one does not know what hon. members want. I do not know where the policy of segregation is going, because a large number of hon. members are not alone anxious that the natives should pay a fair amount to the State, but more than they are doing now. The hon. member for Witbank (Mr. A. I. E. de Villiers) said—

But the hon. member gave as one of the reasons for this tax that it would cause the natives to go to work. I wish to say a word for the Cape Natives, who in the last few years have become seriously impoverished. We are arriving at a position where we have not alone poor whites, but poor natives as well. The natives of the Eastern Province have lost large numbers of stock, and have been enormously impoverished during the last few years, and they are not increasing in anything like the proportion they did some years ago. That is largely due to their impoverished conditions. Now my hon. friend proposes, with a view to equalizing taxation, to place on these natives a special poll tax of £1. It is a tax which the natives in the Cape have never before paid.

They paid 10s.

They never paid anything in the nature of a head tax. I believe there are large numbers of natives in the Cape Province who will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to pay that tax. We are going to have great difficulty in the Cape. On; many towns and farms coloured people and natives work together. The native has lost all touch with his old tribal conditions and locations, and is living here in exactly the same way on farms as the coloured people, and if this law comes into operation one man will pay nothing, but the other will have to pay £1. I do not think the system is fair. Take the case which exists to a large extent in this province of an educated native carrying on a respectable occupation and living in the towns. I understand the Government is going to make that man pay £1 irrespective of his civilization, or the fact that he is paying as much taxation as the white person. I do not know if I followed my hon. friend aright, when he referred to the hut tax. I understood that the Minister said the hut tax would only apply to native locations in native areas. If that is so he will have to alter the wording of the motion very considerably. The section, I presume, refers to locations like Glen Grey, where the inhabitants have agricultural allotments of three or four morgen, for which they pay 15s. a year. These people. I understand, will be free from the tax.

The man who pays 15s. will not pay the local tax.

Now I gather from my hon. friend that only natives in locations within the native reserves will pay this particular hut tax, and if so he will have to alter the wording of the clause I have read, because if the wording of the clause is left as printed, it will refer to every location.

There will be a definition in the Act.

For locations like these at Cape Town?

I will explain. There will be a definition of locations in the Act which will read as follows—

1. (a) any land granted or reserved by or on behalf of the Crown for the habitation or use of native communities;
2. (b) Crown lands occupied by natives under communal conditions, other than land for which rent is payable to the Government;

and also includes any area which the Governor-General may, by proclamation in the “Gazette” declare to be a native location for the purposes of this Act as he is hereby authorized to do, but does not include—

1. (i) urban or municipal native locations under the control of a local authority;
2. (ii) mission stations or reserves where rent or its equivalent is charged by the Government, by the Natal Native Trust, or Zululand Native Trust, or where a rate is levied for local purposes;
3. (iii) such other lands as may be approved by the Minister.

This 10s. tax is really payable in respect of land the native occupies which was given to him by the Government. It is really a rent and not a tax.

I think I understand the Minister. Really the intention of this tax is in connection with native locations within native areas or on Crown lands. It does not refer to the ordinary locations in connection with towns.

It specially excludes native locations which are in towns or under local authorities.

This local tax is being introduced for the benefit of the development of the native. It seems to me if the natives in municipal locations and urban areas are not to pay the tax, where is the development to come from?

It is only one-fifth of the general tax.

That is contributed by the natives right through the Union. Is it suggested that this money will be utilized for the benefit of natives in locations in towns. We have large native locations springing up all over the country. I don’t see why a native living in a town should be exempted. The Minister says one-fifth is deducted from the poll tax to be used for the development of natives in town locations.

I didn’t say that.

I would like to refer to the amendment of the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler). He says natives who have worked on a farm for a year should be exempted from the tax. I cannot see the difference between a native working on the farm for a year and a native who has worked in a factory or the mines for a year. The native will say that it is a form of compulsory legislation introduced to benefit the farmer. Taxation legislation should not give the native reason to think that. I cannot understand why farmers should ask for benefits above anybody else. The Transvaal and the Free State members suggest that the native does not pay his fair share of taxation. It seems to me that if we want to raise greater taxes from the natives, there must be an increase of economic pressure on the natives, so that they will consume more and have to work more. In the Transkei we are sending 80,000 natives to the Rand. Fifteen years ago we did not send any at all, and they had to import Chinese labour. This has been brought about by economic pressure. The native is consuming more, and his requirements are greater. Education is at the bottom of it. Hon. members seem to think that natives go about in red blankets. If they had been in Umtata, a few weeks ago, on the visit of the Prince of Wales, they would have seen 25.000 natives, and not many of them in red blankets. In fact, some of them were wearing top hats and frock coats. I have known natives pay £150 for a trousseau for a wedding. They are advancing. I make this statement, and I don’t think it will be challenged. I believe the native in the Transkei is contributing more in indirect and direct taxation than the average coloured man in the Cape Province. I say it knowing the conditions. As I said. 80.000 natives are going to the Rand every year, and it costs every native £3 to go to Johannesburg and back. That is a quarter of a million pounds in itself. A coloured man remains here and does not contribute that. The expansion of trade up there forces the native out into the country to work. Considering the aspect from the farmer’s point of view, I think we should change the system of education in the country. In the reaping months—June. July and August—the natives are required in the Transvaal for the reaping of the hay. The farmers must co-operate and try get the labour to their farms at as cheap a rate as possible. Labourers travel from Italy to the Argentine for the reaping period. When the reaping period comes along the farmer should co-operate with the railways to bring about a system by which the native may travel cheaply, and earn good money. It costs £3 and the native says—

Generally speaking, this bringing about of uniformity of native taxation is an extremely difficult matter. The ultimate solution will be the taxation of land. We have that position in the Transkei. If a native has five morgen of land he pays 15s., and with ten morgen he pays 30s. If a native gives trouble, or thieves too much, he is always liable to have his land forfeited. I say to the Minister of Native Affairs that the future solution of native taxation is going to develop along these lines, and that is the system which has proved so successful in the Transkei, and I am sorry to see there is a change in the present Act. We must try to bring about uniformity, but it should be developed gradually. I believe that if the Government treat the natives fairly and encourage them to develop locally, and put inducements in their way, the natives will pay a fair amount of taxation, and will give no trouble at all. I do think that this question of native taxation should have been referred to a commission which could have put the full position before this House. We had the Bill that was published on the 29th January. It is not exactly the same as the Minister places before the House to-day, but there are many anomalies in that Bill; many difficulties which will have to be met, but we are not allowed to discuss it now. It will come before us at a future time. I do feel that if the natives in this province were taken into our confidence, and we had a commission appointed, and got representatives of the natives from the different areas together and explained to them what we are doing and why we are doing it, there would be very little fear of trouble or objection as far as the natives are concerned.

The native has many friends when it comes to a question of taxation; I hope he will find as many when he begs for the increased pay that he is going to ask for. I think he will get a very cheerless surprise in regard to that. This attempt to make taxation uniform is quite a good movement. It is long overdue, and as far as I can judge, the Government have made a fair attempt to put native taxes on a square and even basis. We have just passed in the Estimates £330,000 for the special department of native affairs. The Minister of Finance has shown that he does not expect to get for revenue purposes from this taxation more than £900,000, which is the average amount derived from native sources and the surplus over that sum is to be devoted absolutely and entirely to the welfare of the natives themselves. So that we are not asking them for further taxation; we are only adjusting the burden of taxation which they have hitherto paid. With the surplus that is to go directly back to them, I think we have made a square deal. For the £900,000 they pay to the general revenue, they get their reserves, their garden land, their grazing rights, and all that goes to make up living requirements. They are the best off peasantry in the world under the conditions that they enjoy. What is their average annual contribution? It is 3s. per head, or 15s. per annum for a family of five. What is often talked of is their purchases in duty-paid articles. Mr. Sheridan is the last one who worked out these figures as far as I know, and he calculated that they paid duty equal to 9d. per head. There are five million natives and one sees that that 9d. is a considerable amount in the aggregate. We provide a great deal to the native for what we get from him. We find him a labour market in which he can undercut all our poor whites, at a rate of wages that he need only work for about half the year and can go home for the other half; and, so far as those are concerned who are on the higher scale, all I can say is that they are also paid far in advance of their necessities of life, compared with the unfortunate poor white. Nobody wishes to do injury to the natives, not even those of us who do not get their votes, as do the hon. member for Fort Beaulort (Sir Thomas Smartt) and other members. We want them to get a square deal, but we are tired of this constantly trotting out the native as if he were being badly treated and we were oppressing him in every possible way. Taking it all in all, the white people of this country have been very fair to the native and are willing to be fair. I think very little exception can be taken to this adjustment of taxation. The native expects to pay for government and the amount taken from him is nothing like what their chiefs demand. We know that from the recruiting agencies the chief obtains a sum of money before he will permit those under him to go and work in the mines, in fact unless the chief is subsidised either before the worker leaves or after his return, agents could not get labour from the native territories. The natives, taking them altogether, are very well treated, and as this tax is worked it will be seen whether it can be collected fairly. Personally I would put on articles which the native uses a larger customs duty than on the articles used by Europeans, because the articles used by natives are so few; and as regards the special appeal which was made to the Minister of Finance the other day in reference to reducing the customs duty on blankets, I hope that will not be listened to because we must have something to make up their fair contribution to the revenue.

I was not aware that the budget and the customs duty were at present under consideration, but it does seem to me that there is one point which the Minister of Finance has hardly met and that is the claim of the really civilized native who is in the Cape for some consideration, because the Minister said it was necessary to resort to this form of taxation, a poll tax, in order to get at the whole mass of natives collectively. I quite agree with that. There is no other ready system that one can devise as far as I know, of getting at the natives in the mass, but the reason given why it is fair and expedient to put such a tax on the natives as a whole is that the natives are uncivilized to a large extent and do not pay directly or indirectly to other forms of taxation which other sections of the community do pay, but the mere fact of the non-civilization of the native being a justification for this system of taxation is surely an argument for giving special consideration to those natives who are really civilized and who do pay taxation in one form or another, as suggested by the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown), It is fairly well known that down here in the Cape Peninsula, and I suppose in other parts of the Cape Province, there are natives who are highly civilized and who do pay taxes, and yet these people, merely for the sake of uniformity, are to be singled out and made to pay a tax simply and solely because they are natives. That seems to me, on the one hand, unfair economically, and, on the other hand, unfair sentimentally. It is putting upon these people, who have raised themselves by hard work, what they may consider a stigma. They are to be told: “In spite of your having achieved a position which gives you certain privileges, and at the same time renders you liable to certain taxation in common with Europeans, yet, because you are natives, you are to pay this tax. You are to be regarded as uncivilized natives.” There is one point which requires consideration—I do not know whether the Minister has considered it—and that is a point arising out of Act No. 39 of 1887, of the Cape. That Act said, in section 1—

The existence of that Act shows clearly that it was the intention to put natives who had attained civilization to such an extent as to be placed on the voters’ roll, in a privileged position. If that law were followed in the present case it might possibly meet the difficulty. I do not know whether the Minister has considered that point. It would militate against the poll tax, so far as the poll tax is not part of the general system of taxation applicable to all sections of the community. I think the Minister should consider that point if he has not already done so. I should think the existence of that Act shows that within the Cape, at any rate, it has always been the intention to allow special consideration to natives who have arrived at a certain standard of civilization; and I do not think that that consideration is allowed by the Minister’s proposals as far as I understand them. I do not think it is covered at all by the suggestion of the Prime minister this afternoon, that the proposal could do no great harm because it would be a good thing if these people were encouraged to leave civilized areas and go back to their own places. A man who has got a trade and a position in civilized areas cannot be expected to go back and start afresh, quite apart from the question of the justice of it. I do suggest further consideration should be given to the position of these civilized natives.

I echo most fervently the expression of opinion made at the outset by the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hay), that is, that when the natives come to ask for an increase of pay to enable them to live on a proper scale, they will find as many friends in this House as they appear to have now on this question of the poll tax; but I am sorry I cannot agree with the latter part of his speech. I think, in the first place, that the poll tax is absolutely wrong in principle for black or white, but it becomes worse when you apply it to natives, for the very reason for which my hon. friend is in favour, namely, the comparison between the amount he has to pay in poll tax and the wages he receives, generally speaking. My hon. friend the hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin) and others seem to be arguing from the point of view of what they call the “civilized native.” I presume by that they mean the man who has got on in the world, who is earning a good wage. The vast bulk of them, however, are not in that happy position; they are earning very little indeed. You will find, in the vast majority of cases, that this £1 which the Minister proposes amounts to at least one-twelfth of their income. Now that is a tremendous proportion. The natives to-day—I agree entirely with the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn)—are paying, compared with the circumstances in which they find themselves, and the wages our civilization insists they should receive, a very big proportion. In comparison with the advantages the State gives in their living conditions, the Stale is getting a good deal from them, apart from this poll tax. The original idea of imposing a poll tax—I honestly believe this; I have always argued it and it was clearly brought out before the Native Affairs Select Committee in 1910-11, although that was sub-rosa,—was to drive him out to work. My hon. friend down there has borne that out with his vast experience of the whole circumstances. In his opinion—and he should know—even if there was not that intention, yet the effect is there, and that is the inevitable result. They have to go where they can in order to pay their poll tax; whereas if it were not for this they would be able to lead happy and comfortable lives without being forced into industrialism. Let us take a comparison. Take the general method of taxation, that of income tax. Which is, perhaps, as fair a method of taxation as we can find under present conditions. Compare the incidence. A man who is getting over £300 a year has only got to pay 5 per cent in income tax upon the amount over the £300. I put it to you, that the native who, in a great many cases, is only getting £12 per annum, is being mulcted 8 per cent. on the whole amount when you charge him £1 per annum as a poll tax. I am not going to deal with this 10s. poll tax, because that is by way of a residence tax for special consideration shown to him, and that approaches more nearly to what is fair; but I do say it is a most dangerous thing to the State, and it is not fair to the native himself, to tax him in such a manner that he is forced to go out to work. I agree with my hon. friend, who says that the only fair form of taxation, and the one which is particularly applicable to the native, is a land tax, and that is the point of view of the educated native himself. In the enquiry to which I have referred, we had highly civilized and well educated natives giving evidence, and one of them, a leader, deliberately stated, in evidence, that land taxation was the ideal form of taxation, and he was prepared to subscribe to it; but he made one stipulation, and that was, provided it applied to blacks and whites alike. The natives can understand the land tax. They can understand that they are paying for something which they are receiving; but they fail to see that they are getting anything for their poll tax, which is applied to all and sundry. No matter what amount the native is getting in wages, he has to pay this tax, and sometimes it will mean two months’ salary. The incidence is wrong, as well as the principle, and I hope the Minister will listen to the protestations of my hon. friend down there, who, I think, in this House, more directly represents the natives than anyone else. I think some serious regard ought to be taken of what my hon. friend has been arguing this afternoon, and that the Minister ought to withdraw from the position he has taken up, and not tax the natives directly by means of a poll tax.

I wish to make a suggestion, although it may not be popular, as a way out of the difficulty. The Government seem to have made up their minds that this tax is to be applied to natives all round, in the towns as well as in the country. I must admit that if you exempt the natives in the towns that is going still further to increase the trend from the country districts into the towns, which will be bad. There is no question that we have too many natives locally at present, and yet, curiously enough, we have a good deal of unemployment among the coloured people. The natives have driven out the coloured people in some instances, and we do not want to increase that, but rather to find work for the coloured people as well. Then we must remember—perhaps the Prime Minister will not agree—but there is no question that the operation of the colour bar Bill and the wages Bill will also tend in the same direction, especially to driving out the native. Why not adopt this suggestion? I am not speaking from the point of view of the farmer; but I think it would be better for the Minister to reduce the tax in some little degree to the native working on the farm. Leave it what it is in the towns, but encourage the native to go on the farms and work. I think that is justifiable. We have had complaints even from the hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) in the Cape, and others, that on the farms they want workers. This tax, undoubtedly, is rather going to tend still further to drive them from the country districts to the towns; because they earn more in the towns. In the towns you get men earning 4s. and 4s. 6d. a day and more, and they can better afford to pay this tax than the man in the country with a couple of pounds a month. It appears to me that, by adopting this suggestion, two objects might be attained. We might restrict the flocking of the natives into the towns, and at the same time rather direct the trend towards the country districts. The man who is working on the farm regularly for, say, six or twelve months, might be made to pay 10s., instead of £1, while in the locations and urban centres the amount might be left at £1. By that means you might find work for the coloured and white people in the towns and, at the same time, supply the labour that is required in the country.

I understand that this 10s. tax under (b), when collected, will be handed over to local councils, where they are established.

Yes; the tax payable in that area and collected in that area.

Perhaps the Minister will also say whether the quitrent also will be handed over in full. Will this one-fifth of the general tax also be handed over?

No; that goes to the development fund.

In discussing these taxation proposals with leaders of native opinion in my own district, before coming down, I found that the natives were not greatly objecting to it. They felt it was well for them to do something to help their friends in the northern territories to get taxation reduced there; but that was before the colour bar and wages Bills were introduced, and before they were aware of the proposed taxation on blankets, and I am afraid the position will be different now. One very strong point with them was that it was altogether wrong to impose this taxation in our part of the country until such time as you establish the native local councils, and they asked me to press this with the Prime Minister, so that now that this taxation is being imposed, they shall have these local councils established without further delay. They have been promised for some years now, and I trust the Prime Minister will grant their request.

I may say that this Bill really will remove the last obstacle to the establishment of the local councils; so that your natives will immediately have a free hand to establish local councils wherever they like.

This is a very difficult question. We now find that the people who have driven the native into industry are on the horns of a dilemma. They say now that we must not tax the native. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) says that if the natives work on the farms they should pay a lower tax, and we should encourage them to work there. The problem is how to keep the taxes off the natives, at the same time to retain them as cheap labour, and then expect them to pay taxes. There is a cry for the education of the natives in order to make them more efficient as workers, but although natives are trained and educated, maximum wages are fixed for them.

What about the colour bar?

What about the economic colour bar? It does not matter how efficient a native is, a maximum wage is laid down for him. If you attempt to tax the native on income you find that his wages are too low and if you apply a hut tax then the poor native has to pay as much as the native who is better off. The only way to get over the difficulty is for hon. members who wish to retain the native in his position of an educated well-trained fewer of wood and drawer of water, so that people may make a profit out of him, is to pay him higher wages. You cannot continue this policy of keeping down the native and then blame the white working classes for saying they want certain barriers raised in order to prevent them being submerged.

The Prime Minister has affirmed the principle and necessity of treating the native fairly and justly and to elevate mm. But what do we find, it is intended to practically double the tax on natives and at the same time deprive him of certain legitimate fields of labour. Thus while hon. members are insisting on the higher taxation of the natives they are closing a natural avenue of employment to him. The Prime Minister reprobated very vigorously what he regarded as an endeavour to stir up the spirit of discontent amongst the natives. Whenever we speak on behalf of the natives the Prime Minister seems to take it as an indication that we are endeavouring to stir up the native against the white. I hope the Minister will disabuse his mind of that, because it is not the case. We are as much concerned with the well-being of white South Africa as anyone else is. But it is a much greater service both to whites and natives to discountenance and rebuke an injustice than to quietly acquiesce therein. The hon. member for Pretoria West (Mr. Hay) said the natives did not contribute anything like the amount to the State which they received in education. Evidently the hon. member has not gone sufficiently deeply into the question. Indirectly the native is responsible for a very large contribution; but for the natives the mines would not flourish as they do and we should not be able to give employment to thousands of Europeans on the railways. All along the line Europeans are being provided with a means of livelihood in consequence of the spade-work which the native has done. If you are going to impose a colour bar on the Rand, insist on a minimum wage Bill and go in for a white labour policy generally, the result will be that a great number of the mines will have to close down. The low-grade mines can only subsist on cheap labour.

How do you know that?

Common-sense tells us that. If the expenses exceed the profits of any industry that industry must close down. If these mines continue working they will find employment not only for natives, but for Europeans. The Minister of Finance said the local tax was to be devoted to the betterment of the natives themselves. But what is the use of developing the native and of assisting him to rise in the scale of civilization if we are going to put barriers in the way of his progress, for that is precisely what the Mines and Works Bill aims at. Then we have members on the other side, who say “Why should Europeans pay for the education of the natives?” In the Orange Free State the natives contribute £80,000 to the public revenue while only about £5,000 is spent upon their education. Can the Minister tell us what proportion of revenue is collected from the natives and what proportion of that is paid back to the natives for the purpose of developing them? Then with regard to the local tax we propose to educate the native and we put a barrier in his way which prevents him going beyond that. Then there is another point, I think the native is much more entitled to consideration than the alien or foreigner who is imported here. The native has a stronger claim, and if the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Native Affairs, who’s special duty it is to carry out the promise he made a year ago, would travel through the native territories, not only the Transkei, but elsewhere, they would be surprised to see the advancement and progress they have made and has qualified them to move in certain walks of life not only with the coloured man but with the Europeans. These men are sons of South Africa, although they are black, and they should not have impediments put in the way of their proper development.

Employers put up the argument that the native is providing work for the European and I have heard the example of the railways quoted in this connection. Had it not been for the white men there would be no railways and if it had not been for the white men the native would not have had any such employment.

And vice versa.

Oh, no. Even if there had been no natives there would still have been the railways. It is perfectly true that one of the best methods of getting the natives into industry is by taxation, but this Act is not intended for that purpose. I approve of this resolution and I am going to vote for it. I would like to quote from the Governor of Kenya on the question of taxation and the bringing of natives into industry—

That applies equally well to white employees. This Bill is to stabilize the conditions of the natives. I thoroughly approve of the second section which gives to the native funds to build up decent conditions in his own preserves. There is one point on which further consideration is wanted. In this Bill, and in this resolution there is no tax on the imported contract native—the Portuguese East African native who comes to work in the mines. It means therefore the employer is to be assisted and encouraged to rely on imported contract labour and not to use our own natives in this country. The contracted native does not pay the tax but our own native, who does the same work in this country, has to pay the tax. That is a point which should be remedied.

There are several points made by the last speaker which I think should be emphasized further. It is not only a fact that we have this very well organized influx of natives from outside territories competing with the natives in this country, but in return for recruiting concessions it is laid down that portion of the money they earn in South African territory must be spent outside that territory. Again; the Union of South Africa, in return for this right to the recruiting of alien and competitive wholesale labour, has bartered away a large proportion of its commercial trade rights. I refer to the guarantee of a certain proportionate volume of the Union’s shipping, which is thus diverted to Delagoa Bay, so that the evil is two-fold in its effects. I wish to supplement the questions put to the Minister by the hon. member for Aliwal (Mr. Sephton). In referring to the taxes on the natives, he spoke of them as the black sons of South Africa. I think the hon. member might go further and ask the Minister what amount the natives received for the land formerly owned by them, but now occupied by Europeans and to what account these funds have been diverted. If they have not been adequately compensated for the land then the hon. member for Aliwal will, I am sure, take up the cudgels on their behalf and see that the native is properly compensated for the land of which he has been dispossessed.

It is my wish to be helpful to the Minister in passing this section of his budget proposals. I am not in favour of the emancipation of the native from taxation, because I believe that the Minister’s contention that the natives have grown accustomed to paying a contribution to revenue ever since the days of their own native regime is a sound one, and that if the natives are to be developed from their present backward stage to one of enlightenment it must be very largely upon their own endeavours and their own contributions to revenue. But I maintain that the methods of taxation, if they are to earn approval with the natives, or to become acceptable to them, must be designed with due regard to the improving intelligence and reasoning abilities of the natives. The old form of taxation, it seems to me, is largely out of date, and, if we impose a tax which the native will consider singles him out for differentiation, then we shall fail to carry the natives with us in that support of measures of this sort which we should have. I wish to point out that, in connection with this tax, on the 8th April last, the Minister put before us a resolution which aimed at a poll-tax of 30s. divided into two sections, a £1 tax and a 10s. tax, though both of them, in the nature of things, were poll-taxes. On the 18th June he puts before us a resolution for a £1 poll-tax and a 10s hut-tax. Where it would have been comparatively simple to persuade the native that a certain increase in his taxation was necessary, it is going to be difficult to reconcile him to two taxes which are totally different in character, because we well know that the hut-tax in the form in which it is imposed upon the natives is an old tax to which they have been well accustomed. It visualizes to them a certain amount of feudal relationship to the State, and they are more or less reconciled to that form of taxation, but we are coming now with two different taxes and it is going to be difficult to reconcile them to that taxation. This task is going to be in the hands of the magistrates and one can well imagine a magistrate going to a native area and, in trying to promote a reasonable attitude towards this tax being confronted with an almost impossible position. In Natal he will, for instance, tell the natives that their hut-tax, which has been 14s., is now 10s. One can imagine the native approving of that. He will tell them that the whole of that 10s. is spent for their benefit, for their education and development. That in some districts, will also win approval! Then he comes to the painful part of it:—

One can imagine their asking—

Some undiscriminating magistrate will blurt out that this is a poll-tax.—“A poll-tax, the natives will say, the very thing we had a rebellion about. To what purpose is this to be applied?” The magistrate will say:—

The natives will remain unconvinced. It seems to me that the Minister has shifted the ground between the 8th April and the 18th June to a less secure foundation than he occupied in the first instance. Whereas we could by some reasonable argument have reconciled the native to an increase of taxation on the one basis, not describing it either as a poll-tax or a hut-tax, we are now coming to a dual form of taxation which is going to be difficult to reconcile to the natives’ method of thinking difficulties of uniformity are great, and they have been indicated in the course of this discussion by the remonstrances of the Transvaal members. In that connection I would draw attention to the fact that in the Transvaal, under the Native Lands Act, a native labourer is described as one who renders at least 90 days’ service. I entirely agree with the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) that the employment of the natives upon the farms has altogether a good and salutary effect upon them and should be encouraged, not because I am a farmer, but because I find that natives are less contaminated and less depraved through work of that sort than they are by working on the mines or in congested centres. It seems to me that here in abandoning this provision for the abatement of the tax where a native renders 90 days’ service we are removing a good, healthy stimulus to labour which, under present circumstances, exists, and which has been all to the good in the management and encouragement of the native in habits of industry. I hope the Minister will consider the suggestion of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) that some sort of abatement should be continued—and I think he would be meeting the reasonable wishes of the Transvaal members if he were to do that—some abatement should be continued by which the native on the farm, by reason of his 90 days’ service, secures an abatement of the tax which is sought to be imposed upon him under this proposal. I would even go further and ask the Minister to consider whether it would not be possible to make this tax a tax on dwellings, irrespective of the person occupying it. We should endeavour to anticipate the time when the natives who are becoming gradually educated may object to a purely native tax, but will look upon a tax upon a dwelling as a reasonable tax which all should bear, Europeans and Asiatics as well. In that way I am sure the Minister would secure a larger revenue and provoke less dissatisfaction throughout the country. I should like him to consider whether it would not be possible to make this tax a tax upon a dwelling of any kind, sort or description, and the tax might be very much the one he has in mind under his present proposal.

You mean a local tax?

I am speaking now of the general tax, leaving the local tax to be what it really is—a local rate for the purpose of local improvement. But the general tax should be a dwelling tax.

Instead of a poll tax?

It should be a dwelling tax, which should apply to all sections, European, native and Asiatic. That would take away any sense of class legislation and it would take within its scope the very large number of persons who will be affected merely by the poll-tax provision. I think it would also tend, if there were proper regulations, to discourage polygamy, because where a native has more than one wife, and therefore more than one dwelling, he would be paying for the luxury of polygamy, as he does under the present native hut tax law in Natal. The Minister intimated that any tax upon polygamy would go by the board under his proposals, but I do not think that is altogether desirable. I think it would be a good thing to discourage polygamy. A tax on a dwelling, with the provision that not more than one married woman should live in each dwelling, would have the effect of putting some sort of restriction upon polygamy, a restriction which is necessary to the native. It seems to me, under existing conditions, that the tax in its present form is going to be difficult to reconcile to the backward, stubborn-minded native; whereas the tax upon dwellings would to the more educated and the advancing intelligence of the natives be one which would be acceptable and regarded as reasonable.

I really think most of the difficulties in regard to legislation on native matters is due to the fact that, so far as I am aware, not one member of the Ministry has ever come in frequent contact with the large masses of enlightened natives. At the end of this session I shall have to go to my constituency. I shall there meet many natives, voters and others. It will be my duty to explain to them the legislation we have passed respecting their affairs, and I shall be in great difficulty, for this reason. I am one of those who are always trying to tell the native that in the main white men desire to treat them justly, and that the measures we put forward are in the main intended for their benefit. The intelligence of these people is very great.

Where are they?

Some are my constituents, and that alone should be a proof of their intelligence. I shall be asked such questions as this: “When you say the white man desires to treat us justly, what about this tax, new to us in the Cape Province: we have never had it before. How is that intended to benefit us?” In reply, I can say, with the authority of the Government, that one-fifth will be devoted to your development. I may then be asked on what lines. I can reply: “By education, to enable you to get further, better and more highly-paid employment.” They may then say: “But you have just passed an Act debarring us from most lines of well-paid employment. If we become engine drivers or employed in or about machinery we cannot get certificates of competency on account of our colour.” I shall have great difficulty in answering that. I do not want to make any party advantage over the native question at all. That is a very undesirable thing to do. There is not a single member of this House who can say that he knows all the natives of South Africa, because they vary a great deal. Just imagine the difference between the Tembus in the east and the Hereros in the west. We must understand; and I ask those who do not understand them to believe me when I say that many have developed a high standard of political intelligence, and they ask very awkward questions. We do not want to provoke these natives by any legislation which they may consider to be harsh or unjust. In addition to the high intelligence I am speaking of, we have to remember that among these natives there are still remnants of superstition, witchcraft, and so on. That cannot be raked out in a single generation; it may take several generations, and it is undoubtedly such that even at present, with or without mystical influence, they are capable of strong, consistent and combined action in defence of their rights and just treatment of all of their colour and their race. What an awkward state of affairs it would be if by any ill-considered legislation or ill-advised administration on our part, we were to provoke these natives to such a movement as passive resistance. It would hang up the whole industry of this country. It will be remembered that in 1857 there was a very strange and striking movement among natives, when in response to the call of their then leaders, they sacrificed the whole of their cattle in the hope that this would lead to the certain desired benefits. Legislation of this sort, coupled with other legislation, will, I fear, cause grave misgivings in the native mind, and I am not sure how we can allay these misgivings. If it is due to lack of personal knowledge on the part of members of the Ministry, I cordially invite any Minister to come to my constituency and I will explain these matters, and he in turn can explain Government legislation. I can assure them that they will derive much knowledge from coming into contact with a section of the native community which has intelligence of a very high degree. I make this offer in all sincerity. Perhaps a Minister, after seeing and hearing them, could explain to them in what way these measures are intended ultimately to benefit them; I confess I am at a loss to do so.

There is a further point I would like to bring forward. The House will understand that the native has now to pay a tax of 30s., of which, approximately, 14s. will be for local development, and 16s. will go to the general treasury. It seems to me, looking at the position, that in the Transvaal, the Free State and Natal, there has been very little local development in the past. In the Free State something like £5,000 has been spent on education and in the Transvaal approximately the sum of £20,000. So that this 14s. per head will mean that there will be a large nucleus growing there. I do not think the demands of the native will warrant such an expenditure. It appears to me as if you will have such a large nucleus in these different provinces, that you won’t know how to spend it. And it will create a grievance amongst the natives. They will say: “Where is all this money going to?” You cannot start to spend £100,000 where you are only spending £5,000 to-day. The natives do not ask for it.

The Free State is paying £1 to-day; it won’t make any difference.

The 10s. plus the one-fifth of the £, I am referring to.

There are practically no local councils there.

But it will apply to the Transvaal and Natal. At any rate, there will be large funds which it will not be possible to utilize at present. Will the Minister not agree simply to impose the 10s. tax on these natives for development, and reduce the poll tax to 15s. That means that, for the local development fund, you will receive 10s. instead of 14s., and the Government, instead of the 16s. share of the £, will get 15s. You will then have a fund which will not be so large and, at the same time, the development can be carried on just as well on a smaller scale. Later on, as development occurs, we would be able to increase that tax; but I think, at the present time, especially in the Cape Province, the jump from nothing to 30s., or from 10s. to 30s., is too much. It is going to hit the natives who have been most severely afflicted by the drought in the King Williamstown, Fort Beaufort and adjoining districts, and the Glen Grey district and other parts of my constituency, where the natives are not really in a position to pay to-day. I have travelled there recently, and I have never seen a country in such a condition. No doubt some hon. members will say they can go to the Free State and elsewhere and obtain employment. They might do that for a few months. They have lost all their stock. I think that, instead of such a drastic increase, the Government should adopt a gradual process, which would be more acceptable to the natives. I would like to ask the Minister whether this Bill will be referred to a select committee before coming before the House again; because the changes he has brought forward in regard to local tax, are rather drastic. The hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hay) made a statement that the natives are the best paid peasantry in the world. About three or four weeks ago, hon. members on that side were calling farmers slave-drivers for the way they treated and paid the native, and the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) suggested that the capitalists were exploiting the natives in every possible direction.

So they are.

If they are the best paid, how are they being exploited? Then the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Reyburn) has stated that the natives outside the Union are to be exempt from this tax. As I read the section, any native from Portuguese territory or Basutoland, working on the mines for a period of twelve months, will be liable to pay this tax.

No.

If he has not paid his home tax.

4 (b) is the exemption.

That refers to the Bill to be brought before the House at a later stage. This is not the time to discuss that; but I am drawing the attention of the hon. member for Umbilo to the fact that he said these natives would not pay at all; whereas, according to the resolution, they will have to pay.

I do not want what I said about the natives to be misunderstood; they are the highest paid peasantry in the world for the advantages they get. I admit peasants in Italy and other places in Europe obtain more in daily wages; but if you compare this country with China or India or Japan, where conditions are somewhat similar, employers do not pay their peasants anything like what we do. If you take the area of native reserves, you will find that the natives get, on the average, 20 acres to a family. Where else in the world will you find the peasant enjoying that? The hon. member for Tembuland certainly represents his constituency very ably, and there are others in this House who represent the natives exceedingly well, and are entitled to the credit of showing that they appreciate the native vote. Undoubtedly they stick up for the native on every possible occasion; but I want them to stick up for the native when he asks for 6d. a day more. I do not wish to go over the whole category; but I would point out that £330,000 out of the £900.000 native revenue is for the Native Affairs Department, that is 33 per cent. And there are other things, for instance, they take 80 per cent. of our gaol accommodation and the cost thereof.

And they are 80 per cent. of the population.

I am only mentioning that as one thing. They get their share of everything else that is going—roads, bridges, defence and civilization, apart from the missionaries. I am for giving the native a fair deal, but I do not want any misinterpretation of what I stated about the natives being the highest paid peasants in the world for what they get, and in relation to their standard of living.

I am sure the philanthropic sympathy of the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hay) will be appreciated by everybody who believes in justice. I do not know how he spells the word “justice” but it is certainly not with a capital “J” when he deals with the native population. What the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) has stated, in regard to the serious distress amongst the natives, is quite correct. Large numbers of them at the present time are really in a condition of not knowing where they are going to, get any food to eat. The Prime Minister, to whom representations have been made, has sent up an officer to enquire into the condition of the natives in certain of these areas. I am perfectly satisfied when the report is published even the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hay) will find that he may be prepared to treat them in a more sympathetic manner. I am not going into the question of the wages paid in India, but I wonder if hon. members on the cross benches desire to refer to the conditions which prevail. There are thousands of natives in the Cape Province who, under existing conditions, will not be able to pay this tax.. The natives in the Transvaal are far better off than those in the Cape Province. I hope my hon. friend will go into the whole position and see if he cannot in some way ameliorate the conditions of the natives. I am glad to learn that the Minister does not intend to impose the hut tax outside native reserves or Crown lands. I hope the Minister will take into full consideration the amendment of the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. D. M. Brown). If my hon. friend will not go any further I hope he will accept that. This tax will cause an enormous amount of injustice, and if you are going to insist on the educated native and the leader of native opinion who lives in a civilized state paying a tax of this sort—which they look upon as an indignity—instead of having these people as an example to their less civilized brethern you will turn them into agitators. With regard to what the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hay) says about 80 per cent. of the occupants of the prisons being natives, if that is the case—which I don’t believe—a great deal of that is due to the treatment which the natives have received, and if excessive burdens are placed on them the native gaol population will be increased. If the hon. gentleman will go to the Transkei he will find there is certainly no place in this country—and I believe no country in the world —where the same number of people are governed with such a small force of police.

India, China and Japan.

I presume the hon. member will say that the reports regarding the disturbances in China which appear from day to day in the newspapers are incorrect. The condition of affairs in China so far as law and order are concerned—

That is a revolution.

Surely you don’t want to see revolution among the natives; it is the last thing I want to see. We must let the natives realize that they are going to receive the utmost justice. Before the Bill comes before the House I hope the Minister will go more deeply into this question.

The hon. member for East London (North) (Brig.-Gen. Byron) has remarked that most of the members of the Cabinet know very little about the native. That may, or may not, be true, but although the members of the Government may have various opinions in regards to the various merits of this particular Bill, we have not tried to obtrude these views on to the people who are responsible for framing the Bill. The measure is the outcome of very careful deliberation and consideration on the part of very experienced native administrators and members of the native affairs commission. The Government left them practically a free hand and we adopted their ultimate findings. When they had come to a conclusion after very carefully considering the matter, a native congress assembled at Pretoria and discussed this Bill. On the whole the Bill was approved of by the conference with the exception that it would have liked, naturally, that this general tax should be decreased to 15s.

Was the Cape represented?

Yes—all parts of the country. The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) has mentioned that we have changed our original intentions with regard to the tax. Here, again, we have adopted the suggestions of these officials, who ultimately came to the conclusion that it would be better to adopt the Cape system over against the system in the Transvaal. On the very forceable representation made by the chief magistrate of the Transkei the Government decided to place the tax on the huts. Considering this members will see how exceedingly difficult it would be now to alter these proposals in any material respect. What is the question we have to face? The natives are clamouring for development and education. The previous Government, in anticipation of the passing of some such measure, has authorized the expending of a considerable sum of money. You cannot get the white people to consent to taxation for this particular purpose. It would be very awkward for the treasury to give up the revenue at present coming from the natives for this particular purpose. When the commission got to work on the framing of this Bill they had to see that we got money enough from the tax to allow the treasury to get what they are getting at present and leave sufficient over for development purposes. If we reduce this taxation we shall not have sufficient over for development purposes and that is our real difficulty in deciding on the point. The hon. member for South Peninsula (Sir Drummond Chaplin) has spoken of a stigma we placed on a certain class of native. Another hon. member—the member for Fort Beaufort, I think—shares that view, and says there is a certain class of native who has cut himself adrift from the general body of natives and says we should treat him differently. That is a fundamental difference in the point of view between the various sections of this House. As the Prime Minister said, I think it would be wrong to allow this differentiation or to allow some of these natives to cut themselves adrift from the general body of natives. There should be no indignity in being taxed as the other natives to whose tribe he belongs. The white people pay the tax and why should not the native pay it? The hon. member said it would be difficult to justify the tax on a native working side by side with the coloured man. Why should it be? The taxation of the coloured man is a different matter. He is treated on a different basis, and if he is free from the poll-tax the taxation authorities will see they rope him in. Why should the native resent being taxed who is working alongside a coloured man? I don’t think it is a strong argument.

He would be anything but human if he does not resent it.

That is because we all resent taxation in whatever form it may be imposed. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. dagger) supports the view put forward by certain members on this side that we give exemption for the native employed on a farm.

Not for the sake of the farmer, but to get the native away from the town.

That was considered by the commission and they came to the conclusion we should drop this point of differentiating between the natives. For instance, they considered the question with regard to polygamy and the putting of an extra tax on the native with more than one wife, and they came to the conclusion to drop it, and we have come forward with a uniform system for the taxation of natives. The hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) mentioned the matter of the allocation of the amount of the native development funds. He raised the position of a province like the Free State where not much development has taken place and where they would require too much money. It is not the intention to allocate the various amounts received to this province. The fund will be treated as a whole and will be spent where it is needed. The Minister of Native Affairs, in consultation with the commission, will decide where it is to be spent, and it need not be spent in that particular province. With regard to natives coming from Portuguese territory to work for a certain time the hon. member will see that in the Bill we only propose to have a general tax on the natives who are domiciled in this country permanently or who have been here for 12 months. Under Section 4 provision is made for exempting those natives who come for temporary purposes and who pay the tax in the province or territory from which they come. In the circumstances referred to the Portuguese native will be exempted from the operation of this tax and the Portuguese authorities will see that they get the tax in their province. The native will not pay here. They don’t come here with the intention of being permanently domiciled here. The hon. member for King Williamstown (Maj. Ballantine) asked whether the quit-rent derived in a native territory will be handed over for local purposes in that territory, Yes, that is so. It will be dealt with in the same manner as the 10s. local tax, it will go to the particular area where it is collected. The hon. member for South Peninsula amongst other things raised the question of the native who is a voter in the Cape, and who, up to the present, has escaped taxation. That is also a point the commission deliberately considered and came to the conclusion it would not be wise to exempt him but that he should come in under the tax.

*Hon. members on this side of the House have mentioned various matters. The hon. member for Albert (Mr. Steytler) has asked whether the tax cannot be reduced where the natives work permanently with the farmers on the farms. The Prime Minister has already dealt with this matter, and I think the hon. member will appreciate that we cannot do it in the circumstances. The hon. member for Witbank (Mr. A. I. E. de Villiers) has suggested that the natives should be taxed if they have been six or eight months in the country. I have already expressed the view that it is the intention to tax the natives who live here permanently. The hon. member has also said that it is a mistake to reduce the tax on the natives in the Transvaal. This matter has already been dealt with by the Prime Minister and, as I have said, the object is to make the taxes uniform and hon. members opposite think that the taxes are already too high in the Cape Province.

Then the hon. member opposite asked me whether I intend moving for this Bill eventually to go to a select committee. I think that would be impracticable. If we did that there would be very little hope of getting it through the House. After all, it is a taxing measure and I hope hon. members will realize the difficulty of the Government. The Bill, as I have said, is the outcome of serious consideration by people who, even if the Government does not know much about native affairs, are supposed to know, and if you are now going to disturb the important provisions of this Bill, you are going to upset the whole thing. You won’t get the money you want for native development. I do not think it will be wise to send the Bill when it is introduced to a select committee.

I would like to ask the Minister whether the local tax is to be spent in the locality in which it is raised, or is to go into a general fund, and to be administered as a development fund and be spent anywhere in the Union.

The local tax will be handed over to the local native council to be established, and it will be spent in the locality where it is raised. One-fifth of the general tax will go to the Native Development Fund, plus the local tax where there is no native council.

What would happen to a fund raised in Zululand where there is no local council, nor likely to be a local council’

That will go to the fund.

It will go to the central fund to be spent anywhere?

Yes.

I do not know whether that is quite just to the natives. I would ask the Minister what is the latest information he has had from Zululand as to the effect of this taxation upon the native mind. I know the desire to obtain uniform native taxation, and the necessity for creating a development fund, but I would ask the Minister if he has any information from Zululand itself as to the effect this taxation is creating, whether it is viewed with alarm or otherwise. I understand the Native Affairs Commission reported on this matter some time ago. I don’t admit for a moment, in matters of this kind, that a certain section of the population must tax in order to find money for their development. The Minister has told us two or three times that if money is to be found for native development it must come out of native taxation. That seems to me to be a direct contradiction of the theory that people pay for free education. Hitherto we have always assumed that the reason for free education is that the poor man cannot afford to pay, and that the revenues of the State, taken from the richer elements, can afford to educate the poor man. In the case of natives, surely these people who are creating the wealth of this country, who are, at any rate, doing most of the work, and the European population are benefiting very largely by that work, should not be expected to pay every farthing that is required for their development. We ought to do something ourselves.

The question I want to put to the Minister is in connection with the money already advanced; I understand about £160,000 or £180,000. How is it to be repaid? I understand it is to come out of the benefit fund, and I hope, if this is so, the Government will extend the repayment over a period of years.

That is so. I have already informed the House that the intention is to spread the repayment over a period of years, probably three. In reply to the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls), I have no information on the point raised by him. Perhaps he could get information later on from the Prime Minister, who administers this department.

You have had experience in the past.

Yes. Well, I am sorry I have no information.

I move—

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 8.5 p.m.

We have had many and long discussions on this very important and far-reaching Bill. At the committee stage I refrained from taking part in the discussions, because I am wholly against the principle of the Bill. I know, of course, that it is quite useless, with this large and unrelenting majority against us, to attempt to show the fallacy and danger of forcing upon the country any legislation which is so wholly unjust. Notwithstanding this, I feel that it is my duty to raise my voice against the principle of the Bill and to warn the Government against the great hardships which will inevitably arise from this Bill, and the danger facing white South Africa if we persist in our wrong-headedness. I think the Minister of Railways and Harbours agrees with me in regard to the principles of this Bill. He agrees that the principles are entirely wrong. I am sorry that he is not here to support me this evening, as everybody would expect him to do after reading what he said a few evenings ago. I think it is well that I should tell the House what he said. He said—

When was that?

On the 22nd June, 1925. I trust that members opposite, even if they do not agree with me, will agree that this is a serious subject and will not treat it with levity. On the same occasion he had accompanying him another member of the party opposite, the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. E. H. Louw), and he, in supporting the Minister in these lofty sentiments and in comparing the natives with other sections of the community in this country, not as regards manual labour, but in regard to their educational fitness to be classed with the coloured community, who, we are told by the Government, are in future to be treated on equal terms with the white community. Speaking to the coloured community, the hon. member for Beaufort West said—

I think with that support from two hon. members opposite we have the right to claim that our views in regard to this Bill should receive very serious consideration from the Minister. It has truly been said that the black man will never understand the white nor the white the black so long as white is white and black is black, but it has also been said with equal truth that half the trouble is due to the stupidity of the whites. We do not in this country, I am afraid, appreciate the position. We do not, for example, see that a great revolution is going on in South Africa. I cannot think we appreciate the significance of the fact that Khama, the chief of a very important native tribe, as a boy met the first white man, Livingstone, in unknown Africa, and that Khama as a man prepared an aerodrome for the trial flight of the Silver Queen. A revolution was worked in the life of one savage. So revolutions are worked in the life of men by the annihilation of spear, and as a revolution was worked in the life of that one man, so it is being worked in the lives of millions and their advancement is quite beyond the appreciation of those who are blinded by ignorance and prejudice. The change in the outlook of the native is, we know, relatively new, yet, and this we must admit, its growth is dramatically swift, so swift that in our own generation we shall be faced with a proposition not unlike that which confronted the white man in India, Arabia, Egypt and the Far East, by the Swaraj, the Pan Arabian, the Egypt for the Egyptian and the Asia for the Asiatic movements. We are faced in this country with the same problems of white people in those countries. One thing is certain, the coloured races throughout the world to-day are speaking with one voice. We claim that our civilization is the higher; but they reply—

To resist that claim would as in other countries only lead to disaster. We must not forget that in spite of every difficulty and every obstacle placed in their way, these men, these nations, are receiving education and they are making full use of every opportunity given them. As has been claimed here over and over again, chiefly by hon. members opposite, education is the greatest of all forces and, let me add, it is also the swiftest. We have reached civilization by long and difficult paths, but we must not forget that these natives by their very contact with Europeans are going to attain it at a much swifter rate than we did. Africa is a country of great surprises. We are to-day watching one of the most mysterious changes. There have been most dramatic changes; if we consider the fifty years between the death of Livingstone and the death of Khama, we find the changes have been enormously greater than prior to the landing in this country of Livingstone. One thing is certainly impossible and will be impossible for all time, that is, for the white and the African peoples to separate their lives. We are apt, as we see here this evening from the conduct of members opposite, to treat this subject with great levity. It is a very important one, and it is a matter to which every right-thinking man who appreciates the position and has at heart the good of his country will give the most earnest attention. I feel that we also do not appreciate the fitness of the native to take part in the great movements in this country. If we read the history of West Africa we see that natives who are working on their own are able to gather in their cocoa, their rubber and their oil and to treat with the white man in return for fabrics and merchandise. There is a very significant passage in that magnificent little work “The clash of colour—

That is an example which to my mind shows very clearly that the native has it in him to improve his position; and if he can improve it in West Africa surely he is entitled to some consideration in this country where he is no more a barbarian than the African in West Africa.

Did white men help them?

No, they worked on their own. The little book from which I have just quoted says that the wrong standpoint the European takes is that he thinks his mission is to farm the world. We must not forget that in the British Empire alone of every seven persons six are coloured. The proportion in this country is not very much different; but here we are farming in that respect on a far more intensive system for not only do we wish to rule, not only do we wish to use the native but we wish to oppress them in every way where it can benefit us.

Shame.

Speak for yourself.

Undoubtedly the antagonism of the native to the white man is due to three causes: Firstly, the loss of land: secondly, the refusal to give him a share in the government, and, thirdly, the refusal of white labour to give him an opportunity of doing skilled work. The native wants, beside education, an equal industrial opportunity. Give him that, and he will show that he can make good. If hon. members will take the trouble to consider the articles of the League of Nations, they will find that article 22 sets out that the wellbeing and development of peoples not yet able to stand by themselves forms a sacred trust of civilization. Some little time ago Mr. Harding, late President of the United States, quoted with approval, a statement made by Sir Frederic Lugard, and this statement I trust hon. members will take to heart, as Sir Frederic thoroughly understood the native mind in this country. He says—

You will only find that in heaven.

Even if we do find it difficult to live up to this, we should give these natives an opportunity such as we know they will not have under this Bill. I wish to make a final appeal to the Government carefully to consider the position and not to rush into trouble. Let us understand that we are doing a grave injustice to the largest section of our community. If the government will consider the position and make up their minds to treat these unfortunates with a reasonable amount of care and justice, I am certain that we will be able to settle the problems of this country without troubles such as they have had in India and other places.

The hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl), in his carefully prepared speech, has mentioned my name in connection with a meeting recently held at the City Hall, which was also attended by the Minister of Railways and Harbours. I wish to say that the words there quoted are absolutely wrong. I never used the word “native” in the course of my remarks that evening. What I said was, referring to the coloured man and the class of people present, what I might call the aristocracy of the coloured people in the Cape Province and Cape Town, I referred to the fact that it would be a very good thing for the mutual understanding as between Europeans and coloured, if more Europeans and more of our legislators could have been present at that particular meeting. I take this opportunity of denying the correctness of that report. The hon. member has again come forward with the old argument, which we have had ad nauseam in this debate. One cannot get away from the feeling that the whole of the party on the other side, when they come forward with these ideas are insincere. In the initial stages of this debate. I quoted what the late Dr. Jameson bluntly stated at the time the Chinese labour was being imported to compete with the natives, for whom the other side are showing such great concern now. The hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) is still a Unionist to-day, and this is what his late leader said in a letter to his brother—

It is the same old game that has been continued all these years, ever since these words were written. These words exactly express the feelings of the whole party on the other side. It is the same with regard to the coloured folk. According to the “Rand Daily Mail,” during the last election, Col. Nicolaas Pretorius addressed a meeting at Hartley’s, Magaliesberg, and this gentleman, who I have reason to believe is a hon. member of this House, is reported to have said—

These two quotations from hon. members on the other side of the House show what sincerity there is in this pretended solicitude for the coloured man and the native.

I do hope that the continuation of this debate is going to be on a higher note than the last speech would indicate. This is a subject of the utmost importance. I know there are differences of opinion on this matter. I respect those who differ from my opinion, and I expect similar treatment from those who differ from me. It is a sorry day for South Africa if we cannot discuss an important matter like this, except by seeing whether we cannot score off one another. Personally, I regard this measure as one of the utmost importance, and I realize the great responsibility that attaches to everyone of us, whether we vote for or against it, who have the final say in the matter before it leaves this House. I shall endeavour to deal with this matter in a purely judicial manner. I do not want to go in for any recriminations, but to stick to facts and to indicate how, in my opinion, a measure of this kind could never be passed by any free Parliament in a free country, where every person is treated, not according to his race or colour, but according to his just merits or demerits. I am not going to be led into any question of party; I am going to state the facts as I know them. I have been in Parliament during many years, when many phases of this question have been discussed. So far as the Cape is concerned, we never knew any distinction, political or any other, between one man and another. We did not suffer for it. When the constitution ordinance for the Cape was passed, there was never any question of colour, and the parliamentary franchise could be obtained by any person of any race or colour, neither was there any difference in administration. This is a matter of real consequence, and I have brought it up because I consider that Parliament now contemplates doing a real injustice to people who are not directly represented in this House. What I am saying is my sincere belief—this position is not a new one for me. When responsible government was granted to the Cape a liberal policy was adopted, and there was no question of differentiating on grounds of race or colour. But when Union came, a colour bar was introduced for the first time, so far as the Cape was concerned, and the Act of Union contained a colour bar so far as the right to sit in Parliament was concerned. To show hon. members that they have nothing to fear by adopting a policy of justice, although from 1853, the date of the Cape constitution ordinance, coloured people or natives had the right to sit in the Cape Parliament, not one ever did so. But if any attempt had been made to take that right away they would have challenged it as branding them as an inferior race. When the Act of Union was introduced, there was an agitation against the restriction of coloured people’s rights, and a deputation, headed by the late Mr. W. P. Schreiner, was sent to England. Then came the Act of 1911. I was in Parliament then, and not a single word was said in the course of the debates to indicate that a colour bar was going to be drawn up under the regulations of the Mines and Works Act, When the people affected by this colour bar regulation realized the position, petition after petition was sent to Parliament. On April 7th, 1914, Mr. Merriman presented a petition from A. Jacobs and 1,623 other residents of the Transvaal, praying for the removal of the colour bar from the Transvaal Mines, Works and Machinery Regulations. On May 12th, 1914, Mr. Merriman moved—

Mr. Creswell moved the following amendment—

The matter came up again on May 18th, 1920, when Mr. Merriman moved, seconded by Mr. Heatlie—

To this an amendment was moved by Mr. Creswell, stating that the position under the Immigration. Act, permitting the entry into the Union of native labourers for the mines, who do not possess the qualifications required from the European immigrants, was, in effect, a colour bar militating against the interests of free wage earners of all races in the Union, and that the colour bar constituted a protection against the economic tendencies set up by the Immigration Act and the Native Labour Regulation Act, to restrict the area of employment in which men can earn wages upon which they can support themselves conformably with European standards of civilization. In 1923 the matter again came up by petition from the A.P.O. in regard to the political colour bar. I think that was the year when they asked to be heard at the bar of this House. That dealt with the Question of the removal of the political colour bar.

Why did not Parliament respond to those petitions?

Because there were too few members who wanted to see a policy of justice adopted. Why are those hon. members supporting a similar action today? I have never yet sat behind a majority of this House, and my minority gets smaller and smaller as the years go by. The Bill and the amendment show the Government is on wrong lines. The Government realizes that, to some extent, it is a matter of civilization, because they think the Cape coloured and Malays have reached the necessary standard of civilization as Europeans. Once we admit we have to take into account the civilization which each race has reached, cannot hon. members see that the basis of the Bill is wrong. Instead of being a basis of race and colour, it should have been based on the state of each individual life. I agree that we don’t want exploitation but the Wage Bill has passed the House and that prevents exploitation. The creoles would have been barred but for the amendment, and they are a civilized people. Can hon. members tell me they don’t know any natives or Asiatics who live according to civilized standards? It should have been limited to civilized men and every man should have to prove by the standard laid down and by his mode of life, that he was civilized. It is quite easy to define a civilized standard if you want to give every man who is civilized a chance. You should have legislated to give certificates of competency to civilized men, whether Asiatics, white men, or coloured men. The advantage of such a test is, in the first place, that it is just. No man is entitled to expect to reach a position requiring a civilized man unless he is civilized and it is not an injustice to say that we reserve posts of skill in the labour market for civilized men. If you are not civilized you cannot have it, and that alone is an urge to every man to reach a civilized standard. The passing of the Wage Bill should prevent the uncivilized races from being exploited. By that Bill you are going to maintain that no man is going to work at certain jobs without being a civilized man and you have done that, or else you might say we cannot arrive at the means of preventing exploitation so we must have a colour bar. But now we are asked to do both. Russia, under the Czar, had a race of white people who were treated exactly as these people have been treated. Oppressive laws were passed against them. It was a religious fight and they could not go to schools or universities. They were being prosecuted because the ruling class said that these men were not going to be allowed to occupy any high position in their country. They were being kept in a state of serfdom. That is the case as far as civilized Asiatics and natives are concerned in this country. You say it does not matter how high you qualify we have closed the door. We are Europeans and we have taken in Cape coloured and Cape malays and others but for you the door is closed. There is no place in South Africa for any son of South Africa who is not a European a coloured person or a Cape malay, a creole or a St. Helenan. When you include Asiatics you include thousands who were born in South Africa. I am not suggesting putting any disability on the European. The European Dorn in South Africa should have the advantages of that Bill but he should not deny the same rights to sons of South Africa born here just because their skin does not happen to be white. Industrial persecution is just as bad as religious persecution, and hon. members know what trouble that has caused in times gone by. The position is felt very deeply judging from telegrams and letters which have been pouring into the House. I have had many of them from various parts, e.g., Johannesburg and East London, from natives and Asiatics. They feel the degradation involved under this legislation. A resolution passed at East London states—

You are putting on the natives and Asiatics a brand of Cain. As soon as you see them, you say to them there is no place in the sun for you. They cannot occupy a position to earn a high wage if you keep the colour bar against them. You have your wage regulations and that should prevent exploitation and once you have it you have all the protection you want.

What about segregation?

I have never been a segregationist, and I never would segregate civilized men. Do you mean by segregation that you want to lock a man up in a compound when he wants to become a civilized man? There are some people who do not live according to civilized standards and they have to be put into compounds, not because they are natives, but because they are not civilized. I would apply the same law to the European as to the non-European. It is only by a policy of justice that you will solve the difficulties of South Africa. South Africa is better off having civilized men than having uncivilized men, and for having skilled workers instead of unskilled workers. Is it to be supposed that providence intended this country to be developed for one and a half million white people alone? Is this going to be the permanent end, the solution of South Africa, a handful of people, even with the native and coloured people taken in with this vast sub-continent? We must look to the future, we must look to the time when there will be 40 or 50 million people in South Africa and when that time comes a future historian of South Africa will find it impossible to understand this particular Bill that is passing through the House. The history or every country shows that when you start oppressing any people—

Russia is one of the most recent examples. She has had to go through a terrible time of suffering though the wrongs that have been done to the people within her own borders. This Bill may go through both Houses, it may become the law of the land, but I say the time will arrive when South Africa must suffer. There must be some suffering for any oppression of any part of our people. These people are South Africans like ourselves and if you do an injustice to them we, as South Africans, arc bound to suffer. Believe me, you cannot regard this Bill in any other way than as an act of injustice. As far as these two sections are concerned, it is a perpetual bar, it is a perpetual declaration of war; it is a perpetual ban, a perpetual mark of Cain upon them in so far as the industrial life of this country is concerned. The whole argument that has been advanced in support of this Bill is that you must keep up the standard of civilization in this country. This is not the way to do it. Let every man have a chance, let every man have a chance to prove that he is fit for the job and if he proves himself fit for the job, let him have the job, no matter what particular section of the population he belongs to.

Should he be a magistrate?

If he were fit for it, why not? That is not a question of colour; it is a question of education, of training, and of civilization. The hon. member who interrupted just now perhaps does not know about the Japanese race. Would he be surprised to know that the Japanese race not only produces its magistrates, but all its public officials? Does the hon. member think for a moment that civilization is the monopoly only of the white man? There are people in other parts of the world who, though they are not white, live just as sober lives as we do, who bring up their children just as well as we do and who are just as moral as we are. The point is that, once you depart from your basis of civilization, you get into all sorts of bogs and quagmires. We cannot make distinctions between one person and another based merely on the adventitious circumstance of the colour of a man’s skin. There are thousands of people outside this House who are looking anxiously to see that no injustice of this kind is done by this Parliament. The bulk of the people affected by this Bill, although some of them have votes in the Cape and in Natal, these two classes, the natives and the Asiatics are, the majority of them, both voiceless and voteless in this House. I do implore the Minister of Mines to reconsider the whole matter and, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, uttered on a very memorable occasion in America during a bitter struggle, also concerned with matters of colour—

I, as representing a very large section of the natives in this country, feel that I must join in my protest against this Bill which is now passing through the House. I had intended to preface my speech by referring to the position in America. The hon. member who has just spoken (Mr. Alexander) has quoted the words of Abraham Lincoln. The hon. member has made a very powerful plea here that on a question of this kind we should not appeal to colour. Theoretically, I agree with him that colour should not come in on a matter of this nature, but, unfortunately, we cannot always look upon these matters from a theoretical point of view. We have been created by powers greater than ourselves and we cannot fail to realise that—

In America, where the natives have been brought into contact with the Europeans for the last three hundred or four hundred years, where they have learned to speak a European language, and forgotten their own tongue, what is the position to-day? It is a remarkable thing that you have there the same position as you have in this country and that the powers that have created us have created in us a feeling, I won’t say of antagonism towards colour, but that white men must protect their racial integrity. That is the position in this country, and I cannot altogether follow the hon. friend who has just spoken. We must realize that we have in this country a white race, a very small race, a race that is trying to put the stamp of civilization upon Africa, with its millions of natives, and we must all feel that we have very grave duties to perform. That being so, I think we should approach the position from a different aspect. I am going to approach it from the attitude of a young South African, born in this country, and born in native territory, and who has lived in native territory all his life. Therefore I feel that I can speak from a sympathetic point of view as far as the natives are concerned. I say without hesitation, and I think every member who understands the natives will hear me out, that the native at bottom is good. He is a fine man to deal with, a man who understands the responsibility he has not only to his own race, but to the white race also.

Pay him good wages then if he is a good man.

I sometimes feel that in that corner they have only one god, and that is money. The wages of sin is death. The natives themselves will not place money above everything else; they have the same regard for race and colour that we have. Speaking here tonight from a sense of duty, responsibility and knowledge, my grievance in connection with this particular Bill is that this House has not gone into it with sufficient care. I say without hesitation that if the colour bar is the solution of the racial problem in this country then I will be prepared to accept such, and I will support the Government, because I feel I have a greater duty to my own race than to the natives. My complaint is this, that while I give the Government the credit of honestly believing that this is the only solution to the difficulties, still I feel the Government should have given the natives of this country and the whole population a fair opportunity of considering this Bill arid enquiring into it before deciding these are the right means to adopt to meet the menace that is facing the white population of this country. Have the Government done that? Have the natives had an opportunity of bringing their views before the country? Has the matter been placed before the whole country, and the views of South Africa, black and white, been obtained? If that had been done I should have said I would abide by it, but it has not been done, and we are taking one of the most serious steps that a young country could possibly take. I say we are wrong. The hon. member who has just spoken was challenged by someone on the other side as to whether he would have a native magistrate. I think that strikes at the root of the whole thing. There seems to be a fear of any native rising to a position of responsibility. I believe the Prime Minister thinks he is moving along the right lines. In America to-day there is exactly the same movement to try to place natives in their own state; to try to instil a feeling in the heart of the native that they should control their own destinies; to try to separate the two races while yet allowing them to travel along parallel lines; and I feel that, unless we do something similar in this country, unless we can teach the native that he is able to rise to a higher grade of civilization, there is disaster ahead of us. The two races must not clash; we must keep the natives separate from ourselves. We must not forget that the war intervened, political trouble intervened; and the country has never had the opportunity of following up the foundation laid by the Government in 1913. I believe the natives themselves are just as anxious to build up a black civilization in this country as we are to build up a white civilization. It is our duty to this country, it is the duty of this House particularly, where we hold the reins of guidance, it is our duty as members, not only to represent the white population of this country, but also to perform the same duty in regard to the problems of the native. I have probably gone through experiences that no man will ever go through again. I had to fight three provincial council elections against a native. I say it is not right, it is not fair to the natives themselves, nor is it fair to the white man, to create feelings of bitterness and antagonism that should not exist in this country. At this late hour I do not suppose my words will have any influence upon the Government; but I feel, occupying the position I do, representing a large number of natives, that this Bill should not have been sprung upon us in the way it has been. I say that the last election was never fought on the colour bar question. The hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. E. H. Louw) conies along and quotes speeches that were made 20 years ago. What happened 20 years ago is a thing of the past. This country is developing every day. There has been more progress in the last 15 years than ever before in the history of this country. It has been simply one long march of progress, and a development at every turn. Hon. members opposite cannot deny it. We must realize that if we are to build up this country we cannot build it up on racial antagonism, and we must realize above all that the only way to bring about a correct solution of these problems is by dealing fairly, equitably and honestly with the native population of this country. I think the Government are ill-advised in pushing through a Bill that no one is asking for at the present juncture. Members in that corner have their wages Bill, and they said it was the solution. If that is so, why put forward a Bill that is going to antagonize the whole of the black population of this country? It is unnecessary and unwise, and I will say, very candidly, that the Prime Minister who is going to bring in a segregation policy, is doing the very worst thing he could do to antagonize the native population. If he wanted to carry them with him he should have delayed this measure which no one has asked for. I think he has made a mistake of judgment and, as a young South African, I protest against a measure like this being pushed through this House without very careful enquiry; without taking due notice of the effects it will have on the whites as well as the blacks.

I think every hon. member of the House was deeply impressed by the speech of the hon. member for Hanover Street (Mr. Alexander), and one which it is difficult to answer apart from moral grounds; but there is one aspect of this question which, perhaps, some hon. members have not grasped. It is true that the Wages Bill will provide against the cutting out of the white man, and will give him a chance to compete on equal terms. But there is another aspect of the question, and that is the aspect of the men who are working thousands of feet below the surface, on the Witwatersrand. I think everybody who has any experience in connection with mining will admit that, down below, it is impossible to put natives in certain positions where the safety of the men is concerned. It is impossible to put natives in certain positions of authority. They lack the necessary initiative under certain circumstances, and they lack the necessary intelligence or experience to act in a sudden emergency when men’s lives are at stake. They lack the necessary power of authority, not only over white men who are employed there, and which may endanger the lives of other men, but they lack the power of authority even over the native employees. I was opposed to the colour bar at one time. I never have been partial to the colour bar as a preserver of the white population. I have sufficient faith in the white man to believe that he can compete with other sections of the community on an equal basis, which has not been the case in the past. But the overwhelming evidence that was brought forward in connection with certain occupations on the mines, and in connection with the running of machinery, proved to me conclusively that there are certain occupations where, in the present state of development of the natives of South Africa, it is imperative, in the interests of life and limb—the safety of coloured, natives and whites employed in industry in this country—that we should have white labour for these particular positions. I think that is an aspect of the question which has not struck many of us who do not know what mining means.

I just want to say a few words. I do not wish to repeat what has been already said so often in connection with this matter, but while I fully sympathize with the attitude of the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander), I still feel that his attitude is too theoretical and unpractical. I also feel that he errs completely when he says that we have no right to make a distinction between the native and the coloured man, and that the only test which can be applied is that of civilization. The coloured man has, at any rate, partly sprung from the white race. They are mostly born in the immediate surroundings of the white people, and their civilization dates from the date of their birth. We cannot possibly apply the same considerations to the hordes and masses of the natives in the country. Then the hon. member says further that there has never yet been a colour bar in the legislation of the Cape Province. Is that a fair test? He knows what the Voortrekkers did in the north of the country. He will surely not say that he disapproves of what they did there, and that it was foolish. Would it not have been foolish of them to have given the vote to the natives? As far as I know, there were no electoral qualifications in force. A person had the franchise after he attained a certain age and would the hon. member not have been surprised if the old republic had immediately given the franchise to the natives? The simple explanation why there never was a colour bar in the Cape Colony, and why it was never incorporated in the ordinances is that people outside the Cape Colony in Europe had an entirely wrong view of the condition of things in South Africa. I ask the hon. member to apply the following test. If the white inhabitants of the Cape Colony had had to exercise their free choice whether they would have given the vote to the native or not, would they then have decided in favour of the native franchise? I think we can take it that they would not have done so. That was the case with the old ordinances.

No, they were drawn up here in South Africa.

I am speaking of the old days.

In 1873.

I am talking of prior to that time. The mistake was committed originally, and the colour bar was, therefore, not introduced later, we have the fact that prominent politicians, amongst whom is the leader of the Opposition, introduced the colour bar in 1909. I have here a cutting from a newspaper of what the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) said. I want to read it here so that the hon. member can say if it is incorrect. As far as I know of what happened in London on the occasion of the Imperial Conference it is right, It reads—

That is the danger that looks us in the face, and actually if we push the view of the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) to its logical conclusion, then we must have entire social equality of whites and non-whites in the country. What will then become of the white race in South Africa? If I am to draw conclusions from what the hon. member has said, he has no objection to the civilized native being on an equality with us. We must admit him to our drawing room; we must regard him as on an equality with our daughters and sons. I should now like to ask the hon. member with his hand on his heart if it is not the case that we apply a practical colour bar to every occupation and in every action of everybody in our country. We see, therefore, that we must always maintain the position of the white race in the country in all we do and leave undone. Moreover, there is at once a difference of opinion between the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) and for Tembuland (Mr. Payne). I should like to know from the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) what the position of the white people in the Cape Province will be if we allow the native franchise to continue, and they swamp the white men at the ballot boxes? In all we do inside and outside the House, we are constantly running away from the great question that the hon. member for Standerton put in London, namely, what are we, as white people, going to do if we are swamped by the natives, and also by the Asiatics, if we give them a free hand. Another point of view is this, and I will say it in answer to the hon. member for Cape Town (Harbour) (Maj. G. B. van Zyl), that it is due to the white man that the natives in South Africa have the standard of civilization that they possess at the moment, and that they are so well developed. It is thanks to the white men that they have remained in existence. It was the Voortrekkers and the farmers in the north who prevented the native tribes from exterminating each other. We must take this fact into consideration. I also wish to compare the position with that of America. It is admitted that the prejudice and feeling against the negro is very strong, and often also very unreasonable. America possesses an enormous and overwhelmingly white population, and what then must we expect from a handful of white people in South Africa? Is it reasonable that we should expect action to be taken in accordance with the view of the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street)? I say that that is unthinkable. In these circumstances I am sorry to have to tell hon. members that the Government must insist on the passing of this Bill. I differ from the view of the hon. member for Tembuland that the country has not had time to consider the matter. The country has been dwelling on this matter since 1911, when the Act No. 12 was passed, and when the regulations on the colour bar were issued and applied, and they have been constantly applied in important parts of the Union, namely, on the Transvaal, Natal and the Free State. No protest has ever been made. It is inexplicable to me that so much is feared from the measure. In the circumstances I think that the House should have an appreciation of what is being done, and as it is the clear policy of the two parties, out of which the Government is constituted, not only to-day, but for a considerable time past, there is only one way open to us, and that is to reinstate the old position in the Transvaal, and also to take the interest of the white people into consideration. I repeat what I said before, that right through this debate the point of view of the natives has been taken into consideration, and the interests and future of the white people left too much out of account. I move the resolution which stands in my name.

I move—

I do not think there is anything before line 30.

Have you not passed, Mr. Chairman, an amendment of which notice has been given by the hon. member for Kimberley (Sir Ernest Oppenheimer)?

I understand that the hon. member gave notice of it, but does not move it.

There is an amendment which I understand the hon. member for Beaconsfield (Col. Sir David Harris) is to move.

If he does not move it, I am not going to suggest it to him.

I beg to withdraw the amendment standing in my name for the purpose of proposing another amendment, viz:—

I hope the Minister will accept this amendment, because the small companies that are producing diamonds have frequently in bad times to borrow money from the banks on security of their diamonds, and, without this amendment, no bank will advance any money to any company, because the bank could not possibly keep absolute control over the property on which they made an advance. So that if a small company whose financial resources are not so great as those of the big concerns should be in want of funds for working expenses it would be in a very difficult position, because with this Bill, which practically dispossesses the owner of his property, it could not possibly give possession of its property to any institution lending money to it. That would mean that, unless the Minister accepted this amendment, we should have to dismiss men and great hardship would be caused. It is a very reasonable amendment and I hope the Minister will accept it. According to the Bill the board could come down and demand possession of these diamonds, therefore no bank would lend money upon diamonds if a third party could come and say—

I hope the hon. member (Col. Sir David Harris) will not press the first part of his amendment, viz.: to insert “a sum not exceeding”, because I think that in any case there is a discretion in a court of law if a sum is mentioned to impose a lesser sum, but if there is not such a discretion I would not like that to be altered. I am quite willing, however, to accept the hon. member’s amendment beginning with the word “provided” and ending with “thereof”.

Thank you. Half a loaf is better than no bread.

With leave of the committee, the first part of the amendment proposed by Sir David Harris was withdrawn.

Remaining amendments put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 2,

I move—

Before you go any further, Mr. Chairman, I want to refer to the words in line 35,

What that has to do with the value of the diamonds I do not know. I think these words should come out. It looks so ridiculous in the clause to my mind. You might just as well say that the minimum price of wool should be fixed according to the size of the sheep farm.

It is quite conceivable that you may have a minimum price for a particular area, for a particular mine. The word “determinable” goes with the words “particular class”: it does not go with “minimum prices”. I think the hon. member had better leave it as it is. I have got the wording from the great expert. I move—

Amendments put and agreed to.

Certain amendments in the Dutch text which did not occur in the English put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On clause 4,

I move—

1. (a) within three years of his appointment he has been an unrehabilitated insolvent or has within such period compromised with his creditors or as within such period assigned his estate under the law relating to insolvency;

It is purely a verbal alteration to remedy an obvious absurdity.

I do not wish to move the first part of my amendment as printed on page 258 of the Votes and Proceedings, but will move the second part which is as follows—

I hope the hon. member will not press this. Suppose you appoint a man and you have not the most absolute legal proof that he is not running straight, but you have a very strong conviction that he is not doing what is right, how are you going to acquaint Parliament with those reasons? Men in that position may be exposed to temptation, and it would be impossible to confine the discharge of such men absolutely to the cases where you have palpable legal proof of their not running straight. It is not advisable to give Parliament details of that sort of case, otherwise I should not object to the amendment at all.

I will give a reason that may make the hon. Minister change his mind. By this sub-section 2 he hopes to prevent a repetition of what occurred in the Transvaal. In this particular section we are not dealing with a case where the services of a member of the board may be dispensed with by notice. Under the section you will see the Minister is taking unusual power. Appointments may be for a term of office with certain conditions, and the section provides that notwithstanding any period of office or term of duration thereof, a member may be removed by direction of the Governor-General. The House should know on what terms a member is appointed, otherwise there will be no means of knowing such terms and conditions. The receipts and expenditure of this board will not come before the House. I think also the grounds of any removal of a member of the board should be laid before the House, if only in fairness to the member concerned.

The reason we take power to remove a man at once is that a man may go wrong, and it is undesirable to have on that kind of board a man who cannot be trusted. You want men of the highest integrity and reliability. If the words—

are deleted I am prepared to accept the amendment. It will be competent, of course, to any member to put a question on an appointment. Sub-clause 2 deals with removals, so this amendment will have to go at the end of subsection 1 of Clause 4, if those words are deleted.

That will be satisfactory, and I withdraw my amendment if the Minister will move for the remaining words to go at the end of the preceding sub-clause.

I would like to move—

I accept that. In the same line 1 see there is an amendment in the name of the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Munnik).

That has not been moved.

I propose moving it. Is it competent, Mr. Chairman?

Yes.

Then I move—

Does that mean within three months prior to his appointment?

Yes.

I move, as an amendment to this amendment—

I am quite willing to accept that.

I have an amendment on the paper—

I am not moving this, but I want to refer to the clause in general terms; It may not be competent for me to move the amendment in that precise form, because it imposes a charge on the Consolidated Revenue Fund. This board will have no assets and it may incur a very heavy liability, and it seems to me that the Minister should have made some provision for á deficiency arising which the board may not be able to satisfy. I would draw his attention to the case of the electricity supply commission where we have the constitution of a body corporate, which, however, was intended to have large and valuable assets; here the board will not necessarily have any assets at all. May I ask the Minister what would be the position in a case like this—not at all an unlikely case—where the board had exercised its powers and a loss was established against it because of its negligent handling of diamonds. I should like the Minister to explain what the position would be.

Well, of course, the Bill provides that funds shall be supplied from the consolidated revenue fund, from the State. I cannot conceive of a body being created and appointed by the Government where the Government, even if it was not legally liable, could evade paying any deficit of that body.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 6,

I move—

I wish to move—

I accept that amendment.

I move—

Under Clause 2 of the Bill, the Governor-General may fix minimum prices, and if the powers in sub-clause (b), of Clause 6 (2), are exercised and the board demands and receives from any producer, diamonds and proceeds to the disposal of them to the best advantage, it is clear that, as the clause stands now, the board could sell below minimum prices. I do not think the Minister intends to put the board in that highly favourable position. We are dealing now with the section under which the board may exercise one of its three main functions under the Bill, and may have to call for a quantity of diamonds. If it does that it should be subject to the same conditions as any other persons selling diamonds.

I cannot accept that. It is not intended that the board should be hampered by volume of trade, quotations or minimum prices.

I move—

I am willing to accept this amendment if it is altered that instead of the word demand” the word “obtain” is inserted and “provided the Minister is satisfied such advance is reasonably necessary for carrying on the business of such producer” I therefore move as an amendment to the last part of the amendment proposed by Mr. Coulter—

This amendment puts it in the Minister’s power to refuse the advance altogether. We are only asking for the same principle that has worked so well in South-West Africa. As I understand the amendment, he would, if he thought the producer could find sufficient finance from some other source, refuse to make the advance. As I understand the amendment he has read, he desires to be put in a position to say to a producer that he must be satisfied that the producer cannot get the money from elsewhere. In the ordinary circumstances, a producer of diamonds would look for a return of his working costs. Surely the Minister does not wish the Act to make him the sole judge of whether the advance shall be made or not.

I think you would prefer the Minister to the board.

Why not adopt the simple system that has proved so satisfactory in South-West Africa? If the Minister exercises this extraordinary right of acting through the board, a thing I hope he never will do, he will be taking the power to take from the producer half a million pounds of diamonds, and he should say that he will restore at once to him a sum of money equivalent to the producer’s working costs.

Under sub-clause (b) the board acts as agent of the producer. The agency is imposed on the producer willy nilly. It is incongruous to speak of advances from the agent to the principal. You are already met in the beginning of the Bill by the addition that has been made giving you the right to pledge any diamonds as security for advances for working expenditure. Now the producer may have ample funds on hand and, as the amendment of the hon. member stands he may not require that money at all, and yet he may demand this advance from the board. I do not think that is intended, or should occur. That is why I qualified it by the words “obtained from the board “and have qualified it further with the words—

Would the board have to find the money for the export tax?

If the export tax has to be paid by the producer, then surely it is part of carrying on his business. If not, then it is not necessary.

I want to call the Minister’s attention to a danger. A producer of diamonds comes to the board and says he wants an advance on diamonds on the cost of production. It may be a low grade mine, and the cost of production may be greater per carat, say 50 or 100 per cent. higher, than the market value of the diamonds. I think it is only right to call the Minister’s attention to this so that he can protect the Treasury against advancing more money than the value of the diamonds. Some mines have produced diamonds at a cost of £1 per carat which are not worth more than 10s. a carat. The Minister must take care that the diamonds on which the advance is given are worth the amount which is advanced against them.

That is why I have it in my power. Yon mention in your amendment—and I am not interfering with that—the cost of production.

I am afraid the Minister has not quite understood my meaning. A mine may be so poor that it costs you £2 per carat to produce diamonds which are only worth £1 per carat. If you advance £2 on a diamond that is only worth £1, then the loss will fall on the Government.

Then all the more reason for vesting the discretion in the Minister and that it should not be advanced as of right.

Do I understand from the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Coulter) that he moves his amendment as printed?

As amended by myself, sir, not as printed.

According to what the hon. member has moved all the paragraphs are to be in this amendment from (a) to (n).

No, sir, only (o).

I must say I am impressed by the arguments of the hon. member, and I think the best thing will be to drop this amendment altogether. I will put it right later on.

The first part of the amendment proposed by Mr. Coulter and the amendment proposed by the Minister of Mines and Industries put and agreed to.

The second part of the amendment proposed by Mr. Coulter put and negatived.

The last part of the amendment proposed by Mr. Coulter and the amendment thereto proposed by the Minister of Mines and Industries, with leave of the committee, withdrawn.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clauses 8 and 12 amendments were made in the Dutch version which did not occur in the English version.

Clauses, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 15,

I move—

I accept that.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

New Clause 18,

I wish to move a new clause. It will be remembered that on Clause 1, I moved an amendment, the effect of which was to say that the powers taken under this Bill by the Minister should not become operative in the event of an agreement being arrived at by the producers. We debated that clause for a whole day at least. The Minister, after full debate, indicated that he was unable to accept the clause. I still think that the acceptance of the voluntary principle is of great importance, but as the Minister will not accept that in its entirety, I venture to hope he will accept something which will not go quite as far as we had hoped, but which will reserve to him certain powers which he would not have had if my original amendment had been carried. I said at the time of the amendment that the Government should have some measure of control, and I think it would be possible to alter the suggestion then made so as to reserve to the Minister certain control, but at the same time assert the necessity as far as possible of relying upon voluntary agreement and allowing the Government to step in and utilize the drastic powers contained in this Bill only in case of such voluntary agreement becoming impossible. This is an amendment which has been the subject of much discussion, and I venture to hope he will accept it. I move—

1. (1) Notwithstanding anything in this Act contained, but without prejudice to the powers thereby conferred upon the Governor-General or the Minister, the Minister may from time to time convene conferences of such producers of diamonds as he may deem fit, including all or any producers in the mandated territory of South-West Africa, for the purpose of enabling them to negotiate between themselves agreements (to be known as inter-producers agreements) relating to all or any of the following matters—
   1. (a) the maximum quantity in value of the diamonds produced by them which shall be disposed of during any specified period;
   2. (b) the quota or percentage of such quantity which may be disposed of by any such producer or any group of such producers during any specified period; and
   3. (c) the minimum prices at which diamonds or diamonds of any particular class, determinable by reference to quality or weight or by the area of production or by any other circumstance, shall be sold by each such producer or all of them during any specified period.
2. (2) The Governor-General may approve of any such agreement and may, as a condition of his approval, require—
   1. (a) that in the sale of any diamonds the producers shall, other things being equal, give preference to purchasers domiciled in the Union, and
   2. (b) that all or any particular sales of diamonds shall be by tender and that the method of inviting and dealing with tenders for the purchase of any diamonds and of ensuring secrecy in relation to such tenders shall be as prescribed by the Minister.
3. (3) Upon the approval by the Governor-General of any inter-producers agreement the terms thereof, together with any condition attached thereto by the Governor-General under sub-section (2) shall be binding upon the parties thereto, and for the period of such agreement—
   1. (a) the provisions thereof shall, in respect of the parties thereto in relation to any matter governed by the agreement, be deemed to be substituted for the corresponding provisions of this Act;
   2. (b) the provisions of sections 1, 2, 6, 16 and 17 of this Act shall in respect of the parties to the agreement in relation to any matter governed by the agreement cease to operate; and
   3. (c) any party to the agreement contravening any provision thereof shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction, if the contravention was a sale or disposal by him of diamonds of a greater quantity in value than the quota or percentage fixed in the agreement in respect of himself, to the penalty prescribed in sub-section (3) of section 1; if the contravention was a sale or disposal by him of diamonds at a price lower than that determined in the agreement, to the penalty prescribed in subsection (2) of section 2; and if the contravention was in respect of any other provision of the agreement, to a fine not exceeding five hundred pounds.

It will be seen from my amendment that the principle of voluntary agreement is brought to the front. At the same time the Minister may have the discretion in his own hands, because he may not approve of the agreement which may be entered into. If he does not approve of the agreement which may be entered into, then the powers which he takes under the sections referred to in this amendment will come into operation. I do not pretend to think that this amendment is as good as the amendment I moved originally, because I think myself it would have been better that if a voluntary agreement is arrived at the powers of the State shall not be exercised at all, but it was recognized that there should be some measure of control to lie with the Government, and, as the Minister would not accept that amendment in its previous form, this is a way out of it possibly which will enable him to keep the measure of control which he expects and yet, at the same time, give free play to the exercise of the voluntary arrangement. I, therefore, move this amendment and hope that the Minister will accept it.

I will accept that amendment.

Amendment put and agreed to.

On Clause 18,

I move—

This is consequential on the last amendment.

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to

On Clause 20,

I move—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Clause 21 and the title put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments; to be considered on Monday.