I wish to move the following amendment—

It will be remembered that in the Select Committee a proviso was put to Clause 8: “Provided no person shall be so appointed unless he complies with the requirements as to bilingualism.” The Public Service Commission desires that we shall improve on that. It will have no deleterious effect and they have made a suggestion which I now move as an amendment. I move.

Amendment put and agreed to.

The amendment having been accepted, I suggest after the words we have just added to insert: “and has rendered military service.” This Bill has been introduced in order to provide work for soldiers and war workers.

Is the hon. member’s amendment to the amendment just accepted?

Yes.

Then the hon. member cannot move it. He should have moved before the amendment was agreed to by the Committee.

Can I move another Clause, 1 (b) then?

I would suggest that the hon. member move it at the report stage.

Clause 8, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 9,

On every possible occasion I have protested against the wide powers of entry and search into private dwelling houses by inspectors. And not only am I consistent, but I am more Convinced than ever that we are perpetrating errors in giving these very wide powers to officers under certain legislation. This Bill is no exception and I want to move an amendment to Clause 9, Section 1, sub-Section (1), to add the following proviso: I move—

Now the Act of 1917 reads in Section 49—

1. (1) If it appears to a judge of a superior court, a magistrate or a justice on complaint made on oath that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that there is upon any premises within his jurisdiction: (a) stolen property or anything in respect to which any offence has been, or is suspected, or on reasonable grounds to have been, committed; or (b) anything as to which there are reasonable grounds for believing that it will afford evidence as to the commission of any such offence; or (c) anything as to which there are reasonable grounds for believing that it is intended to be used for the purpose of committing such an offence, he may issue his warrant directing a policeman or policemen named therein or all policemen to search such premises and to seize any such thing found, and to take it before a magistrate to be dealt with according to law.
2. (2) Any such warrant shall be executed by day, unless the judge, magistrate or justice, by the warrant, specially authorises it to be executed by night, in which case it may be so executed. Such warrant may be issued on Sunday, as on any other day.

Section 50 reads—

Section 51 (2) reads—

There is protection here, but this protection is lifted entirely by the clause in the present Bill. I must record my protest. There is no provision whatever that the search shall be made in daylight or that entry may be made only in daylight. There is no provision at all for punishing any inspector or any officer who misuses the powers conferred upon him by this or other Bills. I think the time has arrived when the House should seriously consider whether powers so conferred on officers or inspectors under recent Bills should not be immensely curtailed, and that a search of private dwellings should only be made under a warrant issued by a competent authority. I hope the Minister will reconsider his former attitude towards this proposal, and will agree to my amendment.

I here take the opportunity of moving the amendment standing in my name. I move—

The reason for the deletion is that an interpreter is not an assistant, so you cannot say “interpreter or other assistant.” As to the amendment of the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate) I share with him the horror which he feels at the mere contemplation of someone entering his private dwelling, but unfortunately in these cases it is absolutely essential. If we had no unscrupulous employers I would willingly accept the amendment. But if you have to go and get a warrant before you can go and look for the books, which an unscrupulous employer has taken to his private house, it would give him the opportunity of shifting the books, and so the game of hide-and-seek would go on, and we would never get the evidence we require. The scrupulous employer does not do that. He has his books at his place of business, and will show them to any authorised person. The hon. member must not run away with the idea that an inspector will go all round the countryside entering private dwellings willy-nilly. This is an essential feature of this Bill, and we have several precedents for it in the case of the I.C. Act and the Wage Act. We have had it for years.

I have always objected.

Yes, I know. He has been very consistent, so consistent that he has endeavoured to influence me by discussion. And there is a good deal of common sense in his argument. We have to get hold of the chap who slips his books away. We have had no trouble administering this in the other Acts, and experience has proved that it does not work harshly in the case of a law-abiding citizen, so the hon. member should have no objection to our making this provision here.

The explanation which the Minister gave does not convince me that we should give these extended powers to the inspectors. These powers may be abused. We allow inspectors to enter any private house at will. They can enter any private house at will and search for documents which they may require. Many of these people are not judicious, and it is possible that they may act maliciously. Not every inspector who is appointed will exercise his discretion wisely. You may appoint people who are malicious and who cause the public unnecessary trouble. Why should these extended powers be given to these inspectors? The Minister says that documents are sometimes concealed. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that even in those cases where the police look for a criminal or where they suspect a person of having committed a crime, they must have a search warrant. They cannot at will enter any dwelling house and search for documents. The police officials have not got the right to search at will in criminal cases, why should these inspectors who have not had the training which the police officials had, have this right? I agree with the Minister that where an employer tries to evade the provisions of the Act, power should be given to the inspector to arrest him, but I think the powers which the Minister confers on the inspectors in this case are of a far-reaching nature. He should curtail their rights so that they will not be able to enter any private dwelling house at will and to search for documents.

I should like to move an amendment here. I think the hon. Minister will probabaly accept it. I move—

You will notice that the inspectors have the right to put any questions and to make whatever investigations they please. I think if the inspectors are to have these extended powers, they should be restricted to matters which are related to the Bill. It may be necessary to put questions in regard to other matters, but in that case they will concern those matters dealt with in this Bill. I think the Minister should be reasonable and accept this amendment.

I submit to my hon. friend that the amendment is entirely unnecessary, but I am quite prepared to accept it in order to make it clear that the powers of the inspector are completely confined to the purposes of this Act.

May I draw the Minister’s attention to sub-section (1) of Clause 6. In view of the power that is given there surely it is not necessary that the inspector should have the right of forcible entry into a dwelling house at any time of the day or night, accompanied by a policeman or an interpreter and not by any reputable inhabitants in whose presence that search might be made. I cannot see the necessity for conferring this power of entry and search into private dwelling houses, and I must insist that the Minister should consider whether this power is really absolutely necessary to the inspecter. Moreover, I suppose that not all these inspectors are gentlemen; there must be amongst them what our American friends would describe as “tough guys.”

Some come from Scottburgh.

You get the sharks from there.

It is not right that the inspector should be able to demand the right of search in a house where there may be a woman alone at night. I submit that this aspect of the question has not been considered either by the Minister or by the House. That is one of the pillars in our social system, that a man’s house should be inviolate; until a warrant has been issued a policeman has no right to search. The inspector has the right of entry into a house, and any hon. member who is an employer of labour, if there is reasonable grounds for suspecting that as an employer he has a book or a document in his private residence, may have his house entered and searched. The whole provision is superfluous. The board has the power to subpoena and the right to demand the production of any book or document required for the purposes of this Act, and it is not right that the inspector should have a power in this respect exceeding that which is possessed by the Chief Commissioner of Police. These inspectors become merely licensed housebreakers; that is what it amounts to. I ask the Minister to consider seriously whether this sub-section is not superfluous and to accept the proviso contained in my amendment.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Neate put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—28 :

Boltman, F. H.

Bremer, K.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Haywood, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Louw, E. H.

Ludick, A. I.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Malan, D. F.

Neate, C.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Potgieter, J. E.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swanepoel, S. J.

Van Niekerk, J. G.W.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Wilkens, J.

Tellers: J. F. T. Naudé and P. O. Sauer.

Noes—53:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, J. C.

Bosman, L. P.

Burnside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Christie, J.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Davis, A.

De Kock, P. H.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Gray, T. P.

Henny, G. E. J.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

McLean, J.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Payne, A. C.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P.

Van Niekerk, H.J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Waring, F. W.

Williams, H. J.

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

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Amendments proposed by the Minister of Labour and by Mr. S. E. Warren put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 10,

I should very much like the Minister to accept an amendment to include the words “within 30 days of such appeal,” after “shall” in line 14. The reason why I am putting this forward is that a person who feels aggrieved by the decision of the inspector or of the committee, may find himself out of employment and he will not know then whether he is to be reinstated or not, until some date when the board either confirms the decision or rejects the decision. Many of these people cannot afford to be out of work; most of them cannot afford to be out of work; and I therefore do feel that it is a reasonable request that the board should immediately get busy and let the man know where he stands.

I have every sympathy with the object of the hon. gentleman, that is that the decision of the board shall not be so delayed that it causes hardship; but could we place a limit of 30 days on it?

I think you ought to accept it.

I do not think so. The point is, the board may have under consideration a large number of appeals at the one time, and the board may itself have to make enquiries. If this amendment is adopted it is possible that the appellant may have a rushed decision. If the hon. gentleman wants to emphasise the necessity for speech and he will move for the inclusion of the words “as soon as possible” that would carry in the administration of the Act the obligation to speed up the board’s decision.

I am quite prepared to do that. I move—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On the Heading to Chapter II,

I move—

This amendment is the result of the request of the Demobilisation Council. They feel it should be put in.

Why didn’t you move that during the Select Committee?

This reflects the consultation that has arisen with the council.

But yesterday you took up the attitude that you should not accept any amendments that did not come before the committee.

No, you have only just come in; I have just accepted an amendment from one of your colleagues.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Heading, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 11,

I move as an amendment—

I know that in Clause 10 it is laid down that if anyone feels aggrieved by a decision of a committee, he has the right of appeal to the Board, but I should like it clearly stated in this case.

To whom do you want to give the right of appeal?

To the Board. I would prefer to have the right of appeal given to the court, but I know that the Minister of Labour does not like courts of law, and I therefore move that the right of appeal be given to the Board.

You love a legal fight.

It is provided that if an employee who is discharged in terms of paragraph (c), feels aggrieved, he can appeal to the committee in the area concerned, and the committee can either confirm or set aside the discharge. I now move that the employer should retain the right of appeal to the Board. The position is that if we provide in this Bill, where a returned soldier returns to his former employment, the employer will retain his right under the common law to discharge the person concerned, but in that case the employee may request the committee to consider his case. I feel that the Board, which the bigger body, will have more experience, and the right of appeal should therefore be to the Board. The committee may consist of the magistrate and three or four members in the district. They may not have the necessary knowledge of these matters, and I think therefore that the employer should have the right to appeal to the Board. I do not think this is an unreasonable amendment, and in my opinion it will improve the Bill. I take it the Minister of Labour will have no objection to it. In drawing up this amendment, I specially provided that the appeal should be to the Board, in order to meet the Minister’s objection, although I personally am of opinion that it would have been better to give the right of appeal to a court of law, because the Board may be prejudiced against the employer.

I move—

I should like to draw the Minister’s attention to Clause 11 (4) (a) on page 17. Here it is laid down that subject to the provisions of paragraph (c), “no employer shall dismiss a former employee who has been reinstated or reduce the rate of his remuneration, etc… for a period of 12 months”. I can appreciate what the Minister’s intention is with this paragraph, but I should like him to note the consequences. The war will come to an end, and, as surely as night follows day, we are heading for a period of depression. The Government and employers generally, if they are going to do what they did after the previous war, will reduce wages all round. If there is a depression and wages are reduced, what will be the consequences of this paragraph? Although the employer will be compelled to reduce wages, he will not be able to do so in the case of returned soldiers. The State may set the example, as it has frequently done, and under this clause the employer will be compelled to keep the returned soldiers on the same scale. That in unreasonable. If wages have to be reduced—I hope it will not be necessary, but if the Government continues its present policy, a depression will set in and wages will have to be reduced—that reduction should apply to everyone. We should not exclude the returned soldiers, because in that case it will mean that they will receive higher wages than their fellow-workers. I therefore want to move the following amendment—

If a general reduction of wages is introduced in the country, it should be applicable to every soldier, just like any other person. I hope the hon. Minister will appreciate the fairness of this amendment. If it is necessary to introduce a general reduction of wages, as a result of economic conditions which may come into being, it should be applicable to everyone.

Or if the Wage Board reduces wages.

Assuming there is a general reduction of wages throughout the country. Take the farmer who is compelled to re-employ his coloured and native labourers who are discharged from the Army. If the position becomes such that the farmer is compelled to bring about a general reduction of wages, the returned soldier should be subject to that reduction of wages in the same way as the other coloured and native workers on the farm. What sort of position would it create if the farmer’s coloured and native labourers who were on active service, were to receive higher wages than the remaining labourers on the farm? I move, therefore, that these words be inserted. The reduction of wages should be applicable to everyone, including the returned soldiers.

I am very sorry I cannot accept that amendment. But what are we doing but protecting the soldiers? We are laying it down that for 12 months after the war is over—that is, over for the soldier—he shall be no worse off than when he went to the front. I cannot, even if the rest of the country gets reduced in scale, agree to the soldier suffering that downfall; further I want to tell the hon. member that the committees have power to vary these things, but they have to take into consideration all the circumstances, and the governing factor is keeping the soldier where he was and not making it worse for him. Now with regard to the amendment of the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren). Does he insist on it; because in Clause 10 you have the right of appeal for everyone. Everyone has the right of appeal to the Board. But if my hon. friend with his superior legal knowledge thinks it desirable to have it there, I have no objection, although it is not necessary. In regard to the amendment of the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Robertson), I am prepared to accept that. Then I have some other amendments on this clause, as printed. I move—

1. (b) The date notified under paragraph (a) shall—
   1. (i) in any case not referred to in subparagraph (ii), be a date not more than six months after the discharge of the former employee from any force or mercantile marine with which he is serving; or
   2. (ii) in the case of a former employee who, before the expiration of the said period, commences a full-time course of re-training approved by a committee, be a date not more than two months after he has ceased to attend that course, or the date referred to in sub-paragraph (i), whichever is the later.;

to omit paragraph (b) of sub-section (4) and to substitute the following new paragraph:

1. (b) If at any time prior to the expiration of the said period of twelve months, or of any extension thereof under this paragraph, a former employee—
   1. (i) commences a full-time course of re-training approved by a committee; or
   2. (ii) is, in pursuance of an order made under War Measure No. 6 of 1941, employed by any employer other than the employer who reinstated him,

to add the following proviso at the end of paragraph (c) of sub-section (4) :

in line 28, page 16, after “months” to insert “or an extension thereof”.

I should like to move an amendment to Clause 11, sub-section (2). I move—

My amendment is to substitute the word “shorter” by “longer”. I have already explained, when speaking on the Bill itself, how this clause might be interpreted to the detriment of soldiers coming back to pre-enlistment jobs. I mentioned an example of two men. Assuming they were each 18 years of age in 1939, getting 20 per month; with annual increments per annum of £2 per month. “A” joins in 1939 and returns in 1946. “B” joins up in 1945 and returns in 1946. When they come back each will be given one year’s credit for war service. But under this clause a man cannot get more than one year’s credit, even if he has had six years’ service. So that on my assumption “A” would be getting £22 after six years’ service, and “B” would be getting £32, although he had only done one year’s service. The result is that every soldier who has served more than one year is at a disadvantage. The Minister indicated that he would accept an amendment of this sort. If he still feels that he can do so I shall not waste the time of the House in trying to show that this would not act to the detriment of the soldier, but to his advantage. If he Minister will give me his assurance I shall not continue.

I am afraid to give any assurances.

Well, then I am afraid that I have to go on. The position is this. A man joining the Public Service after the war under the Demobilisation Plan, who had never been in the Service before, will get the full benefit for the full period of his war service, in spite of the fact that he has never been in the Government Service, nor has ever contemplated joining the Service. It may be argued that although the Government should do that in regard to its servants, private interests can hardly be compelled to do the same thing.

Is he not all the time in Government service?

Yes, and all the time he is protecting both sides of the House. I am conscious of the fact that there is a strong argument, and I know the Minister has the welfare of soldier employees at heart, and I know that if he doesn’t accept this amendment his reasons are that he wants to protect the soldier, because it has been argued that if a soldier is to get credit for the full time he has been away on active service there may be employers who at the end of 12 months will get rid of their returned men. I maintain that private interests in this country should, and will, give the soldiers credit for every year they have served in the forces. I do not believe that private interests would tend to dismiss a man after he has been back a year, on the grounds that his salary is too high. I might mention that the suggestion of this change actually came from the head of a big industrial concern. It was brought up by a deputation of the Federated Chamber of Industries, when they met the soldiers’ group of the United Party. They, at all events, seemed to think it was a good thing and a fair thing, and that employers would not take advantage of the one year period to sack the man at the end of the period. I think one should also remember that the employer always has the right of appeal to the local committees and eventually to the Board, in any case of a soldier or war worker who might prove to be absolutely unfit for the job into which he was placed.

He is only protected for 12 months.

My point is that if a soldier came to a job at £32 per month and the employer felt the pay was too high, the employer could appeal. I am anxious to throw the responsibility on the employer. The employer could appeal to the committee and get some arrangement made to reduce the amount to one which would fit his natural abilities in the stage he was then. Another point in favour of my contention is this, that the Demobilisation Scheme actually provides for the retraining of any returned ex-volunteer who seems to be—owing to his service in the Army—a bit rusty on resuming his former employment. The soldier can get this retraining in case his service has made him not quite fit to take up his employment again. The majority of cases in which this clause might apply will be clerical and semi-clerical cases—the class of person, who, to my way of thinking, will not have lost his skill to any great extent due to war service. [Time limit.]

Just in order to allow the hon. member to elaborate his point, will he tell us how it affects the returned apprentices.

It does not affect them.

It does not affect apprentices at all. These young men will get the benefit of one year for their war service and more, if they have had the benefit of training under the C.T.T. Scheme, and if they can get a certificate of competency. This amendment will not affect the man whose skill falls off through his service in the army. It is intended to provide for the case of a man whose skill will not be affected by service in the army, the men who will prove themselves just as able as before they went away. I think I should reiterate and make real the principle enunciated by the Prime Minister, that no man shall be worse off financially because of his service to his country. I think one might say without doubt that even if the full period of service cannot be counted, at least more than one year should be counted. If a man has served five years he should get more credit in his reinstatement than the man who has served only one year. I hope the Minister will at least accept some grading scale by which the longer a man serves the more credit he will get in respect of his preenlistment employment. Finally I would say this, if the, Minister would put himself, as I have tried to put myself, in the position of the man returning from the war, and being given the option of taking up the job he held before, at £32 per month—to stick to my original example—and be given a year to prove himself suitable, or else take the job at £22 per month, I am sure he would prefer himself to take the job át the higher salary, and depend on his ability to make himself able and fit to hold down that job. I am sure the soldiers would agree to that, and I am sure we should not enunciate in the Bill the principle, if I might be allowed to misquote Kipling’s words—

I think the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) is losing sight of the fact that you cannot carry on industries indefinitely by paying people higher wages than they are entitled to. When a man signs on, and is in the Government service before he signs on, he continues in the Government service. The Government is able to pay him for the full period because he is in the Government service all the time, but when you go to industry and you want the full time reckoned for increments and the man is not able to deliver the goods, it will mean that at the end of the year he is on the streets.

Which would you choose?

I have every sympathy with the hon. member’s ideas. I think the proper course would be this: that if he gets wages in excess of his ordinary wage, that excess to be borne by the State. If they desire him to get extra wages beyond his actual abilities, then the State should pay those extra wages. It is a delicate matter taking people into your employment because they have been on active service.

There would be no industries if these men hadn’t gone forward.

That may be, but you are now placing the burden on the employer. You are not placing it on the State, not on the ordinary man in the street, but on the industrialist. It means that you are placing an extra tax on the man because he is not getting service for what he pays. If the soldier is entitled to extra pay because of his war service then it is something which the State should carry.

The employer can appeal to the Committee.

Take this position. A man may have had only a few years’ service with his firm. If the Act says that you have to give him the increments which he would have had had he not gone on active service, and he is away for six years, it will mean that he will not be able to deliver the goods, when he comes back and is re-employed, which he would have been able to deliver had he not gone on active service. The hon. member says you can appeal to the committee. You cannot go to the committee and ask them to change the Act.

He can be retrained.

By that time the employer need not take him back. The employer has to take him back in six months. Well, I think this thing would be wrong because it would be casting a burden on the private person when the State should under take the responsibility and everyone should bear his share of that extra pay.

It is a case for the Minister of Demobilisation.

If the hon. member insists on that amendment in this Act, he will be looking for trouble. The idea of this Bill, when it becomes law is, to replace people into the employment which they had before, and they should be able to remain in that employment as long as they like. If you are going to do that sort of thing you are going to cause trouble. You want to show that there is proper sympathy between worker and employer. You don’t want a man to be just taken back for a year and when the year is over to be thrown on to the streets. And that is why this is such a delicate subject. If you don’t have that proper sympathy you are going to do more harm by imposing conditions on the employers than good. People don’t have the same thoughts and the same enthusiasms after the war as they had during the war. And if a man is thrown on the streets, if he loses employment, he may find it very difficult to get re-employment and his conditions may not be as good as they would have been if he had stuck to his old job even at a lesser salary. I don’t want to say any more on this point. I feel as far as the amendment which I have proposed is concerned, that I shouldn’t press it perhaps. I thought it would be better to have it here, but if the Minister objects to it, well, I won’t press it. In regard to the amendment of the hon. member for Woodstock, I hope he will drop that too because he is going to make the position worse than it is. With the leave of the Committee, I withdraw my amendment.

With leave of the Committee the amendment proposed by Mr. S. E. Warren was withdrawn.

I thank the hon. member—he has got me out of a difficulty, because my advice is that if we inserted this right of appeal here it would weaken Clause 10. Now as the last speaker has said, this proposal by the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) raises a very delicate matter. At the moment I am still in a state of flux. The hon. member has done me the honour of discussing this with me three or four times, and I think every hon. member would be willing to subscribe to his proposal if he were satisfied that it would be effective and did not have the very opposite effect of what he wants. My worry was and still is that if you lay it down that an employer must give a man returning from military service increments in respect of his full term of military service, involving as it may the increase mentioned by my hon. friend of £12 per month, that employer may keep the man for 12 months and then shoot him out into the street. My hon. friend says that the Federated Chamber of Industries interviewed the soldiers’ group and that commerce had indicated its desire to have this inserted; well, if that is so, if they are keen on doing this, they will do it in any case; but just to show how much substance there is in the contention of the hon. member over there about the patriotic fervour there is, we have already had to sue a firm for refusing to take back a man who had gone on active service. Those are the cases which you have to watch. I want to secure the best possible for the returned soldier, and I am sure that if you place him at the mercy of some employers they will get rid of him at the first possible opportunity. My sense of gratitude for what we owe to these soldiers makes me desire to insist on every employer doing everything in the direction my friend has suggested, but my common sense tells me that some employers being what they are will regard that as a reason to discharge a man after 12 months. So I am afraid I cannot accept it. May I just say that provision for an extension of the period is in the next clause.

We should not allow our hearts to rule our heads. We do not know what is going to happen after the war. For all we know, the position may be so bad that even the Wage Board will advocate a reduction of wages in order to obviate unemployment. The Minister refuses to accept this amendment, but the result of this may be that small businesses will be completely ruined. A man may have a small business and if he is forced to employ an extra person and to pay wages beyond the means of the business, he is not only going to be ruined but at the same time would be rendering a disservice to the employees. Take a shoemaker, for example. If wages are increased and he is forced to employ more people, it may ruin his business. We are not protecting the employer in this way. We are doing exactly the opposite. When a general reduction of wages is introduced, it will lead to difficulties. The soldiers would have the right to go to the committee or the Board when anything is done which is contrary to law. Take the case of a shoemaker who may have two or three people in his employ. If he is compelled to pay high wages to the returned soldier during a depression, it may ruin his whole business with the result that the soldier will be thrown out of employment. We cannot compel an insolvent person to employ a returned soldier if he cannot afford to pay his wages. All we ask is that when a general reduction of wages takes place or when the Wage Board itself reduces wages, the employer should have the right to pay reduced wages to the returned soldiers as well. I cannot see that there is any danger in this. If the Minister can give me any reason why it should not be done, I shall be prepared to listen to him. But it seems to me that we are taking a dangerous step which we will regret in the future.

If the Minister accepts the amendment of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) he will be making provision for every contingency. As the Bill reads, the returned soldier will be safe for 12 months. But if this amendment is accepted and there is a depression, the soldier will also be protected. If wages are reduced, his wages will be reduced together with those of other people, and in that case it may be possible to retain his services. The main question is surely to keep him in employment. If the Minister accepts the amendment of the hon. member for Waterberg and there is a depression or crisis, the Minister would not have to come to Parliament immediately to have an amending Bill passed, because he would then be fully covered. He would improve the Bill by accepting this amendment. He would not make it worse, nor would he make the position of the returned soldier worse. I hope therefore that he will be prepared to accept this amendment.

I am afraid I cannot accept the amendment. I would hesitate to put in a Bill a suggestion that there might be a depression. As a matter of the fact my reading of the future is, or the immediate future, that after the war there is going to be a boom.

What a hope!

Where is the money to come from?

I hope my hon. friend won’t press his amendment. In fact we have provision in Clause 12, 1 (b), for a committee to investigate the circumstances. They may authorise the variation and they would take into consideration the very case my hon. friend referred to, namely, the small bootmaker who only employs one or two men. What I do want to avoid like the plague is that we should be looking to the future not with confidence but with despair.

Amendments proposed by the Minister of Labour and Mr. Robertson put and agreed to, and amendments proposed by Mr. J. G. Strydom and Mr. Russell put and negatived.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 17,

I move—

I feel that people who have just arrived at the age when they are entitled to join and may be actually at the fighting line when the war ceases, are entitled to the same consideration as those who have joined earlier. At all events, they are entitled to get the employment that will be given to war workers who have been at home and who possibly have been even better off than they were prior to the war. Under this Bill the man who has less than six months’ service is precluded from this benefit, but I think he is entitled to the consideration that we should accord everybody who has done service for our country.

I have again read this clause, and I take it the Minister realises that there is a committee for every district, and that there will not be uniformity therefore. The committee in Robertson may not institute the same type of investigation and prescribe the same conditions as the committee in Beaufort West. Then we also have occupations or trades where the conditions are totally different, and I wonder whether it should not be the duty of the Board to lay down these things specifically. We would then get uniformity.

That is too big a task for the Board.

I want the Minister to realise what the position is, that we would not get uniformity, and that might lead to complaints. If the men in Robertson hear the people in Beaufort West are subject to different conditions, there would be dissatisfaction amongst the returned soldiers.

I am afraid I cannot accept that amendment. I have given in a lot to the hon. member, and I hope he will excuse me if I am adamant on this point. We must have some period fixed and six months is short enough in all conscience.

Amendment put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 19,

I move the following amendment—

I believe the Minister is not prepared to accept this amendment. Clause 19 is a very important clause dealing with the quota system which may be applied by way of regulation to any person or industry. It means that the person concerned or the industry concerned will have to employ his or its quota of returned soldiers. I honestly do not believe that this clause can ever be put into operation. It is impracticable and impossible, and it will only cause trouble. We are not going to gain anything by it. It is merely a plan on the part of the Government to shift its responsibilities on to the shoulders of the civilian population. That is quite clear. Now, we come to agriculture. As far as agriculture is concerned, I am convinced that any returned soldier who seeks employment in agriculture, will get employment, and if it were laid down that if I have 20 nonEuropean labourers in my employ, 10 of them should be returned soldiers, well, I would simply keep them for a little while and then kick them out, and I would go on doing that. The Minister stated in the Select Committee, and also in this House, that he has not got the necessary staff of inspectors at his disposal to enable him to control a measure of this kind in connection with agriculture; I want to ask him therefore to exclude agriculture from this quota system, in view of the fact that he himself feels that he cannot exercise the necessary control. This clause has nothing to do with re-employment. It only deals with the quota system. If agriculture is excluded, I feel that we would be able to arrange things better, and that we would not fill the people with fear and anxiety as we would if we passed this clause in its present form. The farming community is afraid of the returned soldiers. It will not be a question of European labour, but of coloured and native labour. It is not necessary to fix a quota in any area as far as agriculture is concerned. I feel, therefore, that I am entitled to ask the Minister to exclude the agricultural industry. I do not think it is necessary to retain this provision as far as agriculture is concerned. I do not think he would be able to exercise control, and he would, therefore, be unable to proclaim it. I therefore move accordingly.

I want to support the motion of the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren). As the hon. member correctly said, it will be coloured and native soldiers for the greater part who will be pushed on to the farmers if a quota is laid down. The non-European population has been spoilt enough in this country. They are already demanding equality with the Europeans, and when those soldiers return and they have to work on the farms together with other native and coloured people you can imagine what the position will be. They are accustomed to a completely different life. If the Minister is prepared to accept this amendment, I shall not say another word.

I move—

Amendments put and agreed to.

I want to move—

I am sorry, the hon. member cannot move that amendment at this stage. The committee has already accepted the further amendment.

Then I want to move in sub-Clause (7) that the principle of separateness between Europeans and non-Europeans be maintained. That is essential. The Minister will also admit it. The Minister of Demobilisation stated here that he does not differentiate as far as payments are concerned. A certain amount will be paid to Europeans, a certain amount to coloureds and a certain amount to natives; and this amendment which I want to move only tries to give effect to the principle which the hon. Minister laid down. May I move it?

The committees can do so. It is unnecessary:

I am sorry I cannot accept the amendment. I would suggest that the hon. member move it in the Report Stage.

I should like to refer the hon. Minister to line 73 on page 21. Will the Minister also include Oudstryders under “persons who rendered military service,” as well as those who took part in the 1914-’18 war?

The hon. member cannot go back.

This is not an amendment; it is merely a question.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 20,

I want to move ….

Are you going to move amendments to every clause?

We are trying to improve the. Bill.

Go on.

Why does the Minister object when we try to improve the Bill? I move—

All we are doing here is to make it obligatory. Here it states—

What we now propose is that the board shall from time to time and when so requested by the Minister, investigate and make recommendations to the Minister. The board is responsible for seeing that the people receive proper technical training. At present it is left to the discretion of the board. We say they “shall” give their attention to it, and they shall when requested by the Minister, make recommendations in regard to the provision of facilities for the technical training of persons who have rendered military or war service. All I am trying to do is to improve the clause.

That is a contradiction in terms. You make it obligatory by saying “shall” and then you say “on their own initiative.”

They are leaving out “on their own initiative.” It is entirely unnecessary.

I know the member has a desire to improve the Bill, but I do not think this is an improvement. Whenever it occurs to the board they will do it, but quite apart from that the Minister may instruct them to investigate and then they have to do it. You have a double barrelled gun here; they may do it on their own initiative, and they must do it when the Minister tells them.

The hon. Minister does not understand my amendment. I am not retaining the words “on its own initiative.” They “shall” do so; it is made obligatory.

When and how?

It should not be a board which will do nothing. The Minister should not have to discover on a certain day that the board has devoted no attention to the question of technical training. It must be an active board. They “shall” give attention to this matter from day to day, and I cannot see why the Minister does not want to improve the Bill by making it obligatory. They “shall” continually investigate the matter. But the second condition is that the Minister must be able to instruct them what to do. The board must not be idle and the Minister should not have to discover on a certain day that they have shown no initiative. He will now be able to keep an eye on them; but we want a board which will continually devote its attention to this matter; and I cannot see how the hon. Minister can say it is redundant. It is merely an effort to improve the Bill.

On the outbreak of war the Minister made provision for the training of persons as artisans who were under the age of 45 years and who passed Standard VI. I refer to the basic training scheme which the Minister introduced. The position is this. Those people were promised that after the war they would be given an opportunity of becoming artisans, and I want to ask the Minister whether he will see to it that persons who received this training—for six months or nine months or a year—will receive further training in order to qualifiy them as artisans? Those people went in for this scheme on the promise that eventually they would become artisans, and that they would receive wages according to the scale laid down by the Wage Board. I should like to have a promise from the Minister that he will see to it that these people will be given further training, so that they can become artisans within the shortest possible period.

The Demobilisation Department and the Labour Department are working together on the matter and whether training is required or an extension of training is required, it is going to be given.

Amendment put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On new Clause to follow Clause 20,

Before Clause 21 is put, I should like to move—

1. 21. The Minister shall, from time to time, in consulation with the Board, provide for the employment of all persons who may be displaced from their employment by the operation of this Act and for all matters incidental thereto.

This is a matter which was discussed at length by the Select Committee and in connection with which I personally made a proposal to this effect—

I therefore move in terms of the report of the Select Committee, which was unanimously accepted; even the Minister voted for it. The position is that many people were unable to enlist, and in many cases they had to take the place of those people who went on active service. They rendered a service to the country, and the Select Committee therefore felt that the Government should make provision for them. Not only that, but many of them enabled others to go on active service. There is therefore an obligation on the State, as there is in the case of returned soldiers, to find employment for these people. That is a general obligation which rests on the Government. We on this side feel that it is the duty of the Government to provide employment for everyone; to see to it that everyone has work and can become a useful citizen. That is the general obligation; I do not want to enlarge on it. We are now discussing the position which will be created by this Bill. The Bill contains a scheme for re-employment. It reads that it is “a Bill to promote the civil employment of persons who have rendered military or other war service, and to provide for matters incidental thereto.” This matter is linked up with that, and I feel therefore that I am within the limits of the Bill in moving this amendment. I also believe that it will have the approval of the whole House.

I cannot accept the amendment. The hon. member is perfectly correct when he says the Committee unanimously, including myself, threw the responsibility on the Government of finding employment in some way or other, for those who might be displaced by the operations of this Act. And the Government is shouldering its responsibility in that regard. The Demobilisation Department plus the Labour and other departments, but particularly the Demobilisation Department are devising ways and means, not only of meeting that difficulty, but the difficulty of general unemployment.

Then why was this Bill necessary?

Oh, have you just come in?

I have been here all morning.

The Government is prepared to shoulder responsibility in that regard; and it is using every method of doing it. This Bill is not the place to put that in, and I hope my hon. friend will not press his amendment. I am making a public statement on that.

I am particularly surprised that the Minister refuses to accept this reasonable amendment. Every Government is responsible for finding employment for its citizens who need employment. These people who were employed to replace others who went on active service are also citizens of the country. They are also entitled to a living and to come to the State and ask that they should be taken care of. This Bill provides that factories or industries or other employers shall re-employ soldiers who were previously in their employ. As a result of that thousands of people who are employed in industries at the moment will be rendered unemployed, and if the Minister is not sincere in his desire to see to it that every man and woman should have a decent means of livelihood in this country, it is his duty to see to it that the State is compelled by means of legislation to provide for these people. It is very easy to say that the State is aware of its responsibility, that these people will be provided for, but that should definitely be laid down, in view of the fact that this Bill will cause people to be thrown out of employment.

I only say that this Bill is not the proper place for it.

But this Bill contains provisions which will result in the discharge of people. Provision should therefore be made for them as well.

Yesterday we heard ad nauseam from the Minister and his friends, in connection with the amendment in regard to bilingualism, that it was not discussed and moved in the Select Committee. That was the Minister’s main argument in justification of his refusal to accept the amendment in favour of bilingualism. We are now moving a motion which was passed by the Select Committee, and in favour of which he himself voted, but the Minister refuses to incorporate it in this Bill. His attitude is that he will make provision for it.

I did not vote for it as an amendment.

It was accepted by the Select Committee. Yesterday he asked why we did not raise this matter in connection with the language question in the Select Committee, and why we did not move a motion in the committee. We now move an amendment which was moved and accepted in the Select Committee; but the Minister now refers to other legislation, and says that he will take care of it. I hope the Minister will not hold it against me if I say that we do not trust him. We are not satisfied with such a vague assurance that he will take care of these people. The Minister says that there is a Demobilisation Department, which will take care of these people. If there is a Demobilisation Department for that purpose, why should they not look after the soldiers as well? What necessity is there for this Bill then? There are many things in this Bill which could be dealt with by the Department of Demobilisation. No, the Minister must not hold it against us; but we expect more than such a vague assurance. People will be thrown out of employment as a direct result of the operation of this Bill, not through other economic circumstances. Even in normal times the State sometimes has to intervene, but here we are dealing with people who will be thrown out of employment as a result of the operation of this Bill. It is therefore its duty to make the necessary provision for these people.

The hon. member is very clever at misreading. Now he asserts that I agreed to an amendment of this Bill in Committee.

The Committee agreed.

No, the Committee did not. The Committee passed a resolution outside the scope of this Bill throwing responsibility on the Government of providing for those who were displaced by the operations of this Bill. I supported that resolution. That resolution appears as a separate entity.

Why not include it in the Bill?

Because it is not the place for it.

You promised to introduce separate legislation.

My friend made great play of the fact that I had objected to something which had not been moved in the Select Committee. I am making the position perfectly clear to the hon. member for Beaufort West.

Will you undertake to introduce legislation?

I don’t have to introduce legislation. I have told the Committee that the Demobilisation Department, the Lands Department, the Railways, the Public Works, the Labour Department, and all these Departments are at the moment engaged in a concentrated effort in the direction of providing the necessary employment, not only for those displaced by this Bill, but for everyone, and in addition there is provided in this Bill for the Board to set up independent investigations after the war to provide employment. I can only read in the hon. member’s remarks an attempt at baiting me. The question of general employment is already receiving the active attention of the Government, and provision will be made, but this is not the place to put it.

I am very sorry that the Minister of Labour adopts this attitude. It is now laid down by legislation that something will be done for the returned soldiers, for the people who fought in the war, and that they will be taken care of. They will receive preference. There are hundreds and thousands of people who did not do war work but who performed work which was just as important to the State as the work done by the soldiers. The question is continually asked by these people what will become of them when the soldiers return and replace them. We are as much concerned about these people as we are about the soldiers; we feel that provision should be made for them. These people who remained behind did equally important work and they are equally citizens of the State. The Minister now states that we cannot make provision for those people in the Bill. Does the Government propose to introduce legislation during the present Session to make provision for the employment of people who will be discharged? This is something which is felt not only by us as members, but by those people who did very important work for the State.

Do you mean the Ossewabrandwag?

These are people who did very important work for the State, and they are continually asking what will become of them when the soldiers return. We say, therefore, that the Government should make provision for them during this Session and not wait until after the adjournment of the House. We cannot take it for granted that various Departments are making provision for them. In this Bill we are making provision for one section; and we must not forget the other section. We want to express the hope that the Minister will be prepared to make a statement which will satisfy us with regard to those people who will be replaced by the returned soldiers.

The Minister of Labour is going to create a problem, and he should try to solve that problem. Although he refuses to accept this reasonable amendment, he must surely agree that provision should also be made for those people who will be thrown out of employment when the soldiers return, and I cannot see why he cannot accept this amendment and thereby give those people the assurance that provision will be made for them. There is a feeling of unrest on the part of the people who occupy these posts. They now find that the Minister of Labour is not well disposed towards them. They will simply have to give up their posts and seek employment elsewhere. If they were to give up their present positions and seek employment elsewhere while they still have a chance, because they feel that the Minister is not well disposed towards them, what would become of the State machine and of the industries in which they are employed? It is very unreasonable to leave those people in the dark. We know that when demobilisation takes place after the war, there will be unemployment. These people have every reason to be concerned, if the Minister of Labour is not prepared to show them what he will do for them. I regard this request as a very reasonable one. Numerous families are concerned in this matter, because if there is large scale unemployment after the war it will be very difficult for these people to obtain employment. It will lead to great difficulties, and I would therefore like the Minister to accept this amendment so that these people may be certain what will happen to them after the war.

I want to associate myself with the previous speakers in giving my hearty support to this amendment. It is quite clear to me that this Bill is designed to place these powers in the hands of a person like the Minister of Labour, so that he will in the last resort be able to decide everything; and in the second place, that this Bill will be used to benefit only one section of the population. On a previous occasion I asked that this Bill be extended to people who did not go to the front, but who worked on the home front and took the places of those people who went on active service, so that they too would come under this Bill, and so that provision would be made for them as well. In trade and in industry the employer can only employ a definite number of people. He cannot employ redundant people in his business or in his industry; and what is going to happen now? People enlisted; they went to the front, and young men came forward to take their places. They have been doing this work for four or five years; they qualified themselves for the work which they undertook. Such a person may in the meantime have received an increase in his salary; and today he may be the owner of a house. The Minister now comes along and refuses to insert a provision in this Bill to look after those people. They will not only be thrown on the mercy of the State, but they will be left to the mercy of the employers. Many of them will have to sacrifice their salaries; they will be thrown out of employment, and when they start again they will have to start on the lowest rung of the ladder. They will have to start from the bottom again, they will practically have to make a fresh start in life. I hope therefore that the Minister will not persist in his attitude, but that he will grant this reasonable request and insert the provision asked for. Why should those people be referred to Demobilisation and various other divisions and departments? This Bill is the proper place to make provision for them, because it is this Bill of the Minister’s which will throw those people out of employment and on to the streets. Why not extend this scheme so that it will make provision for all those people who rendered service in order to make it possible for other people to join the army? I want to ask the Minister to consider this matter and to accept the amendment.

I again want to draw the Minister’s attention to what happened in the Select Committee. During the last day of the sitting, namely, 4th April, the following resolution was adopted—

I was not a member of the Select Committee, but I believe the Minister voted for that resolution.

He admitted that he voted for it.

In this resolution the words “at an early date” are used. I do not know how that was translated in the English text, but in ordinary Afrikaans it means “in the very near future.” This resolution was adopted on the 4th April of this year. If the Minister really thinks that this question cannot be incorporated into the Bill, then, in view of the fact that the Bill will cause the unemployment of numbers of people, I should like to know from him, as a member of the Select Committee, who voted for this resolution, whether he will tell us what he did to give effect to that resolution. I want to know whether he raised the matter in the Cabinet; whether the officers of his department took steps to draft the Bill; and, if so, why this Bill has not yet been introduced, and what his plans are in that connection in the future? In the circumstances we have the right to demand a reply from the Minister to these questions.

While the hon. member for Lichtenburg (Mr. Ludick) was making his plea that the returned soldiers would displace others from employment under this Bill, a very unpleasant interjection came from the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. J. C. Bosman). He said that they were members of the Ossewabrandwag. I should like to know whether that is the attitude of the Minister of Labour and of the party on the other side. Is the Minister, together with the hon. member for Malmesbury, discriminating in this case? He now wants to suggest that because certain people hold views which differ from those of the Government, they should not be given employment, and that they must therefore be thrown out of employment, so that those who agree with them may be given employment. According to them, people who belong to the Ossewabrandwag or who belong to the Nationalist Party, who belong to the Grey Shirts or to the Voortrekkers, must be thrown out of employment, so that that work may be given to the supporters of the Government. I would like the hon. member for Malmesbury to get up and to say in a speech what he said here by way of an interjection, so that we may know what his attitude is; because in this Bill the Minister is discriminating against a section of the population. We pride ourselves on being a democratic people and that we have the right to differ from one another’s opinion. But if a person has to be punished by being thrown out of employment, if his wife and children have to suffer because his opinion differs from that of the Government of the day, we must stop this hypocrisy and cease talking about so-called democracy. Here we have a Cabinet Minister; I want to ask him whether he agrees with the hon. member for Malmesbury? We on this side have said time and again that, although we are opposed to the war in principle, it does not influence us, because we regard it as the duty of the State to provide employment for everyone, whether or not they share our opinion. If the Government holds one view and wants to punish people because they hold a different view, we must stop this hypocrisy and make-believe that we are a democratic country. Because in that case the Minister adopts the attitude that no one may differ from him. He thinks the soldiers are on his side; he therefore wants to make provision for them, and leave the others to take care of themselves. The Minister has no right to make the country believe that he has the interests of all sections of the population at heart, if he refuses to accept this amendment. I just want to say this. The hon. Minister has enough sense to know when he acts wrongly, but the Minister’s stubbornness and his touchiness—as I said yesterday, he is too touchy—prevents him from looking at the Bill in its true perspective. If this Bill had been in the hands of the Minister of Finance, for example, the position would have been quite different. I want to say this in favour of the Minister of Finance, that when one makes out a good case he is not too stubborn to say that there is something in what one says. Although my views are completely different from those of the Minister of Finance, I want to say that when one comes to him with a reasonable proposition which is in the interests of the country, not in one’s own opinion but in his opinion, one can accomplish something. But this poor Minister who has to take care of the postwar conditions, can only see the matter from one point of view. He wears blinkers. I want to ask the Minister of Finance, who is acting as Prime Minister, whether he cannot have a talk with the Minister of Labour between one and two o’clock and tell him not to be so petty and to consider these amendments on their merits. I have abandoned all hope of making a successful appeal to the Minister of Labour himself.

I am very disappointed at the attitude of the Minister in connection with this matter. It is a very dangerous thing to a country when one has a Minister who looks at matters through blinkers. It is a very dangerous thing to any country. We must not forget that as the Bill reads, it contains a principle which should be avoided by every responsible person. I refer to the principle of class legislation. Here we have a piece of out-and-out class legislation, such as few countries have witnessed. We must avoid class legislation altogether. I want to make an appeal to the Minister to give his serious attention to this matter. We appreciate that this Bill specially provides for the soldiers; we have no objection to provision being made for the soldiers; but certain principles in such a law effect the entire nation, not only a section of the people. In this Bill, that principle affects only the soldiers and the rest of the population are excluded. It has been proved by the Minister’s attitude in connection with this matter— and I hope the Labour world will take full cognisance of it—that he has not really got the interests of the labourers at heart. His whole attitude is dictated by his feeling of hatred towards this side. I want to tell the Minister that hatred destroys the hater, and his hatred of the policy of this side is destroying him, and not only him; the Minister will still discover that it will later on destroy his whole party. I hope the Minister will accept this amendment and insert the proposal of this side of the House in the Bill, and thereby prove to the country that the Government is at least there to look after the entire population. The State should accept the responsibility of providing employment to every citizen and citizeness in the country; that is a principle which is specifically accepted by our party, namely, that we are responsible for providing employment to every citizen and citizeness of this country. We do not want this principle to be meddled with. We do not want to introduce class legislation. I hope the nation will deliver judgment in regard to this matter in the strongest terms.

The Minister of Labour made two important admissions. The first is that this Bill will throw a large number of people out of employment. He admits that.

I did not say that.

Oh, yes, the Minister did say it.

I did not say that it would cause widespread unemployment. You boys are great at twisting.

The Minister said that to the Select Committee.

I did not expect that from you.

The Minister said in this House that other Departments were taking steps to provide employment to people who will be rendered unemployed as a result of the operations of this Bill. But the responsibility of providing employment rests on the Department of Labour. The Minister of Labour is responsible, and if the Minister introduces a measure which will result in other people being thrown out of employment he is responsible for finding employment for those persons. We realise that there is discrimination in this case.

I thought you wanted to help the soldiers.

We want to do so. We do not say that there is discrimination by providing employment for the soldiers. We approve of steps being taken to give them employment, but if those steps result in the unemployment of deserving persons, it is the responsibility of the Minister of Labour to see to it that those people are given employment. If you do not do so you create a feeling of hatred amongst those people towards the soldiers. If you throw a large number of people out of employment in a big factory, for example, and appoint returned soldiers in their places, you create a feeling of hatred towards the soldier, and that should not be done. The Minister must therefore bear the responsibility of making provision for those who are rendered unemployed. If he does that he will be creating general satisfaction. I repeat that the Minister of Labour cannot divest himself of that responsibility. He can ask other Departments to assist him. We have no objections to that; but in the first instance he, as Minister of Labour, should take steps to see to it that those people are not thrown out of employment.

He will see to it.

The hon. member for Albert-Colesberg…

Raise your head when you speak.

What have you got to do with his head?

I said that the Opposition was fighting for the Ossewabrandwag, and from that my hon. friend drew his own inference, of course. He completely misrepresented the position to the House. I personally agree that every person in South Africa should as far as possible be given an opportunity to make a good living. What I cannot understand is this. Here we have a Bill in connection with the employment of soldiers and war workers. That is what we are dealing with, and we on this side of the House are determined that those people who did their duty towards their fatherland in these dangerous times should receive preference to the rest of the people. That is the point which is under discussion. Should the people who did their duty in these dangerous times receive preference over and above the others, yes or no? We say yes. I want to draw the hon. member’s attention to the fact that when the Nationalist Government was in power there were thousands and tens of thousands of people unemployed in South Africa.

That is not true.

They worked on the roads.

At 3s. per day.

And it is nonsense to expect this Government to make a promise at this stage that every man in South Africa will be given just as good a position as these people who did their duty in these days of peril.

I just want to put one question, and it is an important question in view of what the Minister said here. The Minister stated that he did not say that people would be thrown out of employment as a result of this measure. The Minister is splitting hairs. Have words no meaning? The resolution of this committee reads as follows—

How can the Minister say that he did not say that certain people would lose their employment? Here is the resolution of the committee. That resolution of the committee goes on to say—

The Minister cannot evade his responsibility in this way. He must tell the House whether, in terms of that resolution, he made this recommendation to the Government, whether he instructed the officials in his department to draft this Bill. We want to know from him precisely what was done in this matter. It is his duty to enlighted the House on this point, and I hope the Minister will now do so.

I must honestly say …

Have you come back?

I have been here all the time.

You underline “honestly”.

I do not want to hear anything from an ass.

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled to say that another hon. member is an ass?

I cannot understand how the Minister can adopt such an attitude. Let us examine this Bill as it really is. This Bill aims at the re-employment of soldiers upon their return. But the Bill goes further than that. This Bill consciously and deliberately causes unemployment, because returned soldiers will in many cases displace civilians as a result of legislation, and those civilians are now simply thrown out of employment and on to the street. They will be unemployed through no fault of their own, but as the result of an act on the part of Parliament and on the part of the Government. In many cases those people performed absolutely essential work, not only in Government undertakings, but in private undertakings, work which had to be done unless everything in this country came to a standstill—whether it be in connection with the manufacture of food or the production of food or the manufacture of other necessities of life. Those people will now be deprived of their bread as the result of this law. They will be rendered unemployed. That is the deliberate object of this Bill. Apart from the first object of providing employment for the soldiers, the second object is to render people unemployed in order to make provision for the soldiers. It is not an incidental matter. That is the deliberate object of the Bill. Well, in that case it is surely reasonable, quite apart from political considerations, but viewed merely from a human point of view it is also reasonable when A is deliberately prejudiced in order to benefit B, that the Government should take steps to repair the damage to A or to compensate A in some way or other for the harm done to him. All we ask is this. We ask, since the Government is imposing upon itself the obligation of benefiting soldiers, that it should also impose an obligation upon itself by means of legislation to compensate the other people who are prejudiced as a result of its action. The Minister says that is not necessary.

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

When business was suspended I said that apart from the political aspect of the matter there was also the human aspect, and that is, that since the State is responsible for the fact that people lose their means of livelihood, it is clearly the duty of the State to assist those people to find other employment. Otherwise the State would be making itself guilty of an act of barbarism which could never be forgiven. The Minister says that he appreciates that duty, but he refuses to give any undertaking. We say that if the State causes unemployment as a result of the operation of an Act of Parliament, there is a duty on the State to ensure that those people are given employment. There is no doubt that that duty exists. It is as clear as it can be, and I cannot understand why the Minister refuses to appreciate the implications. He wants to satisfy us with a vague promise that various departments, etc., will render assistance in this direction. There is a clear duty on the State to provide employment to those people who are thrown out of employment as a result of the fact that the State provides employment to returned soldiers. I want to put our attitude clearly. We were against the war, but we realise nevertheless that it is the duty of the State to ensure a means of livelihood to every person who is unemployed, whether it be a soldier or civilian.

Do you place the soldiers first?

We do not place the soldiers first. We do not feel called upon to give the soldiers preference over other people.

But the soldiers did their duty.

So did the others. Our attitude is that there is a duty on the State to vouchsafe every person a living.

The saboteur comes first and the soldier second.

The hon. member who makes that senseless interjection knows that it is an unfair interjection; because we have always adopted the attitude that we are entirely opposed to sabotage. When one reads the hon. member’s newspaper, one would think that he has a lien on all knowledge; but if he is not ignorant he should know that we have been opposed to sabotage. To drag in this story of sabotage here is a poor attempt to get out of the difficulty in which they find themselves. Whether a man be a soldier or an ordinary citizen, the State should assist him if he is unemployed. If the Government thinks it is right to ensure employment to the soldiers by means of legislation; we do not object, but we say that at the same time there is a duty on the State to make provision for employment for civilians who are unemployed, all the more so when the Government is resopnsible for the fact that those civilians become unemployed as the result of legislation. That is a moral duty, and if the Government does not do it, it makes itself guilty of what I can only describe as a barbarous act. The Government should therefore realise its duty and steps should be taken at the same time to see that those who are rendered unemployed are taken care of. Some of them are married and have children. They performed work in the interests of the nation. That work had to be performed. There were no other people to do it. They did it. Are we now going to punish them and throw them out of employment?

The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) did the same thing when he became Minister.

Here we are asked to give our approval to this legislation, to approve of this act on the part of the. Government. I say we must realise the consequences. Many of these people will be thrown out of employment. Their wives and children will starve, and they are asked to be satisfied with a vague promise that the Government will take care of them in some way or other. When? How long will they be without a means of livelihood before the Government does anything, if it does anything at all? It is clear that if this Bill is accepted, provision should be made for those people who are thrown out of employment as a result of the action of the Government.

The hon. members of the Opposition are very cocky since Wakkerstroom ….

You talk about “cocky”!

Before Wakkerstroom they would not have made the speech the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) has just made. Then they were all pro-soldier; now they are all anti-soldier, and if they win another election we shall again hear about the “rooi lussie” and the “khaki pes.”

What about the “skunks”?

I was not discussing the hon. member. I was speaking of something quite different.

You know what Blackwell said about the soldiers. He called them “skunks in uniform.”

Who is Blackwell?

He was one of your members. He is now on the Bench.

I have never seen Blackwell on this side, but I have seen black on that side. Before Wakkerstroom they all praised the soldier; now they have won Wakkerstroom through the German vote …

Nonsense.

They have won it on nothing else but the German vote assisted by Weichardt; they are against the soldier.

You are kidding yourself.

The Minister has brought forward a Bill and in introducing it he spoke about the soldiers and he told us what they had done in this country, and what the merchant navy had done, and he told us that this Bill was first for the soldier and war worker in South Africa and secondly for the other man; and the whole of this party and the whole of the country quite agree with that, no matter what our friends over there may say. Coming now to the hon. members opposite, with them the soldier does not come first. They have admitted that the soldier does not come first. I asked the hon. member for Waterberg whether he put the soldier first, and he said he did not. We do. The difference is we put the soldier first, and we will take jolly good care that the soldier is put first.

We don’t put him first or second.

This Bill means that the soldier is coming first. If my friends have their way what would they do? They would take out the gentlemen who are in the internment camps and put them first. They want to put first the people who blew up the Benoni post office and killed people there. They want to put the people who cut the telephone wires first. They want to put the people who sabotaged the war effort when the country was in the gravest trouble first. In fact, they want to put the traitor before the patriot, and that is the difference between us. We stand by this country, they stand by the friends of Hitler; that is the difference. They praised Hitler during the war; they thought he would give them a republic on a tin dish. They also got in touch with Goebbels and asked him on what conditions they could get a republic; our sons were fighting, and their sons were loafing; that is the difference. They were making money out of the war, we were putting our hands in our pockets and paying for the war through the Governor-General’s Fund and other funds.

You are paying for Wakkerstroom.

That is the difference between the Opposition and ourselves. We are going to protect the boys who protected South Africa, and my friend the Minister for Labour—he has been a friend of mine for 40 years—will look after these soldier boys, as he always has looked after them. [Interruption.] I Know my friends are sore.

Wakkerstroom.

One swallow doesn’t make a summer. It will be a very long time before my young clean-shaven friends over there will sit on this side; when they do they will be old, crippled men with long beards, and the more speeches we hear like we have heard from the hon. member for Waterberg the longer they will remain in the wilderness. So I think it is about time we got up and told these gentlemen their fortunes, because the history of that particular party during this war is one of the most scandalous things that ever happened in the history of South Africa. In the republican days, Sir—[interruptions]—they would have been known as National Scouts.

Where were you?

Let my hon. friends ask the widow of Martinus Steyn where I was; let him ask the hon. member for Waterberg where I was, and let him ask the hon. member for Frankfort where I was. All I say is this, that I did my duty to my country, and I was thanked by the President of the Free State. But I am not going to talk any more about that, but I want to say that in this war the members on the other side have played a game which would have been a scandalous game in the days of the republic. We are not going to let them get away with it; when the war is over we are going to deal with the gentlemen on the other side. [Interruptions.] Yes, you can laugh; you see this Bar of the House; some of them will yet appear there. Sir, let me say this, I want my friends over there to read the last co—py

Of Arthur Barlow’s Weekly.

Oh, you all read Arthur Barlow’s Weekly, but I want my friends to read a paper called the “Ossewa-Brandwag” in which the editor says the biggest traitor in the whole of South Africa sits on that side of the House. I can assure my friends of one thing; they are always trying to get these boys out of the internment camps; I have got some out, and I am going to get some more out, and these interned people tell me one thing, that the men who sold us in South Africa are the members of the Nationalist Party. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) mentioned my name as someone who could testify to his whereabouts during the Second War of Independence. I want to say this, that I did not see the hon. member at the beginning at Ladysmith in Natal, nor did I hear of him. After the occupation of Bloemfontein on the occasion we met President Steyn, I did not hear of him either. Nor did I know where he was at a later stage of the war, when we no longer had wagons and tents, and when we needed every fighting man.

Then you are not familiar with the history.

I want to say this, that wherever the hon. member may have been at that time, and to whichever commando he belonged, he did not take an active part.

You know that that is untrue.

I know that it is true. If he took an active part we would have known of it, especially during the last eighteen months when all the fighting forces were needed to fight for those republics. At that time I did not hear the name of the hon. member. He was definitely absent. The fact is that the hon. member stated that we on this side were against the soldiers in the sense that we do not place them No. 1. He is quite correct. We place every Afrikaner on an equal footing, whether he be a soldier, whether he be an ammunition worker, whether he be a factory worker, or whether he be a bywoner on a farm. We say that those people all come first, and not one of them second. The Government owes a duty to all those people, because they are inhabitants of the Union; they are producers; they are Afrikaners. We are not going to discriminate. But I want to ask the hon. member this. Is he going to give preferential treatment to soldiers over and above those people who manufactured ammunition? Must the ammunition workers be thrown out of the factory, upon the return of the soldiers, to make room for the latter?

It is not done by this Bill.

I want to mention a further case. Last week I met a man from Standerton, who enlisted together with his three sons. Last Saturday he, was discharged from the army, and he asked us to do our best to have his period of service in the army extended, because he had enlisted for four years and had leased his own farm for that period, namly up to the end of October. Last Saturday he was discharged and today he is on the street. I have all the details. He was offered a position, in Johannesburg at £26 a month, and he cannot provide for his family on that salary. All he asks is to be kept on until the 1st October.

And what did you do?

Ask the Acting Minister of Defence what I did.

Did you give him something out of your own pocket?

No, I did not, but I did not neglect my duty towards him. Immediately upon my arrival in Cape Town I went to the Acting Minister of Defence and gave him the details. I regard this man as an Afrikaner, and I take the same interest in him as I do in any other person. He did his duty. He lives in this country, and he should not be wronged, as little as I would like to see an injustice done to those who will be displaced from employment by soldiers and thrown on the street. They all come first.

We did not throw any soldier on the street.

I spoke of the people who are displaced from their employment by soldiers, the people who took the places of the soldiers when they enlisted, and who will now be thrown on the streets when the soldiers return. They are left to their fate. We say that there should be no discrimination. If you place the soldiers first we have no objection, but we ask that those people should not be left to their fate. What is to become of them? Some of these men have families; what is to become of them if they are not taken care of? It is now stated that there are other Departments which are taking steps to provide for those people. But are you sure that that is being done?

The hon. member must address the Chair.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say this, that those people who will be thrown out of employment in this way, deserve the Minister’s attention; they ought to know definitely that provision will be made for them. If that is not done what will their feelings be in our country in the future? They will have no confidence in any government, and we therefore make an appeal to the Minister to accept this amendment. In doing so he will create peace in the minds of those people.

Mr. Chairman, I want to say this in connection with the soldiers, we have made a pledge that we will see these men safely established on their return, and I feel very proud of my party for coming forward and bringing in this Bill, and the Minister of Labour too. Hon. members on the opposite side are only sponsoring those who shirked their responsibility. These very people they are coming forward on behalf of today are the people who have been the curse of this country during the four years of war. I say we on this side of the House are prepared to stand by our pledges and see that these soldiers are re-established in their positions. The people whom the Opposition are pleading for today are the people who are shirking behind the men protecting them.

What are you doing?

I have done my share in the past and I was prepared to do so again. I challenge any hon. member on the opposite side to come along with me. I am prepared to do my share and I am proud of it. I did my share in the last war and tried to come forward this time but was unsuccessful. I am prepared to go forward again and I ask one hon. member opposite if he is prepared to go with me. I congratulate the Minister of Labour on this Bill.

I am surprised that the hon. member who has just sat down wants to hold out the workers who sacrificed everything, who enabled the soldiers to go and fight, as the dirt of this country. He ought to be ashamed of himself. Those are people who supported the war effort of the Government heart and soul. They took the places of those people who went on active service, and they are the people for whom we are fighting; now the Minister of Labour, the champion of the labourers of South Africa, refuses to accept a reasonable amendment moved by this side, in which we try to make provision for the security of those people.

You are pleading for the Greyshirts.

Then one gets a member like the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) who holds himself out in this House to be an old Free State burgher. I want to ask him where he was in 1914 when he was a young strong man of 39 years? Did he contribute his share? No, he tried to fill his pockets and today he is adopting the same methods which he adopted at that time. He is helping the prosecutors of the war to fill their pockets, and he has no mercy on the poor men who sacrificed their all.

Where was he in the Second War of Independence?

Where was he as burgher of the Free State?

I shall tell you.

Where were you?

He mentioned the name of the hon. member for Frankfort (Col. Döhne). The hon. member told us that he never knew that such a man existed. It has been proved over and over again that there was no sign of him. The hon. member for Hospital also mentioned the name of the hon. member for Aliwal (Capt. G. H. F. Strydom). The hon. member for Aliwal said to him: “You were such a great republician; why did we never see you?”

He fled as usual.

We on this side are trying to improve this legislation, and then members like the hon. member for North Rand (Mr. Van Onselen) comes along and attacks the workers. He says that those workers represent the dirt of the country. We on this side of the House want to make provision for the employment of every citizen in South Africa.

On a point of order; I did not say that the workers were dirt.

It amounts to to the same thing.

He said they were the curse of the country.

He said that they were the curse of the country because they were sheltering behind the blood of those people who went on active service.

That is what he said.

He must not alter Hansard now.

I want to make an appeal to the hon. Minister. He is a Labourite; he is the Leader of the Labour Party in the Union of South Africa; he is the so-called champion of the workers in this country, and if he does not want to accept this amendment, I want to predict this afternoon that the Labour Party will deal with him, and that will be the end of the Labour Party in this country.

The attitude of the last speaker reminds me of a film I once saw, where two leading comics were showing each other their turns.

Were you one of them?

The hon. member always overshadows me as a comic.

Anyhow you are a good comedian.

May I ask the Committee to consider the Bill now? Certain remarks were made with which I entirely agree, and that is why I want to bring the committee back to the Bill. Hon. members opposite want a new clause to substitute for the present Clause 21.

No, we want a new clause.

Oh, I see, a new clause preceding Clause 21. Well, then, the clause they desire to have is one which relegates the soldiers and the soldiers’ interests and the war workers’ interests to the same place of preference and precedence as the rest of the community.

No, only those who lose their employment through being replaced by soldiers.

Then all this talk they have been pouring out on this clause is so much “flum”. That is the line of argument of every hon. member on that side. What did the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) say: “We want everyone of them on the same level.” The arguments which were adduced in support of this amendment …

Have nothing to do with the amendment.

Precisely. Their real feelings have emerged once more. They are getting back to the same outlook they have had for the last four years ever since the war started; in other words, they are back to their old standpoint, that the soldier is not to have preference.

You are dragging a red herring across the trail.

One can never help noticing that the hon. member is a fishmonger.

Anyhow you are better acquainted with Billingsgate than I am.

Now you can carry on.

Thank you. The honourable and intellectual member for Albert-Colesberg (Mr. Boltman) gives me permission to carry on. You cannot get away from the fact that the whole of the arguments have that trend.

All equal before the law.

Oh, please don’t you get down to their level. I always put you above them. I hope I haven’t thrown the apple of discord among hon. members now. Hon. members over there say that they regard all other citizens as being on a basis of equality with the soldier, so it is perfectly logical for them to move an amendment, the more so as the Select Committee passed a resolution on that point—not as an amendment to this Bill, but a resolution consequent on the passing of this Bill, which was really an instruction to the Government to look after those who might be displaced. There may not be one displaced, of course …

Why don’t you accept it?

What is the object to the Bill other than to put soldiers in and others out?

The Government accepted the responsibility for providing employment for all those who may be displaced. What more do they want? They say they want it in this Bill. What they are really out for is to kill the Bill. The manner in which they have been holding up this Bill all day yesterday with little twopenny-halfpenny amendments is proof positive of their outlook on this question. While pretending that the soldier has their goodwill and will have at least an equal place in their outlook on the economy of South Africa, they are doing their best to make it impossible for the soldier to have the benefit of this Bill.

There is one hon. member there who said that the soldiers ran like Kaffirs.

I am estimating as reasonably as I can the other side’s outlook on this Bill.

Change your interpreter. You don’t understand what we are saying.

So you do want the soldier to have precedence. Do you? I want an answer. They say my interpreter has been at fault. They say I don’t understand what they have been driving at. Then I ask them a question—do you or do you not want to give the soldiers precedence?

We want equal opportunity.

There is the answer. How far out was my interpreter?

We want precedence.

The answer has come direct, from the honourable and always evident member for Beaufort West. But do the others agree with him?

Yes, certainly.

That is all I want—my interpreter is absolved from the charge of bad interpretation, and I am absolved from the charge of not understanding what they were driving at, and all members of this House are now cognisant of their object, and that is not to secure precedence for the soldiers and the war workers, and we have it now in the euphonious terms of the hon. member for Beaufort West—equal opportunity for them all.

No, they want the soldiers to starve.

Well, the hon. member for Hospital has sized up the position correctly—that the soldier is not in their thoughts as an item of preference.

He never has been.

We have it out of the mouth of that babe and suckling in the corner. Now we know where we are. You don’t want to give the soldiers precedence. Well, we do. That is our standpoint, and I refuse to accept the amendment.

I listened to the Minister, and in the course of his speech I asked the Minister of Finance by way of an interjection: “In heaven’s name, cannot you appoint a man as Minister who understands the meaning of words, who can understand what is meant when clear proposals are put to him?” As I listened to the Minister and realised that he never seemed to grasp anything, that he had no sense to grasp anything, it reminded me of what was recently written by someone in regard to the Government. He wrote this of the Government— and it is applicable in this case—

That is what I told them.

It goes on—

The Lord knows. And do you know whose wisdom this is? That is what the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) wrote, the same hon. member who, in a trembling voice, is today trying to defend the Government. Now we can understand why people are sometimes inclined to speak not of “Hospital” but of “Mental Hospital.”

The hon. member must not say that.

It is not often that one can say of the hon. member for Hospital that he sometimes sees the light, but he really saw the light when he wrote this. Let me again put the matter, in the hope that the Minister may understand it. This Bill provides that people may be displaced from employment and that soldiers may be appointed in their places. As far as this Bill is concerned, our attitude is that we do not object to provision being made for returned soldiers. We have no objection to provision being made for returned soldiers, but what we find fault with and resent is that other people are deprived of their employment without any undertaking on the part of the Government to create work for those people. I hope that that has now penetrated into the foggy brain even of the Minister. They are now trying to upset the whole position by advancing the argument that we do not want to give preference to the soldiers. That is not relevant. All that is relevant here is that if the Government provides work for the soldiers at the expense of other citizens of the country, the Government should at the same time take steps to save the other citizens from starvation. The hon. Minister always holds himself out as someone who is more humane than anyone else. He holds himself out as the champion of the poor man, the man who starves and suffers from cold because he is homeless. Has he no sympathy for those people whom he is going to render unemployed, without any means of livelihood, through this act on his part? All we ask in our amendment is that if the Government throws people out of employment, it should immediately provide other work for those people.

That will be done.

There the hon. member again acts as the mouthpiece of the Government that Government which, according to him, has no imagination and no vision and which cannot even provide work to a small number of natives in the Cape Peninsula; that Government which, he prophesied, would not provide for these people.

That will be done.

Honestly, if I were in the position of the hon. member for Hospital, I would henceforth remain silent. That is the only sensible thing he could do. I hope the Minister now understands the meaning of this amendment. Is it not tragic, after this amendment has been moved and after the Chairman had read it in Afrikaans and in English, namely the insertion of a new supplementary clause, and after having debated the question the whole morning, that a Minister of the Crown should still not understand it; that he should believe that we are moving it in substitution of another provision. In heaven’s name, if the Minister cannot understand the debates which are conducted here, if he cannot even understand an amendment when it has been read in English, then we get to the stage when we abandon all hope; and the sooner the Minister carries out the threat which he made yesterday to leave the Cabinet, the better it will be for the country.

I think the hon. Minister will admit that Clause 11 is what one may call the crux of the Bill; it is the most important clause in the whole Bill. It deals with the re-absorption of employees into their former employment, upon discharge from military service. I have before me the report of the Select Committee, and I find that Clauses 10 and 17 were put and agreed to without any oppostion on the part of the Nationalist members on the Select Committee, and that is the whole crux of the Bill; it is that portion which forms the subject of this debate. It so happened that I was not here when Clause 11 was dealt with, but I understand it was not opposed by our side. It is amusing to see how the poor Minister and his lackeys on the other side are grasping at a straw in order to make political capital out of it, and how they drag in Hitler and Goebbels in order to drag a red herring across the trail. I said “equal opportunities”. What do I mean by that? I mean that these people who will be thrown out of employment through an act on the part of the Government, should have equal opportunities of finding re-employment. But the Minister does not want to give them that opportunity. I want to put this question for the third time. The Minister has got up twice and each time he evaded the question. I now demand a reply. For the third time I want to read the resolution of the Select Committee in which he himself took part and in favour of which he voted. It reads—

“At an early date”; and that resolution was adopted on the 4th April. We want to know this from the Minister: He says he cannot incorporate it into this Bill. What is he going to do? Has he or has he not made a recommendation to the Cabinet in accordance with the resolution for which he himself voted? Did he, in view of the resolution, instruct his officials to draft legislation? Why was this resolution adopted on the 4th April? The position is that demobilisation may take place in the near future. We cannot wait until next year. Why does the Minister not introduce legislation? Let the Minister reply now and not evade the question again. What is the Government’s plan; what are they going to do in order to make provision for these people? The Minister states that he did not say that people would be thrown out of empoyment. The Minister should not make such ridiculous statements. He said “it may happen” that people will be rendered unemployed as a result of the employment of soldiers. Clause 11 visualises that certain people will have to make room for the soldiers when they return. We want to know in clear terms from the Minister what he proposes to do.

For the Minister’s sake I should try to speak English.

He only understands Russian.

He admits that there is not any doubt at all that thousands of soldiers left posts in which they have to be reinstated on their return from military service, with the consequence that thousands of people who filled their post temporarily will be replaced and find themselves out of work. For that reason we passed Section 11; there was no question of preference or otherwise. The State had given a promise to the soldiers that they would be reinstated in the positions they had before they signed on. There was no opposition to that. There was no vote against Section 11. That is the principle embodied in the Act, and that principle in Section 11 is the greatest principle of the Bill, and indeed the whole crux of the Bill. There is not a single person in this House or anywhere in the country who does not know that when the soldiers come back to their posts the persons who were holding them will be put out of employment. For the hon. Minister to say they “ may ” or “ might ”—well, there never was any question of “ may ” or “ might ” in the matter. The Minister also admits that it is the duty of the State to make provision for the people who are displaced. His excuse is that the provision should not be inserted in this Bill. The Minister himself voted in the Select Committee for asking the Government to bring in legislation as soon as possible—

Yes. Eersdags.

That was it, immediately. Seeing that is the position then it has to do with this Bill. The Bill is displacing people who are in employment, in order to make provision for returned soldiers, and consequently the Minister must put that in his Bill, because it is one and the same subject. It is an appropriate place because the amendment is in order. If the amendment was not covered by the scope of the Bill I would not be allowed to move it. But it is in order and it is a step which the Government has undertaken to introduce. It is not a question of whether those departments are going to look after it. The Select Committee asked for it to be embodied in legislation, and now we come along to carry out what the Select Committee decided. But the Minister says: No, we want it in another Bill.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, is the amendment proposed by the hon. member in order—

Have you been asleep?

I was not in the House.

I understand from the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) himself that the amendment seeks to insert in a Bill which deals specifically with volunteers and war workers—

Read it.

I am putting the case to the Chairman. Is not the hon. member trying to put something in the Bill that has nothing to do with the war workers at all?

I would like to ask if the amendment is in order.

I have accepted the amendment moved by the hon. member. I refer the hon. member to the provisions of the proceeding section, Section 20.

I am sorry I was interrupted. If the hon. member had been here when I moved the amendment he would have remembered that I specially read the preceding section to show that it was in order.

The resolution that was taken in select committee was to the effect that one or other of the demobilisation committees should make provision for these people. As a matter of fact, it does not fall so much on the demobilisation committee as it falls under the Minister’s own department. In this Bill the Minister makes provision for the displacement of certain people by returned soldiers, and all that the committee decided was that the Government must make provision for those that may be displaced. If the Minister’s argument is sound, that only one or two people will be displaced, or that even none at all will be displaced, he can have no objection to this amendment, since it places no burden upon the Government.

We cannot be sure whether there are or are not a number of people who will be displaced.

If that is so then there is no argument against making provision for them, in spite of the red herrings that have been drawn across the track, such as preference for soldiers and all that sort of thing. I do not believe there is a member of the House who does not agree that the Government should make provision for people who are displaced. The section dealing with soldiers has already been passed and we are merely asking the Government to undertake provision for men who are displaced by returned soldiers. The Select Committee said so and the Minister said so. If the Minister does not agree to this amendment then it means that he has not succeeded in getting the Government to accept the Committee’s report. The report is quite plain that provision should be made by legislation and the Minister himself voted for it. All we want is to put it into this Bill. It is no good telling me this department or the other department is going to make provision for these people when they become workless. I have had experience of the departments in the past when I have come to get employment for people and I have not succeeded. It is no good putting one section of the community into work while another has to go without employment. Many of these people have done useful service. I myself had to give up one of my clerks and had to get someone in his place. If the Minister refuses this amendment he has either not taken the trouble to find out from the Cabinet whether they approved, or the Cabinet has not accepted the report. The Minister must not blame us if we ask whether the Cabinet has decided to make provision for these people or not. The Committee’s report was unanimous, including the Minister, and there can be no objection to putting this in here. I don’t want to say unkind things, but the arguments he has put up to us do not hold water. If the Government is going to undertake this the Minister cannot object to its going int the Bill.

The hon. member always appeals to me and I am always ready to reply because he does always reasonably express his case.

You only reply when he speaks in English.

I am talking to the hon. member and not to you, I am talking to a reasonable person.

Soft soap,

I would not attempt to soft soap you. The hon. member puts up a reasoned case. First of all he reminds me that the Committee unanimously passed the resolution and I endorsed it. That is perfectly true. And because the Committee passed that, they, including myself, desired to set the line of country which the Government should adopt. Now we propose to set our own line, and, in point of fact, we say that the passage of the motion by the Select Committee was entirely unnecessary, because already months before steps had been taken, and were still being taken, in order that we might be prepared to cope with any such disaster as was contemplated.

[Inaudible].

Will the hon. member stop his rot.

Can you never be a gentleman?

That was just an interruption, I am talking to the hon. member for Swellendam. I flatter myself the hon. member and I can get on an intellectual level. The Government proposes to take its own line and I don’t mind telling the House some of the things that are being done. You have your demobilisation planning council who are investigating ways and means because it is no good passing a Bill and hoping to God something will turn up, is it? You have to have ways and means, industries, occupations, and all that sort of thing, not only envisaged, but actually accomplished, before you can pledge to do the work. I am speaking now as one who has writhed under the restrictions of a capitalistic system. If my hon. friend will follow me into the realms of Socialism he could solve this without any difficulty at all. But that is by the way. In view of the limitation which exists we have to have all these things got ready and that is being done. The Bill itself in the immediately preceding clause has provided one of the means, namely, in the form of the Board which we shall appoint under this. It is, of course, not in operation yet. But that Board will have the advantage of a number of schemes. The Public Works Department has already got its scheme involving from ten to twenty millions all ready to be put into operation. The Railways have a very expensive scheme which they will put into operation immediately the war is over. Also the Lands Department, which, however, is not so much a means of placing men in work as of placing people in occupation of land. The Civil Service, of course, in addition to undertaking to re-absord all its own volunteers is being expanded in order that we may employ others who are not already in the Service.

Then the resolution you supported in Committee was quite unnecessary?

The State has made that general provision in its Public Service and I am expecting, in fact, I am sure, that I shall have to extend the personnel of the Labour Department enormously and I am proposing to take as many returned soldiers as I possibly can who are suited to that particular job, so that the resolution of the Select Committee will be accomplished without any Bill, without any Act at all; it is being done already, or anticipated at the present time.

The Minister is treating this matter in an exceedingly frivolous manner; he has been extremely frivolous about the amendment which has come from the Opposition. I point out to you, sir, how he has been frivolous. His first argument was that the amendment was unnecessary because there were only going to be one or two people displaced. He could not say how many who would be put out of employment, but it would be only one or two.

I did not say that.

It was only going to be one or two and it would be quite easy to deal with them, so why bring in an amendment? Then is was proved to him that it was not going to be a case of one or two, but perhaps of hundreds or thousands, and now the Minister says “All right, I will accept that, but other machinery has been created” and he begins to enumerate all these different schemes which he says will absorb these people and therefore legislation is unnecessary. In the first place, legislation was unnecessary because it was only a case of one or two affected and in the second, he said it did not matter how many were affected because there were large schemes which the Government was bringing into being in which these people could be absorbed. I want to ask the Minister, if it is totally unnecessary to have legislation with regard to this matter, why did he vote in Select Committee that legislation should be introduced immediately? Is not that another example of the frivolousness of the Minister? Legislation is not necessary but he is perfectly in favour of legislation being introduced immediately. He doesn’t know what he wants himself. He was Chairman of the Select Committee and he should be able to instruct the Select Committee and to lead it and to tell it if it was necessary for legislation to be introduced, but when he was on the Select Committee, and he saw that probably the majority of the Select Committee was in favour of legislation he was all in favour of legislation—he would help them. Not only would legislation be introduced but introduced immediately. And here he comes to the House and he says: We don’t want legislation. There is no one to legislate about. And then he says there are lots of people to legislate about but my Department has the departmental means to deal with them. One moment we don’t want legislation and the next minute we do, and so on. How can we get anything solid or sensible out of a Minister who treats matters in this frivolous way. What is the Minister in favour of? Is he still in favour of legislation? If not, why not? If he was in favour of legislation before why is he not in favour of it now? Was he playing the fool with the Select Committee or wasting their time trying to satisfy their whims or what was the position? One expects when a Minister takes up an attitude that he is genuine and not that he is playing the fool.

I have listened with some interest to this debate and the thing which struck me most was how a simple issue can be confounded by confused reasoning. The Minister had a very simple issue to deal with. He has dragged in a number of other issues which are not relevant at all. Whether that was an attempt to cover the real position I don’t know.

Red herrings.

I don’t know whether it was done deliberately, but it has been successful so far as he himself is concerned in obscuring the real issue before the House. You have a Bill. As the result of that Bill certain things are likely to happen; let me put it at its high water mark for the Minister. We on this side of the House, and members on the other side of the House too, probably, are concerned about the position affected by this Bill. What we are doing is this. We say you must take into account these possible effects. If you are going to put some people out of their jobs you must see that something is done for them. I don’t think we say that unreasonably.

I accept that.

That was the attitude which the Minister also took up at an earlier stage of the proceedings. Apparently today he is not experiencing the same lucid interval he had when the Committee sat.

Don’t get down to the Sauer level.

Let us take the simple position. Here you have a Bill which is referred to a Select Committee. The terms of their reference are to consider that Bill. In their opinion they consider that a provision of that nature is germane to the Bill. The Chairman of the Committee is the Minister. I must accept it that it was his ruling that this provision is germane to the Bill., and falls within the terms of reference of the Committee.

The Speaker would not allow it to be moved in the Bill— not because it wasn’t germane to the Bill.

It was considered that it was germane, so the Minister has agreed that it is germane to the Bill.

It is a likely effect.

That it is a likely effect, and so likely that the Committee has to take the very serious step of moving a resolution of this kind to bring it before the attention of the Government. That is all accepted. Now the Minister comes and his first argument was, “Well, I know that, it is so, it is all very well but this is not the place for it.” But you, Mr. Chairman, have ruled that it is in order because the title of the Bill says that it is to promote the civil employment of persons who have rendered war service “and matters incidental thereto”. Now this is a matter reasonably to be expected— it is part of the effects of this Bill.

I’m not questioning that.

We are getting on. Now that is the first argument— that it was not germane. The Minister has now apparently abandoned that.

I didn’t say it was not germane.

Well, you said it should not be in this Bill.

That is another matter.

I am arguing that this matter can be appropriately put in this Bill. Will the Minister agree that this is a matter which can be appropriately put in this Bill? We don’t want to split hairs.

I admit it can be put into the Bill. I have never said otherwise.

The first argument has now been abandoned. This is a proper amendment.

I didn’t say it was the proper place.

We should not descend to the level of a school debating society.

That is what you are trying to bring it to. You are making me say that it is the proper place. I say that it can go into the Bill but this is not the proper place for it.

Well, if it can go into the Bill, then the Bill is the place for it. Now let us come to the second argument. The Minister says that it is unnecessary to put it in. He says it is tautologous. He says: “Look at all the wonderful schemes we have.” Some of these schemes may only be dreams, but he makes that point. Now he is admitting that there is a possibility and a strong possibility of persons being displaced as a result of the Bill. He talked about the Planning Council. Let me remind him of the report of that Council. They in their report state that they anticipate that there will be unemployment to the exent of 233,000 after the war, and they say that they have taken all these schemes and dreams of the Government into consideration. They think some of them cannot be carried out. But for argument’s sake they give them full value, and they find that the sum total for whom provision is made is 15,000. That is their report. Now if there are to be 233,000 unemployed and if there are only places for 15,000 under all these schemes which the Minister has put before the House with so much relish, how can we accept that to be a satisfactory position? That is the second line which the Minister is taking. He has tried to get away from the simple position. We say: here is the simple effect of the Bill. We say: We want provision now to give work to some, but we want the others who are as a result deprived of their work to be given employment too. It is not a question of priority, it is not a question of equality; these are matters which are not the subjects of this debate. We have accepted the principle in Section 11 and that is sufficient, but what we are saying now is that where we have to do the one, we have to see that the other is not left undone. If you are going to provide for these people, you have to see that there is also work for those whose places are taken from them. That is the simple issue. It is not a question of priority or equality. It is simply that it is the duty of the Government to see that every person who is employable and has been deprived of his job shall be given an opportunity of finding employment. That, after all, is the basic issue which we are now discussing, and I am afraid we have been led into many by-paths owing to the rather confused reasoning of the Minister, and by this reasoning I am afraid he has made his own confusion on the simple issue, worse confounded, and therefore I hope that even at this stage he will see the light in all its clearness and lucidity which I know he is capable of, if he only gives his attention to it, and tries to divest himself of all these very little side issues which apparently have some emotional effect on him.

Before I call on the next hon. member I want to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that it is not the title of the Bill which governs amendments, but the subject matter of the Bill, that is to say the Clause of the Bill before the Committee, and in this connection I would refer the Committee to the provisions of Clause 20, which has already been passed.

The hon. the Minister is like a fish on a hook, wriggling at the end of a fisherman’s line, and the hook on which the Minister has been caught is this significant resolution of the Select Committee. I have on three occasions spoken to the Minister in Afrikaans, but apparently one can only penetrate his mind if one speaks in English. I don’t do so as a matter of principle when I address a unilingual Minister. But may I once more refer to the Minister to the resolution of the Select Committee in the hope that he will realise what this resolution means. The resolution says: “The committee considers it the duty—” I emphasise the word duty—“of the Government to make provision for the employment of all persons who may be displaced from their employment by the operation of the contemplated law and recommends for the Government’s consideration the desirability of introducing legislation at an early date to provide for such employment.” Now the Minister has taken up the attitude that there may not be any such displacement at all. May I again refer him to Section 11. May I refer him to the title of Section 11 “reinstatement of former employees discharged from military service.” The word “reinstatement” can mean only one thing; if a man is reinstated someone else has got to go out, and the man who goes out is out of employment. That is what the Select Committee had in mind when they voted for this motion.

Wonderful.

I am not as wonderful as the hon. member who writes a letter to himself in Arthur Barlow’s Weekly and tells the world what a good journalist he is. I want to ask the Minister what happened between April 4th and today. I have put the question to the Minister three times, and I now put it for the fourth time. It is no good telling us about a certain line he proposes to follow. We propose to follow our own line. He tells us that months before certain steps were taken. Will he be good enough to tell the House why then it was necessary to introduce this resolution in the Select Committee? Why did he not tell the Select Committee that it was not necessary to introduce this legislation because the Government proposed to take a line of their own. Then there was, of course, the usual reference to the Planning Council. The Minister owes an explanation to the Committee. I hope I speak English sufficiently well to have enabled the Minister to understand my point; at any rate I speak English better than he speaks Afrikaans. Will he tell us what happened between the 4th April and today. The resolution is very plain—that it is the duty of the Government to introduce legislation at an early date. Will he now tell the Committee whether he has reported this resolution to the Cabinet. After all, a Select Committee is a Committee of this House. It is a body which I think carries a certain weight, and when a Select Committee, of which a Minister of the Crown is chairman, passes a resolution, I think it is the duty of the chairman to report it to the Government. If he reported to the Cabinet, what was the reply of the Cabinet; and if the Cabinet agreed with that resolution, why has legislation not been introduced. He has had plenty of time since the 4th April. We do not want to hear about his schemes, and I am afraid we are not prepared to accept the Minister’s assurances that he will look after this or look after that.

I am not giving you any assurances.

I notice that the Minister has consulted the Acting Prime Minister. Is the Acting Prime Minister going to recommend legislation?

You would be surprised to know what I asked him.

Now the Minister has gone to the wrong seat.

He is so confused that he immediately promotes himself to a front Cabinet Bench. I am afraid that as the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) has said, the hon. Minister is trying to treat this in a frivolous manner. We are not treating it in a frivolous manner. We are dealing with tens of thousands of Afrikaners who will be out of work, and if that is a matter for frivolous treatment by the Minister we consider it a very serious matter. Now for the fourth time we ask the Minister is he going to carry out the resolution of the Select Committee. Has it been before the Cabinet, and has he instructed his Department to draft the necessary legislation? I have spoken in English, which I hope has penetrated his mind, and I hope he will be good enough to give us an answer.

The idea that the rather stilted efforts of the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) could penetrate anyone’s mind is too tragic.

Quite right.

Whether the hon. member speaks one language or another he never says anything that could possibly impinge on any intelligent mind. But when the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) said that the Government should provide employment for all, we are in entire agreement. That has always been the policy of the Labour Party and the present Minister of Labour, and we have in fact fought in this House for many years for this principle of employment for all, even when we got very little assistance from the Nationalist Party. The unemployment problem must have been largely originated by the Nationalist Party, and the poor white problem of the country is the legitimate, not even the illegitimate child of the Nationalist Party, and it is something new to find them suggesting that there should be employment for all. What does the hon. member for Fauresmith mean by “ all ”? Does he mean employment for non-Europeans; because it appears to me that the other day he was arguing the other way, and that he wanted nonEuropeans swept completely out of urban areas. We know what attitude hon. members there would apply to non-European volunteers, never mind non-Europeans at present in the country who will be put out of employment by the operation of this Act. I suggest to the hon. member for Fauresmith that this Bill is not the place where you can demand employment for all and no such thing as a Bill to give employment for all is to be introduced into the House. They are just pulling red herrings across the trail.

That is not what the amendment asks for.

The hon. member knows that the words used by the hon. member for Fauresmith were “ employment for all ”. In my opinion the hon. member has more brains than the rest of the Opposition benches put together.

Read the amendment.

Let us consider this question of the alleged displacement during the war or as a result of the operations of this Bill. The great majority of the individuals who will be displaced or who will get the sack because they are now holding jobs held by volunteers, are elderly people who are today drawing pensions. The great majority are obviously pensioners who have come back into the economic field as portion of their war service. A great many are pensioners who were asked to come back by various Government departments, and who were asked by different firms, to stay on when their pensionable age had been reached. Moreover, the majority of persons referred to here are individuals who will not want employment after the war is over. A great many would be only too pleased to give up employment now because on account of their advanced years they find the burden is causing a great strain. Under Clause 20 provision is made for the class of people who one imagines will need some assistance in the finding of jobs when the operations of the Bill are put into effect. The House is agreed in that section that the board can provide technical education for individuals who are displaced by the operations of this Bill, and having given them this technical education the board will attempt to find them jobs. Personally, I think that the reference in this clause to technical education still hardly has the effect of making this particular amendment in order. It may be in order, but it is not intelligible, because here we are planning for the type of man who is a young fellow who had a job, and who went on service. If he is in the early stages of his career he will have an opportunity of taking advantage of technical education, and the board will have to find him some sort of job. I do not know why the Nationalist Party are making such a fuss about it, because there are people who are not prepared to do anything in the interests of the land they talk about so much. There will only be a small number of their friends affected, because in the great majority of cases where the employer released one of his staff to join the army, he substituted the class of man who was not fit to join the army. The class of man I presume the Nationalist Party are out to protect is to be found in the war workers’ provision of this Bill, and it is unfortunate that in some instances the Minister has, or the Government has in an excess of fairness, made provision for war workers in this Bill; because a great many of these war workers who derive benefits from this Bill are men who took advantage of their country’s dire peril, and the generosity of the Government, to obtain six or seven months’ free training from the Government, and then used it to instal themselves in well-paid jobs in the war industry. These men are going to be protected under this Bill. But this is a storm in a teacup. It is one of the prettiest pieces of obstruction we have come across for a long time.

On a point of order, I believe it is the prerogative of the Chair to say whether obstruction takes place or not. I am quite certain if there was obstruction you would immediately put a stop to it, sir.

As long as the hon. member does not say it is deliberate obstruction, he is in order.

I said “prettiest”. It has a political reference behind it. The members of the Nationalist Party still feel that they can divide this country into a further two sections, the people who did their duty during the war and the people who did not, and they still think that the war can be used for their own particular party ends. The fundamental reason why the Minister should not accept this amendment is first and foremost, this Bill sets out to give priority to the returning volunteer, to the man or woman who joined the army and was prepared to fight. I believe the Minister is expressing the view of this House, and certainly the view of this country when he is adamant in refusing to be entrapped—and it is difficult to entrap the Minister of Labour—by any soft words from the other side, into accepting anything which subsequently could be used to interfere with the priority of the service man and woman. If this Bill is not going to ensure priority for service men and women, not only as regards returning to their jobs, but in regard to training and finding occupations, if it is not going to ensure that, the Bill is not worth anything at all. I am glad the Minister has stuck his feet into the ground and I hope he keeps them there and refuses to be ensnared into accepting any amendments of this kind. [Time limit.]

I hope the Minister will go back with me to this Clause for a moment, and that he will not pay any attention to this encouragement in the wrong direction. I want to tell the Minister that the principle in this Bill is whether or not preference should be given to soldiers in reinstating them in their former employment. We have acceded to that. But when the soldier returns to this country and he loses his employment after a year, the Board should make provision for his re-employment, and I want to ask the Minister to read the last portion of Clause 20 with me—

It does not only apply to technical training. It also applies to other facilities for employment. Ás the Bill now reads, the Minister cannot tell me that it only deals with technical training; he cannot tell me that it only deals with the period of one year after the reabsorption of the returned soldier. No, this Board should concern itself with the provision of employment for the soldiers, and we say that it is essential that this amendment be inserted in this Clause; because here it is laid down that the Board must not only concern itself with technical training but with the provision of employment for returned soldiers. It must, therefore, keep itself well informed. Many people will have to be discharged upon the return of the soldiers because they have been occupying the positions of the soldiers; those people will therefore be thrown out of employment. Where could the Minister find better machinery than this Board for the purpose of keeping in touch with those people who will be thrown out of employment as a result of the operation of this Bill? The Minister’s Department should immediately make arrangements to get returns in connection with a number of men who are unemployed.

That will be done.

It is not stated in this Clause, and that is why we move this amendment in connection with the people who will be dismissed as a result of this Bill. Will that be done as far as they are concerned also?

Yes.

What steps are you going to take to provide employment for them? Here we have a Board which will be in touch with all the industries and trades in the country, and if all this work were to be entrusted to the Board, it would be in a position to know immediately how many people are thrown out of employment as a result of the operation of this Bill, and how many men can be placed in employment again. I am very sorry that the Minister allowed himself to be led away from the true contents of this amendment. It is merely complimentary to Clause 20, and if the Minister does not accept this amendment, he must not in years to come, if he is still Minister and when we are faced with an unemployment problem in this country, ask for this type of legislation. The matter should be dealt with at its source, and we want to give him an opportunity of doing so; but he does not want to make use of it. Members have now raised matters which are not relevant at all. The question of preferential treatment for the soldiers is irrelevant. Preference has already been given to them to the extent that they will get back their former employment, and we have accepted that. We are afraid of widespread unemployment in this country, and in our opinion, by means of this legislation, it is possible to control the matter from its Inception. We ask the Minister to look at the matter in that light and not to pay any attention to those members who warn him not to make any concessions. I warn the Minister that if he does not accept this amendment, the time will probably come when he will regret not having done so. In this amendment we instruct the Board to give its immediate attention to the cases of people who are discharged. If it is not accepted, it will simply mean that people will be thrown on the street and disappear all over the country; there will be no control over them. Elaborate machinery will then be required to communicate with them and to trace their history. The Minister can at this stage pass legislation in order to make arrangements with his Department for the whole career of these people to be examined from the beginning, from the time of their discharge until they are re-employed or seek re-employment. That is what we ask, and we say that this Clause gives the Minister an opportunity to get control immediately as far as those people are concerned; but the Minister allows himself to be led into a by-path. We regard this as a serious matter, and not one of politics. It is a matter of principle as far as I am concerned, because I saw what happened after the previous war, in spite of all the promises which were given to the soldiers. They walked the streets and begged and asked us for food, and the very people who encouraged them to go on active service, turned their backs on the soldiers. We want to prevent that. We want the Minister to be acquainted with everyone’s position from the very beginning. We are asked in what wav this matter concerns us. There are numerous people, supporters of this side, who, as a result of pressure which was brought to bear on them by their employers, were compelled to enlist. They did not go voluntarily. We are concerned about everyone, including those people, as well as those who in the meantime have performed the work of the soldiers and who may possibly be discharged. These people will find it very difficult to obtain employment. They were unable to obtain other employment in the past, because the whole of the industry of this country concentrated on the war, and there were limited avenues of employment. These people stepped into the shoes of the soldiers, and they ought to be protected. All we want to do now is to assist the Minister, but he does not want to be assisted. He does not want to accept the goodwill which we have displayed. But the time will arrive when he will regret the fact that he did not accept this amendment.

Proposed new Clause put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—34 :

Boltman, F. H.

Bremer, K.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Erasmus, H. S.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Haywood, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Le Roux, J. N.

Louw, E. H.

Ludick, A. I.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Malan, D. F.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Potgieter, J. E.

St.als, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swanepoel, S. J.

Van Niekerk, J. G.W.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wertn, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Wilkens, J.

Tellers: J. F. T. Naudé and P. O. Sauer.

Noes—67 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Barlow, A. G.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, J. C.

Burnside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Christie, J.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Davis, A.

De Kock, P. H.

De Wet, H. C.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Faure, J. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gluckman, H.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Howarth, F. T.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

McLean, J.

Madeley, W. B.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Prinsloo, W. B. J.

Raubenheimer, L. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard C. F.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Wanless, A. T.

Waring, F. W.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

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

Proposed new Clause accordingly negatived.

On new Clause to follow Clause 32,

I want to move—

1. (33) This Act, in so far as it affects employees, shall apply only to Union nationals.

This Bill as far as employees are concerned, is only applicable to Union citizens. This matter was fully discussed in the Select Committee, and an equal number of votes were recorded, three were in favour of it and three opposed it. The Chairman gave his casting vote against the amendment of the hon. member for Boshoff (Mr. Serfontein). If we take inte consideration the fact that all soldiers who enlisted with our forces are Union citizens …

They can become Union citizens.

They can apply to become Union nationals and they are not excluded. If there were aliens in this country who joined the Union forces, they would apply for naturalisation and become Union citizens, but what we want to prevent is that people who took part in the war in other parts of the world, will have the right to come here and, by reason of the fact that they took part in the war in Russia or China, or wherever country it may have been, claim the privileges of this Act; and for that reason I move this amendment. I am convinced that it is the intention of this House to take care of our own people and our own people only. That is our first duty. Where soldiers fought for other countries, those countries should take care of their own people. We want to take care of our own people; that is our first duty.

Does the hon. member not want to move this amendment in Clause 34.

No, under Clause 33.

I want to support the amendment of the hon. member who has just sat down. You will notice on page 4 that “military service” is defined as follows—

1. (a) whole time service during the war with the defence forces or any branch of the military, naval or air force of any ally of the Union; or
2. (b) service during the war with the mercantile marine of the Union Or of any ally of the Union.

In other words, the soldier for whom we have to provide may be a Chinaman; he may be a Canadian, may be an American; he may be an Australian; he may be an Indian.

Or a Russian.

Or a Russian. They are all our allies. Any person therefore who rendered military service in any one of those forces, whether he be a Russian or a Chinaman, is entitled to come to this country and to demand the benefits of this Act. That is the position under this Bill. All we ask is that the benefits of this Bill should only be given to soldiers who are Union citizens. As the last speaker explained, any person of any nationality who rendered military service with our defence forces, is entitled to become a Union citizen. All the obstacles which formerly existed, by virtue of the fact that residence was required in this country for a certain number of years and similar qualifications, have now been removed. All he has to do now is to make application and he can then become a Union citizen. It was not necessary therefore to insert “soldiers who were Union citizens and aliens who were in military service in this country.” It was not necessary because those people who fought in the Union forces are all entitled to become Union citizens. We now ask that the scope of this Bill should include only Union citizens. Hon. members have told us that they want to give preference to the soldiers. I ask any hon. member in this House whether he is prepared to give preference to a Chinaman or a Russian or even a Hollander over and above a Union citizen. I do not think the Minister ought to have any difficulty; he ought to accept this amendment. It is not a difficult question; nor are these the only people for whom we want to obtain the benefits. The Minister only wants Union citizens to enjoy these benefits; that is quite clear. As far as war workers are concerned, he has already accepted an amendment to the effect that those war workers must have been in the service of our forces, the Union forces. He accepted that in the first definition. This amendment therefore is only in amplification of what has already been provided for. I hope therefore that a long debate in connection with this matter will be avoided by the Minister getting up and accepting this amendment. I recommend it to him; and he has such a high regard for me that he may accept it. I hope the Minister will accept it; I think he will probably do so. I do not want to enlarge on this, until I hear what he has to say. If he is prepared to accept it, further discussion will be unnecessary, and then his Bill will have an easy passage.

I think so much of the hon. gentleman that I do not want to put him in a false position.

Quite a mutual admiration society.

Must you interrupt? It seems to be only necessary for me to rise in my seat and somehow or other I pull a string, and up jumps the golliwog. My hon. friend will appreciate the points when I put them to him. In the first place this amendment will apply to the whole Bill, and it means that the whole of the provisions of the Bill would apply only to Union Nationals. What then would become of the position of non-Union nationals who are employers of labour?

They will become Union citizens because they have served as soldiers.

No. I want to insist upon all employers taking back their men who joined up and went to the front. You have already given me the right to impose a certain quota on employers, but if this Bill is only to apply to Union nationals I cannot make non-Union national employers take these people.

I have an answer to that.

I hope you have. It does not fit in here. I hope that the hon. member will help us to honour our pledge. The Government has frequently given assurances to our Allies that our war measure, part of which is here, will apply to their nationals.

Oh.

Oh, yes.

You would have done it with the Germans.

Most decidedly they would. I made no bones about the position; in my second reading speech I used these words. In reply to the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) I itemised his speech, taking the headings and with regard to the third point he said that the Bill should apply to Union nationals only; and my reply was that it would not. I added—

The non-Union national who is an employer cannot, as I stated there, be allowed to escape his obligations. That was the answer I made to this point on the second reading.

I regret the attitude which the Minister now adopts in connection with this amendment. I cannot see what his difficulty is. We find that it is stated in the report of the Planning Council that after the war there will be 230,000 unemployed people—120,000 Europeans and 110,000 nonEuropeans—and the Planning Council clearly states that the Government has made provision for only 15,000. In other words, apart from non-Europeans, we shall have more than 100,000 unemployed soldiers in South Africa. The Minister now proposes to make provision for a number of Allied soldiers of other countries, of England, Ireland, America or any other Allied country. Hon. members on the other side have stated from time to time that they want to give preference to our returned soldiers over and above other workers. We say that we give preference to our own soldiers before the soldiers of other countries. We definitely give preference to our own soldiers over and above those of England, Ireland, Russia and America.

And Germany?

Any country.

It only relates to those who were in our country.

Let me tell you why we are so concerned about this provision. It is the policy of the Government to import soldiers from other countries — returned soldiers. One need only read the speech which was made by our High Commissioner in London, Col. Reitz, at Belfast in February. There he stated—

That was the policy of the old Nationalist Party.

We are disturbed about this statement by our High Commissioner. Not a single Cabinet Minister has so far stood up and repudiated this statement. The High Commissioner is inviting artisans and mechanics and builders to come to this country, and if they were soldiers—and today that will probably be the case in Belfast— they will come here and receive preference to our own workers. Since we will have 100,000 unemployed Europeans after the war, according to the report of the Planning Council, how can we still give preference to the soldiers of other countries who come here?

How many will come?

Your side says thousands.

How many will come? I have not got the figures here, but more than 6,000 came between 1934 and 1943.

Soldiers?

Artisans who are now soldiers. Personally I think it was even more than 6,000.

Between 1939 and 1944 there were only 50.

Yes, we all know how dangerous and difficult it is to come over during the war. But when the war is over, they will come to this country if they know that South Africa goes out of its way to provide work for the soldiers of Allied countries. Does the Minister think America will pass such legislation? Or Russia? Or England? The hon. member for Hospital is laughing. Let him mention one Allied country which will pass legislation of this kind. I hope we shall not have to debate this clause the whole afternoon or perhaps even two days longer. The Minister can shorten the debate by accepting the amendment, not for my sake, but for the sake of his own common sense, if he has any.

I really thought the Minister would straightaway accept this amendment. I do not think he has anything against it. This attitude which the Minister is now adopting in allowing people who were employed in our factories, while our soldiers went to the front, to be excluded from the provisions of this Bill, is serious enough. He does not want to give them equal rights and make provision for them. They are to be pushed aside. But he is quite prepared to include people from other countries. If Russians had come here and fought for the Allies, they would be entitled to the benefits of this Bill.

They are not here.

They will be able to enter the country, and they will learn of the existence of this legislation in terms of which they are entitled to certain privileges.

Not Russians; they are too happy in Russia.

And what about Chinese and people from other countries? We say that it is our duty to take care of our own people first. The Governmet wants to give the soldiers first claim, but we say that everyone should be treated alike. We cannot allow people from other countries to be given preference to our own people who are excluded under this Bill. We are perturbed about this matter. It is an injustice towards our own people, whether they be English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking. We make a serious appeal to the Minister and to the United Party as such to the Acting Prime Minister and to every member in the House. Do they think we would be taking the right step if we passed the Bill in its present form; and if a number of people who are imported after the war are to receive preference to our own people? There are many countries which have been devastated, and the people will want to get away from those countries; and if they fought for the Allies, they will fall under this Bill.

They are not fighting here.

Of course they do.

I make an appeal to hon. members not to treat this matter lightly. It is of vital importance to our country. We must protect our own people. Let the Minister accept this amendment.

I should like to say something in connection with this Bill. I am really distressed to think in view of the fact we all work in the interest of South Africa, at the different arguments put forward since yesterday. The last point brought forward is that we must take every precaution with regard to our own soldiers. As a South African, I am so proud of the South African soldiers, and I know their capabilities so well, that I am not afraid that any man, wherever he comes from, will outdo them. I am quite satisfied that our soldiers have shown their metal all over the world, and when they come back to their own country they will prove that not only have they hold their own on the battlefield but they can hold their own in the normal activities in the country. I say, Mr. Chairman, that we should take every precaution with regard to our own men so that when they come back they should get their chance in life after the service they have rendered for five years and more. Every precaution is being taken to safeguard the welfare of our brave boys who are now at the front. The Russians have been mentioned. I don’t think the Opposition need worry about the Russians because I don’t think they will come to this country; what they have been doing on the battlefield will keep them in Russia. We have heard further about the Chinese coming to this country and taking the white man’s place; I say it is a downright shame that things like that should be brought forward in this House. We shall always see that the white man gets his rights in his country. My hon. friends on the opposite side are perturbed about the law. They are not perturbed about the law really but they are perturbed about the political situation in this country. They talk about the Wakkerstroom election, but I want to say that it took them twenty years to gain four more votes than they did in 1924. If it takes them twenty years to get four more votes it will take them thousand years to get a Republic in this country.

With leave of the Committee, the new Clause proposed by Mr. J. H. Conradie was withdrawn.

Mr. Chairman, what I am perturbed about is the trouble that has just come from the loud-speaker. He got up to talk about this amendment and he ended up with Wakkerstroom. Wakkerstroom must be a nightmare to him, the same as Zoutpansberg was. I listened to the Minister and I am speaking to him in English because I want him to understand. He raised the case of Hollanders who were in service in this country and who were not Union Nationals, and consequently were taken in Holland’s Military forces. I am prepared to give him that and I am prepared to move as an amendment the following—

1. (33) This Act, in so far as it affects employees, shall apply only to Union nationals or to aliens who were employed in the Union at the time they entered military service.

It does not touch the employer.

Yes, it does, that is the point.

This is only applicable to Union Nationals or foreigners who were in service in the Union when they undertook military service. Military service is described in the Act. So as far as this amendment is concerned it meets the Minister’s difficulty. I feel that we have gone a long way out of our way to meet the Minister and he must understand that we, on this side of the House, are prepared to accept the obligations as far as Union Nationals are concerned and also the foreigners who were in service here. But he cannot expect us to leave the Act as it is because, no matter what arguments they use, the Act is applicable to the whole world so far as the Allies are concerned, so that any Allied soldier, whether Indian, Chinaman or Russian is dealt with. This amendment makes it quite plain as far as Union Nationals or anybody else is concerned. If he was in employment in the Union at the time he went into Service then he is entitled to the same rights as far as reemployment is concerned as our own Union National. I don’t see how the Minister can put up any objection to this.

I have discussed this with my advisers, legal and economic, and there seems to be a considerable difficulty as to whether it is not clumsy, whether it meets all the points and whether it is likely to have any implications in the Bill. I am prepared, if the hon. member will agree, to discuss it with him, with the legal advisers and the head of the Department to see whether we can come to an agreement at the report stage. I don’t promise that we will accept this amendment, please acquit me of making a definite promise because we may not be able to evolve anything. If this is not accepted I must refuse now.

I am prepared to give this to your advisers and go on with the rest of the Bill. They can say if there is anything wrong, but I would prefer the hon. Minister to accept this now and if the wording is not exactly right he can have it altered.

I cannot fathom the implication.

The Minister knows in the report stage I have not got the facilities to discuss the matter that I have at this stage, and I think it is unfair of the Minister to expect me to give up my privileges.

I don’t want to keep the House more than a minute, but quite a number of Hollanders, now soldiers, came to this country and worked themselves up to be small employers. They have lost everything. They will be coming back to this country, no longer as employers but will have to take employment. I don’t know how many there were but it must have been about fifteen hundred or two thousand. They have lost everything and this amendment will cut them out.

I hope that there is no difference of opinion in regard to the meaning of this Bill in this connection, namely, that as the Bill now reads, any person who served in the army of the Allies — whether he is an Englishman, whether he served in the army of England, in the army of the United States, of Holland, of Brazil, Mexico, Greece, France, China, India or any other Allied country—will be entitled to the benefits of this Clause; special provision will be made for employment for him in South Africa.

Why are you not being honest; at whom is this amendment aimed?

If it will satisfy my hon. friend …

I know what the implications are; you are aiming at the R.A.F.

As it reads, it includes soldiers of every country. If they came to South Africa they would fall within the scope of this Bill. This amendment tries to prevent that. As the Bill now reads it does not only mean that people who were employed in this country are to be re-absorbed; the Bill goes further than that. In Clause 19 of the Bill it was laid down that the Minister may proclaim certain categories and areas where employers have to employ a certain quota of ex-soldiers, and an ex-soldier in terms of this does not necessarily mean a person who was a Union citizen; it may be people from other countries who entered the Union. If that quota is laid down, the employers will be compelled to give employment to Canadians, Australians, Americans, Russians and Poles. The employer would then be compelled to throw his own Union citizens out of employment and employ those people. That is the effect of this Bill, and that is why the amendment of the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) is so relevant, namely that this Bill should only be applicable to Union subjects or people who were employed in this country at the time of their enlistment for military service.

Or employers.

When we speak of “ employers ”, it means that if there are alien employers in this country, the Minister cannot compel them to employ their portion of the quota.

What about the Hollanders?

The hon. member is very concerned about the Hollanders. Now all of a sudden he wants to defend the rights of the Hollanders because they were forced to go on active service. I want to put this question to him: Is he more concerned about the alien who was not naturalised in this country, or is he more concerned about the Union citizen who in this case will have to make room for aliens? Under Clause 19 the Minister may compel an employer to discharge Union citizens and to appoint aliens.

That applies to the man who did not go on active service.

Exactly. Now the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) wants to allow Union citizens to be thrown on to the streets in order to make room for aliens who entered the country.

You know that is not true.

That is so. Look at Clause 19. We must not be told now that not many people will come to this country after the war. On the one hand we are told that we need not be concerned because not many people will come to this country; on the other hand we are told that when the war is over thousands and tens of thousands of people will come to South Africa.

Where would they come from?

From every country throughout the world. Assuming they came from England, would the hon. Minister or the hon. member for Hospital expect me to vote for a Bill under which people of our own flesh and blood will be rendered unemployed in order to provide work for the soldiers of other countries?

There is more than enough work overseas.

Time and again we have to listen to the nonsense of that hon. member. He now states that there is more than enough work to keep the people overseas occupied. He himself wrote that after the war thousands and thousands of people will come to South Africa and that that will mean the end of the Nationalist Party for all time. That is what he wrote in his own little newspaper. We were told that when the war is over so many English-speaking people would come to South Africa that it would mean the end of the Nationalist Party.

Who said that?

You.

Nonsense.

I want to protest most strongly against people of my own flesh and blood, Afrikaners, Boer sons, apart from Englishmen—the English people can defend themselves; I am defending the members of my own race and of my own flesh and blood—being thrown out of employment in order to make room for an American or a Russian or a Pole or a Chinaman.

Or a German. Only the other day you wanted to be under the Germans.

The Nationalists do not want to be under anybody. The Nationalist wants to stand on his own feet. It is only the S.A.P. who continually wants to be under other nations. We want to stand on our own feet; that is why we are Nationalists. That is the difference between us and the S.A.P. The Nationalist wants to look after his own people in the first instance; the S.A.P. is more concerned about Canadians, Australians, Chinamen or Russians, and they want to give preference to those people.

Do not forget the Maoris; they are also coming.

If that did happen, my hon. friend would be happier. He would be happy amongst them. He does not always feel at home amongst the citizens of this country.

You can also ask De Valera to come.

I hope the Minister’s advisers—it is no use talking to him—will make him realise that the amendment which was introduced by the hon. member for Swellendam is a reasonable amendment and that it ought to be accepted.

The hon. member for Swellendam certainly didn’t cover the Minister’s amendment. This Bill not only affects employees, but employers as well. It is quite clear from the amendment by the hon. member for Swellendam, what he wants to get at and I want to ask the Minister not to come to any arrangement whatever with the Nationalist Party, but to refuse to accept its amendment. I don’t feel this House is justified in leaving any loopholes. The Nationalist Party realises what are the implications of the amendment, and it is peculiar that they are prepared to accept what the hon. member for Swellendam described as Union Nationals and the other people as “foreigners”. What he means is “Union Nationals’ and aliens. Now if we make this applicable to Union Nationals and aliens, we exclude British subjects with less than two years’ residence in this country, and that is the implication they are after. I myself have signed on British subjects who have served a few years in the Palestine Police. They preferred to sign on in the South African Army rather than go back to England; some have been decorated, and many have gained considerable promotion in our Defence Force. But they haven’t got this two years’ residence which makes them Union Nationals. I don’t know whether the Government proposes to pass a Bill to rectify this, but the position now is that they can only remain here on discharge they get a permit. That is only one instance—possibly we could find a great many more. If they return to this country and are discharged, then merely because they haven’t got the two years’ residence, they would — under this amendment—not come under the benefits of this Bill, despite the fact that they have fought for several years in the Union Defence Force. I have signed on many of these men—many of them are now with that very fine body, the Sixth Division. They were the men who learned fighting in the Palestine trouble —many of them from the Guards Regiments. Now there are a number of other cases as well. Quite a number of British subjects landed in this country from various parts of the world, and rather than go back to England they were prepared to join the Union Defence Forces, and they have done so. This amendment seeks to eliminate these men from the provisions of this Bill. A large number of Rhodesians have joined the Union Defence Forces. This amendment seeks to prevent them from gaining from the provisions of this Bill.

It is not so; you are wrong.

It is so. This says a Union National or an alien. Now a British subject with less than two years residence is not an alien.

Well, what is he?

He is a British subject. How can a British subject be an alien?

You can only be a British subject if you are a “homo sapiens”.

Well the hon. member is far away from that. He is showing more and more of an ape-like origin. The hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) will, I am sure, admit as a lawyer that what I say is correct. If you are not a Union National you are not entitled to a vote—if you are a British subject in this country with less than two years’ residence, you are not a Union National but you are not an alien. An alien is someone who is not a British subject and is resident here without being naturalised. This amendment is a very subtle and clever one. The hon. member who introduced it knew its implications, and it was introduced for the purpose of trapping us into something for which we would be very sorry, and it would constitute a very grave act of disservice to the people who were prepared to join and who joined sometimes in a very important capacity the actual service of the Union. The amendment was sprung on us very suddenly. But we are not so very simple. The case has been argued by the hon. member for Waterberg as if this were an immigration Bill and not a war workers’ employment Bill. The poistion is simply this. That the Bill will only apply to individuals who have served in the Union Defence Force.

Why don’t you say it in the Bill?

Hon. members should read the definitions of the Bill and not read things into it which are not there. Read the definition of “service” and you will get a little understanding. The Bill is not meant to apply to the Free French Forces or to the British Army. The Bill is not intended to apply to all the soldiers in the British Empire, to members of the Australian Expeditionary Force or the Canadian Expeditionary Force …

Of course it does.

It would be impossible for these people to come here under our immigration laws, and I see nothing in the Bill to alter the immigration laws. The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) has been trying to make our flesh creep with talk about Chinese. Does he think they will be allowed to come to this country? Does he not remember that there was a riot here the other day when Chinese broke up a café because of a refusal to serve them?

You don’t seem to be aware that Chinese are Europeans in terms of the liquor law.

That does not alter the immigration law. Presently we shall have the hon. member suggesting that they become Europeans in terms of the Noxious Weeds Act.

That will mean eliminating the Government.

It would mean, I think, that you would not be here. The implications are there. We are trying to do an injustice to a number of individuals who have served South Africa well, on the assumption that some terrible immigration tragedy is going to occur. The hon. member suggests it is possible for Chinese to invade this country and Russians to come here in large numbers, and Mexican—why he brings up the Mexicans I don’t know. The thing is ridiculous. The acceptance of the amendment would be a very dangerous thing. I have pointed out one or two of the implications, and there are probably a good many more. It is aimed primarily I think at the British subject who is not a Union national and who has rendered service in our Defence Force, and as such I think the Minister should have nothing to do with it or give it any further consideration.

I think there may be something in what the previous speaker has said in reference to British subjects who have come out to South Africa and who have lived here, though not for two years, and who have not become Union citizens. I want to suggest that the proposer of the amendment should substitute “foreigner” by “citizen of the Union”. In this way the Bill would only be applicable to Union citizens, and to nonUnion citizens who were living in the Union at the time they joined the Army. In that way I think the objection that has been raised by the hon. member will be met. The first important question is what is stated in this Bill? I do not think there can be the slightest doubt on that. Clause 19 says:

Consequently the Minister can give instructions that the employees in a specified industry or area must give employment to persons who have rendered military or war service. What is military service? “Military service” is thus defined in the Bill:

1. (a) whole-time service during the war with the defence forces of any branch of the military, naval or air force of any ally of the Union; or
2. (b) service during the war with the mercantile marine of the Union or of any ally of the Union.

Thus it may be soldiers or sailors or others who have rendered military service, not with our defence force, but also with other armies, whether they were previously in South Africa or not. “War service” means—

It is perfectly clear from the definitions that this Bill as it stand applies equally to those who have served in the defence forces of the Union, and to those who have served in the army or mercantile marine or who have done any other military service for any of the Union’s Allies. Thus it opens the door wide to people from outside the Union who have come to the Union and owing to this must be assisted by the Union Government and who, if necessary, can be compulsorily placed in the service of employers. I should like to say that as the Bill stands here it means nothing more nor less than that the Union Government is going to assume obligations that are really the responsibility of other nations. They have taken these people into military service, they have been in the navies and armies of other nations, but they come to South Africa and then our Government makes itself responsible for them. Have we not done enough for other nations in this war? Has not £300,000,000 already been expended by us in connection with this war? The question is now whether we have to accept the responsibility for what is really the duty of other nations. Have we to look after the sailors or soldiers of other countries? I think that is something absolutely unusual and unheard of. But it would also be in conflict with what has been laid down, if the reports are correct, at the discussions at the Imperial Conference in London. The matter of immigration was discussed there. This legislation is tantamount to State-aided immigration. We are providing positions for these people. The question of immigration was discussed at the Imperial Conference, and there was in general a sympathetic attitude on the part of various Dominions, but New Zealand, I believe, and South Africa stated: “We take no responsibility on our shoulders for any people who come from overseas, we must first look after our own soldiers and our own people.” That is the attitude that was taken up there and, if the Bill is going to stand as it is, it is in conflict with what is stated to have been the attitude at the Imperial Conference in London. If we allow this Bill to remain as it is it signifies nothing less than state-aided immigration, and up to the present all the responsible parties, however much they have been at times in favour of immigration have set their faces against State-aided immigration. Consequently this is going to be a departure from the principle. But there is more in it. I ask, if we are going to let the Bill stand as it is, how is it going to affect not only the soldiers in this country who have to be assisted—and there are great difficulties in providing work for them—but how is it going to affect the crowds of unemployed who apparently will appear in our streets after the war? Are we to understand that the Labour Party is in favour of such a measure. While I was Minister of the Interior I had to deal with immigration, and at that time I received deputations from the Labour Party, from leaders of the Labour Party time and again, and amongst other things they said to me: “Here at the Mount Nelson Hotel they are importing people from outside the Union who are doing work in the hotel and they have come to compete with people in our country; you must prevent this.” And at that time we took measures designed to prevent it. The Labour Party was also strongly opposed to the importation of labour from outside, whether Chinese or natives from Portuguese territory, or also Europeans. They wanted to protect their own employment here. By letting the Bill remain as it is we are opening the door for numbers of soldiers who have merely called at Cape Town, and who have thought this would be a beautiful country to live in after the war. Or take members of the R.A.F. who have been here for a time and who have decided to come to our country. Under this Bill the responsibility will be on our Government to ensure that they obtain work, and they will have to be given preference over our own children. [Time limit.]

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition in a pious and pompous way has endeavoured to put up a case here; he has set up a lot of skittles and knocked them down. Where are these people coming from who are coming here after the war? The hon. member quotes what the Prime Minister said overseas, but he forgets to say that the Prime Minister made the statement that the men who worked in this country, the soldier, the R.A.F., would also be taken into consideration. It is on account of the few R.A.F. boys who have worked in South Africa that our friends are making all this fuss. They know that the Russians won’t come here, nor will the Mexicans, nor will the Americans; we may have a few people from Holland and a few from England. At the conference to which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has alluded, it was stated that there are not enough English people to go away, and Australia and New Zealand were most, disappointed with the position, because England said: We want our own young men here. So the trouble is we are not going to have too many people coming from overseas, but not enough. That is going to be our trouble. I warn the Minister about the danger of accepting this amendment because it will mean that these men of the Royal Navy who protected our shores during this war who are not Union Nationals, who have married South African girls, as many of them have and want to live in this country, they will be kept right out as foreigners. These boys in the Merchant Navy, they will be kept out altogether, and surely that is not the policy of our party, at any rate, I hope not. We want to welcome these men to this country, we want to get as many of them as we can, and we want to follow the lines laid down by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, General Kemp, who said that every man who wanted to come here and take up land, even if he were not a Union burger, should be welcomed. You don’t have to be a Union National to get land in this country. That was the policy of the old Republic who said to immigrants: “If you want to become a farmer we will give you the land.” When my hon. friends talk about the English war I want to ask them if that policy had not been carried out what would have happened to Englishmen who fought for us. What would have happened to the Oudstryders who came from other countries and fought for the Republic? My friends know well enough some of the men I am referring to.

Some of them were great heroes and great South Africans and they would have been left out, they would have been told: “You cannot have this because you are not a Unie-burger.” The Republics took up the line that these people had fought for them and they at once became entitled to all the privileges of burgers. One of my own uncles was treated in that way. The Republic said: “If you were fighting with us and you were one of our allies we will treat you like one of ourselves.” Many of them became members of the Volksraad. My friend the hon. member for Fordsburg, was right when he said the Opposition were not worrying about the rights and wrongs of these people, what they are trying to do is to destroy’ the Bill, one of the best Bills that has ever come before Parliament. That is what the hon. member for Piketberg, with his unctuous rectitude is trying to do, he is trying to destroy the soldier’s Bill and nothing else. If the Minister accepts this he will be preventing men of the British Navy, the Mercantile Marine and the R.A.F., who want to live in this country, from getting all the help and assistance that is possible to be given them. These people saved South Africa and we are not going to let them down no matter what the Opposition say. The Nationalists are the friends of the Germans and we are the friends of our Allies. Let us take no notice of the Opposition; this is just a subtle amendment to destroy the Bill.

I hope the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) is now satisfied that there are no sinister motives in the particular wording of this amendment. I hope he has satisfied himself that there is no sinister attempt to exclude British people who are fighting in this war from these benefits. I want to point out a slight discrepancy in the argument of the hon. member. He has argued at considerable heat, but I do not know whether he has always argued with sufficient knowledge of the contents of this Bill. I want to refer the hon. member to the definition of “ military service He says this is an empty bogy, that people from other countries can come in, but the definition of “ military service ” includes service in any of the forces, land, sea or air forces of any ally of the Union.

Why not?

If the hon. member had intelligence enough to understand my argument he would not put a silly question like that. The hon. member for Fordsburg is apparently labouring under the misapprehension that this Bill only refers to people who are fighting in the forces of the Union, but the definition of “ military service ” is much wider than that. If we are going to say that we will give a guarantee of employment, and even preference in employment, to people who have fought on the Allies’ side in other countries, like China, Peru, or Russia, then it means that this Bill is actually being translated into an immigration encouragement Bill. That is the point that the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) has tried to make, and I don’t know whether the member for Fordsburg has appreciated the point. If we are going to say to anybody who has fought on the side of the Allies, under any banner, as long as it is one of the Allied nations “ Come to South Africa, and we are going to give you the benefits of this Bill”, then it means that you are encouraging immigration on an extensive scale.

Surely that is subject to the terms of our Immigration laws?

No, there is nothing to prevent him from coming here, except if he comes from certain countries, but there is nothing to prevent a Russian from coming here. He can come here and is guaranteed employment at the expense of the Union National who has remained in the country. That is what we are objecting to. This is nothing less than State-aided immigration. We are saying to any person, not only to any person from the United States, England or France, but we are saying to anybody who has fought on the side of the Allies, “ Come to South Africa, we guarantee you employment here, and not only do we guarantee you employment, but we guarantee you preference over the citizens of South Africa who have not fought in this war ”. In this Bill, we go further, and say we are prepared to throw out of his job a Union National and put the immigrant in his place. In the guise of this innocentlooking Bill we are really attempting to introduce State-aided immigration. That is what we are objecting to. We know that a regulation has been passed by the Minister for the Interior saying anybody that has fought with our forces need not satisfy the two years’ residence requirement in order to become a Union National. We also know that the Minister of the Interior, whether the present incumbent or his predecessor, has now reduced the fee that is payable from six pounds to one pound. In other words we are making Union Nationality cheap for those people who come and become Union Nationals, those who have been fighting on our side.

Is the Union side your side?

I am afraid, Mr. Chairman, that the sundowner hour is affecting the intelligence of the hon. member. I say these people who have been fighting with the Union forces, if they want to come and stay here, can be Union Nationals; there is nothing in their way, and those who have been fighting with the Union forces and with other Allied forces, we say we are prepared to meet them if they were resident in the country at the time they entered military service, but we say we are not going to throw our doors open to returned soldiers from everywhere in the world; we are not going to make South Africa the market place while we have in this country three hundred thousand people who are living under the breadline and when we have a report like that of the Planning Council which says that after the war there will be unemployment to the extent of 233,000, and when we know that the schemes of the Government can only find employment for 15,000. In these circumstances we say it would be nothing short of a crime to South Africa to allow other people to come in and keep our own flesh and blood out of the jobs that ought to be their rightful heritage in this country. This Bill is not such an innocent thing as it appears at first sight. I hope the Minister will appreciate the seriousness of the situation which the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) tried to explain. We are prepared to meet these people who were resident in this country when they joined military service. Let them come and have all the benefits of the Bill, but we are not prepared in the circumstances to throw our doors open to invasion and encourage other people to come here by what is nothing short of a scheme of State-aided immigration. We are not prepared to lend countenance to that. And I want to appeal to the Minister once again not to go to that length. I think he would not be true to the professed traditions of the party to which he belongs, if he were prepared to exclude the South African worker in favour of an alien worker on the mere ground that he was fighting in some other country on behalf of the Allies. I hope he will be prepared to give a positive content to the phrase “ a Union National ”. We don’t want it to be an empty phrase, but we want to have something which is an encouragement to people to be South African Nationals. Something of which they are rightly proud. We are prepared to make an exception with regard to these people who were resident in this country and joined up, but beyond that this Committee would be very unwise to press the matter.

I am not impressed with the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges). He admits that he was wrong in regard to the Immigration Act. I still say that the position of South Africa is adequately safeguarded by the provisions of the Immigration Act, quite apart from what our view on the subject may be. I know we have large numbers of British troops and members of the Royal Air Force who have been stationed here for a number of years, and I know that these men were in South Africa for the defence of South Africa. They were here at a time when there was a danger of South Africa being attacked by somethingin the nature of a battle cruiser squadron from Japan. Yes, for seevral months there was that danger, and the only defence we had was the defence of the British Navy stationed along our coasts, and similarly we had to depend on the personnel of the R.A.F. and to a lesser extent the personnel of the British Army. I have no fear of thousands of people being rushed here. That is so much bunkum. If the hon. member for Fauresmith will look at his Hansard he will see that the Labour Party moved an amendment to a proposal that it was necessary for South Africa to have a large-scale immigration— and the effect of the amendment was that such immigration should only take place five years after the cessation of hostilities. We realised that it is our job to re-employ our own people first. So we had every possible precaution enshrined in the Immigration Act. This Act lays down under what circumstances people can come here, it lays down certain quotas, and it was supported very strongly by hon. members over there who were then members of the Nationalist Party. It is very difficult even for a British subject to get into the Union, and British subjects are even denied permanent permits to reside here, and in some instances this is a disgrace. People who are giving of their best are denied permanent permits and are kept from period to period. So I can assure the hon. member that the Immigration Act does not encourage immigration, but that it acts the other way. Hon. members will agree that we do need in South Africa a very strong infiltration of European blood. The figures we have had show that very clearly. If we have to depend on the Europeans we have here we shall be overwhelmed. So far for my own part—I haven’t consulted my colleagues—I am hoping that the provisions of this Bill will be extended to members of the British Forces be they Naval, Air Force or Military, who have been resident in South Africa for a period at least which would entitle them to be Union Nationals. If a British subject comes here merely to better his position, and he gets a job here, he automatically becomes a Union National after two years. But if he comes here to defend the country and he resides here for four or five years he does not become a Union National.

He came here to train. South Africa has never been attacked.

Let me tell hon. members that this country was in very serious danger of being attacked.

Then why did you send 100,000 men out of the country?

The hon. member’s military knowledge and even his inclinations in the defence of his country are nonexistent. Well the Nationalists may insist as much as they like on the insertion of this amendment, but I trust the Minister will have nothing to do with it. But if it were inserted I think there are a great many in this House who would then insist that the men who have come to the Union, who have assisted us in its defence, should automatically become Union Nationals after two years and perhaps that will be a solution. Let us ask the Minister to introduce an amendment to let these people who have been here more than two years become Union Nationals. Hon. members opposite fear that some of these men who have spent some years here may wish to remain. Many of them have almost become South Africans and the great fear of hon. members is that these men may get some kind of consideration under the Bill. I don’t think that has been intended so far. These men could not be discharged here except with the consent of the British authorities. In the meantime I say this, that any scheme whereby the provisions of this Bill were made applicable to the men who have served in the Union of South Africa in the British Imperial Forces for a number of years—any suggestion that these provisions should be extended to them would I feel sure meet with the utmost approval of the men and women fighting in the Union Defence Force. And their opinion is worth a great deal more than the opinions of the cowards who will not fight for their own country.

The argument from the benches opposite comes down more or less to these two points. In the first place they say: “We are not afraid that as a result of this measure people will come here from abroad on a large scale and obtain work under this Bill,” because they say there are immigration laws to prevent that. Does that constitute a safeguard for us? Of course not. I repeat that of late we have read in the Government newspapers time and again how after the war there will be large scale immigration to South Africa. If those newspapers are interpreting the attitude of the Government, then immigration legislation is of absolutely no significance at all when it comes to protecting ourselves. Of course they can say that they are not responsible for what is published in the newspapers. But we have seen it not only in their newspapers. We have the case of Col. Deneys Reitz, who is the Government’s spokesman in England. You will recall how a few weeks ago, in England or Ireland, he announced to the world that after the war there would be such an extension of South African industries that we will require thousands and thousands of skilled workmen, and he actually gave them an invitation in advance to immigrate to South Africa. The other argument is this. Yes, they say, our amendment is merely aimed to exclude from the benefits of this Bill those R.A.F.’s who saved South Africa from destruction. And then they go so far as to say that those R.A.F.’s defended South Africa while other people were too faint-hearted to fight for their own country. I should like to review that position, the allegation that the R.A.F.’s saved South Africa. South Africa was to have been attacked and the R.A.F.’s were to have saved our counry. If it is the case that South Africa ran this danger, then the Government were committing an offence in sending the whole of our army abroad and in leaving us dependent on the protection of a bunch of R.A.F.’s. Have you ever heard anything so childish? The Government sends the whole of our fighting forces out of the country, and then a bunch of R.A.F.’s are sent to this country to protect it. It is nonsensical that only a befuddled mind like that of the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) could think of it. It is the first time that I have learned that South Africa really was in danger and that there was a force here to protect South Africa. Now I am beginning to see daylight, and this is what stands out. I have never had been able to understand on what grounds these drawers of double salaries have salved their consciences, but we have it now; these people who rendered military service, the hon. member for Fordsburg, the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) and the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter) and a few others besides stood in the forefront of the battle together with the R.A.F. and saved South Africa from destruction.

You can’t talk.

The hon. member for Springs had not the courage to fight even here himself.

I have never yet done anything to help Hitler.

He ought to remain perfectly quiet. Now I can understand why these people were prepared to draw double salaries. They were always under the impression that they stood shoulder to shoulder with the R.A.F.’s to save our country from destruction.

What right have you to talk.

Tell us about the fowl with its neck off.

When our friend talks he always talks from the neck down. We do not hold that against him.

He will lose that yet.

The R.A.F.’s did not come to South Africa to defend South Africa, but to undergo training. All the R.A.F. camps in South Africa were never designed for the organisation of a force to defend South Africa, but the men were sent here to be trained, just as they were sent to Canada to be trained there. Will the hon. member for Springs, or the hon. member for Fordsburg maintain that they were sent to Canada to protect that country? He will never have the nerve to state that. Those R.A.F.’s who have come to South Africa have been sent here for training before being sent abroad to fight. I say again that we are not prepared to allow citizens of the Union to remain unemployed while soldiers from England are given preference in regard to work in South Africa. It is inhuman. Work in South Africa is not so abundant that it can be provided for all. We are learning now time after time from soldiers in the Union, we see letters in the newspapers, and we obtain letters from soldiers wherein they say that after being demobilised they walk round the streets unable to find work. That is not being contradicted. Just imagine, that is already the position. Our own soldiers are walking the streets and are unable to find work.

That is a consolation to you to read that, is it not?

It is not a consolation; it is a deplorable position. I am not referring to those who remained on the home front, but to those who received promises, and who then went to fight and who now have to walk round without work. On top of that the Minister wishes to throw the doors wide open to soldiers from other countries who will have to obtain a preference. They will be able to come here and compete with our own soldiers, and if there is not work for all many Union soldiers will have to take a back seat for a R.A.F., or a Canadian, or a Mexican, in respect of work that is obtainable here. What has become of commonsense when a number of members allow themselves to be led as lambs to the slaughter by a stubborn Minister, and are prepared to vote as he wants them to? I predict this, that they will have to reckon not only with the civil population who are going to suffer, but also with their own soldiers.

How can you speak on their behalf?

If Wakkerstroom still means nothing to him then there is nothing that has any meaning for him. And if there was a general election today the story of Wakkerstroom would be repeated in respect of many other seats. Thus they are allowing themselves to be blinded to the real interests of South Africa, and blind followers are walking behind the obstinate Minister of Labour. And let me say this in passing, that when you talk to them in the Lobby you hear different tunes. This same vociferous member for Springs and others sing another song about the Minister of Labour in the Lobby; some of them make no secret of it that they would thank goodness if the Minister laid down his portfolio. Some of them have stated time and again in the Lobby that if the Minister of Labour had been given free rein during the past few years to do what he wished, the country would have gone to blazes.

What has that to do with immigration?

I am dealing with servile followers of the Minister of Labour, who follow him like sheep. I ask the hon. member to be a man. [Time limit.]

I should like to say a few words, and I want to direct them to the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter). Today I encountered some other members from the benches opposite in the Lobby. Unfortunately I do not see them here, because I would like to mention names. They say that the Minister is busy smashing up their party. Die Suiderstem, the Minister of Lands’ newspaper says that, and they say the same. I see the interpreter is not interpreting now and the Minister of Lands is just as silent as he was after Wakkerstroom. The hon. members talked so nicely about the soldiers who should get preference. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) has here stated that they want to treat the R.A.F.’s on equal footing with the Union soldiers. I want to throw out a challenge to the hon. member for Springs, to accompany me to one of the military camps, and I shall be prepared to accept the verdict of the soldiers whether they wish to have the R.A.F. treated on the same basis as our own soldiers in connection with the provision of employment. I make that challenge.

I am there every day.

Fine. Let him go with me, and let us leave the matter to their decision. This is a Bill that in the main deals with soldiers. Let him take their verdict. I am prepared to go to the military camps with any of the hon. members opposite. I mention the hon. member because he opens his mouth so wide.

Are you afraid to go alone?

I am prepared to go alone if the Minister of Defence will permit me. I often talk to soldiers, and I can tell you that not one of them has a good word for the R.A.F. The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) referred to the statements our soldiers made that they had to go and fight in the North while these little dandies of the R.A.F. strolled around here doing things that our soldiers do not wish to mention. That is the argument used by our soldiers, English-speaking soldiers as well. It is said that in recent years no immigration has occurred. Immigrants cannot come here on account of the war, but what was the case just before the war? There are two sorts of immigrants. The one kind comes here with money in order to establish a business. They may be an asset to the country; but the other sort come here and take work out of the hands of our sons and daughters, English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking. What was the position before the war? The Minister knows what the figures are. Take the engineering industry. In 1934, 763 lads were indentured in the engineering industry, and 259 were imported; in 1935 the figures were 698 and 425. I could continue on those lines. In brief, between 1934 and 1938, 3,459 lads were brought into the engineering industry and 2,404 were imported immigrants. Let us turn to the building industry. In the period from 1934 to 1938, 1,754 South African lads were trained, and 2,303 people were imported into the building trade. After the special invitation that Col. Deneys Reitz extended to artisans and tradesmen on the 3rd February at Belfast will hon. members still tell me that a large number will not come here and take employment away from our own sons? Will the Minister deny this? If there is one man who ought to be concerned more than anyone else it is the Minister of Labour. Apart from the fact that he is discriminating and giving preference to the soldiers from foreign lands over our own soldiers, and over our own Union employees, he must remember that he has a moral duty. He will be responsible and he will be held responsible when these unemployed are walking round the streets of South Africa. If he really sees this I hone that his conscience will torment him at night and that he will have sleepless nights.

I would like to say a few words in connection with this matter. Reference has just been made to what Col. Reitz said at Belfast. I would like to refer the Minister of Labour to a statement made by Mr. Attlee, the Minister of Labour in England the leader of the Labour Party there. I assume that our Minister derives much of this inspiration from the Minister of Labour in England. In a speech he delivered at a great gathering of 1,300 representatives of war workers he told them of the wonderful prospects in South Africa. He told them great industrial development would take place here after the war, and he referred especially to the great development anticipated in the sphere of aviation on the Rand. He made mention of a beautiful big airport at Benoni, the Minister’s seat. I wonder whether this is all connected with the obstinacy of the Minister in admitting non-Union citizens. I go further. Lord Harlech was in South Africa shortly after the general election last year, and he also spoke encouragingly in regard to people coming out to South Africa. We had these three prominent people who all talked about the opportunities for employment in South Africa and who encourage people to come out here. Our Prime Minister is busy in London talking about immigration after the war. If then we see that people from other countries who have done service are going to be given preference over our own people, we can only come to the conclusion that, with an eye on the large scale immigration which is being mooted, our own people will suffer seriously. A little while ago I was in touch with one of these people who said that he had obtained a good post, and that he was going to remain in the country. They are receiving choice positions in our country, and if we take that into consideration we can come to no other conclusion than that there is something behind this Bill. Behind it all is concealed a plan to import people here on a large scale after the war. The same thing was done after the South African war. In my constituency there are fifty farms with English names. They were given to imported Englishmen, but the farms have retained their English names. The Englishmen have gone away; they did not take root there; they knew nothing about our climate and they could not carry on against the competition. A similar thing occurred after the 1914-18 war. They were imported on a big scale and the old story was repeated. We want to warn the Minister that although they want to do these things after the war it will again prove a failure, just as it was a failure after the previous wars.

I feel that this Bill, as it stands, gives preference to foreigners over Union citizens. We feel that it is a big injustice that in South Africa persons who are not Union citizens, and who did not remain here, will receive preference over our own sons. There are many in this country who did not go to fight and who were not able to go and fight. They have, however, a right to exist, a greater right to a living than those who come from outside. Take the case of two brothers. Both of them wanted to go and fight; the one joined up but the other could not be spared from the farm, consequently he did not join but remained here to keep the family going. After the war the brother who went to fight will be privileged as compared with the brother who did not go; he wanted to go, but he could not owing to economic pressure on the family. Now he is not only ranked lower than his brother but also as against other persons who come from outside. Accordingly I feel that it is a gross injustice that has been perpetrated here towards the inhabitants of the country, and especially towards those whose sympathies were perhaps with the war effort, but who in the circumstances were unable to go and fight. Accordingly I believe that the opening in this Bill must be contracted on the lines proposed in the amendment moved from this side of the House.

I wonder whether the debate has reached a stage when the Minister is prepared to say that he will take the amendment into favourable consideration. If he is prepared to say that then we do not need to discuss the matter further. We are ourselves prepared to meet him still further, because we are anxious to help with this legislation. We are prepared to have the word “foreigner” substituted by “non-Union citizen”. If the Minister will accept that we shall propose it. That offers a solution for the Minister. Again we extend the hand of co-operation without any reproaches. If the Minister says he is going to accept that then we can proceed with the business and suspend this discussion; but if the Minister will not do that—and if he does not reply—then we have to assume that he is not accepting it. We shall consequently put him to the test. I want to ask the mover of the amendment if he will accept an alteration to his amendment to substitute the word “foreigner” by “non-Union citizen”.

No; the hon. member is required to propose a separate amendment.

Then I move as an amendment to the amendment proposed by Mr. S. E. Warren—

I am prepared to accept that.

Now I express the hope that the Minister will be accommodating. If not we shall have to fight this matter out to the end, and we are prepared to fight the matter out in this House and also outside this House. If the Minister wants to join issue we are quite prepared. This proposal of the Minister’s will not only take the bread out of the mouths of our children, it will take the bread from the mouths of our children’s children, and it is also going to react on the soldiers themselves. There will not be enough work for our soldiers if the door is opened wide to the whole world as the Minister is doing here. We make more of a song about it than any other country. We advertise to the world that there is plenty of work here, that there is still room here; we invite everyone to come and find work here —to come along without having to pay a thing, to have their fill in this land of milk and honey. We invite all. Just come along to our country and we will provide for you! We haven’t even got work enough for all our own soldiers, and, out of consideration for our own people, we want to make an appeal to the Minister to accept this reasonable amendment. I feel confident that if a different Minister had been entrusted with this measure quite a different sort of Bill would have been piloted through this House, and there would also have been quite a different spirit. It is very regrettable from the point of view of our soldiers and all concerned that the Minister was given charge of this Bill. I am very sorry about that, because he has ruined the whole spirit that should have characterised the handling of this Bill. It seems as if he does not want to deal with the matter on its merits. He is absolutely obstinate. He becomes angry and gets moody and rides the high horse. We were accommodating for our part, but the Minister remained obstinate and he is compelling us at the present moment to vote on this matter when we are not in a position to do justice to it. If the Minister is going to be so unreasonable in his attitude he must bear in mind that we also have means at our disposal to enable us to retaliate. If he comports himself in such an unreasonable way he must expect that. I want to ask the Minister again whether he will accept the amendment as we have proposed it.

This is not an auction.

We have made the matter as easy as possible for him and if he will only accept this then we shall be finished with the matter.

No.

Is not the Minister able to consider this calmly and sensibly and appreciate the reasonableness of our representations. He is busy wrecking a case that he wishes to advance. He is the Minister appointed by the Government to guide this Bill through the House for the benefit of the soldiers, but his behaviour will have a detrimental effect on those people he wishes to benefit. He knows too that the co-operation of the whole country is necessary to make a success of this Bill, and he cannot secure the co-operation of the country in respect of a measure that contains a clause such as this, which as he knows is unjust and impracticable. We must ask the Minister to reflect on the matter for a moment and to accede to this reasonable amendment. It will protect those people whose protection he is aiming at. It is in the interests of those people for whom the Bill is being passed that this should be done. The crux of the Bill and its intention is that we should assist in extending the Sphère of employment for them, that we should set down here what we want to have introduced into the legislation, and that a better chance should be accorded our own people; but now the Minister comes with a provision in his own Bill that is going to frustrate its whole intention. Not only is it going to make the measure impracticable, but it is going to arouse the indignation of those whom we should benefit by the Bill. I make a friendly request to the Minister to give this matter calm and careful consideration.

I feel that if the Minister of Labour has ever done a disservice to soldiers he did it when he refused this amendment. If those soldiers who sacrificed their all, and who had placed their lives in danger for the country, return to find they have to stand in rows in order to obtain employment, and they see opposite them foreigners who have the same privileges as themselves and who carry off the jobs before them I think they are going to be resentful. There are thousands of people in the country today who are longing for a piece of land. The land-hunger is so great that it cannot be appeased, and by this legislation we are opening the door wide to thousands of foreigners to obtain positions and to secure land, which will be a screaming injustice towards our own soldiers and our own people. I want to make an appeal to the Minister not to be so hasty, and to see that the door is not left wide open for foreigners to exploit our own people and our own soldiers.

I now bring forward this amendment which I understand the Minister is accepting in connection with this Bill. I have not of course been in a position to examine it thoroughly. The difficulty is that we have now concluded our discussion on the subject, and if the Minister will afford us the opportunity to examine this matter thoroughly we shall be able to dispose of it very quickly. At this stage I should like to ask the Minister to allow the matter to stand over till tomorrow and then it will certainly not occupy more than ten minutes.

No.

Do I now unrestand that the Minister is not prepared to report progress and ask leave to sit again? If we are not prepared to accept his amendment, then we shall have to vote on my amendment. We shall not occupy much time if we are not prepared to accept it. If the Minister is prepared to do that I shall be pleased. The amendment has just been handed to me by the Parliamentary draftsman. I have read it but I have not yet had an opportunity to study its implications. It appears to me to be acceptable, but I should like first to see what the position is. I should like the Minister to suspend the discussion, then I would be prepared to undertake that we on this side will not debate that matter afresh. If we are not prepared to accept it then we shall naturally have to vote over my amendment; and if we are prepared to accept his proposal then of course I shall withdraw my amendment. Consequently not much time will be wasted, and further discussion will then be stopped. The Minister knows what procedure he should follow in connection with the propostion, and I think it will save time and put us in a position to be able to arrive at an agreement; and if we do not reach an agreement then it will merely be a question of taking a vote. Thus there will be no time wasted over the matter.

I made an offer to the hon. member very early in the proceedings. I said we can all come together and endeavour to hammer out an amendment which will meet the requirements of all sides and it can be moved on the report stage, because it was impossible to draft an amendment on the spur of the moment. We are out to get this Committee stage through. If the hon. member agrees to put his amendment on the Order Paper, I am prepared to put the report stage on for Friday to give him plenty of time and I shall, together with the draftsmen and the Secretary for Labour and the hon. member himself see if we cannot hammer out something in the meantime.

I think the best thing to do is to vote on my amendment and if my amendment is lost the Minister and I can come together and see if we can arrive at something.

I hope the Minister will not have any “toenadering” with the Nationalist Party. Let us get rid of the amendment now.

I am going to get the Committee stage through now. It would be ungracious if I were not prepared to discuss with people, whatever the motives.

What do you mean by that?

Oh, never mind. I shall have to be satisfied — the hon. member need not worry.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Klopper put and agreed to.

Proposed new Clause, as amended, put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—33 :

Boltman, F. H.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Erasmus, H. S.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Haywood, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Le Roux, J. N.

Louw, E. H.

Ludiek, A. I.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Malan, D. F.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Potgieter, J. E.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swanepoel, S. J.

Van Niekerk, J. G. W.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Wilkens J.

Tellers: J. F. T. Naudé and P. O. Sauer.

Noes—62 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, J. C.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Christie, J.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, P. H.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Faure, J. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gluckman, H.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hofmeyr, J. H,

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Lawrence H. G.

McLean, J.

Madeley, W. B.

Marwick, J. S.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Prinsloo, W. B. J.

Raubenheimer, L. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Waring, F. W.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

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

Proposed new Clause accordingly negatived.

The remaining Clauses and the title having been agreed to,

HOUSE RESUMED :