I move as an unopposed motion—

I second.

Agreed to.

I should like to point out that the sole object of these amendments is to make provision for what is now the actual position of the settlers. The question is not whether other people are permitted to be on the holdings. What we are dealing with here is the question of the parents who are staying on the farms with their children—who stay there because they have no other place to go to.

The fact that the individual is a settler goes to show that he is not a well-to-do farmer. The mere fact that his parents are living with him also goes to prove that they are not well-to-do people. But in order to remove all doubt so that there can be no question about the type of parents who should be allowed to live with their children, I am proposing to add the words “ provided both or one of the parents are in receipt of an old age pension or an Oudstryder pension.” It amounts to this, that if they are so much in need that they receive an Oudstryder pension or an old age pension, if they are dependent on those few pounds, and if they cannot afford to live on their own, they should be allowed to live on such a holding and not be driven away from the place. I think we need only point to the circumstances to induce the Minister to accept this reasonable amendment. There can be no question of these people wanting to farm on that holding. It amounts to this that where people are in receipt of old age pensions or Oudstryder pensions, proper provision will be made for them. It is proposed here to delete the word “ minors ”—that means that the children will be allowed to live with their parents. The argument has already been used but I want to repeat it, that when the children today live with their parents and they have helped their parents to develop the holding, it is unreasonable to expect those people to be forced to leave the place now. I could understand it if the Minister were to say that that would be his policy in the future; if he made it clear that in future, when land is given out, those restrictions will be placed on such holdings. If the Minister makes that clear, the man will know that he will not be entitled to keep his children there, but as these holdings were allotted in the past without that condition, I say that it is unreasonable and unfair to apply it today to existing holdings, and I therefore hope that the hon. the Minister will accept this reasonable amendment which has been proposed by this side of the House. This is not a party question. Hon. members opposite are just as much concerned in this matter as we are on this side, and they should also appeal to the Minister to accept this amendment; but they keep perfectly quiet. Let me draw attention to this aspect of the question. Assuming we have the case of a parent who is in need and who has no source of revenue. The settler is getting on nicely and has been able to acquire considerable belongings. That child, in terms of the law of the land, can be compelled today to look after his parents if they are in need. He is compelled by the law of the land to care for his parents if they are in need of help. That being the case, we are breaking the law of the land here by saying that the parents are not allowed to stay there. A child who does not look after his parents can be taken to court and can be charged accordingly. Consequently we are breaking the law of the land. We have a peculiar position here that the son has to chase his own parents who are in need of help away from the farm, while at the same time he is obliged by law to look after his parents. If he drives his parents away from the farm, he can be taken to court and charged with not looking after them, although this Bill makes it impossible for him to keep them there. I again appeal to the Minister to accept this reasonable amendment.

I want to make an appeal this morning to the Minister of Lands and to ask him to accept this amendment proposed by the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig). I have on a previous occasion drawn the Minister’s attention to the fact that this prohibition contained in Clause (2) of this Bill is certainly most thoroughly hated and resented. A more unpopular provision has never been applied to our settlers. The Minister always pretends that he wants to promote the interests of the settlers, but let me tell him here today that if he wants to have a really happy and prosperous community of settlers the very least he, as Minister of Lands can do, is to see that a spirit of mutual amity is created between the settlers and the officials. I also want to assure him that if he should apply this regulation, this hated provision would completely destroy the essential ideal relationship between the settler and the official on the settlements. This is what we find happens on the settlements: As soon as this regulation is applied, it is resented by the settler; and then the official who has to apply the regulation is hated; then the inspector of lands is hated by the settlers; after that the Department of Lands is hated and even the Minister of Lands himself is hated, because the settlers in this hated provision, recognise a prohibition which the official has to apply and which the Department has to apply. No, instead of having an agreeable spirit such as one should have on a settlement, instead of having an ideal relationship between the settler and the official, we are going to get a feeling which will lead to general bitterness and discord between the settler and the official. That is why we no longer have the necessary co-operation between the settler and the official today. I want to make an appeal to the Minister therefore to give careful consideration to this reasonable amendment and I want to ask him as Minister of Lands to see to it that the essential good feeling is restored as soon as possible, because if that is not done I want to assure him that all his other attempts, all his social and economic attempts for the progress of those settlers, will be a hopeless failure. I was very much struck by the fact last year, when we asked the Minister to withdraw this regulation, that he tried to justify the prohibition by connecting it up with over-population, overcrowding. The Minister said that he had to apply this regulation because it was a means of preventing overcrowding. The whole policy, the obvious tactics of the Minister of Lands aimed at creating the impression in this House, and in the country generally, that the overcrowding problem on the settlements had become something in the nature of a serious disease. But let me tell the Minister that in actual fact there is no such a serious overcrowding problem on the settlements, and the Minister knows it too—he is fully aware of it—and what is more, there is no tendency towards overcrowding. In this connection the Minister quoted some exceptional instances. If the Minister of Lands wants to eliminate certain exceptional cases of overcrowding, then he cannot achieve that end by this unpsychological method which he now wants to apply to combat the problem. This is not the way of solving the difficulty. Let me tell him what he should do. The Minister of Lands should resort to a sound eonomic policy with a view to solving this over-population problem, and if he does avail himself of a sound economic policy to deal with these exceptional instances of overcrowding, such a method will be in sharp contrast with his hated tyrranical prohibition.

Terrible.

Yes, it is terrible, because you are creating an atmosphere on the settlements by which you are deliberately wrecking the feeling of friendship between settler and official in a most tragic manner by applying this prohibition. I have drawn attention on a previous occasion to the fact that these hated regulations are looked upon today as a ministerial persecution of young fellows, and I want to make an appeal to the Minister to be more considerate in his attitude. You, more than any other Minister, should see to it that our people remain on the land. Time after time you have made an appeal to people to return to the land. Why do you want people to return to the land?

The hon. member must address the Chair.

I apologise for having addressed the Minister of Lands direct. I did so because the matter is so serious. That is why I addressed the Minister direct. The Minister of Lands more than any other Minister must see to it that he offers such conditions and such opportunities to young men who have had no other training, who have no other ideal, but to go farming, and to be farmers solely and simply — the Minister of Lands should see to it that everything possible is done to keep these men on the settlements. But by producing this prohibition he is depriving the settlers of their energy and strength which is absolutely essential to enable them to develop the settlements. With all due deference I want to ask the Minister not to act so drastically. I have lived among them for seven years and I know those settlers. This provision is bringing about a state of discord between the settlers and the officials, and I want to ask the Minister to adopt a psychological attitude. He, as Minister of Lands, more than any other Minister, should develop a settlement policy which will prove to be a sound, energetic, agricultural policy, and how can he do so if he deprives the settler of his energy, his youth and his strength. And that is what he is doing by this clause. Afterwards he will again have to call to them: “Back to the land.” The policy of the Minister of Lands should not be one of calling: “Back to the land” — he should create such conditions, and such opportunities on the land, that people will be kept on the land at all costs. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to accept this amendment of the hon. member for Calvinia. That would be the right psychological thing to do, and if he does so all his other attempts can be made without their being hindered by unpsychological application of this hated regulation we are now discussing.

I rise to support this proposal of the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) and also the proposal made by the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig). It is unthinkable that we on this side of the House should at this stage still have to get up to plead for the acceptance of these amendments which have been proposed. First c-f all it is laid down here that practically no one shall be allowed to stay with these people on these settlements unless the settler has first approached the Minister hat in hand and said: “Please, let my poor old father or my mother stay with me on my holding. I am my parents’ sole support. My mother is old; she is in receipt of an old age pension, but that pension is not enough to enable her to rent a small place and to buy food and clothes.” I say it is unthinkable that we should have to come and beg the Minister to accept this amendment. Surely there is such a thing as filial love. According to the provisions of this Bill as explained by the hon. member for Pietersburg, it is perfectly clear that the Minister does not want the parents who have brought their children into the world to have a home with their children on these holdings. I think it is one of the most unfair and unjust things — it is the sort of thing calculated to destroy the love and affection which should exist between children and parents. By this clause the Minister is destroying that love and affection which so far has always prevailed in this country between parents and children. Is that what we are aiming at? Do we want to destroy filial love in South Africa in this way? Do we want to create the same position in this country as exists in Russia today? That sounds very much like a dictatorship to me. I therefore want to urge the Minister strongly to accept this amendment, not only the amendment dealing with the mothers and fathers of those settlers, but also the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Calvinia. Let me give an instance. A young man lives in his parents’ house. His parents have grown very old. It is necessary for him to stay on the holding to help his parents. But now the parents are not to be allowed to keep their child with them. He has to help his father with the crops and the other work that has to be done on the farm. He has to assist his father to keep the land clean. The old man cannot do all that work himself. And now he is to be deprived of the privilege of keeping his child on the farm with him. It places him in an impossible position. Even the minor son is not allowed to stay on the farm. The Minister knows what the position today is in regard to labour. You cannot get native labour. Those settlers are the poorest of the poor. Are they to be compelled to engage native or coloured labour? They simply cannot get the labour, and if they should succeed in getting it, they have to pay wages which make the position quite impossible as far as they are concerned. Now, here the man has his son on the farm. The son can help him with his crops. He can help him to cultivate his lands properly. He can help him to make a living on the farm, but the Minister says : “No. I am going to lay it down by law that the son is to leave the farm.” That is what it amounts to. It means that those people have no right to the property for which they have to pay. Of course, if land has been valued too highly, debts are written off in some cases, but the settlers do their utmost to pay for their land. The Minister as a practical farmer should know that we in South Africa are very much dependent on weather conditions; the Minister himself in this House painted a tragic picture — he almost had tears in his eyes — when he spoke about the floods at Brits, and in other parts, and yet he takes these steps, and tells the parents that they are not allowed to keep their sons on their land. “I am the master; and you must come to me hat in hand, and if I think fit I shall allow you to stay there.” We in South Africa are tired of this sort of thing. Nor will the Minister personally deal with such cases; his officials will do so and they may occasionally be unsympathetic. If that is democracy, then democracy is in a very bad state. I want to urge the House to reject this clause. We are going to oppose this clause to the best of our ability. A cry of indignation is making itself heard throughout the country. We are getting scores of letters from people who are indignant, because they are to all intents and purposes being turned into slaves. I again want to ask the Minister to accept this reasonable amendment. There is no intention of wrecking the Bill, but we want to improve it for the sake of the poorest of the poor in this country. Those people in many instances have sacrificed everything; in many cases they have been impoverished in the Boer War and have not been able to get on their feet again. Now they have been given a bit of land, and now they are prevented from having their children with them. The Minister wants to grant land to soldiers. How are those soldiers going to get on? Is the Government again going to “write off” in the same way as they did after the last war. With provisions such as those contained in this Bill you are going to make a failure of settlement such as you have never had before. I hope the Minister is in a better temper than he was on the 26th April, and for the sake of this party he will not continue to refuse to accept amendments, but that he will be reasonable. We have been dealing with this clause the whole day long, and we are not half way through yet simply because of the Minister’s stubbornness. I hope he will be more reasonable now.

I am very sorry that I cannot accept the amendment. In reply to the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) who spoke about aged people, and who reminded us that it is the Afrikaners tradition to look after his parents, I want to say that I fully agree with him. He went further and said that the law could even compel the children to look after their parents. That is partly true, and partly not true. A child can only look after his parents if he can do so out of his own pocket. But the settler is subsidised to practically the extent of 100 per cent. by the Government. The Government tries to rehabilitate the man. The hon. member said that there were numbers of parents who already had their children on their holdings. That also is correct, and that goes to show that the Department is very considerate. I have often said that we are not regarding this as a law of the Medes and Persians. There are hundreds of cases where sons are allowed to stay with their parents and where aged people stay with their children—and permission is given for them to do so where the conditions of the settlers permit of its being done. But there are many instances where the settlers are very poor and where the Government subsidises them. If they have eight or ten children it is practically impossible for the Government to allow all the children to stay on the holding when they have grown up. The hon. member said that these old people in many cases were in receipt of old age pensions and Oudstryder pensions. That also is correct. And then the hon. member says that if they do not live with their children they have to starve in spite of their pensions. But the Department of Social Welfare is providing millions of pounds to see that these people are housed, and get all they need, irrespective of their pensions. We do not leave them to their own devices.

Millions of pounds?

The Government has large sums on the estimates. Provision is made for these aged people. If I accept the amendment and I allow the minor sons to stay on the holdings when they become majors, it will mean that the Government will be responsible for the creation of more poor whiteism than ever before.

How long is a parent allowed to stay with his son when on a visit?

That isn’t the point just now. When the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig) last spoke he mentioned a case which shocked the House—it was a case of a man at Williston. I asked what the man’s name was. He was M. J. van Schalkwyk. The hon. member said that this man was 72 years of age. Afterwards he said that was a different case, and I accept what he says, but I had investigation made and I find that Van Schalkwyk is 50 years of age. He has three sons, one of 12 years of age, one of 16 and one of 31 years of age, and it is the last named on whose behalf he is pleading. I don’t know whether this man who is 31 years of age also has a family of his own. Probably he has. This man made application to be allowed to keep this son of his, who is 31 years of age, on his holding, and his request was turned down. After that he came to the Department and said he was in bad health and couldn’t do his work. Well, he has a youngster of 16 years there and another of 12. The farm is a cattle farm. The Department told him that if he was in bad health he must produce a doctor’s certificate so that the position could be enquired into. He sent the certificate, but the request made to him to produce it was regarded as a disgraceful insult by the hon. member for Calvinia. At the beginning of the year he was given permission to have his son on the farm for 12 months. Hon. members will notice from what I am saying that this is not a law of the Medes and Persians. But let me go on. What is the income of this man with his three sons? Last year it was £200, and now I am told that I am acting in a satanical and barbarous manner if I say that we cannot allow a man who is living there at Government expense, a man we are trying to rehabilitate, to have three sons with him on his holding. He will have to divide his £200 between two families, because the 31-year-old son probably also has a family, and by the time the other sons become of age he will have to divide his income between three or four families. Well, the Government cannot allow it. We are trying to rehabilitate these people with State aid, with the taxpayers’ money and we cannot allow more poor whites to be created. I am sorry I cannot accept the amendment. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) mentioned another instance of a man, one Marais. I had his case enquired into. The hon. member said that Marais was an old man, that he had a son-in-law married to his daughter, and that the daughter helped Marais’ wife who was ill and confined to bed. The hon. member said that I was trying to drive the son-in-law away and that if I did so the result might be a divorce. Hon. members will recollect that hon. members opposite stated that I was out to cause divorces— the woman was ill in bed, and the daughter had to help. But now what is the position here? The man is 63 years of age. The son-in-law has long since received permission to stay there for an indefinite time and the daughter is there to look after the mother. The son also received permission this year to stay on the holding. Now that is the position. That man’s income is £200.

Who mentioned that case?

The hon. member for Swellendam did. Now I ask hon. members if it is fair to keep on insisting on this and to accuse me of acting in a satanic and barbarous manner, because in the interests of these people themselves and their families, I am taking steps to prevent more poor whites being created? The State put these people there, it advances the money— and large amounts of money—for the exclusive purpose of rehabilitating them. That being so, is it right to allow such a condition of affairs? If we allowed it we would simply be creating more poor whites. This question of the parents and the sons has been discussed over and over again, and I am sorry I cannot accept these amendments. I hope that after this explanation of mine hon. members will realise that this is not a law of the Medes and Persians, that there are hundreds of cases where sons receive permission or where old people are allowed to stay on the holdings. The hon. member for Brits (Mr. Potgieter) challenged me to prove that there is overcrowding.

At Hartebeestpoort.

If there is no overcrowding it is simply because the Government sees to it that there is none. We are doing our utmost to prevent it. I want to mention one other case to show how unreasonable people are. They do not understand the position. If there is the least bit of space, they don’t care how many young fellows and how many old people they put on holdings. So far as Hartebeestpoort and Brits are concerned we have intensive settlements there and the plots are laid out to hold one family each. If we allow the minor children to grow up there, to marry and have their families on the place, what is going to happen? The families will be living in hovels, and if you want to tackle settlement in that way it is going to become a complete failure. One of those settlers has written to me and in his letter he says that I have refused to allow his son to stay with him, but he adds that he is only paying his son a native wage, and he asks why I should refer to his income. Well, is it not our duty to point out to those people that the State cannot allow the children to remain on the holdings, to get married there and to bring up their families on native wages? We say that where the parents live on a holding we do not want the children to stay with them under those conditions and be turned into poor whites. I have mentioned these two cases, the one case where the man has two sons and an income of £200 and the other case where the man has one son and an income of £200. We are very definite on this point and we cannot allow people to stay on the holdings under conditions which will turn them into poor whites. The State makes provision for the education of the children, it provides for them to go to school, to equip them for their future life, so that when they become of age they can make a living somewhere else.

Where?

I have explained this matter over and over again so that the Government’s attitude in regard to sons and parents on holdings may be perfectly clear, and I hope the House will now come to a vote.

I am sorry the Minister got up so soon to reply to these amendments because, as the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) said, I also noticed when the Minister came in he looked very happy, and we had every hope that he would agree to our amendments. The Minister has now got up and I have been completely disappointed in my expectations. Now, I want to draw the attention of the Minister to certain cases in Marico. People have been driven off their land there, simply because they were not allowed to keep one of their sons with them to assist them. In one instance a man was in occupation on the settlement land, and he owned about 150 head of cattle. He had two sons and he asked that one son should be allowed to assist him in his farming operations because he had to get his water from another farm to be able to carry on.

What is his name?

W. A. de Klerk. He is living somewhere near Benoni now.

What is the name of the farm?

Petrusdal. I think it is No. 232, Plot G., but I’m not sure of that. I asked him if he couldn’t get a native to assist him. He replied that he could get a native, but that native had from 30 to 40 head of cattle and it was impossible for him to take those cattle on his farm as well. The farm was only between 900 and 1,000 morgen in extent and was already carrying enough cattle. I myself had a talk with the inspector who came there — I am speaking subject to correction, but I think the inspector was a certain Mr. Van der Poel — I asked him to help the man because the man had made a study of farming, but he couldn’t carry on without the assistance of his children. Well, the result was that this man became dispirited, he sold everything, and he is now on a small bit of land;’ he is almost a poor white, although he could easily have been saved from that position. I know this man well. He is a hardworking farmer — he and his whole family — his minor children are at school, and the grown-up children have had to leave the farm so he was forced to sell out, with the result that he is now somewhere near Benoni, practically a poor white, and that is one of the reasons why I am making an appeal to the Minister to accept this amendment. I am convinced that it will not do any harm. The Department of Lands will not suffer from it, nor will the Government, but it will be of considerable assistance to those farmers who are now occupying the land as tenants, and it will enable them to carry on their farming operations. The areas to which I am referring, are the bushveld areas particularly, where these farmers have to go in for cattle breeding. The Minister said that if he allowed these amendments, these people would be living in pondokkies on their farms. At the moment the trouble is that they do not know when the Minister is going to chase them off the ground, and that is one reason why they cannot put up permanent homes. A number of those people have done their best, and they are still doing their best, to cultivate the land there, and to carry on with their farming operations, but it is becoming impossible for them to do so without the necessary assistance. Most of those people need help, and if a man is not allowed to keep his children on the farm, it means that he cannot construct dams, he cannot dig any wells, he cannot construct homesteads, he cannot effect any improvements bn the farm to make it habitable, nor can he clear his lands. If the Minister accepts these amendments I can assure him that the settlers will welcome him if he comes to Marico, and they will fête him. But if he doesn’t agree to the amendments I warn him to keep away, because the settlers are very much aggrieved. The settlers asked me to meet them on the 5th April and I did so. They were particularly concerned about the future of their children if the Bill was passed in its present form I have discussed the matter with the Minister. I told him that these people were very anxious to have provision made in the Bill, so that they could be allowed to keep their children on the farm. I hope the Minister will again consider the whole question and I trust he will not turn down these amendments. It is true that he has already told us that he cannot accept these amendments, but I hope the speeches made by members on this side of the House will induce him to change his mind. I don’t understand why the Minister should be so unrelenting. If he is unrelenting to the Nationalists he should at any rate have a soft spot for the people who have lost their all in the war and who are settlers now. As far as I am concerned, I don’t want to challenge the Minister, but I want to invite him to come to my constituency and to see if there are any areas there which are overcrowded, any parts which were overcrowded, before the regulations were applied and the children had to leave the farms. These people are doing their utmost to develop their farms, and I can assure you that these are white men of noble descent whose sole aim and ambition is to rehabilitate themselves. I want to appeal to the Minister again to meet us, and I should like to know what the reason is why some men have to wait such a long time, after they have met all then obligations, before they can get their Crown land titles.

The hon. member cannot go into that question now.

Very well, then I shall do so on some future occasion. For the last time I want to appeal to the Minister. All of us noticed his happy mien when he came into the House and we hope he will allow himself to be induced to meet our requests. The amendments we have proposed cannot be regarded as ineffective and unacceptable.

Before replying to what the Minister said I should like to know how I can get a certain position remedied. Part of my speech has not been taken up in Hansard. I spoke about a man who was 77 years of age in that part of my speech which does not appear in Hansard. I went through my speech and I made no corrections except the one part. I interviewed the Hansard staff and part of my speech is not there. I should like to know what remedy I have. Now I want to reply to the instance mentioned by the Minister. I mentioned a case and the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) asked why I was making a fuss about it. I want the hon. member to listen more carefully before he makes such remarks. I mentioned the case of Van Schalkwyk, and I can quote word for word from the Hansard report what I said. I said this—In my constituency, too, numerous people have received notice. Before this session of Parliament, one man came to me; he has only one son ….

I was mistaken there, he has three sons. Beyond that I didn’t alter a single word. I said that the man had shown me a letter informing him that he must produce a certificate to show that he was in bad health. Where did I say anything that was untrue? There is not a single word that is untrue. Now the Minister says that the man has a son of 16 years of age, and another of 12 years, and then he has this one son of 31, in respect of whom the application was made. The Minister told us that there are opportunities for the children to fit themselves for occupations. Now where is this boy of 16? Is he on the farm or is he at school? If we want a child to qualify for the battle of life he must be at school, and that applies to this boy of 12 too. The Minister said that the man’s income was £200. Let us assume that it is so. That son’s income is not included. The major son has contributed part of his own money to make up the sum which had to be paid to the Department. I don’t know whether that son is married. He is carrying on his farming operations there and what is wrong with it?

The farm was allotted for one man to carry on farming activities and not for two.

The man made a statement how many children he had.

They were minors.

And now the Minister comes along and he does not want this major son to stay there. What right has the Minister to take steps like that if this man carries out his obligations? He buys his land at a certain price; he puts down so much, and after that the State still has a bond over the land. The land is the security for the bond. If we are now to give the State these rights, because it is the bond-holder, then it means that every bond-holder has the right to say that the farm belongs to him because he has a bond over it. The State is the bondholder, and if the State adopts the attitude that practically speaking it is the owner of the land and can prescribe to the man on the land what he is to do and what he is not to do, and that he is not allowed to keep any other white person except his wife and minor children, why then should not other bond-holders have the same rights? What this means is that a man is not allowed to have his own son there, nor is he allowed to have any other white person on the land, but he can have coloured men there and he can grant them privileges, such as the right to keep cattle — he could have given those rights to his own son. But he is not allowed to keep any white persons there — he is not allowed to keep his own son there. The settler is not allowed to keep his parents there. If the Minister had come here and said that there were certain settlements which are already too small to enable the people to make a living on them and that in those instances he was going to make an exception, we could have understood it, but he is now making this provision of general application. Let me be honest. I think the Minister is quite able to handle this matter and he has made up his mind to see this thing through, but when we on this side of the House put up a plea, we do so because we feel that we have a duty to those people. As the Bill now reads, I am opposed to it in principle. We have introduced amendments which to our mind will make the Bill more acceptable and I ask the Minister to consider, in the spirit in which we have approached him, that we are doing our best to improve the Bill, and that in that spirit we want him to meet us. We on this side have proposed amendments to the Bill, but the Minister has refused to accept any amendments. You cannot show me a single law where the Minister in charge has not been prepared to accept one amendment or another. Here and there a Minister is always prepared to accept amendments. I want to appeal to the Minister to look on those amendments as an attempt on our part, not to obstruct the Bill, but as an honest attempt to improve it. These people are already in an intolerable position. They have to look up to the State. I want to ask the Minister to take up a fatherly attitude towards those people, to be more considerate and more humane. I am not concerned with the Minister as an individual, I am concerned only with the Bill, and I appeal to him to be human. Don’t let him put this ungenerous measure through. It is an intolerable and inhuman provision.

It struck me that the hon. member for Marico (Mr. Grobler) invited the Minister to come and see for himself the conditions in Marico. If I understand the position correctly, Marico was the very place which gave rise to all the difficulties with which the Minister is faced today. Was it not the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) who at the time when he was Minister of Lands assisted at the by-election at Marico in 1938. Did he not on that occasion see for himself the undesirable conditions which were being created on the settlements there? And who was it who started this movement, this movement which the present Minister is trying to see through. Was it not the hon. member for Wolmaransstad? I ask him in all reasonableness to let us approach this question objectively.

And you’ve started subjectively.

We must not allow our perspective to be clouded by sentimental or political feelings. We know that when we play with sentiment we are handling inflammable material, and we challenge hon. members opposite to prove that they have a more tender feeling in their heart for the rising generation than hon. members on this side of the House.

You have no feelings at all.

I challenge them to prove that they have better feelings for their parents or for the rising generation than members on this side of the House.

A tree is known by its fruit.

Yes, and what we are picking today is the fruit of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad’s tree.

You know that what you are saying is not true.

I don’t want to answer the hon. member in the same spirit, but the hon. member over there has jumped about such a lot that I can reject the insinuation with the contempt it deserves.

Look how objective you are now.

The hon. member for Wolmaransstad on the occasion to which I referred, went to those settlements, and found that an undesirable condition of affairs had developed there; he investigated this whole question of bywoners and major children, and he set the whole thing going. If he found that a condition of affairs had come into being which required control, and if he insisted in those days on departmental action being taken, then he should today thank the present Minister, because the present Minister is now completing the work which he started.

You know that that is not true.

The hon. member for Wolmaransstad is not allowed to say that.

Withdraw it.

I know that the truth sometimes is not pleasant to hear, especially when people jump about in the way the hon. member has been doing. May I remind the hon. member that at the by-election at Marico he said: “You are opposed to the Government today after all the Government has done for you, and you have nothing which does not bear the Government stamp but your wives and children.” If the hon. member in those days, when he occupied the responsible position of a Minister, realised that such an undesirable condition of affairs existed and that he had to improve that condition of affairs, how he can blame the present Minister for taking the steps he is taking?

Did I introduce legislation at that time?

You started the movement in those days.

Order, order.

The hon. member in those days started the movement which led to our having this Bill before the House today.

Is that the reason for it?

A few instances have been quoted by hon. members opposite and in every one of those instances the Minister has given an effective reply. He has proved to hon. members that they have been trying to get the support of this side of the House on the basis of wrong information. We say that if those hon. members can produce definite evidence to prove that the Minister and his Department are merciless and cruel in their attitude towards the settlers, they can make out a case, but so far as the instances they have mentioned are concerned—the Minister has given very effective replies. I therefore ask hon. members not to reply on sentiment. We are trying to do the best we can in the interests of the settlers, and in the interests of the parents and the children, and if with the aid of the State, we can achieve better conditions for the parents, who are still able to look after themselves, or if we can achieve better conditions for the major child, then hon. members opposite should assist us, and should not try to frustrate this effort of the Minister to improve their position. I should now like to move the amendments appearing in my name on the Order Paper.

The hon. member cannot move that amendment now.

It is to sub-clause 2.

We are now only discussing sub-clause 1.

I do not understand why the Minister refuses to accept the amendments proposed by this side of the House. I consider that these amendments are very reasonable, they are an effort to improve the Bill. As it now stands one can only describe it as soul killing as far as the settlers are concerned. Its effect is that the parent today has not got the right to allow his children who are of age to live on the farm. If the Minister were to go to the farms and see the conditions under which those people live he would realise that they cannot afford to hire any labourers. The settlers have to depend on their sons to help them, and what is to become of them if these sons are not allowed to help them? How can they work their holdings? The position is impossible, and the result is that the settlers are deteriorating instead of progressing. The procedure which has been followed today tends to keep the settlers in such a state of poverty that there is no future for them. We feel that these people living on those farms must be assisted, and they can only be given help if they are allowed to use the service of their sons. The Minister has told us that some of these people have incomes of more than £200 per year. That may be so, but if the settler is not allowed to have his son there, his income will probably drop to £50. What are we getting to? These men living on those farms are going from bad to worse. That is what the Bill aims at. I ask the Minister to accept these amendments and to see to it that these settlers do not go backwards but are helped to go forward. And if the man has a son on his holding and he finds that he cannot make a living there he will go somewhere else to try and eke out a living. The Minister probably has the idea that these people are creating slums. That is not what they want to do. They want to become independent citizens of the State. They don’t want the State continually to have to come to their assistance. That is why we feel that the amendments we have proposed will give those settlers an opportunity of becoming independent if only they are allowed to let their sons stay with them on their holdings. But I say that if the parents are not to be allowed to make use of their sons’ services to help them they are bound to retrogress. Why cannot the settler be allowed to keep his son who is of age with him? Not all those men are married. I know of cases where settlers have sons on their farms who are 25 and 30 years of age and they are not married yet. Why can they not be allowed to assist their parents? One also gets cases of the settler being in bad health or being an invalid, and I ask what is to become of him if he is not to be allowed to use his son’s services? If he has an income of £200 of £300 per year, it is a matter of impossibility for him to engage native labour at the present wage levels which as hon. members know have gone up tremendously. Can he afford to engage such labour? No, he definitely cannot. He has to do the work himself and what can he do, if he cannot get assistance? There is no doubt about it. He has to deteriorate. He cannot make any headway. It is made impossible for him to pay off what he owes on his holding and eventually become the owner of the place. I want to emphasise again that the Minister should realise that this is a matter of the utmost importance to these people occupying the holdings. In some cases those settlers have not yet reached the age when they will be entitled to pensions. They are in very bad health, and what is to become of them if they are not allowed to use their sons’ services? There are instances of settlers who have gone back to such an extent that they are quite unable to engage labour of any kind. What is the Minister going to do to make it possible for those people eventually to make a good living on their holdings? Under present conditions they cannot do it, and we say that everything possible must be done to help them. With the Bill as it stands now these men are going to remain poor whites for ever and anon. They’ll never make any headway, and I therefore say again that the Minister should accept these amendments which we have proposed. And let me conclude by saying that if he listens to our requests, he will render a great service to the settlers and also to the Union of South Africa.

If we look at this matter only from the Opposition point of view, it is really heartrending, but if we look at it from both sides, we find that it is not so. This question has been fought out repeatedly. The very same point has been fought out here and the question has been discussed from all sides. The Minister has explained that this matter of a son who has reached his majority not being allowed to live with his parents, is not like a law of the Medes and Persians.

But it depends on the caprice of one person.

Yes, it depends on the whim of one person but the Opposition earlier on said that there are cases where the Minister has acted in a most tyrannical way. His actions have been described as satanical and hateful. The Minister has challenged hon. members to mention one instance where he had been merciless.

I mentioned one instance.

Several instances were referred to but the Minister has dealt with each of them.

What about Meiring’s case?

That case has been dealt with and the Minister has replied to it, and it was clearly shown that hon. members entirely missed the point, and that the position was not as they represented it. If the Opposition could have come here and quoted a number of instances where the Minister had acted unmercifully, and where he had not allowed an old man to have his son with him so that the son could afterwards take over the holding when the father got too old, there would have been something in these arguments. But they never mentioned a single instance.

I mentioned one.

Hon. members should be reasonable. The Minister has proved that they are entirely wrong in their contentions.

Nonsense.

How can the hon. member say that. He wasn’t even here when the Minister replied. The Marais case was mentioned and the Minister very clearly and exhaustively denied the statements made. If hon. members want to be reasonable they have to admit that they have been completely at fault. Hon. members are now making it appear that the father who has grown very old and cannot work any more will never have the right to have any of his sons on his farm. Hon. members of the Opposition are now telling us that they are deeply concerned with these old people, and that they are also concerned with the sons and daughters. Are we to follow a land settlement policy under which these sons are to be made farm labourers? Surely that would not be a very brilliant future for these boys. There is only one way to deal with the position and that is for the son to be allowed to remain on the farm with the Minister’s approval, and the Minister will only give that approval if he is certain that the son will take over the place and live there when the father grows too old. I think it is perfectly reasonable. We must follow a policy which will aim at preventing overcrowding and overpopulation.

The Minister isn’t even prepared to allow one son to stay with his father.

No such case has ever occurred. We have had no evidence of it.

Why must the parents go hat in hand to the Minister to get his consent?

Surely it is no more unreasonable for a father if he occupies a plot to have to tell the Department that he has grown so old that he can no longer do the work—it is no more than reasonable that he should tell the Department that he has a son, who, he considers, will be the right man to take over the place from him, and to ask the Department to allow the son to work up the place which afterwards is going to become his property. If that is done the son doesn’t continue to be a farm labourer, but he will enthusiastically help in the development of the place. But if we allow what hon. members have been pleading for here, we shall be frustrating the very object of settlements. What is necessary—and I want to suggest it—is that an explanation of the provisions of the Bill, as made by the Minister, be broadcast in the most effective way possible to all settlers, so that there can be no misunderstanding. That is necessary. The explanation given by the Minister must be communicated to all the settlers so that they may know that it is not like a law of the Medes and Persians that a son cannot stay on the farm or that a parent cannot stay with a son, but that in certain circumstances it can be allowed, and that it has been allowed in the past. I think all hon. members will have to agree that the land settlement policy which is enforced today differs tremendously from that of the past, and that today’s policy is a huge improvement. To my way of thinking our land settlement policy is as nearly perfect as we can ever get it in South Africa, and I therefore want to make an appeal to hon. members here to stop quibbling and not to try to destroy our land settlement policy. If we accept the proposals they have made we are going to get overcrowding. The plots will be cut up and there will be overcrowding and those families will not be able to make a living. Today the plots are cut up into such sizes as to provide a living for one family but not for two or more.

What about settlement farms of 2,000 and 3,000 morgen?

Hon. members are now talking about land allotted under Clause 11.

But those farms also come under that.

Well, the same argument can be used about them as well.

There are restrictions there too.

If the farmer grows too old to be able to work the land as it should be worked and he indicates his son as heir of that land, that son will be enthusiastic about developing the farm. He’ll get into the work and he will assist enthusiastically in the development of the farm, because he knows that it is afterwards going to become his property.

It seems to me that the Minister is absolutely determined not to accept this amendment of ours. He has been telling us that these young men are getting such wonderful opportunities on these settlements that the State is practically fitting them and equipping them for their future careers. If the preparation and the chances they get on the settlements are all they get, then I must say that it is a very poor preparation, which is not going to lead them very far. In view of the fact that the Minister is not prepared to accept these amendments, I am going to ask him to give this committee the assurance that if a son is removed from the parental home the Minister will give a guarantee that the son will have somewhere to go and will have the opportunity of making a living. The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. van den Berg) spoke about sons who have to work on their father’s holdings at very low wages. What becomes of them if you move them away from the farms? They will be loafing about the streets and they will have to do pick and shovel work somewhere else. Let the Minister give them a guarantee that they will get jobs at at least 10s. per day. Let the Minister give them some guarantee. The hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) when addressing this House told us that this Bill was introduced for the benefit of parents and children. Well let the Minister show that he is honest in his intentions, by providing the sons who have to leave the parental home with some means of livelihood. We have been accused of dragging in sentiment. Well of course, it is a matter of sentiment, if the sons are taken away from their parents, or the parents removed from their children. If it is not a matter of sentiment, what is it? I hope the Minister will accept this reasonable amendment, but if he is not prepared to do so, let him give us the assurance that he is prepared to do what I have asked.

I feel that I am called on to reply to the plea which was made by the hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. J. G. W. van Niekerk). It was his first speech in this House, and I want to compliment him on the fact that his was the strongest speech delivered here by the other side of the House in support of this Bill. I want to express my thanks to him for his support. The whole tendency of his speech was that it would be barbarous to turn those people and those children into poor whites. He stated that the settlers could not afford to pay for native labour because native wages were too high and consequently, if the settlers’ sons were left there, they would to all intents and purposes have to work for less than the natives. That exactly is our argument, and I want to thank the hon. member for what he said.

We have had a very fine example of confusion here. The rules of the House do not allow me to say that the hon. the Minister deliberately distorted an hon. member’s words, and I am therefore not going to say it, but we have had a very excellent instance here of the way a debate can become confused through a Minister getting up and giving an explanation of a speech, and that of a new member of this House, which is totally wrong. It is not to the Minister’s credit. What did the hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. J. G. W. van Niekerk) say? He said a great many other things—but the Minister very carefully ignored those. The Minister got hold of one argument which amounted to this — that there is a shortage of labour, that the settlers cannot get labour, and that where labour can still be got that labour as a result of the Government’s actions is so expensive that people cannot afford it. That is perfectly true. It is not only the settlers on these holdings who cannot afford to pay for that type of labour, but even big farmers cannot afford it. The hon. member for Wakkerstroom argues this way: If the farmer can be allowed to farm with his son so that they can work there together, the holding can be worked. It is a sound argument, and in reply to that argument, we get this parrot-like laughter from the other side of the House.

You will first have to inject your new member with a little poison, in your caucus.

We get quite enough distasteful poison from the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow)—poison of such a character that whenever the hon. member for Hospital opens his mouth the atmosphere becomes polluted. Physically and mentally he is so constituted, that everything that emanates from him is unsavoury. But let me come to the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. van den Berg). I want to draw the hon. member’s attention to the fact that if the Minister of Lands succeeds, as he has done, in putting up a few skittles and knocking them down again, and in converting the hon. member for Krugersdorp as he has done, nothing will be left of the Labour Party ere long. That is perfectly clear. If the Labour Party listens so readily to the Minister of Lands, and swallows everything the Minister of Lands puts up, then thank heaven nothing will be left of the Labour Party ere long. I hope the hon. member for Krugersdorp will stop his conversation now and listen to what we have to say here. He said that the Minister of Lands this morning had dealt with the other aspect of every case that had been quoted, and that he had dealt effectively with it and had proved that there was no truth in it. Of all the instances mentioned here he only selected two and he tried to deal with those two cases.

And he didn’t succeed in explaining them away.

Large numbers of instances were mentioned by myself and other hon. members, but as the Minister was not able to deny the facts in a single one of them, he carefully ignored them. The argument used in the one case was that the farmer had an income of only £200 and that if the son were to be allowed to stay with him on the farm it would mean that two families would have to exist on £200. Have we ever heard bigger nonsense in all our lives? The Minister’s argument is that if the son comes and lives on the farm he will be sitting there with his arms folded and do nothing. He is not going to help to increase the income. From morning to night he is going to sit on the stoep and the income of the father will have to be divided between the two families. I cari quite appreciate the Minister trying to adduce an argument like that because there is no other argument. Cannot he think of something better? Doesn’t he realise that if the father gets a strong young fellow to help him the income of the holding is going to be increased.

But do you not realise that the production capacity of the holding is no more than that?

What I realise is that most of those holdings have not vet been properly developed simply because of lack of capital and lack of labour. That is why those holdings have not been developed to their maximum capacity and the Minister knows it. Those people cannot fully develop those farms with their own labour, but if the son is allowed to stay there he can help the father and in that way the income is increased. Before proceeding to deal with another aspect of this matter, I just want to say this. The indignation among the settlers is such about this Bill that I want to tell the Minister that from a political point of view it is a pity that we have to fight this proposal, but it is a question of principle—the Bill is wrong in principle and that is why we have to fight it. Because the Minister is now driving S.A.P. and N.A.T. into the same kraal. I thank him for doing so. People’s eyes are being opened. I have before me a petition signed by 81 people and a large proportion of those people are supporters of the party opposite. Let me read this petition [translation]—

That petition comes from Potgietersrust, from a district in which many S.A.P.’s live, and it is signed by them as well as by the Nationalists. They say that they will not tolerate being deprived of their heritage, and I want to say this to the Minister, that they are quite right. They will not stand for it. None of the members on his side representing settlers will ever have the privilege of sitting in this House again is this Bill is passed in its present form. The Minister is doing useless work, because as sure as he is sitting there today the next Government coming into power will repeal this act. It will not remain on the Statute Book and the Minister’s Department should realise the fact that the next Government when it comes into power will repeal this Act.

If that is so you should help us now to push it through.

Now let me come back to these particular cases. The Minister of Lands tried to deal with two of the cases that were mentioned. If the Minister in the past in his attitude towards the settlers had shown a different spirit if he had acted fairly and sensibly he would perhaps not have put the settlers up in arms against him by this Bill as he has done now. But I want to emphasise that the Minister’s attitude towards the settlers who have made application for leave to have one of their sons remain on the farm, has been hard and barbarous. I have mentioned instances. I have had to deal with various instances in my constituency where I know the people personally, where I know that they and their sons can make a decent living on the farm. In everyone of those cases the Minister has refused to give permission and only in two cases has he given temporary permission for six months. Now imagine—a young fellow who is married gets permission for six months. He has to build a house, he has to provide for his whole future; when his father dies he inherits; he has to go and farm, and what security has he got if the Minister allows him to stay there for only six months. I say that where the Minister has not refused outright, and where the children have to leave the farm, he has only given them permission for six months, and after that they can apply again. Which farmer who has anything in him is going to stay on the farm under those conditions.

They have to make application every year, and at the Minister’s behest they have to carry passes like natives.

Yes, they have to become the Minister’s pass-bearers. The Minister didn’t go into the instances which other members and myself mentioned here and he cannot contradict any of the facts I have given because I know these people personally. Now there is one other point I want to refer to. If application is made whom does the Minister get to investigate the application. He gets the Inspectors of Lands.

The work is done by the Land Board.

Yes, and they work through the Inspectors of Lands.

They do the work themselves.

They send out people like Mr. Jan du Plessis de Beer.

He must be an old Nat.

No, he is of the same kidney as the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) in every respect. The other one is Mr. Henry Harris Moll. They are the people who are sent out and it is on the authority of those people that these poor settlers are persecuted. Both these people are quite well known to a large section of the population. They are the types of people that the Minister uses for his purposes. [Time limit.]

I am sorry that every time the Minister makes a personal attack on me he waits until I am out of the House. I was engaged on my parliamentary duties and I could not be here, so I have to go by what other hon. members have told me as to what he said about me. Whenever he makes personal attacks I don’t usually take the trouble to reply to him. He can go to my constituency and enquire into my career. No judge has yet told me that I have lied.

Nor has any judge told me so either.

I know this settler Marais better than the Minister does. I helped him to buy his land. I know him, I know his wife and his children. I see them almost every week. And now the Minister comes here and makes the excuse that the son-in-law and the daughter are there. I said that the man’s wife was ill and confined to bed, and that the daughter had to look after her. The daughter is married. Of course her husband lives in the house. As far as the son is concerned, the Minister refused to allow him to stay there. He can say what he likes. I made the application and he refused to give the son permission to stay there. Now that son will inherit the land. Today he has to be a bywoner or he has to go and farm somebody else’s land to please the Minister. That young fellow is without money. He was able to and he proposed buying half the farm. They turned that down as well, and when the man said that he would pay the whole of the amount and get transfer, they also turned that down. The Minister can read what I said in Hansard, and I can prove it. He cannot prove that it is not so. When that man bought the land he knew what the conditions of his lease were. Under the conditions Of his lease he could allow any member of his family to stay there. Now the Minister comes along with this Bill which aims at amending the contract which this man has entered into with the Government. Let the Minister deny if he can that by this Bill he is breaking the contract that he has with this man. I have said it before, and I say it again that this Bill is a blot on our Statute Book; and I say further that it is a breach of faith with the people who have already bought their farms. What right would I have, if I had made a contract under which I had given somebody the right to let his children, whoever they might be, stay on the farm, to step in afterwards and break that contract and apply all the restrictions which the Minister is trying to apply under this Bill. The Minister simply comes here with this Bill, and applies new conditions to these people which he has no right to do, because these people have entered into a contract with the Government. Let the Minister deny it if he can. Let me ask him this question. Are the soldiers going to be placed on these holdings on the same conditions as other people? Are they also going to be prevented from keeping their children there or from employing white persons; are they also going to be prevented from selling the land if they want to even if they have paid for it and have their title deeds? These settlers are decent people. I move among them and I know how worried they are about this whole matter. If a man is allotted a holding, after he has paid his tenth, and has paid his interest after he has paid all the money he has to pay under his contract, what right has the Minister got to turn round and say that he is going to get his title deeds, but that even then he is not going to have the rights of an ordinary landowner? I say it is a breach of faith and the Minister has no right to tell a man who lives on his own land that he cannot have his parents or his children with him and that he is not allowed to sell the land to whomever he pleases. It is his land because he has paid for it. Now the Minister says that there are settlers, who have been assisted by some of their commitments having been written off. Did the Minister put that condition to them when they were granted that “write-off”? Were they told that their children would not be allowed to stay there and that they would not be allowed to sell the land? If he had done so those settlers would never have agreed. We cannot expect a settler who is worthy of the name Afrikaner to accept this position. If I entered into a contract, if I carry out the conditions of my contract and I pay all I have to pay, then the property is mine and I refuse on my own land to carry a pass like a kaffir. The Minister can give his consent now. He gives his consent for a year in some cases, but never for more, and then the application has to be made again. The settlers therefore are given to understand that they are to do as the Minister wants them to do if they want to get permission to remain on the farm. If a settler doesn’t do as the Minister wants him to do he is deprived of all privileges. This is the sort of thing which is going to make these people dependent on the Minister all their lives and their children and grandchildren after them. The man has paid for his land like anyone else. Now he has to be subjected to conditions of this type. The Minister is now to have the right to tell him who can work on his farm and who can live there. To come and talk here about over crowding is nonsense. The object of this Bill is not to combat overcrowding because if the land is overpopulated the Government has the right to take it away from the individual concerned.

It is very costly.

Whether it is costly or not, if you deprive an individual of his private rights you have to pay for it just as you and I have to pay for it. If the Government wants to expropriate land they have to pay for it. That is the law of the land. The position is simply this, that if these rights are not granted you are going to have dissatisfaction and thank heavens this Government is not always going to be in power, and I hope that the people who will take their place will have more common sense than to deprive a man of his rights when the right of depriving that man of what he has was not a condition contained in the contract at the time the contract was drafted.

I want to support the amendment of the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig) which to my mind is a very good and very reasonable one. I am in entire accord with what has been said here about the Bill and I say that if we place this Bill on our Statute Book it will be a blot on all our laws. People who have had certain rights for many years are, under the Minister’s proposals, being deprived of those rights—they are being deprived of rights which they possessed when they bought the land, and I say that is is unfair and unjust. Let me put this to the hon. the Minister. The argument which he used was that the State in the past had spent millions of pounds on settlements in order to supply them with water. But what is the position of the farmer on a farm which has no water scheme? There are farms on which the Government has spent no money at all. The settler has repaid every penny of the money he has borrowed and the Government has not been called on to write off anything. I want to ask the Minister to give that man his due. Allow him to do as he wishes. I want to express the hope that the Minister is not going to treat the man on the platteland, on those areas which have no water scheme, in the same way as the man on the settlement where the State has had to spend millions of pounds.

I don’t really know why the whips on the other side are so active this morning. I have noticed several hon. members there trying to get up, but immediately they try, the whip cracks. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) tried to get up but the whip immediately cracked.

What has that to do with the Bill?

It has a lot to do with it. Let the captain keep quiet. The whips even went to the extent of talking to the Minister, and the Deputy Prime Minister thereupon came in and they talked to him. It seems to me that a real caucus is being held there—it is so bad that we are hardly able to talk. Look how the whips are moving about at the moment among hon. members opposite. The two whips at the moment are holding a real caucus in which the Minister is even taking part. Now what I want to object to is this. The hon. member for Zwartruggens (Mr. Henny) sits over there —he seems to be very amused this morning. He has been sitting there and laughing all the time. What we are asking for is that an aged father or mother should at least have the right to keep their children on their farm, yet when we put up a plea like that the hon. member laughs. We should like his electors to know that he looks upon this matter as a joke. Now let me come back to the Minister. The Minister when he arrived here this morning told us that this was the Government’s policy—that it was concerned about overcrowding on the farms. But let me ask the Minister this. What does his policy in regard to settlements amount to? Does he want the holdings eventually to pass on to the sons? What are his intentions in regard to these holdings? The Minister refused to answer because he has another scheme in his head. I want to quote to the House from a speech which he made on the 28th February, 1944, in which he stated what his policy was. He told us that he had met the settlers, and that this was what he told them—

Listen to this—not settlers of the State, but settlers of the Government.

And then he went on—

If that is so what does the Minister intend doing with, the holdings?

He wants to buy them.

No, he has some other scheme in his head.

Who said so?

The present Minister of Lands. Now I want to ask every hon. member opposite, and I am also addressing my question to the Deputy Prime Minister : What do they intend doing with regard to the settlements?

Our plan is to prevent the settlers from becoming poor whites.

If the Government’s intention is to give the soldiers preference, then we only want to put this question to the Minister: Will the soldiers, when the present people have left the farms, have to remain there under the same conditions?

You are again attacking the soldiers.

Could not somebody put this poor member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) in an asylum?

You won’t manage it.

I want to put this question to the Minister, in view of the fact that he is now telling us that the children of the settlers must not become settlers. His statement amounts to this—that not one of them will eventually inherit his father’s farm. If that is so, then we on this side of the House are entitled to ask what the Minister has at the back of his mind. The Minister owes this House an explanation before we leave this clause. How could he ever have made a statement like that if it meant nothing. He made that statement with the full knowledge and approval of the Cabinet because not a single Minister got up to contradict his statement. It is the Government’s policy that the son is not to inherit the father’s farm. If that is so then we want to know what the Government intends doing with those holdings. Does the Minister intend settling the soldiers there under the conditions laid down in this Bill or is it the intention to lay down special conditions on their behalf?

You are again attacking the soldiers.

The Minister even said in Another Place that he was going to make provision for the soldiers of foreign countries, the soldiers of the Allies. He said he was going to make provision for them under Clause 11. Are they to get land under the same conditions? Will their fathers and their mothers have to get a pass to allow them to stay there, and will sons of the settler, when of age, also have to get passes? Now I want to make a final appeal to the Minister. I want to tell him that what he is doing here means the dislocation of the whole of our national life. He is actually dislocating our family life. I am not talking about people like this unfortunate member for Hospital—but I want to ask any hon. member opposite, except the hon. member for Hospital, any hon. member who has children, whether he would like to be compelled to ask the Minister for a pass to allow his grown-up son, or his parents, to come and stay with him on the farm. I want to ask the hon. the Minister at the very least to accept one amendment, and it is this, that at any rate one grown-up son will automatically be allowed to live on the farm without having to make application for a pass. The effect of that will be this that the land settlement policy will not come to a stop but that the son will eventually be able to take over the farm of his father.

The hon. the Minister told us earlier on that we need not be concerned about the aged people who will be moved from these holdings—viz. the parents of settlers, because the Government is looking after all of them. We have the Department of Social Welfare, as the Minister told us, and that Department will see to it that these people suffer no privations. Now let me quote one instance—and there are hundreds of them—of a man who actually has left one of those holdings. He comes from a Government farm and he has settled down in the town. I want to quote what the Commissioner for Pensions has to say about his case—

The woman gets £3 per month. He himself is an invalid, he cannot do any work and therefore he was paid £2 5s. per month. Now this man made application for an Oudstryder’s pension. He came from a farm; these are the people the Minister wants to drive away from the farms. Now what happened in that man’s case? I am quoting again from the Commissioner of Pensions—

So this man is deprived of his £2 5s. per month—which had been granted to him because he was an invalid—on account of his getting an Oudstryder’s pension. That is the way these old people are looked after. Let me quote further—

Altogether these two people get £6 per month. Nobody can live on that in a town. They have to pay sanitary fees, rent, etc. And the letter then goes on—

The man couldn’t, on the pension he received, keep body and soul together, so he went out and took a job. For that reason his Oudstryder’s pension was reduced to 10s. per month, but not only that—

Let hon. members imagine the position. The cost of living had gone up. Officials and other employees all get an allowance. Here we have this Oudstryder; if his cost of living goes up and he is paid an allowance it is taken from his Oudstryder’s pension and yet the Minister tells us that the Government is looking after those old people. We have seen what happened in Johannesburg a few days ago. There was a poor blind man getting £3 per month.

£2 10s.

That makes it even worse. He couldn’t live on what he got and was forced to go begging. He was taken to court and he was fined—by this Government under the laws passed by this Government. But the Minister tells us that we needn’t worry about these people because the Government cares for them. Whether a man is blind or whether he is old, the principle is the same. You go to gaol if you are forced to beg, owing to your pension being insufficient. I say that it is a scandal. Here you have an Oudstryder, and he gets a trifling pension, and if he does a small job his pension is taken away. What is going to be the position of a large number of these old men and women who have to be driven off the farms. They are driven into the towns where they cannot exist on their pensions. This legislation is inhuman. An hon. member has described it as satanical legislation. But whatever it is one cannot condemn it in strong enough terms. The Minister talks about six or seven grown-up sons on a holding. We are now proposing to restrict it to one grown-up son. Why does not the Minister agree to that? I am not saying that it should be restricted to one son but that is the least the Minister should have said. Today under the provisions of the Act, when he reaches his majority, he has to leave the farm. It is left to the whim of the Minister. But there is another aspect of the matter, and I want to move an amendment in order to remove that objection. I want to move—

Let me explain this. In Clause 1 of the Bill we have the definition which refers to the Principal Act of 1912. In the 1912 Act we find—

It is stated clearly there that a piece of land remains a holding even after Crown land title has been issued. This Clause in the Bill we are now dealing with means therefore that nobody will have the right, even if he already has obtained title or transfer, to allow any other white person except his wife, his daughters or minor sons to live on the holding, without the written consent of the Minister. In view of the fact that under the Act of 1912 holdings are also included in land in respect of which Crown land title has already been issued, it also applies to people who regard themselves as full owners of their land. The definition of “tenant” goes fur†Ther. It says this—

Even where Crown land title has been issued and the man is full owner of the land, it still applies. In the 1937 Act, special provision is made under Clause 9 to the same effect as the provision which I am proposing to make under my amendment. It is specially provided that the provisions of the Act, namely, the relevant provisions of this Bill, will not be applicable to holdings of people in possession of Crown land title at the time of the coming into operation of the Act. It was found necessary at the time to insert this proviso. It would have meant otherwise those persons who had Crown land title and who considered themselves to be masters of their own land would not have been allowed to have other people living with them on their land. Under this Bill people who already have Crown land title will not be allowed either to have other persons on their holdings. They have complied with all conditions. They consider themselves masters of their own lands, but this Bill is being made retrospective so that it will also affect them. I therefore move this amendment.

It seems to me that there is considerable misapprehension on the other side of the House as to what a settler is. Hon. members seem to be under the impression that a settler is a man who is on a small holding under an irrigation scheme. That is not the position at all. The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. van den Berg) who makes claim to be the leader of his party, also showed that he didn’t understand the position. He stated openly that he considered that people who had bought land under Section 11 do not come under this Bill. That shows that many hon. members haven’t studied this Bill and that they simply rely on the Minister to produce a good Bill. We saw how poor the Bill introduced by the Minister of Labour was when we came to discuss it. Now here we have a Bill which applies definitely to land under Section 11. I want to point out that in Hoopstad there are people who have bought a lot of land under Section 11. In days gone by Hoopstad used to be regarded as a cattle district, where large farms were purchased under Section 11—farms running into 1,000 morgen and more. Since those days conditions have changed. Those areas which used to be looked upon as cattle-breeding areas are today among the best agricultural and crop-raising districts of the Free State, and a settler who has come from 1,000 to 1,200 morgen there can quite easily divide his land among at least three of his sons, each of whom can make a good living on 400 morgen. Now if it is possible for three or four children to make a good living, the question arises whether it is fair to force these young men to leave the farm. We quite realise that steps must be taken to prevent overcrowding, but we have had clear evidence before us to show that we have the necessary legislation before us to prevent that sort of thing. It isn’t fair however to compel a man who has land and who has met all his commitments, to go hat in hand to the Government on every possible occasion …

The hon. member must not repeat arguments which have already been used.

Has any one put up the argument that a farm of 1,200 morgen can be beneficially occupied by a number of children? They are compelled continually to go hat in hand to the Minister to ask for permission to keep one of their sons on the farm. Let me draw the Minister’s attention to this, that actually there is a tendency today for the children to leave the farms and to go to the towns; you can only keep a child on the farm if he has an affection for the land, because town life offers greater attractions than the hard work on the farm does. If the child has to leave the farm and once becomes accustomed to town life, that child, when the father dies has no affection for the land, and he will not feel inclined to give up the attractions of town life, because he knows that as a rule he has to work very much harder on the farm. Once he has done other work and has taken a position somewhere else, you can hardly blame him if he doesn’t want to come back to the farm. He has worked himself up in his other position, and it would mean having to give up everything to return to the farm. In those circumstances I feel that the Minister would do well to provide in this Bill that at any rate one of the children can stay on the farm to help his father in the farming activities, because in that way an affection will be cultivated in the child for the land which he will probably have to farm and cultivate after his father has passed away.

The hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) a little while ago moved an amendment to Sub-Clause (2), the effect of which will be that the provisions of that clause will not be applicable to land which has already been issued under the Settlement Act of 1912. I hope the Minister is going to accept his amendment, because if the Bill passes as it now stands it will have retrospective effect, and all these people who have obtained land under that Act, no matter whether they have crown land title or not, will come under the new provisions of this clause, which will mean that in future they will simply be “pass-bearers of the Minister”. I therefore want to express the hope that the Minister will accept this reasonable amendment. May I also be allowed to draw attention to a very unfortunate remark which the Minister made this morning? I am very sorry to have to draw attention to it, but it has occurred repeatedly that we have had to doubt a Minister’s statement, and that shouldn’t happen here. A Minister is a responsible person and if he makes a statement, we expect that statement to be of such a character, that nobody can have any doubt about it. The Minister told us that we need not worry about these poor people because the Department of Social Welfare looked after them and millions of pounds were spent for that purpose. I have looked up the estimates, and under the Poor Relief Vote I find that there is provision for an amount of £54,000. Now where are those millions which the Minister spoke about?

It will cost millions of pounds if we carry out the recommendations of the Planning Council.

In respect of Children’s Aid, taking all the various institutions into account, an amount of £596,000 is on the estimates; then we get the school feeding scheme which is supported by the Government; the butter, cheese and milk scheme, for which altogether £350,000 is on the estimates. I don’t propose going into all the items. Now we are told here this morning by the Minister of Lands that millions of pounds are being spent on the salvation of our poor, although on the estimates we find only a trivial amount of £54,000. And then the Minister gets up in this House and asserts that we need not worry ourselves about these poor people, because, so he tells us, the Department of Social Welfare will look after them, and so he tells us, millions of pounds are being made available by the State. If a Minister makes a statement, there is responsibility on him, and we must be able to accept his statement and to believe it. But if he simply makes these statements off his own bat without ever having given any thought to them, without ever having enquired into them, we have to express our disapprovel in the strongest possible terms. I hope that in the future the Minister will never indulge in that sort of thing again and that he will make sure of his facts before making these statements in this House. We have repeatedly quoted instances here in regard to things done by the Minister which we have considered most unreasonable. The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) and the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) have mentioned such cases. I don’t want to refer to any other instances, except to tell the Minister that Meiring’s case will haunt his conscience to his dying day. If ever an unfair thing was done it was in that instance. I have dealt with this case on previous occasions. It is one of the most unfair things I know of. We can cite it as a satanical example of the Minister’s actions and of the actions of his department. The Minister also told us that he did not want the settlers’ sons to say on the holdings because they would be paid kaffir wages there. Now is it a fact that these young fellows are paid kaffir wages? None of us on this side want these people to work at kaffir wages. But is it not better to leave a man’s son there so that he can develop the farm to its full productive capacity instead of allowing it to deteriorate, instead of allowing all sorts of weeds and bush to get a hold, while only part of the farm is looked after? The Minister apparently thinks that the boy is not going to do any work and will loaf about all day long. That is not the position. He is there to help his father develop the holding. The Minister gave as a case where a father had an income of £200, and he went on to say that it would mean paying his son a kaffir wage if he had to stay on the holding to help his father. The Minister should be ashamed to say that the farmer would pay his son a kaffir wage. He needs his son to cultivate his farm as it should be cultivated and if the son is allowed to help there will be enough not only for the family, but also for the family of the grownup son. The Minister has not answered the plea which we on this side have put forward. I said earlier on this morning that what the Minister intended by this Bill was to make all these people on the settlements dependent on him—for the rest of their lives they are to be his pass-bearers. Our people are tired of being pass-bearers. I therefore hope that the Minister will see his way, even if he is not prepared to accept the other amendments at least to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Pietersburg so that this Bill will not be retrospective in its effects and will not be applicable to land allotted in the past, so that the people who have received their land under the Land Settlement Act will become owners of their land, and will not for all time continue to be the slaves of the department. I want them to be able to do as they wish on their land because they are the owners of that land. We hear so much about oppressive legislation. If ever we have had an example of oppressive legislation we have it here in this Bill. As hon. members have said, it will be a blot on the Statute Book of South Africa if we ever allow this Bill to get there. The Minister has told us repeatedly that he only wants to fill up the gaps which I have left in my Act. What nonsense, what rubbish! How can he know what I had in mind? Can he read my thoughts that he knows what I had in mind? I deny most emphatically that I wanted to do the things he wants to do.

I cannot accept the amendment of the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé). My information is that this clause does not apply to holdings to which Crown land title has already been issued, and which have already been sold once.

And those which have not yet been sold once?

Where the Minister has given permission for a farm to be sold once, all these conditions have lapsed. If consent was not obtained and it was not sold once, then this Bill does apply.

I am really deeply shocked at the attitude adopted by the Minister in regard to this matter. The attitude which the Minister and the Government are adopting towards the settlers is that of master and servant—a very dangerous tendency— and I want to warn the Minister very seriously not to go to the people in that spirit. The Government must be as much in the service of the people as the people are in the service of the Government. And that attitude on the Minister’s part constitutes a reflection on the settlers ánd it proves at once that the relationship between the Government and the settlers is not what it should be. The settlers are treated with contempt, which is unfair as far as those people are concerned. I have been sitting here watching the hon. member for Zwartruggens (Mr. Henny) to see whether he was going to be satisfied with a principle like this being applied to the settlers. He has been sitting there in an attitude of contempt, and I challenge the hon. member to accept responsibility for this measure before his constituents.

You needn’t worry about my constituents.

We also have the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Mr. Visser) here. He doesn’t do anything either to oppose this Bill. He has a large number of settlers in his constituency, and I challenge him to have the manliness to take responsibility for this principle before his constituents. Many hon. members opposite will try to condone this whole business and to push the responsibility on to the shoulders of the Minister of Lands. I hope, however, that they will have the courage to face their constituents honestly and frankly and to admit that they assisted in getting this principle contained in the Bill passed by Parliament. In regard to the speech by the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) and the type of economy advocated by him, I want merely to say that that kind of economy no longer holds good in a civilised community today. That is the type of economy we had in the Stone Age; the type of economy we found among primitive people but not among civilised nations. Legislation must exert a civilising influence, and must bear the stamp of civilisation, and I should also like to add that he will not have the hardihood of defending this principle before his constituents because one doesn’t get that sort of thing in Krugersdorp—but in the Kruger Game Reserve.

When my ten minutes expired earlier, I had not finished the argument which I was trying to develop. I was saying that the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) was swallowing everything the Minister dished up. There is a reason for that of course.

You people have been dishing up a lot of rubbish and the Minister has denied what you have said.

There is a reason for the hon. member for Krugersdorp in this case swallowing everything the Minister dishes up. What the Minister wants to achieve here simply is the introduction of Communism in South Africa. This proposal of the Minister means Communism. The passing of this Bill will mean that all land which has been allotted since 1912 under the Land Settlement Act and all land that may be allotted from now onwards, will, as long as the provisions of the Bill remain as they are at present, be land which no longer belongs to the occupants. The deed of transfer they get only gives them apparent property rights. In actual fact they have no property rights. The land belongs to the State and they fall under the supervision and power of the State; to all intents and purposes they are nothing but bywoners, and that is why I say that this Bill is nothing short of the systematic introduction of Communism in South Africa. That is why I can understand why the hon. member for Krugersdorp, who is closely associated with Communism, with both hands accepts the system which the Minister is now introducing. But I fail to understand how hon. members opposite, who also declare themselves to be opposed to Communism, can be persuaded to give their consent to the system which the Minister is introducing. I want them to think very carefully over the implications of this Bill. The Minister has told us that this Clause 2 (1) (b) is only applicable to land until such time as Crown land title has been issued and not after that. I want to ask the Minister if he is honest in what he said. Did he say that, because if he did, I hope he said it in ignorance and that he didn’t mean it that way, because if he didn’t say it in ignorance it means that he is misleading the House in a most disgraceful manner. Quite irrespective of the definition of “holding”—it makes no difference what his department tells him—his department is not a court of law—we should look at the definition of “holding” under the Act of 1912, and this is the definition given there—

It therefore includes land after the Crown land title has been issued.

After it has been sold once it then ceases to be a holding. That is the advice given by the legal advisers.

It makes no difference what they say. This definition is perfectly clear. It does not say that it ceases to be a holding after the Crown land title has been issued, it says “after”; so it continues to be a holding. If my interpretation of the meaning of holding is wrong—and I contend it is not wrong—then I want to ask the Minister how he gets past Sub-clause (2) which reads as follows—

I want hon. members to realise what the difference is between Crown land title and a deed of transfer. Crown land title is a document by which the Crown in the first instance transfers the land from the State to the purchaser. All subsequent transfers are made by means of the deed of transfer, and this clause clearly states now that this prohibition in paragraph (b) will be inserted hereafter not only in all Crown land titles but in all deeds of transfer subsequent to his Crown land title. That is the meaning. And for the Minister to tell ths House and to give the House the impression, that this prohibition applies only to the lessee until such time as he has received his crown land title is absolutely misleading because this sub-clause (2) is perfectly clear and it states that this prohibition will be introduced into every deed of transfer and nota bene, not only in deed of transfer issued in respect of land allotted after this Act has come into force, but even in respect of land over which Crown title had been issued before the coming into force of this Act. It is therefore retrospective. I hope the Minister realises the implications of this Clause because I am convinced that my interpretation is correct. It means that the Government is turning our nation into a nation of helots. I propose developing this argument further when we come to sub-clause (2). The Minister has made a statement which is absolutely in conflict with the truth, but I want to confine myself more particularly to sub-paragraph (b). This prohibition as it reads here constituted a bond not only on the domicile of children and parents on Crown land; it says that no other Europeans shall be domiciled there. I first of all want to confine myself to this point. Shortly before the elections the Minister visited my constituency. He went to the bushveld areas of Waterberg and Potgietersrust. I do not know if the Minister enquired into the conditions prevailing there beyond promising that every farm would be given a stream of water.

When was that?

We had the elections in 1943, and the Minister was there in 1942. I say apart from the promise he made, and which will never be carried out, the Minister investigated the conditions prevailing there. These are very far-flung areas in that part of the country with practically no native population. The farmers in those parts, some of whom are big cattle farmers— some of them settlers in the sense that they have got their land from the Department of Lands—have not got a single native on their farms and the result is that they are being handicapped in the development of their farming operations to such an extent that many of them are occasionally disposed to throw up the sponge. I have actually come across cattle farmers there who have had to herd their own cattle. They cannot get a single native, and those natives who in the past used to come through from Bechuanaland, and who were occasionally willing to take on a job with these farmers, are new being drawn away to the mines or the police catch them and put them in gaol. That is the position prevailing in those parts of the country. One would expect the Government to help those people instead of preventing them from keeping a white man to assist them on their farms. It is thrown at us every day that the farmers don’t want to employ white men on their farms. We are continually asked: “Why don’t you farmers employ white men?” And now the Minister steps in and actually prohibits them from doing so. These people are not allowed to have a single white man on their land. [Time limit.]

I am honestly convinced that the Minister himself does not understand this Bill. He has no conception of what the Bill means, and not only that—I don’t want to accuse the Minister of deliberately misleading the committee, but still, we want to be able to accept a Minister’s word when he gives an assurance to members. He may make a mistake; he may not always be quite correct; but we want to be able to take it for granted that he honestly means what he says. A moment ago the Minister told us that even if a man had his Crown land title this clause still applied. The Minister told us that if the man had not yet sold to someone else the conditions were still applicable. But what were the assurances which the Minister gave this House? Let me quote to him what he said on the second reading. This is what he said on the 22nd March—

As I say, one’s intelligence cannot take it in. When are we to accept the Minister’s word? He says that hon. members have accused him of making the people subject to the provisions of the Act even though they have their Crown land titles. The Minister said in the speech I have just quoted that they had accused him without any grounds, and now he gets up in his seat and tells the House that the very thing of which we accuse him is actually correct—that the accusation was well founded. This is what he said—

People who got their Crown land title 20 years ago, who have already divided their farms, those people who got their Crown land title as far back as 16 and 20 years ago, are still to be subject to the provisions of this Act. They have already divided their farms. The parents live on one part of the farm and the children on other parts, but they are now to be subject to the provisions of this Act. Is there no such thing as breach of faith today? Is it honest? If that is to be the position, I want to know how far this Government, or how far the Minister still intends going. I am quite convinced that the rest of the Cabinet has not considered this question. I cannot for one moment believe that you will ever get a number of people together who will agree to that sort of thing, who would ever justify such a step. I am convinced that the Minister was not aware of the position and that when, on the 21st March, he used those words, when he said that the people who already had their Crown land title, did not come under the provisions of the Act, he honestly believed that to be the case. But now that we have pointed out to him that that is a mistake, he says that that is what he wants. I say that if this Bill is ever placed on the Statute Book it will constitute a serious blot on the good name of this House. I want to ask the hon. members opposite whether they think that settlers who got their Crown land titles 10 years ago will be satisfied with it. Why did they get their Crown land titles? They got it because they complied with all their obligations. These people have paid back every penny of their indebtedness. Is it reasonable now to say to those people today: “You are not allowed to keep your grown-up sons or your parents on your plots.” These men may actually have divided their land. Perhaps they haven’t given transfer yet, but the sub-division has actually been made. Their transfer is now to be subject to this condition.

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

The hon. the Minister of Lands under this clause is imposing a perpetual servitude on land which has been bought for settlement. Not only is he placing a servitude for the future on land which people buy with Government assistance, but he is also making land which has already been bought, subject to that servitude. It has been made clear by other speakers that these people have bought land from the State subject to certain conditions. The Minister is now passing legislation to break the contracts entered into with these people. These are vested rights, but the Minister and the Government think nothing of violating those vested rights and of breaking the agreement they have entered into. I want to remind hon. members that a few years ago we tried to induce the Government to buy back from big land companies the land which they had bought and which they had left lying idle without developing it, and to re-allot that land to settlers. When we tried to do that there was a big outcry on the Government side that these companies had vested rights and that those rights must not be interfered with. It was argued that these companies had bought the land and that we could not pass legislation to force them to sell the land to the State. But we are now dealing with a poor section of the population which tries to acquire small bits of land, and now the Government doesn’t hesitate to take this drastic step of violating these vested rights. I want to remind the Minister that the Government does not only assist settlers to buy land, it also assists companies to establish factories, but in the latter case no such obligations are imposed. We impose customs duties to protect factories and to get them started but no such obligations are imposed on the factories in return for the assistance they are given. When the poor section of the population, however, tries to acquire a bit of land with the aid of the State, we impose a servitude on the land. We have even voted large amounts of money to assist factories to get along and to establish new factories. Has one solitary servitude ever been imposed on one of those factories? No. They repay their loans and they develop as they like. It is their property to manage as they please. Why then must these objectionable servitudes be imposed in cases where farmers are assisted to buy land. I want to mention another instance. There is an amount of nearly £2,000,000 on the estimates which will be voted as a donation to the gold mines. The gold mines don’t pay any interest on that money; they don’t even have to refund it; they haven’t even asked for it. But the Government in the kindness of their hearts presents the gold mines with £2,000,000. The public has to pay for it. Now here the Government isn’t spending even £1,000,000 per year in assisting the farmers to buy land, and every penny, plus interest, has to be repaid. In spite of all this the Government still imposes this objectionable servitude to make these people feel that they are going to be dependent on the Government for all time. They have to come hat in hand to the State if they want to do anything with their land. They are dependent on the State, and they are not allowed to say anything against the Government. There is a perpetual servitude on their land. The Minister tells us that these aged people, who will have to be moved from the farms, will be cared for by the State. The hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) showed us very effectively how the State cares for those people. I can say that in my own constituency these aged persons find it impossible to live on what the State gives them, and as the Minister himself knows, it is a characteristic of the farming population for the sons and daughters to get the old people to come and stay with them. If they have an old age pension under those conditions, it is possible for them to manage. But the Minister now imposes this servitude and deprives the children of the right to look after their parents. It is an interference with the rights of the individual. The Government is not giving these people any alms; it is not helping them in the way it is helping the gold mines; it is only lending them money on reasonable conditions to assist the farmers to get land. Can the Minister mention any other country in the world which imposes similar obligations on people who buy land with the assistance of the State? Take Australia, take New Zealand, take Canada—look at the conditions there under which the farmers are assisted to acquire land. But here these people have for ever and anon to be bywoners of the Government. They have to be dependent on the Minister for gifts and favours. They are not given complete say over their own property. Does one find that kind of thing in any other country? No. Then why have we got it here? I shall tell you. It is because the Government is in the grip of capitalism. The poor sections of the population have to have such a servitude imposed on them. I can understand the Minister doing it, but what I fail to understand is that members on the Government benches who represent these people keep perfectly quiet and do not utter one word of protest against this unfair and unjust action on the part of the State. It strikes me that they haven’t got the courage to rise and protest against the Government’s actions. Those hon. members will have to account to their constituents. What we have been saying here will appear in Hansard …

That’s why you are saying it.

The hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler) was given his seat under certain conditions. I don’t think I need worry about him. I am speaking about hon. members who represent settlers in this House, and I expect them at least to protest.

Shortly before business was suspended the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) quoted part of my speech from Hansard and asserted that what I had said there was in conflict with what I said here today, namely, that the Bill in regard to those who were allowed to live on holdings with the occupier was not retrospective. The hon. member is a lawyer, and I resent his quoting an extract from my speech here which dealt with an entirely different matter. On that occasion I was dealing with Clause 9 which concerns the bonding, alienation and sub-division of land. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) asked me if it was retrospective, viz., whether the Minister would have the right to impose his restrictions on people who had received their Crown land title as far back as 1912, and my reply was: “No. People who have their Crown land title do not come under the provisions of Section 9.” I say that I resent such a misrepresentation of the position being given in this House. Meanwhile I have been thinking over this question, and I have discused it with my officials and I now want to move the following amendment—

I think that will meet the views expressed by hon. members opposite.

Then what is the position with regard to people who have paid off all their obligations?

If he hasn’t got his Crown land title it applies to him. He has to be on the plot for ten years before he can get it.

I want to say at once that I am very grateful for the amendment which the Minister has proposed. It is exactly what I moved, namely, that this clause shall not apply to title deeds issued before the coming into operation of this Act. I accept that amendment. We accepted the position that it was the Minister’s intention not to make this principle retrospective. A mistake was made, however, in the drafting of the Bill. The Minister has now realised his mistake and we are glad that he has proposed this amendment. I shall return to that later on. I do not accept the Minister’s statement that I misrepresented the position by the quotations I read from the Minister’s speech. The Minister was not discussing a particular clause. I quoted from his speech in reply to a debate on this Bill. It was not just one clause which was under discussion, but I want to go a little further. On the 21st March, the Minister said this, in reply to the hon. member for Marico (Mr. Grobler)—

This was signed by the Secretary. Now I want to assure the hon. member for Marico that there is not a word of truth in the contention that I want to introduce new servitudes or impose fresh burdens on these people. I give them the assurance that I am not putting any more in the Bill than the servitudes, or the prohibition of division, or the prohibition in respect of bywoners, than already appear in the 1937 and 1912 Acts, nothing more and nothing less.

Exactly.

But here the Minister admits that this is a servitude which he had intended placing on the land and if we had not moved this amendment there would have been a servitude on the land. The Minister now admits that he made a mistake. I do not say that he personally made a mistake because his department naturally drafted the Bill, but he did make a mistake, and in his amendment he proposes exactly the same thing as we on this side have proposed. I am glad to see that he admits it. I want to read a further quotation to show what the Minister said in this regard. This is what he said on another occasion—

And then he went on to say this—

That quotation refers to Clause 9 of the Act.

It doesn’t deal with a clause—it is a reference to the Bill as a whole. He said that the Bill did not include them. But now let me go a little further. During the lunch hour I went a little more fully into the whole question; when the Minister moved the second reading the question was raised whether this Bill would be retrospective. It was raised by a question by the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander). This is what the hon. member asked—

One couldn’t have it clearer than that. Not on one occasion only but on various occasions, both to the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) and to the hon. member for Marico did the Minister say that the Bill would not be retrospective in its effects. In addition to that the Minister told the hon. member for Marico that those people need not be afraid of a single new servitude being made applicable to their land. That statement was not made in regard to a particular clause, but it was made in regard to the Bill as a whole. It would not be applicable to them if they already had their Crown land title. For those reasons we were fully justified to come forward with this amendment, and I am very glad that the Minister now accepts our amendment in the amendment which he has proposed. It would have been very unreasonable on his part if he had not accepted it because I want to read to the Minister what Clause 2 says—

1. (2) The provisions of section twenty-eight of the principal Act, as amended by this section, shall apply, with effect from the date of commencement of this Act, in respect of every holding, whether allotted before or after the said date. A condition embodying the prohibition contained in paragraph (b) of sub-section (1) of that section shall, in addition, be included in every Crown grant or deed of transfer of a holding issued or passed after the commencement of this Act.

It was clear that he only intended these clauses to be inserted in new Crown land titles which were to be issued after the coming into force of this Act. We pointed out to him that as the Bill now reads it would also have applied to Crown land titles issued before and the Minister has now realised his mistake. I am glad to find that he has realised that he has made a mistake, but at the same time I want to point out to the Minister that his amendment doesn’t go far enough yet, though I do consider that it is a concession as far as these people are concerned. I come now to the people who are today entitled to their Crown land titles. The provision is that they have to be on their holding for 10 years if the land has been bought under Section 11 They are entitled to make application today for Crown land title, and perhaps they have made application, but we know that it was the Minister’s policy not to issue those Crown land title deeds. He has placed every possible obstacle in the way of these people in order to prevent them getting their Crown land title deeds. Why is this Bill now to be applied to them? Why is it to be applied to any holding which has been allotted in the past, but more particularly why must it be made applicable to people who are fully entitled to Crown land title deeds but have not yet received them? I hope therefore that the Minister will go further and that he will say that, where people have already been 10 years and more on their holdings, and are entitled to a Crown land title deed, they will also come under his amendment. I believe that 10 years is the period after which they can demand their Crown land title deeds. Those people may possibly not have made formal application, but I think that they should be considerd and I want to ask the Minister to alter his amendments to that effect, failing which we could propose such an amendment. I hope provision will be made for them, meanwhile I shall draft an amendment to that effect.

The Minister has now made a concession. It is going to help quite a number of people; namely, those who already have their Crown land title deeds. They will not be subject to the unfair provision of this Bill. To a certain number of them therefore it is a concession. Now I want to ask the Minister why he differentiates between those people who already have their Crown land title deeds and the others who have already complied with the provisions of the Settlement Act, who have complied with all the provisions of their lease and who have paid their money? I know from experience, and the Minister needn’t tell me that I am wrong, that sometimes from 3 to 6 months pass after these people have paid up everything, before they succeed in getting a Crown land title deed from the Government. The Minister need not say that this is not the case. I myself have threatened the Department with a summons because it has allowed months and months to pass. The man has paid everything he owes. The Government has entered into a formal and solemn contract with the man and that contract contains the conditions under which Crown land title is to be granted to him and the man has complied with all those conditions. It is a solemn, formal, written contract entered into by the settlers, and under the laws of the land the Minister, after the purchase price has been paid, and after all the conditions of the contract have been complied with, should give transfer to the settler in terms of that provision.

He is not entitled to claim it within 10 years.

That is why I say: “After all the conditions of the contract have been complied with.” One of the conditions is that he cannot ask for his title before the end of 10 years, and I therefore say that if he has complied with all the conditions, the Minister should give him a transfer. In accordance with the laws of the land the Minister has not got the right to make any amendments or alterations to the conditions of this lease. When the 10 years have passed the Minister, provided the man has paid the purcahse price in full, has to give him Crown land title or a deed of transfer. That is a solemn written agreement. Surely your written word is your bond. What is the Minister doing now? He comes to Parliament and, with the powers which Parliament gives him, with the aid of a lot of members of Parliament who tamely and slavishly follow him, he deliberately violates this written agreement. That is what it amounts to. With the powers given him, he avails himself of the opportunity to violate this right which man has to his property.

It is not a power given to him by slavish members of Parliament.

Let me say this to my hon. friend. If the Minister, or the hon. member himself, has entered into a written contract with some other party, would he not consider himself in honour bound to carry out that contract? If hon. members are honest they must agree—they must agree that that contract must be carried out.

I am very honest.

The hon. member says that he is honest; I say that if he is honest it is his duty to carry out this written contract. Isn’t that the case? He will carry it out. If the Minister makes a written contract with another party he has to carry it out. If he does not carry out his written contract, then anyone is entitled to tell the person who is guilty of this breach of contract that he is dishonest. Now I ask him this : What is the difference between his action as a private individual, who under those conditions would be stigmatised as a dishonourable person, arid his action as a Minister? What is the difference between a private individual committing an action by which he would be stigmatised as dishonourable and the Minister doing the same thing under similar conditions? From a moral point of view there is absolutely no difference. The fact of your committing an unfair action with the power of the Government behind you does not make that action fair or just. If you commit an action with the power of the Government behind you, which is not moral, it doesn’t make it a moral action.

Did not the very same things occur under the 1937 Act?

I am not dealing here with the Minister as an individual, I am dealing with the Minister in his capacity as Minister of Lands. Whether it happened in 1937, or whether it is going to happen in 1967, makes no difference, we shall oppose it in the same way as we are doing today. There you have the whole matter with all its implications. I am now leaving it to the consciences of hon. members opposite to say whether they are going to be guility of the violation of another man’s rights. Take this man who has paid the purchase price, who has carried out all the conditions of the contract. The only thing that is lacking is this, that the Department, through its neglect, has not yet given him his transfer; he has paid the purchase price in accordance with the solemn written contract which he has made with the Government, and now hon. members opposite say to this man: “Although we have made this contract with you we are tearing it to shreds and we are refusing to do what we undertook to do when we made this contract with you.”

We have had similar things happen in the past.

That is no excuse. In any case I took it for granted not that the hon. member was unprejudiced but that as far as this matter was concerned he would have applied his intelligence as a lawyer to this whole subject. If there are any people opposite who don’t possess that intelligence and cannot look at the matter from that point of view, well, I might be able to understand it because they are not lawyers, but I am sorry that the hon. member for Zwartruggens (Mr. Henny) who is a lawyer is not prepared to accept the principle which I have been arguing. I assumed that he as a lawyer, an honest and decent lawyer, would be unprejudiced. If he is, then he mustn’t come along with this argument. He mustn’t use the argument that similar things have happened in the past.

Do you wánt to pretend that it is only the lawyers who are honest?

I said that I had assumed that the hon. member as an honest Afrikaner, and as a lawyer would be unprejudiced.

It would appear that the hon. member thinks that it is only attorneys and lawyers who are honest.

If my hon. friend’s conscience is worrying him, let me put it this way. I assume that if he as an honest farmer enters into a written contract with someone, a written contract removing all doubt; if he enters into such a contract, I assume that he will carry out that contract.

The attorney will find a way out of it.

I am sorry my hon. friend should think it necessary to attack the attorneys on his side as well. I assume that those of them who do not deserve it will get up and reply to the hon. member’s insult. I want to ask this question, and I put it to the hon. member for Zoutparfsberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) as a farmer. If he has made a contract with a man will he break that contract without any scruples? He has not got the courage to say so. I assume that he is honest and that he wants to be regarded as honest; I therefore say that, as an individual, he would not be guilty of doing what the Minister is now guilty of doing as a Minister of the State. The Minister is a plattelander. He is a farmer, and he as well as other farmers on the other side, knows in what light and in what spirit a farmer looks upon his land. He knows that between the townsman in general, and the plattelander, there is this great psychological difference. The townsman, as far as his career is concerned, and even as far as his home in town is concerned, does not attach the same high value to his possessions ás the plattelander does in respect of his homestead on the farm. If there is one thing—and that applies not only to the farmers in this country but to the farmers in every country in the world—if there is one thing which, practically speaking, is an ideal with every farmer, it is not only that he wants to make a living on the farm, that he wants to develop the farm, but his ideal is that he wants to hand over the farm to one of his sons. That is why we talk about family farms. It is for that reason why these magnificent family farms have passed from generation to generation through the years. If there is one thing to which the farmer attaches value it is this—the sentimental value which he attaches to the farm. Now what is going to be the effect of this clause? The settler is on the land. He has got the land from the Government; if the Minister in all his wisdom, or if someone else—I am dealing now with the Minister as such and not as an individual—if the Minister refuses to allow that man’s son to stay on the farm after he has reached the age of 21, that young man will have to go and look for another livelihood. The farmer is not able to buy another farm. That young fellow has to go and look for a livelihood in the mines, in the motor business, in a shop or somewhere else; and eventually when the father dies, the chances are 100 to 1 against the son returning to the farm because in the meantime he has been following a totally different course—he has taken a totally different direction. [Time limit.]

May I say this to the hon. member, that when I made the statement to the hon. member for Marico (Mr. Grobler) that I had not introduced a single encumbrance into this Bill which had not been there before, I was perfectly correct and I emphasise it again.

That is no solution.

When the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) was Minister of Lands, he introduced two provisions—the one in connection with bywoners and sons of settlers and the other in connection with the splitting up of land, and he even went so far as to provide that in regard to the splitting up of land the provision would be inserted in every contract. The reason why I put it in here is that the legal advisers state that where the hon. member in his Act intended it to continue …

How do you know what I intended?

According to their interpretation of that clause, once a man had been given permission to sell, that restriction lapsed, and all I am doing is to perpetuate the object which the hon. member had in view, and I am simply continuing that same provision, and it is necessary that we should do so. Can hon. members imagine the conditions which will arise on a densely populated settlement if all these people can go on selling and sub-dividing? What is going to become of the settlement? The whole thing will become a farce.

But still you have been buying too.

Provision was made for that as far back as 1912. Let me quote to hon. members what the 1912 contract contains; Clause 11 of the 1912 Act provides that the Minister cannot allot a holding to an applicant unless the applicant states that the holding will be worked and developed exclusively for his own use and benefit and that of his family. It was intended for minor children.

How can you say that?

If he has two or three sons who are married and who are of age—are they still members of his family? Once a child has reached his majority he has to stand on his own feet. Let me emphasise this, that where the State goes in for settlement, the object is that the productivity of the holding must be just sufficient to provide a living for the applicant who has to sign a declaration that he has a wife and so many children. And since 1912 he has not been allowed to keep a grown-up son on the holding. I am mentioning this to prove that this provision has been in force since 1912.

Where do you find that?

I say that the legal advisers hold that that is the intention, but their opinion also is that it lapses …

Why does it lapse?

You should get other legal advisers.

Tell us why it lapses.

In some settlers’ leases entered into in the last few years—in my hon. friend opposite’s case too— the following provision has been included—

Is that a regulation?

Yes, it is a condition or the lease—

It was clearly the intention of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad that that condition should continue, but the interpretation of the legal advisers, now that we want to apply it, and now that we are faced with opposition, is that it will lapse after the settler has obtained his title deed. Once he has his title deed it lapses. And all I am doing here is to lay it down in this clause so that it shall not lapse. I say again that when we get to the clause I shall prove that it was the intention of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad to perpetuate it, and not only that but that it would be inserted in every lease after 1938.

The Minister has probably committed many sins and he now wants to protect himself from those sins. All he is doing it to put the blame for his sins on other people. Of course we know that he has unjustly taken away sons from their families and he now wants to put the blame for that on others. He would like to justify himself. What was the original object of settlement? Was the original object to break up family life? Or to break up families? Was the object to drive the young fellows to the towns, there to become unskilled labourers, or was the object to rehabilitate people? As far as I know that was the object. Now the Minister wants to take away that right. If the man has a farm and has paid for it, the Minister wants to place a servitude with retrospective effect on that farm. That man originally gave his farm as security and the Minister now wants to break his contract. He is doing so only to safeguard himself from his own misdeeds. His misdeeds are legion. He is an autocrat. As a politician he has done a lot of good! I can still remember his appointing this marvellous Mr. Moll, who is now advising him. Now who was Mr. Moll? Has anyone ever had confidence in him? He is his cheap political agent today, and if he finds out that a settler is a Nationalist, that man is persecuted. He wants to off-load his sins on to someone else. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) never committed such misdeeds. The Minister of Lands attacks the Church because the Church has not given people transfer. But he is doing exactly the same thing here only in a worse form. The Minister wants to protect himself and if people don’t agree with him he wants to have the chance of oppressing them. I have said before that he is the Hitler on that side, but he is a very bad Hitler. He keeps on telling us that the hon. member for Wolmaransstad has done the same thing. Well, even if he has done something wrong, it doesn’t justify the Minister doing the same thing. It makes him two and three times as guilty as the hon. member for Wolmaransstad. I accuse you of partisanship.

The hon. member must address the Chair.

I accuse the Minister of being prejudiced and I accuse him of trying to score politically. He, more than anyone else, has divided the Platteland. If you don’t belong to his party he will “get you”. He has even said so to me. One is not even allowed to differ from him. This is what he said to me once : “I am going to tell the people on the Platteland what you said, and I am going to tell them that you did not agree with me”. That is the spirit in which the Minister acts. We know him very well. During the general election he stood on a platform for three-quarters of an hour calling me all sorts of names—when I wasn’t present. The people didn’t believe him. It did him more harm than good.

The hon. member must come back to the Clause and the amendments.

The Minister is trying to break up home life. Hy is trying to drive away the children from their hoiries, and he wants to turn them into unskilled labourers in the towns. If he gave them other holdings one would still think that he was doing it for their own good, but he is doing it for political purposes. He doesn’t settle them on other plots. He just wants to get rid of them and drive them to the towns as unskilled labourers. The Minister will have to change a great deal before we can believe in the purity of his intentions.

The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) said that we should not look at this matter from one side only. The hon. member always poses as an expert on settlements. But we want to remind him that his development is largely in the same direction as that of the Minister of Lands. He pursues the same tactics of attack as the Minister of Lands. It is a case of follow my leader. He tries, in the same way as the Minister of Lands to justify these prohibitive provisions by connecting them up with the question of overcrowding of holdings. Now let me put this question to the Minister of Lands. Will he admit that the fact of there being no overcrowding on the Hartebeestpooft scheme as he himself told us this morning, is not due to any action of his nor to his having applied any regulations. Occupation of holdings is a matter which in the usual natural way controls itself. Surely it is self-evident that all the grown-up people are not going to stay on their father’s holdings. Not all those people have the same vocations. They don’t always want to go in for the same thing. They haven’t been bom to the same careers. Leave the discretion to the parents and to the grownup sons to say where they want to live and what they want to do. That is the difference. Exaggerated emphasis is now being placed on the question of overcrowding, and this deliberate over-emphasis on overcrowding is indulged in with the object of justifying this clause. They now want to pretend that overcrowding is a serious disease and that this provision, aiming at stopping the sons from staying with the father, is the remedy. It is not the remedy; but a sickly interest in the settlements. We have said that at Hartebeestpoort for instance there is no overcrowding because the whole question controls itself naturally. I go further than that and I say that there is no tendency to overcrowding. But what is happening? The hon. member for Krugersdorp, the great settlement expert, tells us that we are turning the settlements into slums. Let me tell the hon. member that there is no such tendency on the Platteland. The air there is healthy and fresh. The object of this Bill is to drive the young people away from the parental roof. It is a devilish policy in regard to the settlers.

I had always imagined that the Minister of Lands was an Afrikaner with a very big heart and that he was one of those people for whom one could have respect. I used to have respect for him because I always thought he was a man with human intelligence and sympathy. But to my great astonishment I had to be disillusioned, and I had to find out that the Minister of Lands wants to become a sort of dictator with the aid of this Bill. I have been listening most attentively to all the speeches here. I had not intended taking part in the debate, although I represent a large number of the people who are going to be affected by this measure, and who are under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Lands. I myself have brought a number of matters to the Minister’s notice and he has been very sympathetic towards me and that is why I did not want to take part in this debate. But the Minister’s attitude today makes it necessary for me to get up and say a few words. I would be failing in my duty as representative of a large number of settlers if I didn’t say a few words on this subject. The Minister wants to pretend that he is very sorry for the settlers. But what is he doing? He is turning these people into slaves of the State. I had always imagined that the object of this Bill was to rehabilitate them or to make them independent, but now I find that the purpose of this measure is to turn these people into slaves of the State. They will now have to bend the knee to the Minister and beg for mercy. Let the Minister be fair. The arguments employed here and the facts produced should induce the Minister to be fair and reasonable. If not, we shall have to continue talking on this Bill from now until Sunday morning. We are not going to give in.

They will crucify you this evening.

We are very worried on account of the fact that the Minister refuses to make any concession whatever. The hon. member for Albert-Colesberg (Mr. Boltman) for whom the Minister has no time at all—adduced a number of very sound arguments today. He said that if the Minister refused to do anything he should at least allow one grown-up child to stay with his parents on the farm. The Minister refused to do so. Even the natives today don’t have to carry passes. Why must Europeans be forced to carry a letter of permission from the Minister of Lands to stay at the home of their parents. We are humiliating the Boer nation to the very depths. No, I have the greatest respect for the Minister and I hope he will rise in his seat and give us the assurance, being a father himself, and being in a better financial position than many other farmers, that he is in sympathy with the farming community, and that he will not allow this condition to continue, and that when the aged people are no longer able to look after themselves, at least one grown-up son will be allowed to stay on the farm. The Minister has given us an assurance that this Bill will not be retrospective. And it was because of that assurance that I kept quiet. But it has become clear now that this Bill in that respect takes the place of all former laws. The Minister has accused the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) of having committed grave blunders. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones and it was no excuse for the Minister to say that others have erred. If others have made mistakes it is his duty and our duty to remedy matters. He cannot accuse the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, because all his contentions are devoid of any foundation. I expected the Minister to put forward sound arguments, and to try and convince the committee—I expected him to prove himself to be the father of the settlers aiming at doing the best he could for them. I want to assure him that even though the settlers are poor, and even though they have to beg to be allowed to make a living, they are not going to bend the knee to Baal. No one but the Minister himself will be responsible for the settlers voting against the Government, and if he can induce the Deputy Prime Minister to have a general election now. I can assure him that every settler will vote against the Government, and the Government will no longer occupy the Treasury benches. Our arguments are of no avail. The Minister with his big majority behind him will force this Bill through the House. But when we take up the reins of office, we shall tear this law to pieces so that nothing will be left of it.

We naturally stand foursquare against the whole of this sub-clause and even though we are proposing amendments to the clause that doesn’t mean that we are proposing them with the idea of giving approval to this clause. We are only doing so in order to try to improve the clause as much as we possibly can. We are opposed to the whole of this sub-clause which, reading as it does at present, means that a settlers’ children and parents are not to be allowed to stay with him. The Minister told us that the same provision also appeared in the 1912 Act and that the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) was also responsible for it in his Act. That is not so. The Minister quoted here from the regulations but there is nothing in those regulations to say that persons of 21 years and over, if they are members of the family, are not allowed to live on the holding. That provision did apply to other persons over 21 years of age, but not to members of the family. Children over 21 years, and under 21 years could stay there, and the Minister has no right to move them. And it is for that reason that the Minister has now introduced this Bill. What I now want to propose is that provision shall be made for people who are entitled to their Crown title deeds. The Minister has accepted an amendment that in the cases where Crown land title deeds have already been issued, the holders of those title deeds will not come under the provisions of this Bill. But now we have many instances of people who have not yet received their Crown land title deeds, although they are actually entitled to them. For instance a man has bought land under Section 11, he has paid up everything he is supposed to pay and he has occupied the holding for more than 10 years, and he can now demand his Crown land title deeds. If he had actually been in possession of his Crown land title deeds he would not, in the terms of the Minister’s amendment, come under this clause. But unfortunately he has not yet applied formally for his title deed, or if he has done so he has not yet received it. In order to make provision for those people, I now wish to move the following amendment—

Hon. members will see that we are providing here for people who can go to the Minister and demand their title deeds in terms of the existing Act. In view of the fact that the Minister has shown himself Willing to meet those people who already have their title deeds, it is desirable and reasonable for him also to make provision for those who are entitled to their title deeds.

I rise to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister of Lands. He has not yet given us any reply to the statement of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom). The Minister is a man who during his life has made many contracts in regard to land, water and so on. What is he going to do now if one of those people with whom he has made a contract simply alters or breaks his contract. Is he going to take it lying down and let him do it? He and I have been obliged to go to other people to get financial assistance, and if we undertake obligations to those people does that give them the right to say to us that the land which we are occupying practically belongs to them, and does it give them the right to tell us that we must do this, that or the other thing with our land? Is it honest to a settler to break a contract which the State has made with him? Let us be honest. Is it fair and just to those people who cannot take their cases to court? If the Minister or any member of this House breaks a contract with the settlers, the settler can sue us and take us to court, and he will get justice. Here, however, the Minister is using the power of the State—and the State here is almighty— to commit a breach of contract against these people. And now the Minister says that this has always been the law of the land, and then he quotes regulations. But those regulations have never been applied to those people in such a manner as to cause them to raise objections. They are now objecting and that is why the Minister has brought in this Bill to take these powers unto himself. Does it not prove that the Minister is acting harshly in the carrying out of these regulations? The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) in the past never had cause to ask for such powers, simply because his regulations were not objected to. No. The Minister of Lands must admit that there is something wrong with his administration. He says it is done on the recommendation of the Land Board. I know only one of the Minister’s inspectors, and I have before today been to the Secretary for Lands to talk about him. He imagines himself to be a tin god. He is a certain Mr. Moll and we know that even in the days of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad a good deal of criticism was levelled against him. If his attitude is characteristic of the attitude of other inspectors of lands, then the sooner we get rid of all thèse inspectors of lands the better. I do not know these other inspectors of lands, and I do not want to criticise people I do not know. I have nothing against men who honestly and straightforwardly try to carry out a Department’s policy. I ask the Minister in heaven’s name as a father not to apply provisions of this kind to the settlers. I have pleaded that cause before. I have pleaded their cause as earnestly as I could. I am not speaking on my own behalf. Thank heavens I am not dependent on the Minister of Lands. But I am speaking on behalf of the people I represent. People who are less privileged, people who belong to my party and people who do not belong to my party. The party to which they belong makes no difference. But I appeal on their behalf because they are in the unhappy position of being dependent on the Minister and the Department. I ask you in all seriousness to be considerate, and to be generous. You will find, if you are considerate, that we on our side will also be considerate. But if the Minister resolutely turns down every proposal coming from this side of the House, and if he refuses to make any concessions whatsoever, he must not expect any consideration from this side either. Parliament is committing a breach of faith with people who have trusted it. Let us once and for all show these people that we are not going to break our word of honour.

I am sorry I cannot accept the amendment of the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé). Let me say this to the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig). There is no question of our committing any breach of faith—nothing of the kind. Let me read to the hon. member what the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) put into many of his leases.

Then this Bill is not required.

I have repeated a hundred times that it is required, and there is no need for me to repeat it again. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad put the following Clause 3 (c) into many of the leases—

That is in the lease.

May I ask you a question?

If I accept the amendment I shall have to cancel this.

That is not a contract.

The position is this. The Minister is now so anxious to stick to the contract. It is a most pleasing sign. These contracts which were made by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) when he was Minister, were contracts which were made before those people had gone to those holdings. They knew under what conditions they were taking up those holdings. Now let me put this question to the Minister of Lands: Did the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, during all the years he was Minister, after those contracts had been entered into with those people, ever try to get those contracts changed by an Act of Parliament?

Yes.

Where?

In the 1937 Act.

Oh no, those contracts were made with those people before they went to their holdings and they knew under what conditions they were taking up their holdings. And what the Minister is trying to do now is this: The man has entered into a contract to take up a holding. In certain circumstances he will become the owner of that holding. After he has made certain payments he can get his title deed; and after he has worked for years to carry out the conditions of the contract the Minister now steps in, after the settler has paid everything and has looked on the holding as his own, and imposes new restrictions which never appeared in the original contract. The Minister is so very anxious to carry out the contract. Why doesn’t he adhere to the old contract? If I make a contract with a man under which I am to get something, and I have to do something in return, that contract is binding in any court of law. The other man has to carry out his obligations under the contract, and I have to carry out my obligations. These people have carried out their part of the contract. What is the Minister doing? He comes to Parliament and asks for additional restrictions on these people. Why does the Minister do it? That is what I’m worried about.

Have you ever read the 1937 Act?

Of course I have. The hon. member as a lawyer should know what a contract means, and he should know that unless Parliament passed a law to deprive these people of their rights nobody would ever be able to do so. Now we want to know why the Minister is doing this? We know that the Minister is a man who likes to grab things. If there is one thing he doesn’t like it is to see that somebody else has something that he hasn’t got. One of the Minister’s greatest grievances in life is to see the sun shine on somebody besides himself. The name of a certain Mr. Piet Mof, an Inspector of Lands, has been mentioned here; he is a man of whom the Minister has suddenly become very fond, and he is letting and selling Government land on a grand scale. People are beginning to wonder where he gets the money from to buy all the cattle he is buying. He doesn’t draw a big salary. He doesn’t draw so much money as to enable him to buy land on a big scale. I don’t know whether it is true, but people say that he must have a partner—he must have someone to finance him; it is impossible for him to buy those cattle on this big scale on the comparatively small salary he draws. It is impossible for him to buy all the thousands of yards of wire he is putting up.

I think the hon. member rpust come back to the Bill now.

My point is that the Minister is a grabber who even wants to get a hold over the domestic life of these men.

I want to point out to the hon. member that that has nothing to do with the Bill.

Very well I shall not continue with Mr. Piet Mof. And I am not going to ask who finances him. I am not going to state what the settlers say, but I want to make this point, that the Minister is doing this because he is one of the biggest grabbers and because he wants to get a hold over those people. He wants to have them under his thumb. He wants to get hold of everything. Hon. members haven’t forgotten what happened a few years ago in regard to this new land, this reclaimed bit of land, which was allotted. Hon. members haven’t forgotton that that land came under the Minister’s Department. It should have been under his department. This new land, which was reclaimed, had to be under the Minister’s Department. We also remember why the Government suddenly stepped in and took the land from him and put it under another Minister.

That is the second lie.

Of course it was under his department. The Bill which was passed by the former Minister of Lands (Col. Deneys Reitz) provided that that type of land was to come under the Department of Lands, and we know that it was suddenly taken away from the Minister and placed under the Minister of Railways.

Order, order, that has nothing to do with this Bill.

Very well, I shall not repeat what people say as to why that land was taken out of the Minister’s control, because you’ll call me to order. You will naturally not allow me to discuss those matters. But the Minister is a man who wants to control everything. He wanted to control all the newspapers. He attacks his colleagues and he even wants to control them. That may not be the issue and I am afraid that you will not allow me to discuss it.

What about the shares he buys?

We won’t even talk about them. That question isn’t before us at all.

If the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) asks me to refer to the Minister’s sins, you will rule me out of order altogether because he has so many shortcomings that I would have to stray so far from the Bill that you would rule me completely out of order. We are dealing with the man who is going to control this law, and we want to know the motives of the man who has introduced this Bill.

It has nothing at all to do with this Clause.

Which hon. member made that interruption? Now they are all perfectly quiet. We want to know what the Minister’s motives are. The motive is this characteristic of the Minister’s to want everything under his thumb. He doesn’t want the settlers to be allowed to move freely as free citizens of the State, he wants to have them under his thumb. He not only wants to control them, he not only wants to control the way in which they can possess their land but he wants to control their daily life. He wants to be able to step into a settler’s house and to say to him: “You can keep this son with you but that one you must kick out.” That is what he wants and that is our reason for objecting to this clause.

You haven’t said a word about the clause.

There is one aspect of the matter, which I dealt with earlier on, which I would like to refer to again. I asked the Minister whether he was aware of this characteristic of the Afrikaner that he did not merely want to develop his farm so as to make a living out of it, but that his great ideal was eventually to leave it to his children—to develop it for coming generations to enable them to make a living out of it. The Minister must be aware of that characteristic. He too has a son. I am sure that he too cherishes that ideal of being able to leave to his son that which he himself has built up by means of hard work. I say that this idea; of being able to leave a farm to one’s children, of making a place a family heritage is undoubtedly one of the greatest motives animating the overwhelming majority of the farmers—this old idea of having a place which will be left from generation to generation. Look at the value which people attach to these old family estates in the Western Province.

You might repeat that again—you have said it so often that you might just as well say it again.

I understand that the hon. member who has just interrupted, on account of the conditions under which he lives, does not attach the slightest value to Boontjieskraal, that it dees not worry him in the least who will eventually inherit Boohtjieskraal. I say that that is one of the effects of this type of legislation. I am glad it has at last penetrated the intelligence of the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet). That is the effect of the law that all the love the settler cherishes and all the affection with which he builds up and develops the farm, are now being destroyed by the Minister under this Bill, because the settler is not to be allowed to have his son with him on the farm. The son has to leave —he has to try and make a living somewhere else. What will be the probable result when the father dies? That son is not going to return to the farm, because once he leaves the farm his activities take him in a different direction. Is that what the Minister wants? Does not the Minister realise that if this Bill is passed these people will eventually take no interest in the land. It seems that that is really the Minister’s object. To come back to the speech made by the Minister—which the hon. member for Albert-Colesberg (Mr. Boltman) quoted earlier on—in which he expressed the hope that the settlers’ sons would not eventually become settlers themselves, in other words, that they would not succeed their fathers, so that the farm would get into strange hands—that is what the Minister is aiming at. The Minister is trying to create the impression that what he is achieving today by means of legislation has always been the position in terms of the original Act of 1912. He knows it is not so. I challenge him to produce any instances between 1912 and, say, 1937, where the Department of Lands or any former Minister of Lands has tried to do anything of the kind. He cannot mention a single instance. It has always been allowed so far; the Department has never given any different interpretation to the law, nor has it given any different interpretation to the regulations except that the parents can allow their children to remain on the farm. I challenge him to mention one single instance. The Minister quoted a regulation here and he wants to give that regulation the interpretation which now has to be given to this Bill of his. In spite of the fact that he has ample proof that that was not the way it was ever meant, because no attempt was ever made by the Department to apply such a regulation. He now tries to hide behind a fig-leaf. He says that a previous Minister of Lands, the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) in 1937 aimed at the same thing. It has been proved over and over again that that is not so, but I want to add that I myself in 1937 rejected such a proposal, so it cannot be held up against me, but I go further and I say this: Since 1907 right throughout the time the hon. member for Wolmaransstad was Minister of Lands, I did not have a single case in my constituency of a settler being unfairly treated. Not a single instance. When my hon. friend the member for Wolmaransstad was Minister, the position was entirely different—the Minister in those days certainly never did what the present Minister has done. Ever since he has become Minister of Lands he has adopted a very unfair attitude towards the settlers, but that was never the position when the hon. member for Wolmaransstad was Minister. I want to state here that I never had a single case of that kind and I have only had cases of that kind brought before me since the present. Minister has had charge Of this portfolio. The Minister says that if he is committing a breach of faith now, there must have been a breach of faith in 1937 as well. That is not so. The law only lays down those conditions in respect of land allotted under the law. The Minister has committed a breach of faith against all the people who before 1937 obtained leases for their holdings, and there must be thousands of them. I don’t know how many there are, but there must be thousands who got leases, but who have not yet obtained their Crown Grants, and I say that those who support the Minister in passing this Bill are guilty of a breach of faith.

The position is exactly the same as it was under the 1937 Act.

Doesn’t the hon. member hear what I am saying? It is not so. Under the 1937 Act new contracts were issued.

And you opposed that just as strongly.

Yes, I did oppose that Bill, but is that an argument? What is the use of telling me that someone else also made a mistake. Because Adam has sinned does that mean that David can also sin? Can the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) say that because Adam has sinned, he is allowed to sin now, and also because David has sinned? Is that an argument? No, it’s not an argument at all. Let us consider the question on its merits and be honest with each other. If I convince the hon. member for Caledon that what the Minister is doing here is not fair, he should admit it. I say that if this provision is fair and reasonable, if it is fair and reasonable to prevent a settler from having his children on his farm, the same provision should apply to other landowners. If one says to a settler that he is not allowed to have his children on his farm, because there is a danger of overcrowding, then we should, if we want to be logical take up the same attitude towards every other landowner.

That was what the 1937 Act was passed for.

Oh, no. Don’t let us continue that argument. Let the Minister come here with a Bill—and with the big majority he has, he has the power to do so —and let him provide in that Bill that neither the children of the landowner, nor any other white man will be allowed to stay on that man’s farm—let the Minister say that he is afraid of overcrowding and that for that reason he is not going to allow landowners to have their children and other white people on the farm. If he does that I wonder whether members who are not settlers, members who have their own farms, would vote for it. No, they would not, because they would look upon it as an injustice. [Time limit.]

I want to draw the attention of the House to Rule 90 in regard to tedious repetition.

It is perfectly clear that when these lands were originally issued to the settlers there was no restriction on them such as is now proposed. Several amendments have been moved, but I’m afraid they don’t go far enough. The Minister must not tell us that the restrictions he is proposing are not going to be retrospective. He wants to make them retrospective, but we are definitely opposed to it. I therefore want to move the following proviso to this clause—

I want to point out that when these holdings were allotted, no restrictions were imposed on these people. The settlers made a clean contract and they were not told that any restrictions were going to be imposed on them. If the Minister now wants to impose restrictions, let him do it for the future, but not for the past—not in respect of holdings which were allotted in the past. And that of course applies to anything. No court in the world would give the Minister the right to make such a provision retrospective, and the Minister can do so only by invoking the power of Parliament. I know there are lawyers on the Minister’s side who agree with us that real principles of law are being interfered with here. The Minister has made contracts with people and what is happening now? He is now changing the contracts and applying fresh restrictions. He hasn’t the right to do so. If he wants to apply any restrictions in future let him do so in regard to land he is reserving for the soldiers. Let him impose restrictions on that land if he wants to—on the land he is going to allot in days to come, but not on the people to whom he has allotted land in the past. Hon. members do not appreciate the legal implications of this clause. It is in conflict with any legal principles in force in this country.

Cheap legal advice.

I challenge the hon. member to go to any court of law and to ask any court of law whether it would approve of a provision of that type.

I know what the court will say.

The hon. member knows nothing; he is the biggest turncoat we have here, and I don’t think he even understands what this clause is all about. Let me tell him what he is suffering from, he is suffering from senile decay.

That may be, but I could beat you at anything.

I was in my constituency last week and a large number of people came to see me—settlers who asked me what these provisions meant, and I explained the implications to them, and they told me that they didn’t want those provisions. I told the Minister last year that his regulations in regard to the settlers’ sons on the holdings would not hold good in any court of law. I told him that if any settlers were to take them to court, the court would declare the Minister’s regulations as being ultra vires. I also told him that if he wanted to give the regulations the force of law he would have to come to Parliament, and that is what he is doing now. In the past the parents always had the right to keep their sons with them on the holdings. But this policy which the Minister is following will have the effect of causing the farms to deteriorate. I know of people at Karos Buchuberg who are too old to work their holdings. What happened last season? They had a big crop of peaches but they couldn’t get their peaches off the trees. They had no labour. If they had had their sons there they would have got the whole crop in and would have made a good profit on it.

Yes, the Minister is simply turning them into poor whites.

I say that the Minister is causing these holdings to deteriorate, and I think it is his policy to do so. The Minister has witnessed the progress people in my area have made and now he wants to change things. He wants to wreck all these settlements which have been making such good progress. And why? He wants big capital to come in. He wants to be able to say that settlements have not proved a success—he wants to throw open the settlements to let big capital come in and buy them. Yes, that is what the Minister has in view. The Minister wants to get hold of the rich people in Johannesburg and wants to say to them: “Come here, come to these settlements; the people living here are poor whites.” He adopts the attitude that the settlers are poor whites and he does not want to give them any opportunity at all of getting ahead.

That is the kind of policy one could expect from Keeromstreet.

No, the hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler) is finished. He has only the coloured people behind him to get him into this House, and his heart is full of resentment. He thinks the Government will strengthen his position in his constituency by this Bill, but he is mistaken. I know what the hon. member has done—we know him. We know that he aspired to become Minister of Agriculture and now he goes round and says to people: “What can you expect from a young advocate as Minister of Agriculture?” We know what he is doing. He is asking people how we can expect a young advocate from Johannesburg to make a success of Agriculture.

I say that that is not so. That is the sort of statement one can expect from a little Keerom Street advocate.

The Minister is turning our settlers into helots. I say that he is the only Minister who would do a thing like that, and it is because he has no responsibility. He does not represent a seat in this House.

You have no right to say that.

Yes, we know the hon. member for Green Point (Mr. Bowen). He can only talk about coloured people. But let him come to my constituency and try and put up a case for this Bill. I am prepared to make an appointment for him to come to my constituency.

Cheap, cheap.

No, it is not cheap. And I also ask the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) to come.

The speech we have just listened to will astound the country. It is the speech of a little Keerom Street barrister who tells us that the Minister of Lands aims at wrecking settlement in South Africa so that he can get reasons to say that settlement has been a failure, and that the big capitalists of Johannesburg must be given the opportunity of getting hold of everything. I think it is a most unworthy statement and I am convinced that my fellow Afrikaners opposite will not approve of an irresponsible little advocate who is suffering from swollen head saying such things. He had the good fortune, of getting into Parliament, by dividing the Afrikaners, and he succeeded in knocking out a Minister. Since those days he has been suffering from swelled head.

I must ask the hon. member not to be so personal.

I am sorry I had to be personal, but we had a little Keerom Street advocate here accusing a Minister of doing such a dirty thing—telling the House that the Minister aimed at making a failure of settlement in South Africa so that capitalism could buy up all the settlements. I say again that it is a scandal that such a statement should be made and I am convinced that the Nationalist Party will never approve of a statement of that kind. By all means let us fight each other, but let us do so as honourable men and not make those insinuations. The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) also made insinuations about land which had been reclaimed from the sea. I want to make an appeal to the Leader of the Nationalist Party. We are Afrikaners, and we should uphold the honour of our nation. Is it creditable to our nation for a man in a responsible position here to be accused by a little Keerom Street barrister, in the way we heard him do it this afternoon. He also accused me and said that I wanted to become Minister of Agriculture. I am prepared to give him £1,000 ….

You must be rich.

I used to be a poor man, but I have worked hard and I can do it today. I shall give the hon. member £1,000 if he can mention a single leader of the Nationalist Party or of the party on this side whom I have asked for a job. I quite appreciate that they have divided and embittered the people with one object only and that is to become Ministers. We are fully aware of the reasons why the Keerom Street advocates divided the country during the days of Coalition. They simply said: What chance have our young advocates if the two parties are going to come together? These attempts to become Ministers were made by them and that is why they are accusing me of the same thing. I have never yet done it.

They are the people who mislead the farmers.

I am in Parliament to represent my constituents. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) is a man who has made history, and I respect him, and he knows how little Keerom Street advocates stabbed him in the back.

I know how you stabbed me in the back on the 4th September.

The hon. member need only turn up Hansard to see what hon. members over there said about him. I am sorry for him, because he has lost his way among those parties. He is a good man and I respect him and his history. I appeal to him to tell this litttle Keerom Street advocate to behave better in future.

I am very sorry that I again had to listen to a speech like that of the hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler). I have listened to several of his speeches in this House, and so far he has made only one in which he dealt with a specific case, and that was the speech be read in English about certain industries in his area. Beyond that he has simply been calling people names and blackguarding people and pointing his finger at them.

The hon. member must come back to the clause.

I want to express my gratification at the Minister accepting the one amendment of the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé). Although this Bill is retrospective in its effect it will not apply to cases where Crown Grants have already been issued. Now I want to put a question to the Minister of Lands. I have brought Mr. Beyers’ case to his notice on previous occasions. Mr. Heyers made application for a Crown Grant, but he was told by one of the Minister’s officials that a Bill was to be introduced, and he though that Bill would be restrospective, and that even if he had a Crown Grant he should not be allowed to have his son on his holding. This man made application for his Crown Grant, but I don’t think he got it. I want to bring the matter to the Minister’s immediate attention and I hope he won’t be annoyed. I shall be very glad if he will look into this case and tell me what the position will be so far as that man is concerned. I hope the Minister will meet us and that he will allow grown-up sons to stay on holdings. We know that there is great affection between the Afrikaner son and his father.

The hon. member must not repeat that argument.

It would be a great pity if he were to tell a young man at the age of 21 he had to leave the parental roof.

Order, order.

May I ask the Minister this? Does he think that any of these young men will join the army if they have to leave their holdings? Does he realise that many of them will land in the towns where they will find it impossible to secure employment.

If the Minister when he presented this clause to us, was able to advance grounds why these drastic alterations had to be made, then we might have been able to understand it. We are now examining this provision regarding children who remain with their parents, or parents who live with their children, and I would like to ask what precedent the Minister has cited to support his attitude that this farreaching clause should be incorporated in the law. Neither from the Minister nor from hon. members opposite have we been furnished with instances or with proofs. The hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler) was the second or the third speaker on the opposite side, apart from those who merely made a noise from time to time, but did the hon. member for Kimberley (District) say a single word that had any reference to this clause? No, not a single word, nor did any of the other members who took part in the discussion from the benches opposite, have a word to say on it. They were interjecting all the time, and so trying to cover their politcal nakedness with fig leaves. But in respect of the practical facts in connection with this clause, they had nothing to say.

I should like, to ask the hon. member to come back to the clause.

I am now discussing the clause, because I want to come to the reasons that the Minister can advance for the clause, and I say that from the Government side no grounds have been advanced why this radical alteration in the law should be made. There can be only one of two reasons. I want to mention them here. In the first place, the Minister can say that this alteration should be effected because overcrowing must be prevented. The other reason that the Minister might have mentioned is that overgrazing would result. I should have expected from the Minister as a practical farmer, that he would have advanced the latter argument if he was in a position to do it. But I repeat that neither the Minister nor any hon. members who supported him has furnished any proof today of either overcrowding or of overgrazing. Now I want to challenge the Minister. I represent a constituency which contains a very large percentage of settlers, and I challenge him to mention to me one single instance in Kuruman where he has reason to intervene in connection with overcrowding or overgrazing. There is not a single one.

What are you crying about then?

The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) makes a lot of noise here. Once I looked at a photograph of the old Free State Raad, and I then asked who the clean-shaven little fellow on it was, and one of the old members answered: “Take no notice of him; he is an empty canteen.” The hon. member wants to become the empty tin in this House. I maintain that not one of the members on the other side offered any proof of overgrazing or overcrowding. I ask the Minister to mention any case of that sort in my constituency in connection with which he has experienced any difficulty. But here the Minister comes with a Bill which is also of course going to be applied to the people of my constituency, although the Minister has no grounds for complaint against them. An honourable agreement was arrived at with those people, but now the Minister comes here and he is going to impose certain burdens on their shoulders. Is that right? I again ask hon. members opposite whether there is any one of them who is able to stand up and tell us whether there is any reason why this clause should be applied to those people and whether they can cite any precedent to justify the clause. They haven’t got the courage to rise in their seats to do this, because they know very well that there are no precedents in the country that can be quoted. They know that in the majority of cases the people who fall under the Land Settlement Act were allotted farms in the outposts of South Africa. These were large pieces of land which they had to make habitable. They were not in such circumstances that they could go to the more thickly populated parts of the country. They had not the necessary capital to enable them to buy more expensive land, and consequently they had to push out into the outposts of our civilisation. These are people who were sent out to these outposts and they have been doing what they could to render those parts habitable. They have been deprived of most of the comforts of life, and here the Minister comes and tells us that that old man who is sitting there far away from all the amenities of civilisation, may not have his children around him unless he carries a pass that is signed by the Minister; or that the young man may not have his father or mother with him unless he has a pass that is signed by the Minister.

I want to inform the hon. member that that argument has already been employed ad nauseam.

I only want to emphasise this again, and I want to ask what the reason is. The hon. member did not mention the reasons, and we want to ask if he is not in a position to furnish them, why not a single member opposite has risen to tell us why this harsh legislation has been introduced. If the object of this legislation is to combat overcrowding, then we challenge him to stand up and say so. We suspect that there is something behind this legislation, that there is a political object hidden behind it.

I move—

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—61 :

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, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Christie, J.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Davis, A.

De Wet, H. C.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Prinsloo, W. B. J.

Raubenheimer, L. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Wanless, A. T.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Willams, H. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Noes—30 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Boltman, F. H.

Bosman, J. C.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Erasmus, F. C.

Erasmus, H. S.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Haywood, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

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.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Van Niekerk, J. G. W.

Van Nierop, P., J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Wilkens, J.

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

First amendment proposed by Mr. S, E. Warren, put,

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—29 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Boltman, F. H.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie. J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Erasmus, F. C.

Erasmus, H. S.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Haywood, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

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.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

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—58 :

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, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Christie, J.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Davis, A.

De Wet, H. C.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Robertson, R. B.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Wanless, A. T.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Question put: That the word “minor”, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the paragraph,

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—61 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Barlow, A. G.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowen. R. W.

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 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.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

McLean, J.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Noes—30 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

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.

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.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Van Niekerk, J. G. W.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Wilkens, J.

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment proposed by Mr. Luttig negatived.

First amendment proposed by Mr. Naudé put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—30 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

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.

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.

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—62 :

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, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

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 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.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

McLean, J.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

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

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Second amendment proposed by Mr. S. E. Warren put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—29 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Boltman. F. H.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Erasmus, H. S.

Haywood, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Louw, E. H.

Ludick, Α. 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.

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—63 :

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, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Bumside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Christie, J.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

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.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. Ν

Henny, G. E. J.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

McLean, J.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

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.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

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

Amendment accordingly negatived.

With leave of the Committee, the second amendment proposed by Mr. Naudé was withdrawn.

Amendment proposed by the Minister of Lands put and agreed to.

The remaining amendment proposed by Mr. Naudé was put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—30 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

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.

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.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

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—64 :

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, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

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 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.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet., J. W.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steytler, L. J.

Strauss, J. G. N.

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.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

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

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Amendment proposed by Mr. J. H. Conradie put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—28 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

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.

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.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

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—63 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Barlow, A. G.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Bumside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Christie, J.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Wet, H. C.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Faure, J. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steytler, L. J.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Ueckermann, K.

Van deh Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

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

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Paragraph (1) (b) of sub-section (1) (a), as amended, put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—61 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

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 Wet, H. C.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

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.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Mushet, J. W.

Payne, A. C.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steytler, L. J.

Strauss, J. G. N.

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.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

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

Noes—30 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

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.

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.

Van Niekerk, J. G. W.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Wilkens, J.

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

Paragraph, as amended, accordingly agreed to.

Sub-section (1) (b) put and agreed to.

On sub-section (2),

I move—

As you know, Sir, we accepted the proposal of the Minister in which he did not make it apply to grants which were allotted. If you read this paragraph you will see that it says—

And then it goes on to say that these conditions shall be included in every Crown grant and in every deed of transfer from owner to owner. As we are aware, the person who wants to sell must obtain the assent of the Minister to sell, and when the Minister has given his consent, then it is transferred say to “B”. In the case of “B” also his transfer is subject to these provisions in reference to grown-up children. Now “B” sells to “C”; at this stage the property has for some time not belonged to the Department of Lands, but the provision is inserted in “C’s” deed of transfer. I want to express the hope that the Minister will accept this reasonable proposition. If the deletion of these words is agreed to, then this law will apply to all holdings that are allotted after the enforcement of this Act. That is what the amendment has in view. We will not employ a single argument that was used this morning, but it is in cases of this sort where it is specially applicable, those cases where Crown grants have not yet been issued. I want to tell the Minister that he has certainly made provision that it will not apply to Crown grants that have already been issued, and the Minister will remember that I asked him a little while ago how many people had applied for Crown grants and how many were allotted during the last two years, and the Minister’s reply was that it would entail too much work by his department to provide this information. The Minister is aware that in the last few years various requests have been made—I might almost say that many requests have been made for Crown grants. The hon. Minister is also aware that he has refused to issue the Crown grants, with the exclusive object of making this Bill, that was introduced last year and is now brought up again, the law of the land. Accordingly, I feel that we must be fair towards all the people who have obtained grants, and towards those who obtained Crown grants before the introduction of the Bill. One must also be fair towards these who bought land from a man, from the original settler, after the assent of the Minister was obtained to the sale. It would be highly improper towards the new buyer if the provisions of sub-section (b) of Clause 1 were made applicable to future owners of land. If the Minister allots holdings after the passing of this Bill, then those who enter into contracts will know under what conditions the ground has been given. But this Bill is now made of retrospective effect, and the Minister wants to lay down something in a parliamentary measure that will have the effect of adding new provisions to an existing contract Consequently I propose an amendment. The Clause would then read—

Then it would only have effect in respect of holdings that are allotted from now onwards. Without having recourse to arguments which were employed this morning, may I express the hope that the Minister will be so broadminded as to accept the deletion of this portion of his Bill. That would make it unnecessary to propose further amendments on the same clause and it will expedite the passing of this Bill.

As I understand the intention of this clause, it will not apply to Crown grants that have already been issued, and it also appears clear from the amendment that has just been proposed by the Minister himself in connection with the preceding sub-section. I think that for the sake of clarity we should further define the passage, because as it now stands it is possible that the prohibition will have reference to all transfers and all Crown grants even though these transfers or Crown grants were issued before the coming into operation of this Bill. I therefore move—

It will then have reference only to transfers or Crown grants that are issued after the commencement of this Act, or that are approved by the State. If we refer to Clause 9 we may note that the same definition is employed there, namely, “Crown grants or transfers issued by the State,” and I believe therefore that the Minister will accept the amendment.

I accept the amendment.

In connection with the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig) I should like to draw attention to the fact that we now have this position that the provision in connection with minors and parents has to be incorporated in every deed of transfer and in every Crown grant which is issued in the future. I want now to go back to an argument which I possibly used on an earlier occasion, and that is that we should have some regard for the way in which a man has acquired the land. In the first place there is the point, how was the land advertised? I am assuming that this is land that was allotted by the Government to a settler. It is advertised and the conditions under which the land is obtainable are clearly stated in the notice in the Government Gazette. The man knows what his obligations are, what is expected of him, and what the Government for its part undertakes. Here the Minister is proposing that without any consultation with the settler, without his consent, without acknowledging him in any way, conditions will be made to apply even to holdings that were granted in the past. If the Minister makes his policy applicable to holdings that are issued in future, the people will know what the conditions are under which they are obtaining the land. The settler knows what his rights and his responsibilities are, and the disadvantages pertaining to them. But here one finds people who have obtained land under conditions published in the Government Gazette, and which over and above that were registered in the office of the Registrar just as in the case of any other transfer. Now the Minister takes it upon himself to break the contract, without the approval or the consent of the other party to the contract. It is nothing less than a breach of contract towards those people who have obtained the land under certain conditions. For that reason I want strongly to support the amendment of the hon. member for Calvinia. If the Minister insists on this provision, let him make it applicable in future; but he should not break faith with these people. The people should not be able to point the finger at the Government and say that they cannot place any reliance on their word, or that they cannot rely on the undertakings given by a previous Government. This provision should not be made to apply to land that was acquired in the past. Such a settler, as well as the public who deal with him will not know where they stand. The man got his land on certain conditions. It is in his deed of transfer or in his lease. The public may have given him credit because they felt that he was entitled to the ground on the conditions prescribed. But now we come along later with an Act and give it retrospective effect. At this stage I wish to refer to what the Minister said on a previous occasion to the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander), namely, that this Act was not of retrospective effect. Is it right then to make these provisions of retrospective effect on holdings that were granted under previous Acts, perhaps fifteen or twenty years ago. Many of the settlers have not yet taken out the Crown grants. They have a lease which has existed all these years, and now it is suddenly altered. I am afraid the amendment of the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) provides no solution of the difficulties. The words “by the State” do not possess much significance. It does not imply that the provision shall not relate to Crown grants that have already been issued. I will not refer at present to the clause that we have already dealt with, but I want to turn to sub-section (2) which states that the provisions of Section 28 of the principal Act, as amended by this clause, shall apply, with effect from the date of the commencement of the present Act, in respect of all holdings. Here I again refer, as I have done previously, to the definition of “holding” in the Act of 1912, namely—

We have here the very same position, whether provisions are to be made to apply in respect of Crown grants that have already been issued. I am glad that the Minister has conceded that they will not apply to Crown grants that have already been issued, as he has conceded in a previous sub-section, but in order to remove all uncertainty and to avoid the occurrence of difficulties, I wish to move the following amendment—

The Minister has already accepted this in connection with the previous sub-section, but I consider that it should also apply to this sub-section that states that Section 28 will apply to any Crown grant that shall be issued after the commencement of this Act. It ought not, however, to apply to Crown grants that have already been issued.

I am very sorry that I cannot accept this amendment, and also that I cannot accept the amendment of the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig) : If I were to accept it it would mean that in respect of holdings that are given out as from the date of the commencement of this Act, these provisions would be applicable; but in respect of persons who up to the present have obtained their lease, i.e. practically all the settlers on all the settlements, they will not fall under these provisions, and will be able to sell and alienate and mortgage their land just as they wish to. One can well imagine it will not be long before the holdings that are today in the hands of settlers pass into the hands of people who are not settlers, and it will not be long before the speculators come in. The whole business will degenerate. It is an impossible position. I have said hundreds of times and I want to say it again, that this restriction also appears in the Act of 1937. The unfortunate thing is that we are now bringing it into operation and the legal advisers have informed us that as soon as a man gets his transfer this restriction falls away and then he is free. That is why we wish to accept our amendment. If we accept the amendment proposed by the hon. member it would mean that the people who have obtained land up to the present will be free from this restriction, but all who acquire land in the future, consequently also soldiers, will fall under these restrictions! Is that right? The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) stated here this morning that it was idiotic to intimate that he ever proposed to make this prohibition permanent. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad was Minister of Lands in 1938, and he inserted the following paragraph in a considerable number of deeds of sale under the Land Settlement Act—

It is repeated in every deed of transfer.

What clause are you discussing now?

Sub-section (2).

That has nothing to do with sub-section (2) but with sub-section (3).

Pardon me. I am busy with that. For the reasons I have stated I cannot accept the amendments.

The question involuntarily suggests itself to me as to what inspired the Minister to give the House the assurance that he was not going to apply the prohibition on people who had already received their Crown grants. I think the only reason is that he realised what the value of a Crown grant is. Then I want to ask the Minister if he is in agreement with the view that it is one of the greatest ideals of the settler to be the proud owner of a Crown grant. If he now comes as Minister of Lands and wants to impose restrictions on that Grown grant, that will lead to a complete weakening of it as a whole, then he must realise that he has deprived the settler of his whole stimulus for advancement and to make himself an independent landowner. Accordingly I want to give him the assurance that from the answer he gave us here it is abundantly clear that two standpoints are championed in this House. The first standpoint is that of eventual ownership for the settler. That is the principle which we on this side of the House stand for. The second standpoint is that the settler will become a permanent bywoner, and that is the standpoint of hon. members opposite. Those are the two standpoints over which the whole fight has been contested. There are two conflicting principles in our land settlement policy, and the present fight is over those two contending principles. The Minister is engaged together with a meddling department in imposing restrictions on the Grown grants of settlers, and he is making nothing else but permanent bywoners of the settlers. Accordingly, he is bent on weakening the necessary and sound development of an existing group of settlers, while we say that to hold out the prospect of complete ownership to these people would mean a great encouragement to them to become independent settlers. That was the root of the whole matter. It must be quite clear that hon. members opposite stand for a policy of permanent bywoners, while this side stands for full ownership. That is the big difference. The Minister is occupied in carrying out a certain procedure on these settlements. I put a question to the Minister here in the House, namely, how many permanent lessees there are at Brits. From the answer given by the Minister it appeared that there are about 30 temporary lessees at Hartebeestpoort. This reveals that to a certain degree use is being made of means to prevent people attaining ownership. The Minister is creating temporary holdings. Why is that procedure in progress, that people who hitherto were permanent lessees new have their holdings lying idle and that temporary persons have been placed there. Is it because speculation has occurred? No, it is that by means of restrictions the Minister is endeavouring to get a hold on the settler; he applies those provisions so strictly that it leads to cancellation, and to him now having 39 temporary lessees. I admit that in six cases the lands are waterlogged, but the chief reason is that the Minister is trying to get a hold on them, and that he is more and more promoting the policy of placing temporary people on the settlements. We are in reality actively killing the settlement, and I want to repeat and to emphasise here that the result will be that the settlers will not develop into independent and self-supporting farmers. The result of this process and of this principle will be that eventually they will fall into the category of permanent bywoners, while our objective and our ambition is to secure independence on the settlements. I want to ask the Minister to go about things very cautiously in respect of the settlers. There are in my constituency 38 settlers who have fulfilled all their obligations. They have already paid their instalments and notwithstanding their request for Crown grants, the Minister has always refused to grant them that. That was the case a little while ago. I am assured that the number is now considerably more than 38. I should like to know from the Minister why he does not give those people their Crown grants. It is one of the biggest ideals towards which these settlers have been striving, and why do we not give them the Crown grants so that they can achieve independence? Through this legislation the Minister, is introducing a policy that will retard and obstruct progress so that they will never become independent people. The excuse that the Minister has for flatly refusing these Crown grants is that he wants to have further opportunity to put through this Bill, and then he will also be able to secure a stranglehold on these people. That is why we are also having victimisation on the settlements. Before I entered politics, I often saw as a young teacher how political side issues often affected those people on the settlement. A short while ago five Nationalists at Wolfontein were taken off their holdings. That was not done because they were not capable, nor because they were not good settlers; but it was stated that their holdings were cancelled because they were too old. I made a full enquiry into that matter, and I saw that a party of five Nationalists were dumped in the main road —I came across them in the streets of Brits. Five S.A.P.’s were substituted in the place of five Nationalists. If you go there you will see that the facts are as I have stated them to you; and the five S.A.P.’s who were put in their places are not young; they are five old S.A.P.’s; one of them is even older than the men who were put on the road.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) must not interrupt me. He also has settlers in his constituency, and if I study the treatment accorded them recently, and how the Minister is carrying on in connection with these matters, I can well believe that some people think that man is not descended from the ape, but that he is busy descending to the level of the ape.

Have you looked in the mirror perhaps?

I want to say this to the hon. member, that he knows himself that if we have so many limitations imposed on people, if we apply so many legislative prohibitions and regulations, then we place certain things in the hands of people for ulterior motives to come into play, and for a stranglehold to be obtained on those people and also to upset the development of the settlement as a whole. I believe that the Minister received a letter from the District Farmers Union of Brits. They informed me that they wrote in the letter in which they formulated three or four arguments to convince the Minister that this legislation is entirely wrong, and that the whole district is up in arms against the Bill that he is attempting to pilot through the House, because these people feel that this Bill is going to hamper the settlers from becoming independent farmers. We are making it impossible to build up an energetic, aristocratic rural population; on the other hand, we are allowing them to degenerate and sink into the status of permanent bywoners, which will be a weaker position for the country in the future than if we have the sound farming population such as we require in our country.

The Minister will realise that this provision in the Bill represents a violation of every good conception for the advancement and the governing of the people. He knows, too, that it is antagonistic to the nature of the Afrikaner and Englishman. We hear the British sing : “Briton’s never, never, never, shall be slaves.” The Afrikaners also say: We’ll be no one’s slave, not even the Minister’s.

But you are now the slaves of Keerom Street.

These people are poor but honest, and we do not want to make slaves of them. We must impart to these people a spirit of pride and develop their independence. That must be the aim and ambition and the ideal of the Minister, to raise up his people so that we may have an independent people and independent citizens who can help themselves and who will be able to stand on their own feet. It is through the State and for the State that many of these people have become poor. They have become poor while fighting for South Africa. They are the people who have sacrificed everything for your freedom and mine. But now because a foreign policy has made them poor, it is sought to make slaves of them with the sort of legislation we have here. Misuse is being made of this opportunity. You want to make these people permanent slaves for all time. The Minister must realise what the position is, and he should not view everything through political spectacles. We do not live for politics alone. We have something much nobler and much more formidable than passing politics. We live for the people and we serve the people first and not the party machine on the other side, who want to do as they please in order to remain in power. Does it not distress you enough to see that the people are going back, and that in many respects they are losing their independence. It should be your aim and ours to make the people selfsupporting, so that they will be able to help themselves without the necessity of supervision being continually exercised over them. Leave them alone to develop their independence, and not only to develop their independence but also their initiative and their personality. So many appeals have been made to the Minister that we are beginning to be afraid to make any further appeals to him. It really seems as if the small group on these benches have to fight for the great principle of life, namely the principle of freedom. I know that the Minister is not a communist, but this legislation that he is introducing is communistic. Listen to us, we want to make a friendly appeal to you. We want to strengthen your hands with this legislation, but you will not accept any suggestions from us. Unless we drive you into a corner and force you to accept something you do not concede anything at all. You do not want to accept goodwill; you do not want to accept good advice, and the best advice that you have got has come from this side of the House, but you do not want to listen. We ask the Minister to reflect over this matter calmly, and to see whether he cannot agree to these two small amendments. They really represent the minimum we can ask for these people, whom he now wishes to enchain, and to make dependent on him for all time. Think of the cry that is going up; think of the unhappiness in the hearts of the people. They are the most dependent people in the land; they more than any others have their eyes turned towards you. Give those people a chance in life, and do not think that because you and others in this House are comfortably circumstanced, that you can do with these people as you want to. We want to make a very friendly and polite request that you should accept this amendment.

I should like to ask the Minister to assist me in the following manner. One of my constituents had an interview last year with the Minister at Vaal-Hartz. He says here—

How long has he been there?

He is not at Vaal-Hartz.

You mentioned Vaal-Hartz.

He met the Minister at Vaal-Hartz in my company. He is J. P. van Niekerk. The Minister will recall him. According to his statement he received an assurance from the Minister that he would get his Crown grant, and he states that shortly after that interview he received a letter from Pretoria saying that he would not get his Crown grant.

He will get it just as soon as he is entitled to it.

He said that on the 1st March he had paid off everything. This letter is dated the 24th April, almost two months later. He is under the impression that it has been withheld from him intentionally so that this new provision may come into force.

He is not entitled to get it.

He has already had the farm for more than twenty years. He is not even a supporter of mine. Though he has a vote in my constituency he is a supporter of the Government.

I am accused of only doing this sort of thing to Nationalists; I am glad you said that.

The Minister is here going to turn a Government supporter into a Nationalist. This man is chairman of the Soldiers’ Liaison Committee. He has only one child, and that child will never live on the farm because he is now filled with aversion as a result of the new legislation.

What connection does the hon. member find between this and the clause?

I only want to allude to the results of the legislation that is being adopted with reference to the children. That clause that has just been accepted will also apply to this farmer, and that is why I am intervening. I also wish to refer the Minister to another point. In Section 19 of the Act of 1912 it is very clearly stated that it is expected that if anyone obtains a holding, there should be occupation of that holding. If this regulation is applied how can that person be attached to the holding? The Minister is making the people filled with aversion. In my own case my home was virtually also destroyed by the recent floods and I might also have had to apply for such a farm, but it is not the sort of thing one can accept after these provisions come into operation. I should like the Minister to inform me what reply I should give to this settler in view of the promise that was made to him.

I am deeply disappointed over the attitude the hon. Minister has adopted. The Minister has brushed aside all the requests that have come from these benches, with contempt. The people who are living on those holdings want to pay for them. They have worked hard all these years. We do not wish to regard this matter from the standpoint of a small settlement, but we have to take into consideration that there are farms in that district that are highly productive. These people are anxious to pay, and they also have paid, and here we have the Minister coming and wanting to pass this sweeping measure. If I understood the Minister aright this morning, the position is this. If a person has his Crown grant and the land changes hands, it is no longer applicable. Is it not clear to the Minister that the people who have a Crown grant and who have not sold their land, have an idea in front of them? They have gone on to that land with one object in front of them, and that is to acquire land to preserve as a heritage for their descendants. We cannot accept the position that when a contract has been made with people, when they have lived frugally in order to be able to pay for the land, and where they have actually paid, that the Minister should now have the right to say to them : “After all that labour and after all the work you have put into it, you can never become the owner of the farm. You can never enjoy the liberty that the ordinary citizen of the country enjoys.” That land was not given to these people as a gift; they have had to pay for it. I want to make a further appeal to the Minister to give the matter the most earnest consideration before he refuses this amendment, before he brushes aside this reasonable request that has been made from these benches.

I have been sitting here all day and listening—and I want to say with perfect calmness—after the statements that have been made here I asked myself what the Minister’s motive would be that animated him in taking up the attitude he has adopted. Another feature has struck me here, and I put to myself the question, who are these settlers? I have only one answer. I want to say that almost 99 per cent. of these settlers are Afrikaans-speaking. When I say that I am speaking subject to correction. Actually I do not know of a single English-speaking person who is a settler. I do not know of a single one of our Jewish friends who is a settler, and I notice that hon. members opposite are preserving silence. Not one English-speaking member opposite has stood up to break a lance for the settlers in connection with this matter. I say that these things fill us with grief. I cannot do otherwise than appeal for the acceptance of this reasonable amendment, because I know that on those settlements today there are Oudstryders, men who have laid themselves on the altar for our freedom. On those settlements there are found the descendants of those people. The majority of them are the offspring of Oudstryders. What appears so strange to my mind is that spirit of irresponsibility that I have observed on the part of the Minister. The question occurs to me: Is it, because he does not represent a constituency, because he has no constituents to report to, that he sits in the Assembly and does these things? I put the question because I detect this attitude on his part, and let me say, Sir, that I deplore it very strongly. I have sought for a soft spot in the Minister’s heart for these less privileged people. Fate has so ordained it that they have had to find refuge in these settlements, but there was a goal in front of them, and that goal that these people had in view was to experience that spirit of independence which is a feature of Afrikanerdom, and now I want to ask the Minister whether it would give him pleasure to stifle that feeling of independence in these people. In this life everyone aspires to independence, and to possess a place in this world that he can in the true sense of the word call his own. What encouragement will there be in the future for people to go to these settlements? At one time there was a great influx to the towns, and it was the slogan of previous Governments:: “Bring back to the farm what belongs to the farm.” That was the cry that we heard. Is that still the cry that is raised by the Minister.

I wish to ask hon. members please to confine their arguments to Clause 2, and not to repeat the same arguments that were used in connection with the previous clause.

I only want to point out that as a result of that clause people will be discouraged from coming to the settlements. Will the Minister pursue the same policy in the future when soldiers settle on the land? I make an appeal to the Minister. I am convinced that he still has some feeling for these people. Let him take this request into favourable consideration and accept the amendment.

The hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Brink) has put a very important question to the Minister. He has cited the case of a man who bought land under the Land Settlement Act twenty years ago. He has fulfilled all his obligations and paid the purchase price in full. The deed of transfer is held up. If this Bill goes through with the clause as it now stands this man will not be able to sell the land in the future. Why should a man who bought land twenty years ago and who reckoned that the property would pass on to his children, be robbed of his right? But the case mentioned by the hon. member is not the only one of its sort. There are probably many instances of this nature. For that reason I want strongly to support the amendment of the hon. member for Calvinia, because it is unfair that a man after he has developed his farm, and after he has entered into a definite agreement with the Minister of Lands, should have this solemn agreement simply destroyed by legislation. That is very unfair and unjust. In the previous clause the breaking of contracts was clearly discussed. Here the Minister lays it down that no matter what the agreement was that the owners entered into with previous Ministers, it would no longer be valid. The owners must now be the slaves of the Government. No private individual could do anything of that sort. There is the right of appeal to the court. But the Government robs the people of their rights under this Bill. Solemn promises are broken. We hear such a lot about honour and duty and solemn undertakings. Here they are simply broken. Why does the Minister remain so obstinate? We do not want to repeat all the arguments that were used in connection with the previous clauses, but those arguments are very strong. I want to tell the Minister that these poor people, although they are poor, will not sell their souls. We shall go throughout the length and breadth of the country with this Bill, and the Minister will be faced with opposition such as he has never previously experienced.

It is really amusing to hear the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) talking about slavery. If the settlers are slaves he has made them slaves. No one else but himself when he was Minister introduced this provision.

When?

In 1937.

Where is the Act?

The contract. It does not help to beat about the bush. If the settlers are slaves it is the hon. member who is responsible. All that this Bill is doing is to place the man who succeeds the settler in the same position in regard to these provisions as the settler himself was in. If the settler alienated land with the consent of the Minister, he has no longer any control over the land. His obligations are then passed on to his successor. Nothing further is imposed on the settlers.

I should like to move a further amendment to sub-section (2) in reference to the placing of conditions in Crown grants and deeds of transfer; conditions such as that settlers may not have grown-up children on the land without the written consent of the Minister have now to be attached to the Crown grants. The Minister has conceded that the provisions will not be made applicable to holdings in respect of which Crown grants have already been allotted. I have already mentioned that it is very unfair in the case of settlers who have not yet made application, or where as the result of delay or negligence by the department, no Crown grant has yet been issued, although the man is entitled to a Crown grant. Accordingly, I wish to exclude from this provision those people who are entitled to a Crown grant, and I propose the following amendment—

What is the idea of that?

To give the people an opportunity during the few months that lie ahead before the new year to make application for their Crown grant, that is those people who are entitled to it. I want to afford them the opportunity in the few months that remain to take out the Crown grant to which they are entitled. There are many people who have purchased land under Section lí, who have paid for the land with their own money, plus interest on top. The Minister cannot refuse where they have occupied the land for ten years, and have complied with the obligations, to allot them a Crown grant. Now I maintain that the opportunity should be given them to take out the Crown grant before the end of the year. Then I also wish to reply to the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie). He alleges that these stipulations also appear in the Act of 1937. That is not correct. These are entirely new provisions that are now being incorporated.

It was in the contract of lease.

No, that was not the case either. The lease contracts must be in accordance with the law. If it is possible to insert it in the lease contract why does the Minister come along with this legislation? The lease contracts existed for years and years before the Minister intervened. But these provisions are now imposed in respect of every lease contract since 1912. That was the difference. In the legislation that the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) was responsible for, there was no provision of this nature, that the lessee will not have the right to keep his grown-up son on his holding, or anything of the sort.

He certainly applied that in my district.

That is impossible, because it was not in the law. They could simply have refused it. It could have been applied in respect of a European over twenty-one years of age who was not a member of the family.

No, on the sons.

No, if the Inspector of Lands attempted to do that he went outside the scope of the Act. And if, on the other hand, it was in the Act, as the hon. member appears to allege, why then the necessity for this Act? The Minister could simply have recourse to the existing law. Of course it is clear that that was not the case. I want, however, to come back to what the Minister stated during the second reading debate to the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander). The hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) asked—

To that the Minister replied—

Whereupon Mr. Alexander asked—

The Minister’s answer was—

Mr. Alexander answered —

Thereupon the Minister stated—

The hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) then stated that it certainly was of retrospective effect. How can the Minister say that it is not retrospective in view of the fact that he is making it apply to every holding that was allotted years and years since? Here it is made, to apply to settlers because they cannot help themselves, and the Minister is breaking existing contracts. To return to my amendment; provision is only made here for people in respect of whom the Minister admitted that provision ought to be made, namely, the people who have Crown grants and those who are entitled to them. Give them the opportunity now until the end of the year to make application, so that they may take advantage to the privileges in the provision that the Minister has made otherwise it means nothing to them. The Minister can refuse it to anyone who in his opinion is not entitled to a Crown grant. Consequently there is no danger that people will be able to abuse this. The Minister has to give approval when these people are allotted their Crown grants.

The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) has stated that I mave not yet replied to the question in connection with Mr. Van Niekerk. He states that this person has already been twenty years on this holding, that he had paid for, and that I decline to give a Crown grant. I have not the information before me, and I am thus unable to give a reply. I can, however, give the hon. member the assurance that neither I nor my department have the right, when a person has been ten years on the land and has complied with the conditions, to refuse the Crown grant. I can mention numbers of settlers who have taken a mortgage because they were not in a position to pay in full, and they obtained a Crown grant. I have not the file handy so that I am unable to give the hon. member all the particulars. I should like to read out here what the hon. member for Wolmaransstad inserted in the contracts of lease. It is Clause 3 (c)—

That was an honourable contract.

That was in the contract. I am merely perpetuating it.

But it was not made retrospective.

I am inserting it in the law on the advice of the law advisers. If we read the speech in which the hon. member at that time moved his Bill in the House, then it is apparent to us that his intention was that that encumbrance should be in perpetuity. He said that. Now that we want to apply it, the law advisers say that we are unable to do it, and that when transfer is effected this clause cannot be inserted. I am merely placing the matter beyond all doubt, but it was the hon. member for Wolmaransstad who set the ball rolling.

I want to congratulate the Minister of Lands, although he may find it rather queer that I should congratulate him. I want to congratulate him on being such a good ventriloquist. A ventriloquist usually has dolls with him who speak in his voice. The Minister opposite says in the role of a ventriloquist: “In 1937 Gen. Kemp did the very same thing.” And then all the puppets opposite jump up and say: In 1937 Gen. Kemp did the very same thing.’’ Later it appeared that not a single one of the provisions of this clause appeared in the Act of 1937. Then the ventriloquist said: “Gen. Kemp did this thing in his regulations.” And the lips of the puppets move again: “Gen. Kemp did this thing in his regulations.” The hon. the member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) has challenged the Minister and I challenge him, and any other member on the opposite benches, to state that a single one of the stipulations that appear in this clause, that appear in this sub-section (2) are to be found in the Act of 1937. I would like now to come to this point. Sub-section (2) lays down that—

We have been pointing out to the Minister throughout the day that he is going to apply these provisions to people who obtained their holdings in the past, and then the Minister stood up and said that that is precisely what the hon. member for Wolmaransstad did. I challenge him to tell me where the Act of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad is retrospective.

He cannot tell you that.

No, he cannot do it. That is the tragedy of it. Neither the Minister nor a single hon. member opposite has so far had the candour to stand up and justify this measure. On this side we have done everything in our power to bring it home to them that this is unfair to people who have entered into contracts before this date to say that their rights will be taken away from them and that limitations will be imposed on them. If the Minister would now rise and say that in the case of lease contracts issued in future these provisions will be inserted, we my have a difference of opinion with him, but no one could stigmatise the action of the Minister as being something that was unfair to the point of being practically a breach of contract. But as I say again, as far as concerns this matter, neither the Minister nor any single hon. member opposite has risen in his seat and furnished us with proof that we are wrong in the position that we have taken up. Is this not the strongest argument that can be used, that they have neither the courage nor indeed are they in any way able to contradict this standpoint that we have taken up. Let me analyse this matter a little more closely. I understand that the Minister has accepted the amendment of the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson). That is a small concession, and we accept every concession with gratitude in the interests of those people whose rights are curtailed by this Bill. The section provides—

That implies a perpetual servitude, and the hon. member has now proposed that the words “by the State” shall be inserted. But if the Minister reads further he will see that the clause destroys the whole effect of that. If he reads on he will find that the section lays down—

That is ad infinitum. Every subsequent deed of transfer would have to include the prohibition. The amendment moved by the hon. member which the Minister has accepted is consequently absolutely worthless, unless the words “in every subsequent transfer of the land” are deleted. I therefore move the following amendment—

If the Minister does not accept this amendment the amendment of the hon. member for Ermelo will be meaningless.

I know what you mean, but I cannot accept the amendment.

Let me then put the case to the Minister again—

That is ad infinitum. The Minister must have realised that that would be unjust and consequently he accepted the amendment of the hon. member for Ermelo to insert after the words “deed of transfer” in line 58 the words “issued by the State.” Does the Minister mean by that that this prohibition will only apply in the case of the first transfer from the State to the settler.

No, this only does not apply to deeds of transfer in the case of private individuals.

Then the Minister has misled the hon. members on his side of the House. They have come to me and said that my objection was well-founded, but that the argument that this limitation would be imposed in perpetuity would be eliminated by the amendment of the hon. member for Ermelo. That is also the way in which the Minister’s Department understand it.

No.

Then I really do not know where I stand with the Minister and with his department, and the argument still holds good that this is a prohibition in perpetuity. It signifies that the prohibition will still be valid after 100 years or 200 years, and we thought that the hon. member for Ermelo had proposed his amendment in order to remove that objection.

No.

Then this amendment has no significance at all, and it has absolutely no value. It means then that if a Crown grant and a deed of transfer are given to the settler, this encumbrance will remain on it if he sells it in 50 years time, and whether it is sold after 100 years of after 500 years. It is an abiding servitude on the land.

Yes, that is so.

The Minister admits that. Now we have got it clear, and I want to ask hon. members opposite who came and told me that this amendment of the hon. member for Ermelo put an end to this difficulty, where they stand now. Now we take the position to be this; they have misunderstood each other. This is a prohibition in perpetuity. I hope that the Minister will realise what the significance of this is going to be. In the future the ownership of farms in South Africa will fall into two categories; in the one category will be the people who have obtained land direct from the State under the Land Settlement Act, and the other will be those who have not purchased the land under the Land Settlement Act. But originally all land came from the State. But because I and the Minister and others have not obtained our farms under the Land Settlement Act of the Union of South Africa, our land will not be subject to the provisions of the Act; but there are thousands of farms that have been issued since 1912, and there are thousands of farms that will be allotted in the future under the Land Settlement Act, because the State is from time to time instituting new land settlement schemes, and are buying and apportioning land every year. In the future there will be thousands and tens of thousands of farms allotted under the Land Settlement Act, and all those people who in the future buy this land will remain subject to the provision of this Act. This land will pass into the hands of people who are not settlers, but they will remain subject to this Act. That land will remain in perpetuity holdings of the Government, because they will be subject to these conditions, and the Minister’s inspectors and the Land Board will for all time have control over those holdings. The people bought the land in a proper manner. They paid for it, but because it originally was Government land they will be subject to these provisions. What sort of citizenship will the Minister have in South Africa in 50 or 100 years time if this Bill goes through? Slaves; nothing more or less. If this Bill goes through it will still be in force in 500 years’ time if it is not altered by another government. In sub-section (1) of Clause 2, paragraph (a) (1 )(i), the following occurs—

1. (i) the proper care and maintenance of improvements thereon.

What is the position now? Improvements have been effected and today there is perhaps a house on the land. Perhaps I buy that land, or the Minister’s son or his grandson may buy that farm in a hundred years’ time. There is a house on it; the buyer is obliged under this Bill to keep this House there, whether it is in his way or not. Before he can bring about alterations he must have the consent of the department. The Minister has stated that these provisions will remain operative ad infinitum. [Time limit.]

I wish now to make a very friendly request to the Minister. Unfortunately at the moment he is not in his seat. I shall be glad if the Minister will give us an explanation regarding the need for this clause in the Bill. If anyone buys property from the State, and pays the purchase price and obtains a clean transfer, the Minister wants a servitude placed on the property from year to year, as was explained by the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom). Can the Minister offer us a single reason why such a servitude should exist over the course of thirty years. Suppose I buy property under the Land Settlement Act. I may not keep my parents on that farm. I am not allowed to keep my grown - up children on that farm; I have to drive them away. It is necessary for me to obtain the permission of the department before I can effect improvements. Now, I want to ask the Minister whether he can advance a single reason why all that should be necessary after the property has changed hands three or four times. Surely the Minister can proffer some reason why these things should be. The only object is this; the Minister desires that land that has been sold under the Land Settlement Act should remain in perpetuity as inferior land. The Minister is well aware that land in respect of which a servitude exists has an inferior value. Should I purchase a farm today I would naturally pay much less for land on which there rests a servitude, even though that land may in itself have the same value as another piece of land for which I would be prepared to pay much more. Why does the Minister want to depreciate the value of the settlers’ lands. There must be some fundamental reason for the Minister wanting to do this. We can see no reason why it should be done. I want to remind the Minister of this fact that when a person acquires land under the Land Settlement Act it is not a question of charity. It is in conformity with a policy that is followed in every country in the world. The State helps the people to obtain land. Then there are setbacks and periods of economic depression, and the people leave the land, and later these people must necessarily be returned to the land [Quorum]. I was informing the Minister that it was not such a singular thing for the State to assist the citizens to obtain land. It is done in every country in the world. America even has taken steps to try to keep the farming population on the land. Why then should we he confronted with this discriminatory, unjustifiable, and unreasonable legislation which brands the settler’s land as inferior land? If we have to keep him on the land why should the Minister bring forward this Bill? Why does the Minister not provide that that man cannot sell the land to me or to any other person, but that it must be passed on to his children. [Quorum.] I want to indicate to the Minister the injustice of this Bill. The State has expended millions of pounds on land settlement schemes. Suppose for instance that the State spends £25 million on housing schemes for the people, will the Minister then decide that because the State has advanced the money to these people to enable them to build their homes they can never become the owners of those houses, that they may not keep their parents in the house, and they may not keep their grown-up children in that home? No, in a case of that sort the Minister would not take such action. So I want to ask the Minister: Why in heaven’s name does he impose these restrictions on the farmer? This is blatant discrimination. If the Bill goes through in that form it will be a disgrace to our Statute Book and no fair and just person can justify the attitude of the Minister in desiring to have such a section placed in the statutes of our country. It is the height of injustice. I make an appeal to the Minister at this late stage to amend the clause on the lines that have been indicated by us. I make an appeal to hon. members opposite who represent settlers who have held meetings and taken resolutions against this measure to accord us their support. If they fail to do that they will not be representing the interests of the people they claim to represent.

The hon. member must confine himself to the clause.

I only wish to refer to this, that the hon. members are not fulfilling their duty towards the settlers they maintain they represent. Will the Minister get up and explain to us on what grounds of fairness and justice he has introduced this Bill. He finds it impossible to defend it. Here an injustice is being perpetuated, and a servitude is being imposed on the generations that will follow us. The Minister cannot defend that. He is merely relying on the servile majority at his back to push this measure through.

I am glad that the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) has challenged the Minister and also the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) to point out where the provision that is contained in this clause is to be found in the Act of 1937. It is not only in this House that they have come along with their misrepresentations. I was at Wakkertroom and at Volksrust and there settlers came to me and told me that I was talking rubbish because the provisions had been enacted by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp).

The hon. member must confine himself to the subsection.

I am doing that, in that I am merely pointing out that outside Parliament hon. members also assert that this provisions that young men may not keep their aged fathers on their land was introduced into the law by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad. The hon. the Minister comes here and says that if a settler “A” sells to “B” who is not a settler the provisions remain in force, even though “B” sells in turn to “C” and “C” to “D.” Even 200 years later the provisions would remain operative, and a man would not be allowed to let his father and mother and his grown-up son stay with him. The Minister’s argument is that he wants to prevent overcrowding, but “C” and “D” are not settlers, they are ordinary members of the public. Why should overcrowding be prevented in the case of their farms, and not on my farm or on the Minister’s farm. There is no sense in the thing. If the Minister came here and said that so long as the land was transferred from one settler to another settler the Government should be protected I could have understood it. But on no single occasion has the Minister voiced the fear that the money that the State has invested in the land might be lost, and that this is occasioning him anxiety. If the settler sells the land to “B,” and “B” in turn sells it to “C” what sense is there in maintaining these provisions. The Minister declares that he is anxious to prevent overcrowding. But why not that in the case of my farm and of his? Otherwise it is not going to help the position at all. The Minister is supposed to have bought land somewhere near Koffiefontein. How would he feel about it if the provisions were also made applicable to his land. Dit he not buy the land for his children? Will he now accept the position that these provisions should be applicable to his land?

I shall also be liable.

In regard to irrigable land I am glad that the Minister realises what difficulties he has landed himself into. But here we have to do with people who bought their land under Section 11. For the most part it is grazing land that is effected. Take the district around. De Aar and Phillipstown. There is no suggestion of overcrowding. The people are nearly all sheep farmers. If one takes the Vaal-Hartz scheme or any other irrigation scheme one might be justified in using, to a certain extent, the argument that was employed by the Minister, but certainly not in the other cases. There is another feature that the Minister has introduced in connection with this legislation. Although I do not agree with him there is something to be said for his view. But when we turn to these provisions I fail to discern any logic in them. To be logical he would have to apply these provisions to his farm and on the farm of the hon. member for Pietershurg, if he really wants to prevent overcrowding. For those reasons I trust that the Minister will accept the amendment of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom). That is indeed a logical step following the amendment of the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson). Although he has already given us his “No” I still hope that logic will triumph and that he will accept the amendment.

I should like to know what really was the intention of the hon. member for Ermelo. Why did he propose this amendment, and why did he deliver his speech? He stated that some doubt existed in regard to Crown grants and that he wished to remove it. He brought us under the impression that under his amendment Crown grants would be excluded from the operations of these provisions. If that was so, the amendment of the hon. member for Waterberg perhaps was not really unnecessary. But what does the amendment of the hon. member for Ermelo really mean? Absolutely nothing. The hon. Minister has stated that at the right and proper time he will prove that the provisions we are combating were applied by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad. What has the Minister done now? He has stated that the hon. member for Wolmaransstad has made provision in certain leases when he was Minister. He has stated that it was stipulated in them that additional adult persons would not be permitted on the holdings. Is that the same? The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) has entered into contracts with people who were therefore au fait with the conditions. He did not in the past make contracts and then break them and insert further conditions. That is what we censure. The conditions of the contract were advertised, and they are being broken. The people who entered into contracts during the time of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad knew what the conditions were. But he did not go and alter the provisions in contracts that were entered into since 1912. The Minister offers no reply to our arguments. He admits that certain rights were granted to these people, and he has moved a little way in the right direction by not making the section applicable to existing Crown grants, but only as far as regards (b) viz., the provision that a man is now allowed to have his adult sons or his parents on the holding. Those provisions are not made effective in respect of Crown grants that have already been issued. But in principle what is the difference between a person who has already received his Crown grant and another person who is entitled to receive it but who has not yet taken it out? That is why I want to allow them to be able to apply for a Crown grant up to the end of the year. We all know that the Minister and his department have definitely refused during last year, and perhaps longer, to issue Crown grants. We had to threaten them with the law, and the reason for them doing that was that this legislation was on its way. They wrongfully and illegally refused to issue Crown grants, and in cases where the people had occupied the land for ten years and complied with all the requirements of the law the Minister had no right to refuse the Crown grants, but we know that at that time he had to be threatened with the law before he consented to issue the Crown grants. Even in the Land Settlement Act itself provision is made that a settler, if he has compiled with the conditions of his contract may obtain a bond from the department to enable him to take a Crown grant. There is not a single instance in recent years where they permitted this. They even suspended the operation of an Act of this Parliament in anticipation of this stipulation being inserted in the contracts. It has only been where a man came along with the cash and said that he was going to the courts, as in the case of Mr. Brits of Pietersburg, that they were obliged to give him a Crown grant. In cases where the Minister, with or without good reason, has refused Crown grants delay has ensued, and accordingly I have proposed this amendment to the effect that the opportunity should be offered these people to the end of the year to take out their Crown grants, and if they take them out before the 1st of July 1945 they will not become liable under these provisions. Then they will have the opportunity until the end of the year to make the necessary arrangements to obtain the money so that they may be able to get the Crown grants intime. There are oases where the Crown grants have been allotted to people, and where the Minister has stated that he is prepared to give them, but the Governor-General has not yet signed them. That means that those people will fall under these provisions, and it will be a screaming injustice. Then the Minister may simply, though he cannot refuse a Crown grant, omit to pass it to the Governor-General for signature, and thereby these people will be made subject to these provisions. That will be a glaring injustice, and accordingly I believe it is a reasonable request to ask the Minister to fix the date as at the 1st of January 1945, and I ask him to accept this amendment.

Something occurred in the House this afternoon which makes us realise how careful we should be. I refer again to the amendment of the hon. member for Ermelo. I touched on the point that as the Bill now stands it means that this prohibition will be applicable not only on Crown grants that are allotted by the State, but also subsequently when transfer has been effected. That argument found acceptance from hon. members opposite and several of them came to me and stated that that objection was well founded, but that it would be covered by the amendment of the hon. member for Ermelo which had been accepted by the Minister. We wanted to accept that in good faith, and if I had not brought the matter up for discussion again in view of the fact that a phrase which appears later in the clause had the effect of neutralising the amendment, the motion would have slipped through, and we would have been accessories to it. If mistakes of that sort can be made here then we must know what we are doing and accept it openly. I maintain that with the definition of “holding” whatever the Law Advisers may say about it, the position is as I have stated. I claim that the court apparently gives “holding” the definition that I attached to it.

I shall prefer the opinion of the Law Advisers.

I do not take that amiss from the Minister. He knows however that not only the opinion of Law Advisers, but also the opinion of judges is sometimes reversed.

And of advocates also.

Of course. I do not want to disparage the Law Advisers, and the Minister knows that even the judgment of a judge in the Supreme Court may be reversed. It is human to err. I state that the definition of “holding” is of such a character, and the court might easily lay down that it remains a holding even after the Crown grant and the transfer have been issued. And then it would mean that all provisions of sub-section (2), if it goes through, shall apply. But what is very clear in any case is that paragraph (d) will apply in perpetuity. It appears to me that hon. members opposite are under a wrong impression in connection with holdings. They have in mind small holdings under irrigation schemes. It is probable that overcrowding would occur there unless we accepted such a provision as this. But let me just say this, that a great proportion of the land that has been allotted under the Land Settlement Act is not comprised of such small holdings but of large and extensive farms. In my constituency there are ranchers with farms of 8,000 or 9,000 morgen who obtained their land under the Land Settlement Act.

That is wrong.

I am not discussing now whether it is right or wrong. I merely state the fact. The hon. member should not take up that point with me; he must take up the matter with his Government. In those arid areas a large farm is necessary to enable a person to make a decent living. We are not going to allot farms to people which will only permit them making a meagre living. We do not want to place them in the position where they must always be bywoners. We want to help them to advance with their farming.

That is so.

In the Bushveld area where we have extensive farms we find that people make a good living as cattle farmers, and there is no question of over-populating the farms. A man and one or two of his sons make a decent living. Now restrictions are imposed to the effect that the sons may not reside with him and the farms are also made subject to several other provisions. Why? I readily admit that where we have a special irrigation scheme for the rehabilitation of people we may have to apply such restrictions to the holding because the object may be to make provision for eventual transfer of this type of settler to another place. We would not raise any objection to that. Where for instance the Minister wishes to prevent such lands falling into the hands of big companies, or into the hands of people who already have enough land to make a living, the procedure can be understood. But why impose all these restrictions on the type of farm I have just alluded to; they can only have the effect of entirely destroying the spirit of initiative amongst those people. I should like to ask the hon. members opposite whether they would like to be the owners of land in respect of which these restrictions were to be imposed in perpetuity.

I should like to be the owner of land that will belong to the State for ever.

I can uuderstand that from the hon. member because he is a Communist. I have not become accustomed to Communists who have no spirit of freedom in them, and who are prepared to be the slaves of Stalin.

That is of course the reason why they are fighting.

That hon. member has never fought. I am certain that Colonel Werdmuller who is so earnestly pleading for recruits would give him a free pass to Italy to go and fight there. [Time limit.]

During the second reading, I told the hon. Minister that this clause presented the great difficulty in the Bill because it made these provisions retrospective. It is peculiar that the lawyers on the benches opposite voted with us on that occasion, and the Minister of Lands had to quieten them. Now they are sitting there perfectly still and do not want to open their mouths about this. Why are they so frightened? The position is that this land is encumbered for all time. A settler has fulfilled all his obligations, and then he finds that restrictions are imposed on the land. If the course is followed in the future that the settler, when he makes application, knows exactly what restrictions are imposed on the land, it would be quite another matter. Are they able to give a clean deed of transfer to buyers? I ask that of the Minister. Are those people who now sell their land able to give a clean deed of transfer, one that does not contain these restrictions. They are unable to do it, and the Minister knows it; and the worst of all is this: When those people entered into that contract to acquire the land from the Minister there was no restriction on that land. The only defence that the Minister had here was that contracts had been entered into with these people by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) when he was Minister of Lands. Is there a difference then between a contract and a provision in an Act? There is a world of difference between a provision of the law and a contract. If it is a provision in the law then all holdings come under this Act, but if a contract is entered into then it is left to the approval of the Minister concerned whether those restrictions should be placed in the contracts or not. I want to go further. Since 1912 land has be allotted. [Laughter]. That is the way in which our national affairs are treated by hon. members opposite. They do not bother themselves about what is going on in the House. They are elected to promote the interests of the country and they sit there in the corner like a family of monkeys. They have never taken the trouble to read this Bill. They are quite ignorant of its implications, while the Minister knows even less about the implications of the Bill. When you try to argue a matter out with him, as the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) did, he simply says: “My legal advisers say this or that.” May heaven preserve us from such a Minister who has not even the intelligence to read the Bill!

May heaven preserve us from such advocates.

I told the Minister last year that if he wanted such a provision, he would have to lay it down by way of legislation, and now he has come with these restrictions. It is what the advocates on this side told him. I want again to put the question to the Minister. Since 1912 have holdings ever been allotted where this strict provision has been strictly complied with? Under the previous Minister it was nothing else than a contract between him and a man who wanted a holding. But what does the present Minister do? He has decided now that all holdings that were allotted in the past should fall under this legislation. I wonder whether those hon. friends on the benches opposite who are lawyers are able to rise in their seats and say that this is the right thing to do; to come now and say that those conditions that we entered into shall no longer have any force; we are now going to insert new conditions which will have a retrospective effect. I maintain that the Minister is creating in this country nothing less than a condition of slavery, and it seems to me he takes pleasure in the fact that people will always have to run to him for permission to transfer their land. He wants to lord it over everyone, and that is a proof to us not only in this country but also in other countries where the Minister has such powers, there is always the temptation to abuse them.

What other countries?

England. The Chief Justice of England. Lord Hewart, wrote a book on this subject, but the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) doesn’t know that. He is of course Empire Jim; he derives his inspiration from London.

We do not get it from Gordonia.

Let the hon. member read that book, and he will see that the tendency towards a Minister making regulations is not a feature of the democratic system, but a feature that the people are today combating. The Minister has set himself up as a dictator amongst the settlers and consequently he has not got the courage to go to a constituency where there are settlers. He has not got the courage to do that, but he comes here ánd he brings in these restrictions in order to invalidate contracts that have been entered into; he is inserting in them conditions which were not accepted at the time by these people. In order to prevent difficulties I ask the Minister, if he intends to have such restrictions in the future, to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé).

Can a person fail to be surprised at the attitude that has been assumed by the Minister in this matter. An hon. member on the benches opposite who supports the Government rises in his seat and declares that he would prefer to own a holding which would remain the property of the State for all time. If that is so, we can understand why the Minister adopts this attitude. The gods protected the farmers of this country when this Minister was not made Minister of Agriculture, because if he takes up this attitude where he has to deal with only a section of the farming community, what would happen if he had control of the whole of the farming community? You can really say the gods have protected us by not having that Minister as Minister of Agriculture, so that he is not able to make these provisions apply generally to the whole of the farming community. The actual implications of the Bill have been repeatedly explained. Here the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) has brought forward a reasonable request to the Minister and he simply turns it down. He refuses to give any consideration to the owners of holdings. The hon. member for Pietersburg goes further and he asks for an extension of time so that these people will have an opportunity. Will the Minister tell us that he will instruct his department to allot those Crown grants that they have been holding back now for about a year, those Crown grants which are lying piled up in the offices of his department? Here something is being done intentionally to make the people dependent on the Minister of Lands. It is being done purposely. If I was one of those settlers and I had worked on that land and paid for it …

That argument has been repeated so often that I must ask the hon. member not to employ it again.

Nevertheless it remains the truth.

What does the hon. member for Wolmaransstad say?

Nevertheless it remains the truth that the Minister is withholding from these people rights that are due to them, for his own ends and for the purposes of the Government.

This is not Buchuberg.

No, it is Zoutpansberg. The hon. member opposite will have to return to Zoutpansberg, and the same experience awaits him as occurred in respect of the Provincial elections. I say we should encourage those people to obtain Crown grants. The people on the holdings are not all people who are just out to make profits, and who want to get rid of the land. They want to remain there with their families, and now the Minister comes and says that the families may not stay there with them. He has only one object before him, and that is to make slaves of them and their descendants.

The hon. the Minister of Lands is a practical farmer. He also has children. I want to ask him as a practical farmer and as a family man, and as one who knows what it means to be the owner of land, does he not feel in his heart that this request from our side is a proper request. Why is the Minister so haughty? When some of our friends on this side talk then he gets annoyed.

With whom have I got annoyed.

The Minister gets excited and he says things that he ought not to say. I want the Minister to think logically over this matter. I want him to deal with this matter on its merits and not to be so unfair. If I buy a piece of land I want eventually to become the owner of the land, and if the contract is encumbered with servitudes I would not enter into such a contract. When this Act was commenced the object was to rehabilitate our people and to make them independent owners of land. But now the Minister wants to make this measure of retrospective effect so that these people will have to remain slaves all their lives. In all seriousness I want to appeal to the Minister to be merciful and to accept this proposal of my hon. friend. It certainly will not weaken the Bill. It will improve the Bill, and it will increase the stature of the Minister in the eyes of the settlers. The Minister of Lands is the greatest asset that the Nationalist Party have ever had, and I say this on the ground that he is engaged in killing his own party. The settlers in this country will not be slaves; they also want the right of freedom, and every man that has the right of freedom wants to be a free citizen of the State. There are a number of hon. members in the corner who are merely rowdy. To us it is a serious matter. There is a portion of our people who are placed in the position that they have to go cap in hand to the Minister to beg for land. The Minister of Lands is the father of the settlers, but by his action he is making beggars of them. We lodge a strong protest against that. We want justice and honour to prevail. We do not want to make political capital out of this, but we want right and justice to be done, as we hear it every morning from the Speaker’s Chair. We have the call from the people who sent us here to allow right and justice to prevail. Accordingly I ask the Minister in God’s name to be merciful to these people.

I am going to appeal to the Minister in English. After all the English people have never been communistic. Is there anyone who can say that the English people have ever tried to take away the rights of their children—no, they have never been communistic. They stand by their rights and they want their rights upheld; their rights and the rights of their children. And I want to appeal to the Minister, who is embroiled in a party where you have communists and every other section of the community in one conglomeration to be true to his past.

That sounds all right.

Yes; we have people like the hon. member here, a redhot communist who wants the State to take part in everything, but I know that the English people don’t want communism, because they stand for their rights, and they don’t want the State to interfere with their rights. We are not communistic, we are not even socialistic ….

What are you?

We are only to a certain extent socialistic, but we believe in private enterprise, and we believe that the man who works the land should be the master of his land, and should be allowed to leave that land to his children. But the Minister has now become communist—he is definitely influenced by his communistic allies, and when I see these men over there— men who also possess ground and who want to leave their land to their children, I wonder at their attitudes.

You’d wonder at anything.

Yes, hon. members are very bold in their protestations. Will they go back to their people and tell their people that they are supporting a Government whose policy is communism, or fascism or nazism, and then tell them that in spite of it all they are fighting for democracy.

What about wheat control?

What has that to do with it? And let me say this to the hon. member who has just interrupted. It seems to me that he is the agent of the landowner—the big landowner, not the small man. He stands for British interests, but as far as South Africa is concerned I have never heard him say anything about South Africa. Communism—

Will the hon. member please come back to the clause. It has nothing to do with communism.

I want to appeal to the sound business brain of the Minister. Why is he allowing himself to be led astray. Why does he want to do something to other people which he would not like anyone to do to him. Would he like his land to go back to the State? I want him to come back to South Africa and to South African interests, and not listen to the hon. member over there (Mr. Kentridge) who is really a Russian and holds views which are foreign to South Africa. Would the Minister if he bought a farm or a bit of land like a new clause to be introduced into his sales contract after he had bought the farm— would he like a clause to be introduced under which he would be deprived of the right to leave his land to his children? Because that is what this clause means. I ask him to think on South African lines and not on communistic lines. The hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) seems to be enjoying himself. I would like him to go back to Grahamstown, and tell the people there that the Government has passed a Bill which aims at communism. What would they say?

They would say it wasn’t true—they would read the Bill.

That hon. member has always been the enemy of the farmer.

Will the hon. member please come back to the clause.

This clause is definitely something which aims at taking away the rights of men who have certain contracts and I say it contains a principle which is unknown in this House. Here it means the Government going back on its word—the Government is breaking its contracts. If the Minister were to say that in future contracts he was going to make provision for certain things not being allowed I could understand it. But here the Minister is going back on contracts which have long since been entered into. What the Minister said a few days ago and what he says now differs. Let me read something from what he said before. He said: “This Bill does not refer to people who already have their Crown land title deeds”. The Minister wants to go back on his word again, and I appeal to him to be more careful and not to say one thing today and another tomorrow. I appeal to him to consider his amendment and to go into the whole question and to see that right is done to the people who have these contracts and not to break down what has already been built up, unless he wants to go to Moscow. Perhaps he is a good agent of Stalin’s. But I hope he is not.

We have always thought a lot of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp), but now we find that even the Minister of Lands regards the hon. member for Wolmaransstad as an authority, because he quotes him every time. I think he would be doing well if he handed over the Bill to the hon. member for Wolmaransstad for its further handling. Here a great injustice is being perpetrated by tampering with the rights of the owners of holdings. It is not only a question of the economic salvation of the settlers; they also have to be saved in other ways. In the education sphere some regard should be paid to them. But if these people feel that their rights are being taken away from them, then we shall be placing them in a separate class, and we know how detrimental it is to a country if there is a group that stands apart because they feel aggrieved,—if there is a group of people that feel that they are separated into a different compartment.

The hon. member may not continually repeat that. It has already been stated repeatedly.

I feel that the Minister should rather introduce a new measure to divide the settlers into two sections. One section would be the people who have to be trained as settlers. On those settlements that are intended for the purposes of instruction, there may perhaps be something for the application of this clause. But where we have settlers who are permanently on the land and who have to make a living there, we have to see to it that we do not alienate them and let them feel that they are in a class apart. Accordingly, I want to ask the Minister to allow himself to be influenced. He has the machinery to ensure that holdings are beneficially occupied, and it is quite unnecessary to insert a new clause that will have the effect of branding a certain section as a class apart.

The hon. Minister has stated that he is willing to contest the Vredefort seat with me. If he will be so kind as to do that, I shall accept the challenge. I shall immediately resign and make myself eligible for re-election provided he resigns as Minister and as Senator and makes himself eligible for election at Vredefort, and if he lets this Bill drop.

Does this fall under sub-section (2)?

Yes, I have after all to answer the Minister. Even as regards subsection (2) I am prepared to go to my constituency and fight an election there against the Minister. There are a number of settlers there. I shall not hold meetings beforehand. We shall have a level start and I shall be prepared to speak with him from the same platform. I also undertake that no one will come and help me, but that I shall carry on the contest myself. This clause brings other constituencies into danger for the Government, especially that of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers), who makes such a noise over there. Actually he is no longer the real representative of Zoutpansberg for he has received a motion of no confidence. If he wants to do the right thing he will resign from his seat and give them the opportunity to say whether they have confidence in him or not.

They have 100 per cent. confidence in me.

The hon. member must now return to the clause.

A peculiar thing and an inexplicable thing is that the Minister has accepted the amendment of the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) who, of course, is not unknown to you, although there is no rhyme or reason in the amendment. I feel certain that if you were in the Chair when that amendment was proposed, you would never have accepted it, because it has neither sense nor significance. I have so much confidence in you that as Chairman you would not have accepted it. It appears to me as if the Minister is beginning to see daylight, and that if we only keep at it long enough the Minister will presently get up and say that he accepts our amendment. We are preparing the way for him. We want to help him and support him, and no one will be more generous in his praise than we on these benches if he accepts this amendment. Any right-thinking and honest person will feel that after a person has bought land on definite conditions and the land has become his property, after it has become his possession as a citizen of this country, we may not alter the conditions under which he acquired this possession. But now the Minister proposes that the conditions that pertain to the man’s possession must be changed and that this must have retrospective force. If the Minister bought a farm from a man and the person from whom he bought it was the mortgage holder on that farm, the Minister would absolutely censure it if that mortgage holder incorporated something in the contract of purchase or in the deed of transfer that was not in the agreement of sale. It is unthinkable that such a thing can happen. The Minister has enough intelligence not to give a moment’s thought to anything of that sort. But to our amazement that is what we get in this clause, that the Government wants to do something similar by legislation. That is the only manner in which that could be done. No ordinary person would venture to do anything like that, because it would only land him in the courts. It is a stupid action, but the House naturally can do it and the Minister must not take umbrage if we set our faces against it. We have our responsibilities towards the people whom we represent here, and the Minister must not take it amiss if we as men with a sense of responsibility offer resistance to this measure. Light is gradually coming into the Minister’s mind; he is making progress, and we are beginning to reach the conclusion that he now sees what is right. We hope that he will accept our amendment. I trust that he now sees the light sufficiently well to be prepared to withdraw the provision making the clause retrospective. That cannot be defended. No one can defend it. You will not tell me that you can do this with a clear conscience. If you want to make it for the future, then we have no objection to that, because the person affected would know what conditions would apply in his case. I hope that the Minister will be in a position to stand up here and inform us that he is willing to meet us in this connection. He will not lose any prestige by that. [Time limit].

I did not intend to address the House again, but I feel so sorry that the Minister will not acquiesce in our reasonable request. He has stated here that since 1912 not a single person was permitted to retain his adult children on a settlement farm. That is untrue.

I never said so.

That is what I understood.

I stated that since 1912 no applicant with adult sons was accepted.

That is also what I mean. Since 1912 requests have been made by people for land in Marico, and several of those who were allotted land had had adult children with them on their farms. The children married there and they now have grandchildren. They have large families there, and they farm very well. That was in 1912.

Were they all together there?

The father died and the new generation is on the land. That happened after the war of 1914-Ί8. Various farms were allotted to the people, and if the Minister will go there I will show the farm to him. I shall not go out with him, however, because I am afraid that he would never come back. I am very sorry that the Minister will not give in. Today he has got everything that he wanted, and we ask him now to accept this amendment. Some settlers work very hard. Their intentions are fine, because they want to become the owners of the land, and if the Bill goes through the Minister knows very well that those people will never become the owners of the land. These people are just as sensitive as any of us, and they want to be independent.

That argument has already been used ad nauseam, and I must warn the hon. member.

I cannot understand that the Chairman should tell me that I may not talk about things regarding which other hon. members have spoken. I am told that I may not talk about the Crown grants that have not been allotted, yet the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) did that.

The Standing Rules and Orders of the House lay down that arguments may not be repeated.

I do not know who is repeating them, but I did not repeat them. I say that these people work hard, and that they want to stand, on their own feet.

That argument has already been used ad nauseam in the House.

I have never brought this before the House.

Other hon. members did that, and the hon. member must not repeat it.

I am very sorry that other hon. members went so wrong when they talked. I arrive at this conclusion that the Chairman has called me to order because I spoke about people who could not get their Crown grants. But other hon. members had the opportunity to talk about that, and I ask for the same privilege. It happens that people have to wait five months, seven months and even almost a year to obtain their Crown grants after they have fulfilled all their obligations. This matter was entrusted to me in April. In April people had already made their payments and they have not yet got the grants. What is the meaning of that? I maintain that we must give those people their rights. They ask for the Crown grants for it is a means of enabling them to stand on their own. Then I have another matter that I want to bring before the Minister. We have met the Minister. He has today actually got everything that he wanted, and I want to ask him to be so compassionate as to give in to us on this point. Let him give way on this; you have got everything you wanted, and you should let us get this one point right. You have forced all these other things on us, and if you now grant us this amendment …

The hon. member must address the Chair.

I am speaking straight to the Minister, because I would like to break his heart. Then I shall just have to try to break your heart, Mr. Chairman, and ask you to move the Minister to accept our amendment in this case. I am convinced that he will promote the interests of the settlers in this manner.

I have already asked what motive is concealed behind this clause that the Minister has inserted in the Bill. The Minister himself knows what that motive is, and we shall be very pleased if it is not a wrong motive. If we are to judge from the conduct of the Minister, we may unfortunately ascribe a motive that is erroneous. I hope that we may be wrong. But the Minister must not take it amiss when we tell him here that we shall be obliged to return to our constituencies and tell the settlers what has happened here. We are going to do that. We are going to do it, no matter what trouble it involves. We feel that the matter is very serious, because it is a threat to Afrikanerdom to bring it into a state of serfdom, and we refuse to allow that principle of serfdom to be promoted. We shall be obliged to represent the Minister to the people in that light. He is one of us; he is of our blood, and we do not wish to stand in a wrong relationship to him. We appeal for the spirit of self-sufficiency that these settlers feel they want. Is our pleading so unworthy? The right to property is a principle that every person is justified in cherishing, because it is soul-destroying when you are prevented from having that right to property. I want to make an appeal to the Minister that in place of having measures that will kill that spirit of independence, that sense of emancipation he will eliminate those measures so that the settlers may have the opportunity to climb to the heights of independence and individualism.

I just want to tell the Minister that we on this side of the House have the motto in connection with our Land Settlement Act, “Farms without restrictions.” The way in which this Bill imposes restrictions recalls to my mind the old experimental farms we had at Brits where a certain selection scheme was in operation and the settlers were sorted out into various groups from a domestic and an economic standpoint. I would like to remind the hon. Minister that we have to deal here not with settlers on trial, but with people who have already been approved. Under experimental settlements, a settler was placed on a holding for two years and those two years were regarded as a period of probation for him, during which it was ascertained what type of settler he was. It was observed whether he was so equipped that he could make an honest success of those holdings. The Minister now comes with a policy that was applied at that time under the Ministry of Labour, when we still had experimental settlers at Wolwekraal. Now I want to ask the Minister what his policy is. Does he intend to apply those restrictions that we had on those old selection schemes in the case of the close settlements. If you are going to apply it in this way you may later have the sequel that you will never be able to effect the independence of the settler. At Wolwekraal the people have already passed through a probationary period of two years, and you, as Minister, have the right to cancel the holdings if the people do not make a success of them. I want to assure you that those people all have initiative. Those people have all emerged from their probation, but notwithstanding the fact that they have passed through this probation, you come along with these restrictions and want to get them in your power. In passing I just want to say that this morning the Minister used a peculiar argument in connection with this provision. He said that if the young men remained on the settlements, then they would knock up a sort of “kaia” there, the sort of abode that he could not permit on the settlement. I want to ask the Minister to visit this happy settlement. Take the families Coetzee and Bekker on those settlements. I want to assure the Minister that the houses that the young men have erected there stand in contrast to the houses that the department has erected there. Those lads have remained there and developed the Moldings so diligently that they were in a position to build fine houses. If the Minister would rather follow this policy whereunder the lads can construct better houses, then he will be in agreement with us that this restriction cannot be imposed on the people. The Minister says that he must have a hold on these people, because there is a spirit of speculation abroad in the settlements. Let me assure the Minister that there is not a spirit of speculation amongst the people, but if a tendency to speculation has developed today, it has developed as a result of the Minister’s policy in applying restrictions. The settlers are already so dissatisfied with these restrictions of yours, that they would rather not stay there, that they would rather find another refuge. What man with initiative, what man with the ambition to become independent, what man with that spirit would remain on the settlements when he cannot get a chance to become self-supporting? That is one of the biggest reasons why speculation is being engendered. A position is being created where the settler said: „No, I shall never be master of that farm, and the sooner I get out of the settlement the better.” And that is precisely the policy that the Minister is following. [Quorum.] To judge from the expression on the Minister’s face, I am convinced that the Minister is going to persist in his stubbornness, and that be will not take up an accommodating attitude. I want to tell the Minister that he has said time and again that speculation is on the increase at Hartebeestpoortdam. That was his argument, but I hold that if the speculative spirit is developing it is developing as a result of those compulsory provisions that are being enforced today on those settlements. Formerly it was one of the biggest ambitions of our poor people to be occupiers of those settlements, but you are creating such a chaotic state of affairs that the people are beginning to feel that the quicker they get away from those settlements the better it will be for them. The people feel now that it is intolerable. You have no realisation of the domestic life of these people, but you are engaged in getting a general hold on them. Just take note of the number of holdings that are not occupied today. Is that not an indication of the disastrous results of your policy.

The hon. member must address the Chair.

The Minister of Lands must remember that the great ambition of the settler is to become the permanent owner of that land. His great ideal is to be the permanent possessor of the land.

The hon. member is now repeating the same argument.

I wish to bring to your notice with due deference that this argument in connection with permanency has not yet been mentioned by other speakers. I do not say that to question your ruling but just to emphasise that this policy of the Minister would not lead to permanency but to the enslavement of the settlers.

I move—

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—47 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G.’N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Marwick, J. F.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—26 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Boltman, F. H.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

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.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, J. G.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Question put: That the words “with effect from the date of the coftimencement of this Act”, in lines 53 and 54, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the Clause,

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—48 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Jackson, D.

. Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Marwick, J. S.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—26 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Boltman, F. H.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

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.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, J. G.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the second amendment proposed by Mr. Naudé dropped.

Question put: That the words “whether allotted before or” in line 55, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the Clause,

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—48:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Marwick, J. F.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steytler, L. J.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—26 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Boltman. F. H.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

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.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, J. G.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the first amendment proposed by Mr. Luttig dropped.

Question put: That all the words after “date” in line 55 down to and including “passed” in line 59, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the Clause, Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—46 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Davis, A.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Marwick, J. Ş.

Payne, A. C.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steytler, L. J.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—26 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Louw, E. H.

Boltman, F. H.

Ludiek, A. I.

Brink, W. D.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Conradie, J. H.

Malan, D. F.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Dönges, T. E.

Olivier, P. J.

Erasmus, H. S.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Potgieter, J. E.

Haywood, J. J.

Steyn, A.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Strydom, J. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Le Roux, J. N.

Wessels, C. J. O.

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the remaining amendment proposed by Mr. Luttig negatived.

The amendment proposed by Mr. Jackson was put and agreed to.

Question put: That the words “and shall also be included in every subsequent transfer of the land” in lines 59 and 60, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the Clause,

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—49 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. T.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gluckman, H.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Marwick, J. S.

Payne, A. C.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steytler, L. J.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—26 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Boltman, F. H.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

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.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, J. G.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment proposed by Mr. J. G. Strydom negatived.

The remaining amendment proposed by Mr. Naudé put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—24 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Boltman, F. H.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

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.

Fotgieter, J. E.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Tellers: J. F. T. Naudé and P. J. van Nierop.

Noes—49 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gluckman, H.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Marwick, J. F.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steytler, L. J.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H,

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Sub-section (2) as amended, put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—49 :

Abbott, C. B. M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowker, T. B.

Bumside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gluckman, H.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Neate, C.

Payne, A. C.

Russell, J. H.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steytler, L. J.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—25:

Bekker, H. J.

Boltman, F. H.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

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.

Steyn, A.

Strydom, J. G.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

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

Sub-section (2), as amended, accordingly agreed to.

On new sub-section to follow sub-section (2),

I want to move the following amendment—

1. (3) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (2) the provisions of section twenty-eight of the principal Act, as amended by this sub-section, shall not apply to land or a holding allotted in terms of section eleven of that Act.

The provisions that we have accepted apply to all sorts of settlements. Now I am proposing that land that is bought under Section 11 shall be exempted. That is land of quite a different sort to the ordinary settlements. Section 11 land represents farms that have been selected by people and that they want to purchase. They go to the State, and all that they ask is that the State should give them nine-tenths of the purchase price of the farm in advance. The State then contributes nine-tenths? but the applicant must contribute one-tenth himself. The applicant is a farmer who purchases a farm, not an ordinary irrigation plot, not the usual settlement under irrigation, but a small farm or a large farm. There is very little difference between the person who buys land under Section 11 and the man who goes to the Land Bank for a Bond. The only ‘difference is that the man who buys under the Land Bank receives 66 per cent. advance on mortgage, while the man who buys under Section 11 receives 90 per cent. of the purchase price from the State. He cannot be assisted to that extent by the Land Bank, which is not a State institution, but he is helped by the State itself from funds that Parliament has voted. The man is unable to obtain the land immediately in his name, and ten years must elapse before he can get his land. There is, however, a great difference between the people who buy under Section 11 and other settlers. I believe there is hardly a district in the Union where land is not bought under Section 11. In some districts a fourth and even a third of the farms have been purchased under Section 11. The position is entirely different to the position on the denser settlements. But there is a great difference between the man who buys land under Section 11 and the private individual who approaches the Land Bank for a loan, and we feel that the two categories should be treated on an equal footing. As the Minister himself has stated the people on the more closely populated settlements are the poorest of the poor. The man who buys land under Section 11 must possess something. He must be able to meet his obligations if the State advances 90 per cent. of the price to enable him to buy the farm. He must have a certain amount of farming equipment and requisites. He must be in a position to honour his obligations to the State every year. No doubt cases have occurred in the past where men have not been able to meet their obligations, and the State has taken back the land and given it out afresh under Section 16, I think. But that is a small percentage. I would now really make an earnest appeal to the Minister not to treat these people differently to ordinary citizens or farmers of the country. I want to ask the Minister that although he has today refused all the amendments from our side, that he will be obliging in this connection. On the denser settlements the State gives everything to these people, and allowances are even paid for the maintenance of families and children, and the land is even levelled by the State and furrows are made and enormous sums of money spent, but under Section 11 the State does not develop the farms. The man has to work the farm himself.

We give advances for cattle etc.

That must all be paid back.

On ordinary settlements as well.

They are much in the same boat as people who get an ordinary bond from the Land Bank. A private person goes to the Land Bank and he obtains advances for boreholes, silos, dipping tanks and even cattle. The State through other channels, gives advances, while in this case direct advances are made by the Department of Lands. Here we have to deal with the type of man who is standing on his own feet, who has still so much ambition that he wants to develop his place, a man who wants a bit of land as his very own. He asks the State for assistance in view of the fact that the Land Bank cannot advance him an adequate amount. I want to ask the Minister to meet us in this case, not as coming from the Opposition, but for the sake of the people who are affected. It trust that the Minister will be able to meet us.

I would like to say a few words in support of the amendment, more especially in the interests of my constituency, because in my constituency the settlers are practically all 100 per cent. people who have acquired land under Section 11. As the hon. member for Calvinia has stated already there is no doubt a very considerable difference between people who have obtained their land under Section 11 and those that are settlers under an irrigation scheme. The Minister will have to admit that the people benefiting under an irrigation scheme arrive there without any possessions at all. The State levels the land for them, builds houses for them, gives them transport animals and equipment, and in certain cases even allowances for their children for the first few years so as to enable them to make a start. The man has practically nothing. On the other hand you have the man who falls under Section 11. He has previously farmed for a considerable period, and has got enough cattle together to enable him to commence farming. Suppose he buys a farm for £3,000. He must then first have accumulated £300. And if the farm can carry 600 sheep, he must have those 600 sheep. It is expected that he will have a wagon, and a plough and tools, in other words he is a man who already has a farming outfit. In his speech on the second reading when the Minister introduced the Bill he stated that he advised the sons to acquire land under Section 11, because then they could become independent. He is merely helped a little to become self-supporting. There is a world of difference between people under Section 11, and people under an irrigation scheme. If the Minister’s argument is to hold water then he must admit that an irrigation scheme is accompanied with the danger of overcrowding. But take for instance farms in the north which are 4,000 tot 5,000 morgen in extent. Actually there is no danger of over-populating them. Seeing that the Minister has already accepted an amendment on this clause from the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson), an explanation of which he is unable to furnish, and which no one with any legal knowledge can perceive the value of, let the Minister accept this amendment and exempt the people who fall under Section 11.

I am confident that the Minister of Lands believes in a man having an attachment and even a love for his land, and it is on this point that I want to make a strong appeal to the Minister. As previous speakers have mentioned the man who has purchased land under Section 11 is a farmer with his own pride, who possesses the proof that he can farm. In my constituency there are many farms that have been purchased under Section 11, mainly small farms. I should very much like the Minister of Lands to come to my constituency. Then he will be proud to see the type of farmer we have there under Section 11. They wrestled with the difficulties of the drought and in 1933 they remained farmers. Because these were deserving people they gained a position that enabled them to buy farms. They are farmers who have all their own implements, their own cattle to stock the farm, and they have only borrowed a sum from the State to enable them to buy the land. Often this has been on large farms which have been cut up, and where not a single stone has been dressed and put in position, and where not a single building stands. What sort of farmer is going to turn that farm into a jewel? Only a man who has a love for the land. The farmers adult son is the man who has a love for the land. If the fellow has not a love for the land he will never stay there, but he will clear away as soon as he can afford to do so. In such a case as this where an adult son is of assistance to the father in building up the farm I want to make an appeal to the Minister to see to it that such a young man is permitted to remain on such a farm. If the father has to build up the farm and cultivate it, without any assistance, it is an impossible task with which he is faced, and it will take him so much longer to carry out the necessary work. If he is not allowed to use his son in this connection he has to get someone else, and that costs him so much more that he is not able to do it. I am convinced that the Minister must make an exception in the case of this clause, and by doing that he will be conferring a service on the farmers. These are people who are proud of their land, and who do not merely wish to retain their property, but they want to leave it one day as a heritage for their children. Some of these people have clever sons whο are perhaps proficient as builders, and such a lad can help his father to construct the requisite buildings. We should very much like the Minister to view this matter objectively from the viewpoint of those farmers who want to be true to themselves, and who have no desire to go in for speculation or encourage over-population of their land.

I am very sorry that I cannot accept this amendment. It is of course true that persons who purchase land under Section 11 contribute 10 per cent. of the purchase price. But that is not a business transaction. The security that the State receives is virtually nothing, because as soon as the farm is sold the State has to contribute more than 10 per cent. towards the cost? of boreholes, implements, etc. The hon. member has stated that the Land Bank will furnish the money. Yes, but on a business basis of 66 per cent. security. Then I should like to point out to the hon. member that the State at times sustains heavy losses under Section 11.

It is very little.

As far as speculation is concerned these people sometimes make large amounts of money. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) knows this very well. He made mention of that in his speech at the time he introduced that Bill.

That was not Section 11.

Yes, that was Section 11, because he would not exclude it on account of the enormous profits that were being made. I speak subject to correction but I think he said that £170,000 was made in one year.

Do you grudge them that profit?

I do not grudge them the profit, excepting this, that we cannot allow that State money that has been given as an advance should be used for this sort of thing. It means that State money is being used to encourage speculation. I have also had the experience that settlers under Section 11 failed to pay their interest and their instalments, and the law makes provision that if a man is four years in arrear the Minister must cancel the holding. He has no alternative. But they have remained in arrear for four years in the hope that when the four years have expired a revaluation would take place. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad knows this, and I know it, that every session representations are made that the land should be re-valuated. That was my experience with members opposite over the course of five years.

But what has that got to do with this amendment?

Please leave me to make my own speech. Persons have for a period of four years failed to pay their interest in instalments, hoping that a revaluation of the land would be carried out. Those holdings were cancelled, because I said that if we allowed a revaluation Section 11 would be killed stone, dead —if under Section 11 land were again allotted to the person whose holding was cancelled. I have recited to the House the colossal amount of speculation that is in progress, not only in respect of holdings, but also with farms under Section 11.

But what has that to do with this section?

If I exclude Section 11 farms then those people will be free.

The hon. Minister is now on Clause 3 and not on Clause 2.

It applies also to overcrowding, and hon. members are aware that it is one of the most dangerous things that exist in connection with such farms.

That is nonsense.

We must exercise unceasing vigilance that overcrowding does not occur on Section 11 farms. On some of these farms natives had more cattle than the owner, and the farm was trampled down and washed away. For that reason I regret that I am unable to accept the amendment. We are unable to forgo those powers in connection with those farms.

We had hoped that the Minister would be reasonable in connection with this matter, because there is a tremendous difference between people under Section 11 and people under Section 10. The Minister could have endeavoured to represent that under Section 10 Crown land is allotted to people very cheaply, but he cannot allege that in respect of Section 11. That land was purchased by people at its full value, and sometimes during periods of inflation the purchase was for more than the real value of the land.

Yes, but they get a loan of 90 per cent.

It is a loan and they pay everything back, precisely in the same way as those people do who obtain a loan from the Land Bank. The Minister says that this is not a business transaction. I want to tell him that under Section 11 the Government has done good business. It has got its full interest. Now the Minister comes and tells us—and I want to ask the Minister of Finances to testify to this—that the State has suffered enormous losses under Section 11. I challenge him to prove this. I maintain that the money that the State has lost under Section 11 represents a very small proportion. The Minister has his department here, and I suggest he furnishes us with the amount that the State has lost in respect of land under Section 11. I state that it is a very small amount in comparison with the aggregate purchase price. The man who buys the land gets a loan, and where people get a loan from the Land. Bank will the Minister also enforce these restrictions in respect of their farms? The Minister talks about a loan of 90 per cent. What about the farmers who fall under the Farmers’ Assistance Act? They were assisted with funds up to 100 per cent., and the Minister would never dream of bringing those farmers under this Clause. Why then is he so unfair towards the people under Section 11? The Minister might also have argued that the people under Section 10 pay only 1 per cent., and that this gives him the right to treat these people on the basis of this Bill. I do not agree with that, but he could have used that as an argument. I want to point out to him that under Section 11 interest is paid in full.

3¼ per cent.

That is full interest because the State pays still less.

The Land Bank demands. 4½ per cent.

The State doesn’t lose anything on this. It makes a small profit on it. The Minister may now say that under Section 10 amounts are written off from time to time. But under Section 11 not a brass farthing has been written off.

A whole lot of them were cancelled and revaluated.

I again challenge the Minister on this point, to give me the total amount of the losses. It only happened in exceptional cases. The amount that the State lost in that connection is nothing in comparison with what the State lost in affording assistance to other sections of the community. Take the million pounds that was written off in respect of irrigation works—I am not referring to settlements now—but works for the benefit of ordinary farmers. The Minister will not now allege that because those people received assistance from the Government they should come under the restrictions of this Bill. Why then perpetrate this injustice towards these people? No, a man should not behave like a mule, and because you have once taken up a standpoint, adhere to it though the arguments against you are overwhelming. The Minister is not devoid of intelligence, so why cannot he adopt a sensible attitude when a reasonable proposal is made to him? Consequently I express the hope that though the Minister this morning was as stiff as a poker he will, now unbend a little.

I really understand now why the Minister of Lands is so headstrong that he will not accommodate us by the acceptance of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig). His argument is that under Section 11 considerable sums had to be written off because people failed to meet their obligations. Let me now tell the Minister that the man who purchased land under Section 11 had to pay one-tenth of the purchase price. He himself selects the farm he wants to buy, but the State secures itself by sending the Land Board to make an investigation, and the Land Board has to recommend regarding that land that is purchased under Section 11 that it is really worth the money that the man paid for it, and if the land is not worth that money, the Minister refuses to grant a loan. If later on a sum has to be written off it is the fault of the Land Board. The Land Board are the people who are appointed to investigate, who have knowledge of the value of the land and who ascertain from the Land Bank what the value of that farm is. The man does not wish just to throw away his deposit of one-tenth; if for example he buys a farm for £2,000 he must deposit £200. The Minister has referred to colossal sums that have been written off. I repeat that if there have been these bad debts the fault lies with the Land Board and with the Minister’s Department because they have no right to grant loans unless they are justified on the value of the land. There are a few other points that I should like to bring to the Minister’s attention. The Farmers’ Assistance Board lends 100 per cent., and in the past thousands of pounds have been written off, but that is a thing you do not hear anything about. But the settler, just because he is a poor man, has to be coerced because the Minister wants his vote. I understand that it has been arranged by the Whips that if the debate was not concluded by 9.30 the Minister would move the adjournment of the debate. I therefore move—

We are prepared to accept that in the hope that hon. members will assist us in expediting the further proceedings.

Agreed to.

HOUSE RESUMED :