I move—

I second.

That is very early for the second reading. This is an important Bill, and if the second reading takes place on Wednesday we shall not have the opportunity to peruse the Bill, for we have not yet even had it in our hands. The Minister should set down the second reading for a later date.

I have no objection to the second reading being taken on Thursday, and I shall accept such a proposition.

Second reading on 25th January.

This Bill, although a measure of public policy, adversely affects the private rights of persons in the localities dealt with. It must therefore be treated as a hybrid Bill and at this stage referred to the Examiners for report in terms of Standing Order No. 182. Subsequently, if allowed to proceed, it must, in terms of Standing Order No. 183, be referred to a Select Committee after a second reading.

The ruling just given by me in connection with the Saldanha Bay Water Supply Bill applies equally to the provisions of this Bill.

I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

I move—

I second.

May I move as an amendment—

My purpose in doing so is to protect the sovereignty of Parliament in regard to petitions. There is growing up a practice under which, in the past few years, the Minister of Finance has introduced a procedure by which pledges on the part of the Government to grant pensions have been passed to this Select Committee for endorsement. In this case, Sir, the applicants for pensions are not treated in the same way as ordinary petitioners, a form of favouritism creeps in. It is obviously the intention under the standing rules and orders of this House that all petitioners should be treated in the same way; and, Sir, the introduction of these words admits a certain number of applicants for pensions to be recommended by the Government for a pension without petitioning in the ordinary manner. I have said on previous occasions that it admits petitions being made through the back stairs instead of through the front door; and I strongly object to the Government pledging themselves to the granting of pensions to individuals and then sending these pledges to the Select Com mittee concerned with the understanding that they are to endorse the pledge which the Government has made. I consider, Sir, that this practice is open to strong objection. It has increasingly gained in unpopularity in the country at large and I move the deletion of the words to which I have drawn attention.

I second.

The hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) has taken exception to a practice which he says has grown up in the last few years. As far as I know it is a very long-standing practice. It certainly has not grown up during the period when I have been Minister of Finance. It existed long before then. But a practice which has grown up during the last few years is for the hon. member for Pinetown with painful regularity to move the same amendment every year. As I have explained on previous occasions, there is no question of discrimination in regard to the admission of the two classes of petitions. The motion as drafted provides two avenues to the Pensions Committee. The normal avenue is by way of petition and the other avenue is by way of a recommendation from the Government, but apart from the fact that there is a difference between the two avenues the procedure is exactly the same. The petition or recommendation comes to the Committee. It is reported upon in both cases in exactly the same way. The Committee deals with these recommendations in exactly the same way and ultimately the House decides in exactly the same way. There is therefore no question whatever of the sovereignty of Parliament being affected as my hon. friend has suggested, and I can see no reason whatever why the Government should not have the same rights as other members in submitting cases to the Pensions Committee, and that is what is here involved. But there is another aspect of the matter which my hon. friend has overlooked, and it is this: Very often, when the report to the Pensions Committee is being dealt with, a particular case is referred to the Government for consideration. The Government, after considering that case, has to make its recommendations. This procedure, which is covered by the motion, makes it possible for such recommendations to be considered by the Pensions Committee. If we adopt the amendment of my hon. friend there would be no means by which these statements could go back to the Pensions Committee, to which they now come back on recommendation from the Government; if the hon. member’s amendment is adopted that door will be closed and these particular cases will be excluded. There will therefore be a very real practical inconvenience arising from the adoption of this amendment and I hope the House will reject it.

I feel that the Hon. Minister of Finance should not attempt to persuade the House by the specious form of argument he has used. Quite apart from the merits or demerits of the system, the Minister’s arguments are quite obviously unsound because there is a world of difference between the consideration given to a petition by an hon. member and a matter sent from the Government, which is practically an instruction to the Government majority on that committee about this particular pension. In actual practice when the House in its wisdom is discussing a report of the Pensions Committee, if the Government agrees to it, it never goes back to the Pensions Committee; so if the hon. member for Pinetown’s amendment was adopted by the House it would make no difference to the practice there. I have watched the working of that committee, and when the Government are asked to take something into further consideration, in most cases it is something to which the Pensions Committee has agreed. When the Government is asking it to give further consideration it does so, and the Pensions Committee has nothing further to do. I am inclined to agree with the hon. member for Pinetown. Since I have been in the House the tendency has been for the Government gradually to whittle away the power of the Pensions Committee and to take the power to itself. It seems to me that anything moved in this House which is likely to tighten up the position of the House itself, anything likely to reassert, in this House, the sovereignty which does belong to this House, the sovereignty which for a period of years has gradually been detracted from, should receive serious consideration. I do not think that the hon. Minister is quite fair in using the type of argument he did use in order to impress the House. Whether the tendency has grown up during the last few years or whether it is something which has existed for many years is beside the point. We have to consider whether the practice is a correct one or not. It seems to me that it is not a correct one. It seems to me that when the Government in its wisdom decides to grant anyone a pension for any particular reason—and there have been some pensions granted in the last ten or twelve years for which I can see very little justification indeed, the proper procedure should be to grant it by means of the motion introduced in the House through the medium of the hon. Minister of Finance. Then we know where we are. We can discuss the matter fully and the House can decide. In the meantime I must agree with the hon. member for Pinetown. Some of these pensions are granted through the back door, when there is very little reason for granting them, and the House is faced with an accomplished fact.

Amendment put and negatived.

Original motion put and agreed to.

I move as an unopposed motion—

I second.

Agreed to.

Mr. SPEAKER stated that the petitions were upon the Table.

I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

I move—

I second.

It doesn’t help matters to beat about the bush. There are many members of this House who are grievously dissatisfied aver the line that the Government has taken in connection with reports of Select Committees. This dissatisfaction is not confined to this side of the House. It is also to be observed on the other side of the House. Last year, for instance, it found expression in criticism voiced by the hon. member for Pretoria (Sunnyside) (Mr. Pocock). Since then the position has hot improved, and I think it is high time that this House should discuss the matter and give the Government a frank expression of its opinion. Every year we witness this scene: The Minister of Finance rises in his place and proposes that such and such a Select Committee should be appointed. The committee is appointed and sets to work in one of the rooms above us, and works hard during the whole session. Then it makes a report to this House, and then time and time again what we see is this, that the report of the Select Committee remains permanently at the foot of the agenda. The Minister of Finance or the Government does not regard it as of sufficient value to allot a day for Parliament to give it attention. I think that the time has arrived when we must put it to the Minister whether he attaches any value to this committee, and whether he regards it as worth while appointing such a committee. If he says yes, then I should like to ask why he does not deal with the report of this committee as if it was of value and of importance. With intervals I have now been a member of this committee for 25 years. I served on the committee in the old days when Mr. Jagger was chairman, and Sir William Macintosh, and as a member of the committee I learned to appreciate the valuable function of this committee in our Parliamentary system. We cannot manage without this committee, nor can we maintain Parliamentary authority and control. Another impression which I have gained in the course of the last 25 years is that in recent years there has been a growing inclination to shove the committee into the background, and to hinder Parliament from having the opportunity to discuss and consider the work of this committee, and to prevent the light of publicity falling on the resolutions of this committee. That is the tendency, to eliminate this committee and to push it into the background. We feel that the time has arrived when this, committee should play a more important rôle in our Parliamenary life. If we do not do that then not only will the work of Parliament suffer in consequence, but the interests of the country as a whole will also suffer. I want to cite just one instance of what happened last year. In connection with the additional estimates last year, the Prime Minister suddenly asked for £25,000 for Unrra. When we were asked to vote for this amount, the agreement in connection with Unrra had not then been placed on the Table of the House. That is to say the House was asked to approve in principle an international agreement by voting for the first instalment before the House had the slightest idea of what it stood for. This is a matter which in my view should have been one of the first items for the Government to refer to the Select Committee on Public Accounts. The officials should have appeared before that Committee and submitted to it all the data, and the Select Committee should then have considered the matter and made recommendations to Parliament. Instead of that we were asked to make a leap in the dark. Not only was the agreement not laid on the Table of che House, but in the light of information with which we were later furnished, it appeared that the Prime Minister was not aware of our obligations in respect of Unrra. From information which we now possess, it appears that the information that the Prime Minister at that time furnished to the House was inaccurate, and that he did not know anything about it. Parliament knew nothing, and the Prime Minister, who moved in the matter, also knew nothing about it, and we were asked to approve in principle an international agreement by the payment of an instalment, an agreement that may impose a monetary obligation of more than £5,000,000 on this country. I am mentioning this because I am now going to touch on a second matter in order to indicate what rôle this Select Committee should fill in our Parliamentary system. In May of this year an agreement may come into operation for the establishment of an international stabilisation fund and an international bank that was approved by our represetative at Bretton Woods in May of last year. This agreement may come into operation if the number of the governments participating make up 65 per cent. of the quota.

No approval was given at Bretton Woods to anything binding on us.

There was a conference at Bretton Woods and our representative was present. The Select Committee ought to have all the relevant information. The official concerned ought to appear before the Select Committee on Public Accounts and tell us everything that occurred there. The Select Committee should consider the subject, and make a report to Parliament, so that Parliament would at least be partially conversant with what happened there. But the Select Committee is ignored, and Parliament is asked to take action without knowledge of the matter. We are always being presented with accomplished facts. I should like the Minister to consider that the Select Committee should be placed on a sound footing, and one of the means for doing this is perhaps that when the Select Committee reports to this House it will not be the Minister of Finance who finds a place for the report on the agenda, that it will not be the Minister of Finance who will decide when the report will be considered by this House, but that you, Mr. Speaker, will decide on that, because this is a report to this House over which you preside, and it is for you to decide when the House should consider the report and not for the Minister to do so. It is sometimes convenient for Ministers not to submit the reports of Select Committees for discussion, but it is often in the interests of Parliament and the country that this should be done. I think that the place where the report should appear on the agenda should be arranged by you, Mr. Speaker, because you are master in this House and the Select Committee is a committee of this House, and consequently your committee. Bearing in mind the international agreements which are concluded, I think it is high time that the existing Select Committee should be altered, but at the moment I do not want to discuss this aspect of the matter. Further, I would just say this: Parliament now sits in the mornings and that makes it very difficult for the Select-Committee on Public Accounts to do its work In the old days when Parliament sat in the evenings the Select Committee had the whole morning for its work. We usually sat three days in the week, and did the work of the week in about eight hours. Now we begin at quarter to nine and we have to adjourn at about a quarter to eleven, which gives us only one and a half hours on three days in the week, or four and a half hours in all. We have only half the time we had previously. Last year we had to surmount the difficulty by asking the leave of the House to sit in the evenings, and we sat for quite a few evenings. But I must honestly say that I think the time has arrived for the Government to consider making this Select Committee on Public Accounts a standing committee of this House. We have the precedent in England where a standing committee functions in connection with war expenditure, and another standing committee has been appointed to review the emergency regulations that are promulgated by the Government. In America you have various standing committees in connection with foreign affairs and other matters. They have now established another one in connection with economic reconstruction and social security. These are standing committees which are engaged continuously eliciting information to keep the Legislature informed. Today we are suffering in that the Government have commissions and committees regarding which the Government possibly know something, but of which Parliament knows nothing. We are kept in the dark in connection with all these matters, and it should be the work of this committee which I am now advocating thoroughly to examine international agreements before Parliament assembles, so that we shall be in a position in this House to discuss these matters on the floor of the House thoroughly and searchingly. Now that I have stated what in my opinion should be done, I would like to have, in any case, an assurance from the Minister that when the Select Committee on Public Accounts reports this year, Parliament will have a fitting opportunity to discuss the report as soon as possible. The Minister may possibly tell us that last year he actually did allot a short time for the discussion. I think the discussions began about five o’clock in the afternoon. The House adjourned about seven o’clock. The House thus had two hours, and perhaps less than two hours, to discuss the work, which had extended throughout the whole session. It may be that the Committee will this year decide to issue interim reports from time to time, and I want to ask the Minister whether he will be prepared to accord the House an opportunity to discuss the report of the committee as soon as possible after the committee has made its report. Members who serve on this Select Committee have no time for anything else. We have not the time to pay regard to the normal interests of our constituencies. We are occupied from 9 o’clock in the morning to 10 o’clock in the evening, and sometimes later. It is hard work. But I do it willingly, because I know what a necessary link this committe is in our Parliamentary system, but then we do not want to feel that from the side of the Minister there is a tendency to put a damper on the work of the committee.

It is perfectly true, Mr. Speaker, that last year I raised this matter and it has been raised on many previous occasions. The effect of the recommendations made to the Minister was shown, I think, in the readiness with which he accepted the proposal which actually allotted on one day a period of two hours for discussion of the report of the Select Committee. What actually happened On that particular day was that the previous debate continued beyond the time allotted to it, and when this particular matter came up the Chairman of the Committee made an explanation which occupied some 25 or 30 minutes, and another member spoke. That was the only opportunity the House had to discuss a very vital matter. The Minister has explained the difficulty that exists, namely, that these reports are submitted very late in the session to the House, and it takes Some time to have them printed. I think that difficulty can be overcome by dividing up the report and according the House an opportunity to discuss it in sections. We know that in respect of certain matters very short times are allotted for discussion, but it is evident that a very deep feeling is present on all sides of the House that a day, or if necessary more than a day, should be given for the discussion of these reports. We know that on a previous occasion when very serious recommendations were contained in the Committee’s report, the House did not have the opportunity to discuss them. It is not true to say that the recommendations are not considered. They are considered, and those recommendations are accepted and are reported in the following year. I venture to say, however, that if the House very strongly supported recommendations made by the Public Accounts Committee no department would think of rejecting such recommendations. But as it is, the Government do not get the advice of the members of the House in respect of the recommendations made by that Committee, and it seems to me that it would be wise if the Government would afford an opportunity towards the end of the session for a full discussion on the Committee’s recommendations.

Mr. Speaker, I have been raising the matter of Public Accounts Committee for about ten years, and I am very pleased to find that at long last the House generally is becoming rather disturbed regarding the treatment accorded recommendations made by the Public Accounts Committee. That committee have gone out of its way to try to assist the House, and last year a small sub-committee was appointed and an agenda drawn up so that the most important matters were dealt with first, with the result that he Committee was in a position to produce reports on matters of very great interest to the people of South Africa and to the House in ample time to allow a full discussion, but no full discussion of the report was made. As far as I can gather, the report made by the Committee last year was the best I have ever read from that Committee. Indeed, some passages sounded like parts from a best selling thriller. The report contained a mass of evidence on particular matters which this House should really have discussed. As an instance, we find from the evidence that literally millions of pounds of steel were lying all over the country at a time when the Secretary for Finance was pursuing the poor unfortunate Camp barbers all over the country, and these are the kind of things which should be discussed by the House. I want to say a word or two in support of the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) when he asks that the Public Accounts Committee should be made a standing committee, though I think that term is hardly correct, and that it should be made a permanent committee. I have on many occasions pleaded that that should be done in respect of many of our sessional committees. The Public Accounts Committee’s report last year, earned the congratulations of this House, and these extended to members of all parties, but it still remains a post mortem committee. It is still considering accounts two years old, and it is only allowed to make recommendations about things which have already been done, and in respect of which in many cases no good purpose can be served. The committee may say that a serious state of affairs is disclosed which should never have happened, but the fact is that it has happened and it is impossible to go back on it. I do not think that that is the correct position for the Public Accounts Committee to be placed in. Constitutionally, as. I gather it, the committee was originally appointed to look after the finances of the country and to see that our finances were being conducted in a proper manner. They can hardly do that when they only go into these questions two years after the expenditure has been incurred. For instance, we are shortly going to discuss the additional estimates. This money has, in most instances already been spent, and if the Minister comes along after the money has been spent and he asks us, not indeed for a blank cheque, but to say what he has done is correct, nothing is really achieved. If there were a permanent Committee on Public Accounts any additional expenditure could be scrutinised. Some years it was very considerable; I can remember on one occasion when one Minister actually spent £1,000,000 on locust extermination, and this expenditure was approved. Quite clearly if any reasonable body of men had examined this expenditure, when it was proposed, the money would not have been spent. Most of the money went down the drain. It is not suggested that the present Minister of Finance does not look after the finances of the country properly; I am not suggesting that, but I am suggesting that the House should have some control, and there is only one way in which we can have some kind of control, and that is by having some sort of knowledge. This Government is becoming more and more a secret society, and we are unfortunate in that. We want to know and we are entitled to know what monies it is proposed to spend. Because it was never done before, that is no good reason why it should not be done now. The country is developing, the world is developing, and the speed of modern life makes it essential that worn out machinery should not be used. I want to suggest to the Minister of Finance that he should give very serious consideration indeed to the suggestion that has been made by the hon. member for George, a suggestion which I myself have made in years past, that the Public Accounts Committee should be kept as a permanent committee. Hon. members usually leave here at the end of May or the beginning of June, and after that we have no further opportunity to investigate the finances of the country until the following January. In other words, we have practically seven months without any kind of knowledge of what is going on in the government of the country, except from the speeches made by Cabinet Ministers when they are opening bazaars or baby shows; that is all the information we get. If we had a permanent Public Accounts Committee which functioned during the recess—they could hold a certain number of meetings—they would be able continuously to keep their finger on the financial pulse of the country, and I think it would be to the benefit of the country and that it would be of considerable assistance to the Minister of Finance himself. I think this is a proposition which he should give very serious attention to. This is no attempt to take powers out of the hands of the Minister, but to put into the hands of Parliament powers that they should have. By giving them these powers that they should have Parliament will be achieving its purpose, namely, to assist the Minister of Finance and the government of the country.

I hope the hon. Minister of Finance will realise that the protests which were made here today by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) and also by the hon. member for Pretoria (Sunnyside) (Mr. Pocock) and the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside), were not merely formal protests. We raised this matter last year. Almost the very same arguments which were advanced today, were also advanced here last year. We are compelled to come here today and to lodge the same protests in regard to the manner in which the Public Accounts Committee has been treated by the Minister of Finance. He need not joke about it with his colleague next to him. He regards it as a farce. Let me tell him what a farce is. What is a farce is the Public Accounts Committee. It is becoming a farce and the sooner the Minister of Finance realises it, the better it will be. He is joking about it with his colleague next to him. I want to ask the Minister to give his serious attention to the protest which has come from this side of the House and not only from this side of the House but also from his side. This Public Accounts Committee is undoubtedly the most important Select Committee of this House. No one will deny that. Not only that, but is has now been divided into two sections. To begin with it was only the one account, the ordinary report of the Auditor-General. Now we have a separate report in regard to the War Account, a very important account dealing with the war expenditure which amounted to more than £1,000,000 in one year. I am afraid the Minister has latterly become so accustomed to governing the country by means of regulations that the people and Parliament have more and more been brought into contempt. It is striking that on his own side of the House—from the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell)—there is a motion on the Order Paper in which the Government is asked to maintain the sovereignty of Parliament, and that is precisely what the Minister does not do when he treats this important committee in the way in which he does. He will again come forward with excuses as he did last year. What happened last year? The report in regard to the War Account came before the House; the hon. member for George rose and made his speech on it. The hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) and I, both members of that committee, also wanted to discuss our side of the question. The Minister’s colleague the Minister of Railways, who was then acting Minister of Defence, did not wait for the other side of the House; he did not wait for his own side, but as soon as the hon. member for George sat down, he jumped up and spoke at great length, keeping his eye on the clock all the time, and when only about ten minutes were left I started to speak, but was interrupted by the time limit and that was the last we heard of the debate on that important report dealing with the War Account. But there were the other reports; there were the second, third and fourth interim reports in regard to the other sections of the Auditor-General’s Report, Those reports never came before the House; they were not even discussed. The hon. member for George said that the Minister of Finance had ignored the committee. It is not only that. There is another reason why we have not been discussing this report thoroughly, especially during the past two years, and that is because the Minister of Finance and the Government, having regard to the revelations in that report, having regard to the evidence which was given, are afraid. I say that candidly. They are afraid to have this matter discussed by the House, and that is why they are running away. I am now speaking as a member of the committee of last year and also the previous year. We hope that in the future this matter will be discussed properly. I am now speaking for myself. I take an interest in that committee; I have worked hard on it; the hours are long; but if the Minister does not give us an undertaking today that in the future a full opportunity will be given to the House to discuss this report, I shall have to reconsider my position as to whether I want to remain a member of a committee which has become a farce; in that event I want to consider my position. As it 4s, it is a serious matter. I hope the fact that the same protests have come from his side, the fact that there is a motion on the Order Paper from his side in regard to the sovereignty of Parliament, will persuade the Minister seriously to consider the position; that he will not sit there like a dictator but that he will take into account the rights of Parliament and that he will give the necessary promise, the necessary undertaking that sufficient time will be given for the discussion not only of the War Account but of the whole report of the Public Accounts Committee.

Mr. Speaker, the Select Committee on Public Accounts has always been a Committee of this House and not necessarily a party committee. That this is so is evidenced by the fact that before the Pact Government came into office it was the practice to have a member of the Opposition as Chairman of the Committee. It is perfectly true that the change in practice has not detracted in any way from the value of the committee, because everyone who has occupied the chair of that committee has shown himself to be impartial and anxious to gain the fullest information for the House and for the country; but the fact that before the pact Government came into office a member of the Opposition was chairman shows that the committee was looked upon not as a committee of the Opposition, but essentially as a committee of the House functioning for the benefit of the country as a whole. Many members of this House agree with what has been said, both in the House and out of the House, that it is imperative that this committee should be strengthened that its scope should be extended, that its usefulness should be improved; and that cannot be accomplished unless the House, which the committee represents, has a regular opportunity of discussing not merely the evidence which has been given before the committee, but also the recommendations which that committee makes. I must say I had rather expected that in view of the fact that many of these reports have hot been discussed in this House during last session, that the Minister would take the House into his confidence and I hope that when he replies he will do so, as to what the decision of the Government is going to be in respect of some of the recommendations that have been made. I want particularly to refer to the recommendation which was made in the Fifth Report of the Public Accounts Committee last session, because that recommendation reflects not only the opinion of the committee, but the growing agitation and feeling in the country that greater Parliamentary control must be exercised through that committee on many of the activities of the Government. In that report it was stated—

and there was much criticism of the Deciduous Fruit Board—

I think the House and the country is entitled to know to what extent, if at all, the Government has given consideration to that recommendation and whether it is going to give effect to that recommendation, because that would largely facilitate Parliament obtaining that control regarding which the House and the country have been speaking. I know we may be told that there are various difficulties, and we may be told that one of the difficulties is that the Auditor-General’s Department is understaffed; but there again during last session when this very question of the understaffing of the Audtior-General’s Department was under discussion in connection with one of the committee’s reports, a specific recommendation was made to the Government that steps should be taken to see that that department should obtain assistance, both by the release of members from the Defence Department to the extent to which war requirements might permit of it, and generally to facilitate the the augmentation of the staff so that the Auditor-General might implement the recommendations. It has been suggested that perhaps by the submission of interim reports from time to time it may be possible for more discussion to take place in the House on reports made by the committee. There again we are faced with a difficulty inasmuch as there is a delay in printing the report, not through any fault on the part of the Government, and in consequence before the report can be printed the House is about to rise or has already risen. I would suggest that in such cases where the House has not had an opportunity during the particular session to discuss reports made by the Public Accounts Committee, those reports should be submitted to this House at the subsequent session, at the earliest possible moment, for discussion, before the Order Paper is cluttered up with Government business. That, at any rate, would give the House an opportunity to discuss the reports, and also to express some opinion and to exert some influence on the matters involved by seeing that the reports and the recommendations that are submitted are given effect to. I hope that the Minister will not treat this as an academic discussion, but as something expressing the wish and the will of the people that something should be done to facilitate Parliamentary control, and to ensure that such amendments or alterations as may be necessary shall be made in the direction of permitting the Select Committee on Public Accounts to function during the recess, so that the public will know that at any rate the watchdogs of our finances are alert.

I do not believe in crying over spilt milk, and I do not believe in flogging a dead horse, and I am absolutely sure that the members of the Public Accounts Committee have a feeling of the futility of their work in enquiring into irregularities in the accounts of the dead past, and they must feel that nothing good can come out of their recommendations. I feel that it is of importance that the report of the Public Accounts. Select Committee should be submitted in the form of interim reports, and that the Government should allocate days during the session to discuss these reports. I go further and say that this Select Committee should be a permanent one, and that it should function during the recess. There is a running audit, and accounts which contain irregularities are available long before the Controller and Auditor-General’s complete report is published. Such accounts should receive the attention of the committee and not confine this work to the few months during which Parliament is sitting. These accounts and matters requiring investigation by the Public Accounts Select Committee should be submitted to that body without delay. I heartily support the suggestion of interim reports and the principle of making the Select Committee on Public Accounts a permanent one.

My hon. friend, the member for George (Mr. Werth) asked whether the Government attached any importance to the work of the Public Accounts Committee. I want to reply to that immediately, and I want to reply in the words which my hon. friend used himself: we attach the greatest possible importance to the work of that committee.

Let us see a little more of the “possible”.

We cannot do without it. We regard it as an essential link in the Parliamentary system. And I want to go a little further. I want to say that as far as the Treasury is concerned, we regard this committee as an indispensable watchdog with regard to the performance of the duties of the Treasury. I therefore give my hon. friend that assurance wholeheartedly. But he went further. He asked why the Government treated this committee as though it were of no value. The ground of his complaint in that connection is that not sufficient time is given for the discussion of the report of the committee. I shall come back to that in a minute or two. In the meantime I just want to explain these points to members of the House. The value of the work of the Public Accounts Committee is certainly not confined to discussions in Parliament; my hon. friend knows very well that whether the report is discussed in Parliament or not, all the recommendations in the report or reports are considered by the Government, and he knows that he as member of that committee receives the replies of the Government to those recommendations every year. The hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) asked the Government to intimate what has been decided in connection with those recommendations. The hon. member for Troyeville who is a very old member of this House surely ought to know that that does happen. Every year I come before the House and lay those replies on the Table, and they are then referred to the Select Committee. All those recommendations, therefore, whether they are discussed in the House or not, are very thoroughly considered by the Government. But in the second place, apart from that, this committee, especially from the point of view of the Treasury is indispensable because it serves as a watchdog and because the fact that such a committee exists undoubtedly does a great deal to keep the departments on the right course. The fact that the Select Committee on Public Accounts exists, is undoubtedly a very great incentive for our departments and officials to exercise care and to keep a check; and for that reason the work of the committee is of very great value, even apart from the discussions of the report of the committee. But now I come back to the question of the discussion of the reports of the committee. That is a very old difficulty. It is not this Government which is adopting a particular course in connection with this Select Committee. That difficulty in connection with the discussion of the report has certainly existed as long as I have been in Parliament, and that is fifteen years or more. We have always had to contend with that difficulty. In all these years that I have been a member of Parliament, it has happened very seldom that the reports of the Select Committees on Public Accounts have been discussed by Parliament, and without going into the facts, I am almost inclined to say that last year we devoted more time to the discussion of the reports of the Select Committee on Public Accounts, than in any previous year.

Two hours were made available for the discussion.

Yes, but I cannot remember any occasion where we devoted two hours to it in previous years. The only point I want to make is that this is an old difficulty which has existed all these years. What is the reason for that difficulty? The reason is this: The Select Committee on Public Accounts usually functions throughout the session. Usually it comes forward with its reports very near the end of the session. The hon. member for George has asked me to give the House the assurance that Parliament will be given an opportunity to discuss the report as soon as the Select Committee on Public Accounts has reported. But surely the hon. member knows that these reports are submitted towards the close of the session, and that we must then wait until the evidence in the report has been printed before we can allow the discussion to take place in Parliament. The printing of the report and the evidence usually takes a few weeks. It has therefore happened more than once in the past that the evidence and the reports have appeared in print after the close of the Parliamentary session, and when that was not the case, they appeared during the last few days of the session. We all know how difficult it is to arrange a debate on such a report at that stage. That is the difficulty with which we have been faced for many years in the past, and that is also my reply to the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge). He said: “Very well, let the Select Committee submit interim reports which can appear timeously, so that there will be more time to discuss them after they have been printed.” He says that the Government will then be in a position to find time for such a debate. My hon. friend will remember that last year we had such interim reports and the hon. member for George knows very well that I consulted him in regard to the discussion of the reports. He and I agreed in regard to the time to be allotted for the discusion.

No, no.

Let the hon. member for George deny that.

You did not tell me that.

I am now speaking of the hon. member for George.

I said I thought it would take as long as that.

Yes, my hon. friend and I consulted each other, and we both made a mistake in not allowing sufficient time. We both estimated the time that would be required incorrectly. I am sorry that more time was not available. But in any event there was consultation between him and myself, and I want to give him the assurance once again that if we again have interim reports during this session, I shall again consult him, as I did last year. I hope we will find it possible to make available sufficient time for a debate. In these circumstances I do not think the hon. member is entitled to accuse the Government of lack of bona fides in connection with this matter. We did our best to give effect to the assurance which we gave the House last year that is, to give ample opportunity for the discussion of the interim reports, and we shall again act in the same spirit this year.

†Now, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) and also the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Bumside), and several other members have raised a question which affects the conception of the work of this committee. The hon. member for George would like this committee to investigate international agreements.

Involving financial obligations.

Exactly. But it is not a finance committee. It is a Committee on Public Accounts. It is a committee which only comes into action after the accounts have been prepared by the Auditor-General. It is a post-mortem committee, if you like, and that has always been the conception of that committee. It is not a finance committee, it is not a standing committee, or a permanent committee, or one with executive functions. My hon. friend the member for Fordsburg is always hankering after committees with executive functions. No, no, no. We have to distinguish between the executive functions of Government and the legislative functions of Parliament. This is a committee which has the particular function of examining accounts, and then bringing to the notice of Parliament cases where action has been taken in conflict with the instructions of Parliament. It may be a long time afterwards, as one member interjected. Call it a postmortem committee. It has been said that there is no use in crying over spilt milk. It is sometimes of very great use to cry over spilt milk as far as this committee is concerned. If that hadn’t happened you would have had a lot more milk spilt. And it is a matter of satisfaction that this committee is there to prevent this milk being spilt. The member for South Coast, if he reflects, will see the truth of that statement. The function of this committee is also very important in regard to questions of procedure, and very often this committee comes along and makes valuable recommendations in regard to the procedure of financial administration. So whether it is post-mortem or not, the Public Accounts Committee always has been and always will be a post-mortem committee. That is the conception of a Public Accounts Committee. But whether it is a post-mortem committee or not it is a very important committee, and the Government sets the greatest store by the work of this committee.

Motion put and agreed to.

I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

Before calling upon the Minister of Finance to move the next motion of which he has given notice I wish to remind hon. members, as I did last Session, that on the motion for the House to go into Committee on the Estimates of Additional Expenditure, as well as on later stages, debate must be confined to the subjects contained in the Estimates and the reasons for the increase of expenditure. Discussion should not re-open the question of policy involved in the original grant.

I move—

I wish to introduce a motion which is usual at this stage of the Parliamentary Session. Perhaps I should start by explaining why that should be so. The estimates for 1945, the financial year now drawing to a close were submitted to Parliament in February last year, and actually these estimates were based on departmental estimates which had been prepared and laid before the Treasury in October, 1943. There is a great deal of work involved in the preparation of the White Book of Estimates. That means that these departmental estimates have to be prepared as much as 18 months in advance. Well, it is impossible at any time, and especially in times like the present, with so many changing conditions, to be accurate in the preparation of estimates 18 months in advance. That, in itself, explains the necessity for the introduction of additional estimates each year, and it is customary to introduce such estimates at the very beginning of the Session. I would, however, go on to explain that these estimates now being introduced are not submitted as our final requirements for this year. There will be, as has usually been the case, second additional estimates to be submitted in March. That, I think, has usually happened even in peace time. For many years, now we have at least two sets of additional estimates and sometimes three. A member asks why they should not all be taken together. The reply is that in some cases the money is required now and there are limits to the extent to which expenditure can be incurred without the approval of Parliament, despite the impression which some hon. members may have gathered from what has been said earlier in the afternoon. Now, there are two points in this connection. One is that we cannot submit final estimates now because we still have almost two and a half months to go, and unexpected calls may still be made upon us which cannot be foreseen even at this stage. But there is a second reason, which is this: There are certain cases where we are almost certain that departments will actually require additional money during the current financial year but where the call is not urgent, where they can still come out on the provision already made until March. In such cases it is advantageous to make the additional provision at the latest possible date. The reason is this. A spending department always tends to overestimate expenditure. It is always afraid of outrunning the constable and spending more than Parliament has voted. The Treasury, of course, tries to check that but even the Treasury does not always succeed entirely, and by the same token a revenue collecting department always tends to underestimate revenue. I think these are natural psychological trends. The nearer you get to the end of the financial year the less a department is likely to over-estimate its expenditure. In other words, if the additional estimates are introduced in March, you will ask Parliament to vote less money than you would have if you introduced them in January. For the same reason you will start the next financial year with less money to be surrendered and coming back to you. So you really get more accurate estimating and you deal more fairly with Parliament by introducing your final additional estimates as late as possible. That is the policy we have been following the last two years, I think, with good results. We have had less and less proportionately, in the way of surrendered money after the end of the financial year. Well, in these estimates we are asking Parliament to approve of the expenditure of £1,686,000. Then there is almost £760,000 on loan. Let me deal with these individually. I have already said that I shall have to ask for more money in March. I cannot say how much. In any case it would be premature for me now to estimate the position at the end of the financial year. That is something which is done in the Budget Speech. At this stage I will say this: In my Budget last year we estimated the deficit for the year at £93,500, but subsequently in the supplementary estimates we asked Parliament to vote an amount of £1,932,000 in excess of what the Budget had allowed for. The main feature in that big excess, I recall, was the provision of the maize subsidy which amounted to almost half of it. In addition to that we are now asking Parliament to vote £1,686,000. Take these three figures together and they amount to £3,712,000. But that does not mean that we are going to have a deficit as big as that at the end of the year. There are certain other factors which have tended in the opposite direction. For one thing the surplus which we carried over from the previous year was bigger than we anticipated. For another thing the revenue this year, 1944-’45, I can say with confidence will be in excess of our estimate. Thirdly, there will be certain savings in our expenditure this year. These three factors together should more than account for that figure of £3,712,600. As far as this amount is concerned therefore its appropriation will not involve us in a deficit at the end of the year. On the loan account we are asking for an extra £760,000 more or less. As you will see from the figures on page 2 of the Estimates we expect to effect savings on loan funds considerably in excess of that amount. In this case the appropriation for which we are now asking will not necessitate borrowing to a greater extent than we originally contemplated. Further details than these it will not be possible for me to give in anticipation of the Budget. Let me come to the details of the provision asked for in these estimates. These estimates raise very little, if anything, of a policy nature which is new. For the most part the issues raised by these estimates are issues of detail and they are therefore best handled in committee where the necessary information will be given by the Ministers concerned. All I think I should do is to draw the attention of the House to some of the larger items of these estimates. On the revenue side the biggest amount as everyone will see at once is for agriculture, on the agricultural general vote, Vote 21. Now that has been caused chiefly by two circumstances. In the first instance we have found it necessary to provide an amount of £488,000 in the current year in respect of the 1944-’45 wheat season for the stabilisation of the price of bread.

That is for the wheat farmers? Assistance for the wheat farmers?

Do not let us call it that. There are two ways of looking at it and I think the House has agreed to the way in which I described it. Against that there is £100,000 saved on various sub-heads of the vote, and we are therefore asking the House for £388,000. It will be remembered that in the main Estimates we provided £890,000 for the stabilisation of the price of bread, but that was for the previous wheat season, 1943-’44. We did not in the main estimates provide for the 1944-’45 season, and obviously it was quite impossible at that stage to foresee whether it would be necessary to provide anything, and if so, on what basis. That only became possible in October. That is why we have to make that provision now. We shall be spending on that service £488,000 during the current financial year, and that is, of course, as it was in previous years, only a first instalment. A bigger amount will be required on the 1945-’46 estimates. The other big item on the agricultural general vote is the subsidy for the deciduous fruit industry, amounting to £280,000. When the war began, this particular industry lost its export market and the Government felt it necessary to take steps to keep the industry going. We have been taking such steps for several years now. Last year we gave a fixed grant to the Board of £280,000, and we are now proposing to make the same provision.

Why was that not made on the Main Estimates?

Because there again we did not know what the position would be. When we prepared the main estimates we did not know whether the deciduous fruit industry would require a subsidy again and if so how much that subsidy would have to be. The war might have been over and an export trade might have been possible again. Even when we agreed some months ago to make this provision we subjected it to the condition that if the export trade could be resumed before the end of this season this amount would be subject to a reduction. The member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) says that we were optimistic but he appreciates how difficult it was to estimate. Perhaps I should say with reference to this item that I did make a statement last year that there were certain subsidies which were sticking out but which we could not foresee, and that we could not forsee for how long they would remain in force. We therefore could not make provision for things we did not know about. We will not do it on the main estimates next year either. I hope it will not in any case be necessary however.

Has the Government appointed a committee of enquiry into the workings of this board?

I think it will be better for those questions to be asked when we are in committee. The next biggest item is in respect of the Demobilisation Vote, No. 45. There the main additional amount asked for is £200,000. That is for grants under the financial assistance scheme. Last year, on the supplementary estimates we made provisional arrangements, an anticipatory provision, for the financial assistance scheme of £200.000 on the revenue vote, and £300,000 on the loan vote. That was purely provisional. At that stage it was difficult to know when the scheme would be brought into operation and equally difficult to know how rapidly the Treasury would be called upon to provide funds for it. As you are aware the scheme has now been brought into operation as from the 3rd January. It is still by no means clear how much money we will require during the present financial year, but we will have more information by March when the second additional estimates come up, and in the meantime we are making this provisional estimate of £200,000 on this vote and £100,000 on the loan vote F. This scheme is partly for grants and partly for loans, and that is why a twofold estimate has to be made. Then there are the other revenue votes. Where there is a large number of people employed provision has to be made for increased cost of living. Where large quantities of supplies have to be bought provision has to be made for the increased cost of these supplies. That accounts for a large number of the other items on the estimates. For example, in the case of forestry there is an additional £55,000 asked for on revenue and £135,000 on loan. Most of that consists of salaries and allowances although part of it is in respect of the development of plantations which yield increased revenue. For public works they ask for an extra £11,000, most of which is accounted for in the same way. The Mental Hospitals vote consists almost entirely of provision for salaries and for supplies and services. Both are subject to a rise in cost. The same applies to prisons. In the case of Native Affairs,, out of £135,000, £125,000 is in respect of cnst of living allowances, mostly for native teachers. On the Commerce and Industries vote the bulk of the provision has been occasioned by additional expenditure of that nature. For the rest these additional estimates deal with matters of detail and I shall not comment on them except to refer to what might be regarded as a matter of domestic interest. On Vote 3, the House of Assembly, an additional amount of £10,870 is asked for, of which £9,200 is in respect of Hansard. Last Session was a very long one. We spoke quite a lot. Each of us can decide for himself what his contribution was to that extra cost. My own was quite considerable. That is the main cause of the increase, but I think we can comfort ourselves with the thought, if we need comfort, that the legislative output last Session was very considerable and compared very favourably in quantity at least with the legislative output in previous years. Just a few remarks on the additional expenditure on the loan votes. In that connection I have already referred to two of the big items, Loan Vote F and Loan Vote H. I think I need only refer briefly to Loan Votes B, R and T. As far as B is concerned, Public Works, £100,000 of the additional amount asked for is due to the acceleration of the process of adapting military camps for housing purposes. I think that will be welcomed by the House. £50,000 is in respect of the increased capital for the Standard Stock Account of the Department, which reflects the circumstances of our times. On R, we have asked for an additional £170,000. We are subsidising the collections of the Governor-General’s War Fund on a pound for pound basis. The collections were greater than we anticipated and our contributions also greater. On T there is £100,000 for the purchase of motor cars for a motor transport pool. We have to buy cars now when we get the chance of getting them, for future use. All these cars, go into a pool and are distributed as required. This will not figure for long as part of the national debt. That is as far as I need go now. To go further would land me in matters of detail which are more appropriate for the committee stage. I think I have given the House the information necessary and appropriate at this stage, and I therefore move the motion standing in my name.

I second.

I had intended paying the Minister a compliment this afternoon. When I saw the additional estimates for

the fruit season and now the new Board comes together; many of the members know nothing of the whole matter and will first have to review the position, with the result that the matter will be delayed and the proposals which they could put forward on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, and which have to be approved by the Department of Agriculture, would only be able to come into effect late in the season. Why this delay? I asked the Minister why this amount of £280,000 was not asked for on the main estimates. My information is that the Government notified the Deciduous Fruit Board that they would not get a subsidy in respect of 1944-1945 that they would have to handle their fruit in such a way that they could cover their own costs.

When? I know nothing about it.

The case of the Deciduous Fruit Board came before the Select Committee on Public Accounts and reading between the lines it appeareed that the Board was told that they would have to make ends meet without the annual subsidy of £280,000, and I want to ask the Minister what persuaded the Government to alter its plans all of a sudden. I want to ask the Minister of Finance why action is being taken on these lines. Let me take the operations of the Deciduous Fruit Board in respect of December. Let me take only grapes and peaches. The price which the Deciduous Fruit Board laid down for the grape farmers for standard grapes amounts to approximately 2s. per tray of 18 pounds. Instead of the Deciduous Fruit Board making those grapes available to the consumer under the cheapest possible manner, the grapes are sold by auction! Auctioned! They receive up to 13s. 6d. per tray. It sounds almost incredible. The average price which they got for the grapes was 6s. 6d. The farmer gets 2s. and the consumer has to pay 6s. 6d., in other words, three times as much. I should like to ask the Minister whether he does not think that the Deciduous Fruit Board, if it manages its affairs well, ought to be able to cover its cost of administration out of such a profit. Does he not think that if the Deciduous Fruit Board warrants its existence, it ought to be able to cover its expenses out of the profit of 4s. 6d. on a tray of 2s.? Just think how many trays of grapes are sold during the season! Up to the present they have made these tremendous profits, and then we are still expected to vote £280,000 to keep the Deciduous Fruit Board going. Take peaches. There are three kinds. Today they are afraid to speak of first grade, second grade and third grade. They have changed it into “Selected”, “Choice” and “Standard” [Laughter.] Yes, but they have a reason for it, a clever reason. The highest price which a peach farmer can get for selected peaches is 2s. 5d. per single tray. The average price which the Deciduous Fruit Board got throughout the whole of December was 6s. 9d. a profit therefore of 4s. per single tray. But that is not sufficient to cover their costs. We are still expected to vote £280,000 to enable them to cover their costs. I want to ask the Minister of Finance who derives any benefit from this £280,000? The farmer? The farmer gets 1⅛d. per pound for his grapes. Is that too much? Can it be said that the farmer is being paid too much if he gets 1⅛d. per pound for standard grapes? But at what price are grapes being sold in Cape Town? At 9d. per pound. That is what the Deciduous Fruit Board has done for us. It is no wonder that not only the farmers, but also the consumers say that we should put the whole lot up against the wall. Who benefits? The grape farmer gets lid. and the consumer pays 9d. and then one cannot even get fruit. George is a fruit district and at this time of the year fruit is usually plentiful; poor people are able to eat fruit and get the benefit of the vitamin content. Meat is scarce, milk and cheese are scarce. The people thought they would at least have the privilege of being able to eat fruit at this time, but one cannot get fruit. I want to tell the Minister that the Deciduous Fruit Board has made the fruit prohibitively expensive, and poor people cannot afford to buy it. That is the benefit which we get from the £280,000 which we spend. I am in favour of control, but then it must be proper control. We are in this position because the Minister delayed matters until shortly before the fruit season. I had thought that in these circumstances they would do what the Wheat Board is doing, namely to fix the price of wheat for the farmer and the price to be paid for bread by the consumer, in addition to which the Government then tells them that if they can make out a case for State assistance, the State will intervene and assist, as the Government is assisting today in connection with the stabilisation of the price of bread. But surely it is going too far to vote £280,000 to a body which has driven the fruit out of the market and which has made the fruit prohibitively expensive to the poor people. What should they have done? They should have fixed the price to be paid to the farmers, a reasonable price, as well as a reasonable price for the consumer and then the ordinary trade channels should have been used to market the fruit. Fix a price for the farmer and for the consumer and tell the middleman that he will be allowed to distribute the fruit through the usual trade channels, adding the warning that if a middleman makes himself guilty of overcharging, he will lose his licence. By doing so you eliminate people who do not deserve to be in trade. But they have tried to eliminate the traders and to become traders themselves. That is the course which they are now adopting and the result is the malcondition which we experience today. I think there are other hon. members who wanted to speak on this subject. I must say in all honesty that I cannot find a good word for the Deciduous Fruit Board. The hon. Minister did not reply to a question which the hon. member over there put to him. Last year we urged that the balance sheets of control boards should no longer be kept secret, and we would like to know from the Minister whether in the future the balance sheets of bodies which receive subsidies from the Treasury will be made public. Up to the present one has not been able to get hold of them; they have been regarded as secret documents. They ought not to be kept secret. Then I also want to say a few words in connection with one important item, namely demobilisation. I notice that the Government is asking for a total amount of £319,000—£219,000 under Revenue Account and £100,000 on Loan Account. It is too early at this stage to pass judgment on the work of the Demobilisation Committees. As we know these committees were established only recently and it is too early to pass judgment. I should like to say this to the Minister however: We have had experience in connection with the way in which money has been spent during the war in connection with defence matters. We have seen the state of confusion into which their books have got; we have seen how large amounts could not be accounted for and how State money was wasted. The Government might be able to say that war is a hasty affair. Very well, let us accept that. But the Government cannot say that in connection with demobilisation—and I should just like to tell the Minister that we propose to call the Government to account in connection with all the money which it is going to spend on this vote, and I hope the Minister will be in a position to give an account. This side of the House is not unsympathetically disposed towards the returned soldier. We regard his absorption into civil life not as a war problem but as a post-war problem. Our views and our attitude in connection with the war are still rhe same. But when the man returns and has to be re-absorbed in civil life, it is a postwar problem. We should like to see our whole population happy and prosperous. That is our attitude. We cannot see how South Africa can be happy and prosperous after the war if there are a hundred thousand or a hundred and fifty thousand people who are unemployed. But then we should like the Minister to realize that it will be of no avail at all to find employment for those people who return by forcing a hundred thousand or a hundred and fifty thousand other people out of employment. That will be of no avail at all. We are not going to have a healthy and prosperous nation in South Africa and we are not going to obviate depressions and all that sort of thing if there is a large section of the people who cannot find employment. I should like the Minister to tell us clearly that it is not the policy to provide people with work at the expense of others. We are in favour of full employment for the citizens of this country. We want every man to have work, whether he has fought or not. I think in English the words “gainful occupation” are used. The man must have remunerative work. The Government will make a mistake if it regards this problem of demobilisation as a separate issue. It is part of the greater problem of economic reconstruction and the social security of the people after the war. The Government should not regard it as a problem on its own, but as part of the great problem, and it should arrange matters in such a way that there will be work for everyone in South Africa. That is the opinion of this side of the House. The other matter in regard to which I just want to say a few words is the extra amount for controllers, a sum of £29,000. I do not want to say much in regard to this subject, because we shall have an opportunity at a later stage during the Session of dealing with it. My objection is that the controllers in South Africa are afraid of the rich people. They control only the poor people. Let the Minister come to my constituency and see what happens; let him see the houses which are erected by rich people, while the poor people are unable to get a permit.

Are there rich people in your constituency?

Let me give an example. A man comes to me; his roof leaks. He requires only one roll of rubbertex, but he cannot get a permit. But in the same district there is a rich man who uses a great quantity of rubbertex on his farm for the erection of fowl runs. However, I shall get an opportunity later of mentioning this. Then here is also the request for more money for commissions. I am surprised that the Government is not ashamed to ask for more money for commissions; because as soon as a commission submits its report, the Government announces in anticipation that it is not going to give effect to the recommendations contained in the report. Just imagine. They appoint one commission after another. They appoint a commission which at great expense goes round the whole country and which submits an excellent report, a report which enjoys the strong support of the public, but the Government throws it in the waste paper basket. It is Utopian. The Prime Minister’s waste paper basket must be full of reports of commissions. There was only one commission which did good work, the Costs-Plus Commission. That commission did good work because the Government had the courage to appoint a member of the Opposition to the Commission. Since that time the Government has been afraid to appoint a member of the Opposition to commissions.

The hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) would not serve.

As far as I know the report of the Costs-Plus Commission is the only one which was given effect to, and not the majority report but the minority report—that is mine. I am surprised that they do not go out of their way to appoint more members of the Opposition to commissions, but apparently they are afraid. I am opposed to voting money on these estimates for two reasons. I received a certain letter which I think, was addressed to all members of Parliament. It is under the heading “Campaign for Right and Justice” in connection with certain native affairs, and I think it is worth while drawing the Prime Minister’s attention to the final paragraph, which is indicative of the views of the public in regard to all these commissions. It is said that expert commissions have been appointed in regard to many matters of national importance—

The people are beginning to ridicule the commission of the Government, but still the Government is not satisfied. They are again asking for money. Is not the Minister’s waste paper basket sufficiently filled of recommendations by this time? We are not going to vote for that extra money. There are a few other matters which I shall raise later, but we can dp that under the different votes.

I want to raise an issue which I do not think is a matter of detail, as the hon. Minister of Finance has said. We are told that we have democracy in this country. If democracy were in the saddle of Government, we should not this afternoon be considering a measure of this nature. When we consider these estimates in their totality they represent a decline of democratic government. They prove the degree to which this Parliament is insulated from the financial and administrative responsibilities of government. For example, all these items totalling well over two million pounds, have been incurred as an expenditure on the taxpayers without the approval of or consultation with the representatives of the people.

Oh no!

Only after months of idleness have we members been called together to be rubber stamps, to be, in effect, mindless robots to confirm these votes if considerable national importance. As a democrat I want to protest against the authoritarian powers assumed today by the war regime. By denying Parliament the right to meet, by delegating major financial matters to a group of men, remembering that two of our Ministers have not been elected by the people, we are undermining democratic government.

Hear hear!

In asking us, no matter whether it is customary or not, to agree to commitments that are now irrevocable, that is to me imitating a form of government which we have put armies into the field to destroy. Can it be that South Africa is being made safe not for democracy but for Fascism? These estimates are proof of the critical days we are going through; and there is therefore good reason for Parliament, the people, and the Government to keep very closely associated. Failure to convene Parliament is, I believe, a contempt of democracy and this, its ancient institution. It is, I believe, a grave political indiscretion. Then again these estimates remind us of the economic unrest the social ill-health that the country has been going through.

Order, order! May I remind the hon. member of the ruling which I gave before the introduction of the motion, namely that the debate must be confined to the reason for the increase of expenditure.

I hope to come to that now. I was referring to the social unrest, largely due to the food famine in the country. These estimates deal directly with that food famine, in so far as they make provision for subsidies to producers. In the midst of the food famine we have what was practically a wanton irresponsibility of the Government to raise the price of the people’s bread and the price of their transport; we had the failure to control the price of vegetables and clothing; thus in these ways promoting a very dangerous condition of inflation in the country, making essential the payment of cost-of-living allowances on a very considerable scale. I want this House to be clear that in these matters of great national importance it resents the subordination of its sovereign will, especially in this time of stress and crisis. Before the House goes into Committee it is the duty of this sovereign Legislative Assembly to declare that in these days of crisis in South Africa Parliament should keep in regular periodical session, so that the representatives of the people may take their share ….

Order, order! I am afraid the hon. member is departing altogether from my ruling. I must ask him to observe that ruling.

In conclusion I shall try to observe your ruling, Sir, and say this, that I sincerely trust that we as members shall be allowed to take our share in the risks and responsibilities to which this democratic Parliament should square up if it wishes to save democracy.

Originally we were, of course, all very pleased that the additional estimates ran into such a small amount, but to those of us who took the trouble to go into the facts it was clear that the amount would not suffice for the requirements of the Government until the end of the financial year, and consequently though the Minister at the outset was very cheerful over the small amount, I think that the House will realise that it will be necessary before the end of the year to submit larger additional estimates to the House, and the House should therefore not be influenced by the Minister’s light-hearted attitude. Recently I went into a few of the figures, and I expected that the figures in this case would be larger. I want to respect your ruling, but I want to refer specifically to the data published in the Government Gazette of January 12th in reference to expenditure up to the end of the previous year. From that information it is, of course, very clear that the Government will require much more money from loan account as well as from revenue account, and no one will remain under the impression that the additional expenditure that is here indicated represents what will be the total additional expenditure. It must be taken into account that large and important items of additional expenditure will fall to be met, for which this House will have to vote. That is one of the disappointing features, that today we have not to deal with the final estimates, and that consequently we cannot form an opinion on the additional taxes that will have to be imposed on the people. It is only a preliminary estimate, and consequently I think that the Minister has not really the right to bring a buoyant spirit into the House, because the expenditure is so small. From the figures there emerges the further important and depressing fact that in view of the great additional sums that have to be voted for salaries and allowances, and subsistence allowances none of us will be left under the impression that our currency will never depreciate notwithstanding the precautionary measures that have been taken in general by the Government. I have no fault to find with those, except that they are inadequate and incomplete. In spite of the measures that have been taken, in spite of the intention to stabilise the purchasing power of our currency, it is clear from the estimates that our currency is continuously depreciating. I know that the hon. the Minister will in this connection refer me to the opinion of an authority. In this respect I would just say this in anticipation that even that authority has by implication acknowledged that our currency has in the course of a certain number of years, actually dropped to half its value. I do not want to give the House and the country to understand that our currency has depreciated to that extent since the war, but it is clear that it is still constantly declining in value; consequently we must take measures to meet the staff in the Public Service in connection with cost-of-living. Bearing in mind your ruling, I do not want to refer to certain implications regarding questions of policy, but I should like to say a few words in reference to the vote for commissions, Vote No. 10. I want to ask the hon. Minister whether he can give us any information regarding the preliminary report of the commission that has been appointed to investigate conditions in the Government service. According to information in the Press, a preliminary report has been drafted, and submitted to the Government. I do not expect that the Minister will give us the information in advance, but there is a considerable measure of unrest, and I think it is clear from the estimates that a great deal of anxiety exists in regard to the inadequacy of the incomes of State officials. I should therefore be glad if the Minister could inform us whether any decision has yet been taken in this matter. We should like to know whether the report has been considered and what measure of relief will probably be granted. The next matter to which I would direct the attention of the House is Agricultural Vote L, where provision is made for an additional contribution for the jam industry, for a subsidy on the manufacture of jam, which is what I mean by “konfyt” in this case. To give the House a correct view of the significance of this subsidy, it will be necessary for me to allude to the actual taxes which already fall on the shoulders of the consumer, and of the population as a whole in connection with the sugar industry.

The hon. member will have an opportunity later to discuss that point.

With your permission, I would just say that I am not going into that aspect of the matter now, but the implication of the Agreement of 1926 is that the factories which use sugar will obtain that sugar under a fixed tariff. The same implication was again set down in 1934, and now we are faced with this position, though that provision has been in the agreement for years, a provision that has cost the country in general £16 for every ton of sugar consumed, now the Government comes along and asks for a further contribution to these manufacturers of jam. Under your ruling, I am unable at the moment to go into the principle—it is also an increase that was approved on a previous occasion—but I want to put this serious point, that the Government will have to convince the House that that industry is in need of this subsidy in the present period of prosperity.

The hon. member is again going too far; he must confine himself to the reasons for the increase. The hon. member will have an opportunity to discuss these points.

I am anxious to respect your ruling, but what I should like is an explanation from the Government as to why this increase on the contribution of the manufacturers is necessary.

Because the quantity is greater.

With a view to the welfare of the industry I should like to know why it is necessary.

It is simply because the quantity of jam that is being manufactured is larger.

May I then ask whether the Government have gone into the merits of the case?

That is a question for discussion under the main estimates.

So you first vote the money and then you discuss it.

I do not want to make the position any more difficult, but this is the way I regard the matter, that when an increase is asked from the House, then the Government should convince the House regarding the additional amount that is asked; that is my standpoint. I do not want to emphasise the particular aspect that was mentioned by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) except to say this, that I feel worried over the effects of the control of deciduous fruits. I have myself had the opportunity to be connected with and interested in the deciduous fruit industry over a considerable number of years, and if the present policy is pursued, what is apparently the effect of the policy of the Government, it can only lead to irretrievable loss to the producers. I think that having regard to the eventual repercussions on the producer it is necessary that this matter should be thoroughly discussed before the consumer will be compelled to obtain his requirements from another source. I want to repeat that I am not in a position to pass judgment on the conduct of the board. I have sought contacts with the voters; I have only been able to do that with some of them ; what I was able to learn was not reassuring, and I am consequently not able to speak on behalf of all, but this is a national matter and it may lead to the tremendous detriment of the producers, and is therefore deserving of the careful consideration of the House. Under the main vote there are two aspects that I should like to touch on; the one is under trade and industry, where £10,000 is asked for the purchase of shares in the fishing industry. I should like to have information at this juncture with regard to the progress that has been made in this connection, and especially with regard to what the amount of £10,000 relates to. In this respect my objection is not against the increase but against the petty increase that is necessary to maintain that policy. This House, the whole country, the Minister, and the Select Committee cherised high hopes regarding this Bill, and I must say that I am disappointed that greater activity is not envisaged. The last matter on which I wish to touch is Vote B “Public Works”—“Adaptation of military camps to accommodate demobilised servicemen.” I think the hon. member for George elucidated our general standpoint when he stated that we did not offer any objection for proper provision being made for demobilised units. All that we are worrried over is that in connection with this necessary duty of the State, steps should not be taken that will result in an unnecessarily high burden being placed on the shoulders of the people. I presume that the translation here is perhaps not the exact English equivalent. Reference is made here to “Conversion of military camps to provide accommodation for demobilised army units.” That would give rise to the impression that there will be a lengthy camp life for the forces that are demobilised. As in a short period there has been a doubling of the amount asked for these requirements, the Minister is under an obligation to inform the House as to what the intention really is. He has stated briefly that it is in order to expedite the work. I accept, this, but when there is an implication that this provision is to extend over a lenghty period, then it is an indictment against the Government on a point over which this side of the House has continually warned the Government, namely, that when the day for demobilisation arrives, complete arrangements should be ready in order to place these people in employment.

I was very pleased to hear the remarks of the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth). Apparently he is expressing the opinion of the whole of his party on that side of the House with regard to the treatment of the soldiers who are returning to this country. We on this side of the House—I feel that I am speaking on behalf of all members of this side of the House—are delighted to find that change of attitude on the part of the Opposition. I take it that our returned soldiers are now actually to be treated as South Africans again. Mr. Speaker, I want to say that this side of the House sticks to what it originally said, in the very first place when these soldiers went away, that they are going to get the first consideration on their return. The hon. member asked that those who remained at home should not be forgotten. We agree, but the first consideration must be for those men who saw fit to protect us, those men who saw fit to uphold the honour of South Africa, those men who have gone forward and fought on our behalf to protect South Africa, to enable us, our wives, our sisters and children to live in security. The first consideration of this House has always been that the returned soldier will receive that consideration.

Order order! I hope the hon. member will observe my ruling.

I was just replying to what was said on the other side of the House. Now I would like to refer to Vote No. 20, i.e. the Public Service Commission, a vote of two thousand pounds. I am very concerned, and I think all members are getting very concerned about the salaries which are being paid to our public servants. There is no doubt about it that we are losing very fine material.

To which item is the hon. member referring?

Vote No. 25. I said Vote 20 a moment ago; I beg your pardon. It is the vote of two thousand pounds. There is no getting away from the fact that we are losing very fine material from the public service.

What has that got to do with the vote?

The hon. member must please observe my ruling. He can only discuss the reasons for the increase in the vote. The vote has been increased by £2,000, but the amount is solely wages and allowances.

That has been the actual increase, and I was wondering whether the commission has had more work to do on account of the reorganisation in the Public Service. There is a rumour that the public servants are going to get a general increase of ten per cent.

That does not arise under this particular vote.

I should just like to say a few words in connection with the additional estimates, especially in connection with the assistance given to agriculture. An ex gratia payment is made to pear growers. I do not want to discuss in general terms the procedure that is followed by the control board in that connection, but I want merely to discuss the difficulty in connection with the amount that is given. I am not raising an objection to the amount; I consider that it should be higher. The pear growers were last year obliged to spray their trees from eight to ten times. I know of farmers who sprayed ten times, because the spraying materials are not available of the standard they ought to be There is a sort of material that is now being given to the farmers that is much weaker, and notwithstanding the fact that the pear trees have been sprayed eight to ten times, pears have become bad because the stuff was not what it should be. The Government has now contributed £12,000 to assist the pear growers, but I think the amount is too small.

That is for the 1942 crop.

I am now talking of the 1942 crop. We are now in the year 1945. It is a scandal that the Government are only paying out in 1945 what the farmers lost in 1942. Year after year it is stated that there is a surplus of pears and plums. I know of thousands of people who are not in a position to eat this fruit, because they cannot afford paying the price that the fruit shops ask for it. There is no over-production, there is under-consumption in connection with those products, and I feel that it should not be necessary for the Government to pay that subsidy if everyone was in a position to eat pears, and pears should be given to them if they cannot afford to pay for them. If the Government is in a position to pay a subsidy to jam factories because sugar is dearer, then the Government ought to help the poor people to get some fruit. The position in connection with pears is this. On the last occasion the Control Board laid down that if there are a few bad pears in a box which has been marked first grade, or if a few bad pears have got into the box by mistake or have been placed in it intentionally then the whole box is rejected and the farmer is paid much less; he is then paid on the basis of third grade pears. If they now sell those pears at the price at which they took them from the farmer it would be another matter, but what they do is this: They take out the bad pears, they put a few good ones in and then they sell the whole case as first grade pears, while the farmer is paid on the basis of third grade pears.

Is it the Minister that does this?

No, it is not he, but it is done by people who are under him. Consequently I feel that unless the Government exercise strict supervision over the Deciduous Fruit Board, there may be a repetition; we will not get an improvement. The fruit is not marked properly. Today one cannot buy fruit, because one cannot afford to pay for it; the prices are ridiculous. Not only are the prices high, but the people today do not want to eat the fruit. They say they have to pay 3d. for a peach, and that does not go into the farmer’s pocket; the farmer does not even get a halfpenny for it. The Minister ought to find out what happens in Canada. Why cannot he guarantee a fixed price to the farmer, and then say to the consumer: “That is the price; you cannot go above that.” In that way you do not eliminate competition, and at the same time the farmer has a guarantee that he will not be paid less than a certain amount. Should the price then rise he will be paid out. I do not know why these things are happening. It is, of course, not always good to follow the example set by another country, but we have to deal here with a product that is difficult to handle, because it is susceptible to damage. As the position stands at present it is a scandal, because the farmers get terribly little for their fruit, while the people who eat the fruit must pay the highest prices for it. If matters were arranged properly it would not be necessary for the Government to pay subsidies of this sort. In the circumstances, however, it is necessary to give the subsidies and these should, in fact, be higher. I think that the amount that the growers receive is, in the circumstances too small. The farmers are unable to produce at the prices they obtain, and on the other hand the man who needs the fruit cannot afford to pay for it. We find the same position in regard to wheat. The farmers in my constituency say that it does not pay them to sow wheat. They prefer to sow barley and oats, which thrive better and for which they can obtain a better price. If the prices for wheat remain as they are today, then they are compelled to produce just barley and oats, and the wheat which is so essential to us takes a back seat. On that account I feel that this subsidy, although it is necessary in the circumstances, is an indication that matters are not properly controlled. There would not have been the slightest difficulty if matters had been properly controlled. Then I should also like to say something in connection with these additional estimates generally. The amount is not exceptionally large in comparison with the amount of the main estimates, but my difficulty is that the additional estimates are passed to us piecemeal. The result is that we do not know exactly what the total amount is for which we shall be asked, and where we should direct our criticism. When the following additional estimates are introduced, we can lump the amounts together, but then we are faced with the position that we have to criticise something that has already been accepted by the House. I do not want to suggest that the Minister of Finance should wait until the end of March before he introduces the additional estimates, but he could still introduce them a little later—a little nearer the end of the year, and then he would be in a better position to judge what is necessary. At the same time we would then have before us an estimate in which we will have everything together, and we would be in a position to know where we should criticise. The Minister referred to the cost of taking down the minutes and discussions in this House. If he followed this plan which I have suggested, then we would have one discussion in place of two, and in that manner expense would be saved. He would also have saved the time of the House, and it would not be necessary for us to sit so long owing to duplicated discussion being necessary. I can give the Minister this assurance, that I cannot understand why he should now have to submit additional estimates in connection with native affairs. It is, of course, determined what sum should be transferred to the Native Trust, and it ought not to be necessary to deal with such a matter in additional estimates. At present we find that provision is made here for an additional contribution of £80,000. Why should that be done at this stage. It gives me the impression that he is prepared to do anything for the natives. His liberal outlook, of course, gives him the openhandedness to do anything for the natives, whether he does it on the additional estimates or on the main estimates. But seeing that the Government makes a definite amount available for the Native Trust, he ought to do this on the main estimates, and it ought not to be necessary for him to make available additional amounts by way of additional estimates. The matter could wait until the main estimates are introduced, and it appears to me that it is quite unnecessary to occupy the time of the House at this stage in the matter.

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me there is every reason for the payment of this subsidy of £280,000 to the Deciduous Fruit Board on the ground of the good use they made of the subsidy last year. The allocation of this amount has been made the reason for attacks on the administration of the Fruit Board during the last season. I think it would probably interest the House if I replied to some of the statements made by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) and gave some account of just how the Board spent its money last year. They did valuable work in achieving this object; namely the carrying out the intention of the subsidy which was to maintain on the land those export farmers who had previously enjoyed a market overseas but were deprived of that market by the war. I do think, Sir, that the Board passed through a period of great difficulty. Remember, it was composed of farmers who had no previous experience and they were faced initially with the task of marketing over 32,000 tons of deciduous fruit valued at about half a million pounds; of putting it on the market and distributing it to the public. They were then given a blank cheque by the Government. Now they are not given a blank cheque any longer,, but £280,000. I think that this House should appreciate some of the difficulties in which this Board was and is placed. The product they are trying to sell is of the most complex nature. There are over 162 varieties, each of three or more grades, which differ in counts and as to types of packing and costs of packing. We have to consider that the facilities for processing and marketing are totally inadequate especially in the matter of cold storage, and railage. We have to reckon with the previous lack of local packing materials. The Board had to go as far abroad as Brazil to get packing material in previous seasons. I think we should consider the difficulties of financing a scheme for producers placed in this position and who were used to being financed by overseas agents. I think we should consider the difficulties of marketing this product by a Board on which there was no marketing expert, and on which I am sorry to say there is still no marketing expert, The consumers are now represented, and commerce, and the Government but there are no marketing experts. When I come, as I will do now, to a short analysis of how the money was spent, it will be seen that the farmers did benefit very considerably by the subsidy last year, and will again benefit this year.

They always get all the plums.

And consumers the “sour grapes.” Last year there were 43,000 tons of fresh fruit marketed. The value of that was something like £645,000. The sales resulted in £607,000, and there was a deficit of £38,000. Other items of expenditure bring this loss up to the £280,000 which was granted. The cost of handling amounted to £179,000, and the general expenses to £63,000. These sums may seem large, but if one takes the cost of handling alone and one realises that the railage and storage alone accounted for £100,000 of that money (the railage being £53,000 and the cold storage, including both railway and private storage, amounted to £47,000) the position may be better understood. The marketing amounted to £21,000 and the other expenses, such as handling lugs, railway carting, depôts, bulk container hire, inspection, insurance and sundries, amounted to £58,000 in all. The general expenses included administration expenses of £31,000, interest at 4½ per cent. to the Land Bank amounting to £10,000, reserve for bulk container hire, £18,000, and for packing materials, adjustments and so forth to £4,000, adding up to a total of £63,000. Add to all this the deficit on selling of £38,000, and we arrive at the amount of the assistance grant of £280,000. How did the producer come out of this? He came out very well. He got 94½ per cent. of the value of his crop. The Government under this scheme gave the producer a guaranteed price for his produce. That price was fixed by the farmers on the Board and they considered this a fair price for farmers, including themselves to get for their produce. Last year they almost got it. They lost £38,000, which sounds a large sum in total, and which I do not think we like them to lose. But if you divide that amongst the seventeen hundred deciduous fruit farmers in this country you will see that they lost on an average just over £23 per grower. Surely the Board did well by the producer, and surely the growers thought they had been done well by when they elected the same producer members again, almost en masse. We must however remember that the guaranteed intake price is alleged to be just sufficient to keep the farmer on the farm. We are given figures which are said to have acted as a guide in fixing intake prices. Quoting from memory, I think the 1937-’38 figures of the Agricultural Economic Survey gave the farmers in the Stellenbosch area, for example, an alleged net income of something like £95 per year. Elgin £25. Ceres £55. These figures are, to my mind, obviously false, but they are officially given as the figures to arrive at the intake price. [Interruption.] I cannot argue about it now. I do not have the figures with me and I do not think anyone in this House has them, but I am giving you the 1937-’38 Agricultural Economic Survey figures. Would it be fair to say that the farmers got too little or too much? Before we can answer that accurately I think we must have a survey, a production costs survey, in respect of all deciduous fruit farms and analyse costs of production, marginal yields, and tree plantings with the object of eventually getting rid of growing on marginal land and so subsidising inefficiency. How did the trader come out of this? The trader came out of it very well indeed. I will quote figures which will differ from those of the hon. member for George, but figures which show that the farmer gets all too little while the trader gets all too much, and the public pays through the nose. The price of plums is a good indication. The farmer gets 2s. 6d. for a 8 lb. tray. In fact, he gets only about 1s. 9d., the rest is made up of about 9d. for packing material costs—tray, woodwork, paper, nails, etc. The railage is 6d. The selling cost is 4.4d., made up of municipal market dues, market agents fees, the Transvaal Provincial levy in the case of the Transvaal, and the Boards levy of 1 per cent. Cold storage costs 3d. and railage to markets 3d. That means that the lowest the Board can ask for this tray of plums is 3s. 5d. The trader can sell this tray for 5s. 2d. and make 50 per cent. profit. That means that he can sell first grade plums at 7¾d. a lb. and third grade plums which will cost the trader 4s. 8d per 38 lb. tray he can sell at 2¼d. a lb. and make 50 per cent. profit. So it goes for pears, peaches and grapes. We could get and sell economically, that is at 50 per cent. profit, to the public the highest grade of peaches at 11¾d. and 6¾d. per lb. for the third grade. For pears the highest profitable price could be 6¼d. per lb. and the price for the lowest grade 2¼d.; and for grapes 6¼d. and 3¼d. respectively. In fact, in the Cape Peninsula where we will not have any storage or railage transport to market we could, and we will this year, I am sure, sell 5 lbs. of third grade grapes for 1s if the retailer plays the game and is content with a reasonable profit. How did the consumer come out of this? Very badly. Yet the wholesaler and the retailer between them, if they would be content with a reasonable margin of 50 per cent., or even slightly more, could let the consumer get this food at a low price. Can we possibly get any of the previously mentioned fixed charges reduced? Can the railways reduce their railage charges? They have just increased them by 10 per cent.! Can the cold storage cost be reduced? It cannot. The railways are contemplating increasing their charges by 100 per cent. Can the selling costs be reduced? We will have to ask the municipalities and the Provincial Councils. We will have to ask the market agents to work on a lower commission. They will all refuse. Can the farmer’s cost be reduced? I think he is getting too little. I think, though I am not sure, he is getting just enough to keep him on the land. Therefore the position seems to be that the trader, wholesaler and retailer is the man whose profit we would have to limit in some way. When we examine the figures of the Raats Commission of 1940, which, though not recent are the only available statistics on this point, we find that the wholesaler and the retailer at that time between them took an average in Port Elizabeth of 172 per cent. In Durban, the members of the Dominion Party will be pleased to know, they took 208 per cent. profit on an average with a high water mark of 495 per cent. in one month, July of course. In East London the average was 235 per cent., with a high water mark of 564 per cent. In Pietermaritzburg it was 200 per cent., and the highest profit they took was 515 per cent. on one occasion. In Johannesburg it was 163 per cent. average and the highest profit was 442 per cent. In Pretoria it was 150 per cent. and the highest was 314 per cent. In Bloemfontein 173 per cent. and 545 per cent., and in Cape Town it was 219 per cent. on an average, whilst the highest was 910 per cent.

There is some reason for that.

Of course there is. And I hope that those members who represent the retail trade in this House will explain those reasons later. It is evident that the retailer is getting too much, and we must find ways and means of limiting the retailer’s profit. We must find ways and means of getting the produce to the consumer at a reasonable price. My contention is that there are only two courses open. One is to limit the trader’s margin of profits and the other to fix the price to the public. To my mind there are dangers and difficulties in both. It would be impossible, if the wholesale-retail margins were fixed, to secure a conviction against the trader who overstepped it, because of the complexity and perishability of the product, and the ease with which first grade products of yesterday could be confused with third grade of today, and the difficulty of proving, in a particular market, the date and the grade of the produce sold. In the absence of any possibility of implementing a trade margin policy because of the case of substitution it seems that the only thing to do is what I am sure the Government will do, namely to fix the price to the consumer as soon as possible, this year, this week, in spite of difficulties caused by varieties, grades, consumer preferences for particular types. It is in that hope that I got up to speak on this motion today, and I trust that in addition to justifying to some extent not only the activities of the Board and their management of last year’s crops, with all the multifarious difficulties they come up against, the nett result of my talk will be some quick action, and that steps will be taken to protect the only unprotected man in the business, namely, the poor consumer.

I think we are all very grateful to the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) for the speech which he has just made. This speech is a continuation of a speech which he made last year in regard to the same subject. I remember that speech of his very well, and since he spoke in this House more particularly in regard to the consumers, I want to come to the other link of the chain and speak about the producers. The producer delivers what he and other consumers have to eat. I and other producers produce food, and if the consumers have to consume that food, we come to the basic principle of all marketing of agricultural products, namely the principle which the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) emphasized in his speech, that is, that we must establish a closer link between the consumers and the producers and that we must not remove them still further from one another. The producer cannot live without the consumer. If the consumers were to disappear, the production of foodstuffs would also have to cease. On the other hand the consumer cannot live without the products of the farm, but both sections can live on the profits which the middleman is making out of them at the moment. I say therefore that the basic principle is that we must make an effort to bring the consumer and the producer closer together. The hon. member for George also voiced certain criticisms, in connection with the Deciduous Fruit Board. I think that although we are in favour of the principle of control, there are many justifiable criticisms which we could direct against a board such as the Deciduous Fruit Board. To a certain extent that Board was a failure as far as the fulfilment of its task was concerned, and I think that one of the main reasons is that the Deciduous Fruit Board tried to do too much. The second reason is that it tried to do it too hurriedly. Let us see what the Deciduous Fruit Board tried to do. Here in South Africa we had a system of distribution for our fruit, and when I speak about fruit I also refer to other agricultural products. We had certain channels of distribution. They were not of the best. In many respects they were extremely defective—nevertheless we had them. Now the Deciduous Fruit Board has come along and has tried to build up within six months what took the natural channels forty years or more to build up. It was a matter of impossibility. We cannot undertake such a complicated matter as the marketing of perishable products in such a hasty fashion. We cannot hope, within a period of six months to create machinery and to put into operation a system which took the traders practically thirty or forty years to call into being. That is what the Deciduous Fruit Board tried to do, and that is one of the main reasons of its failure. It tried to do the impossible. It was impossible to do it within six months, and it was particularly impossible to do it in the chaotic state of affairs which obtained and still obtains in South Africa. As it is it would have been difficult in normal times, but there would not have been the same difficulty. Under the chaotic conditions which prevailed it was absolutely impossible to create completely new channels for an involved trade such as the fruit trade within a period of six months. The second mistake which the Deciduous Fruit Board made was that, while it had to create machinery to establish a closer link between the consumer and the producer, it failed to do so. It should have retained the existing channels as far as possible and it should have created complementary channels to deliver these products to those sections of the population who up to the present have not been able to obtain them. That is all they should have done. May I be allowed to mention an example of the failure which they made of this whole matter because they did not bear in mind this one factor. I pulled up at a garage in Bellville for petrol. There I met a farmer with a lorry load of grapes. They were his own grapes. I asked him to sell grapes to me and his reply was that he was not allowed to do so because the Deciduous Fruit Board had instructed him that his permit authorised him to sell fruit in the districts of Caledon and Bredasdorp. That is the Board which is trying to help the farmer to sell his fruit! The Board prohibits the farmer from selling his fruit direct to the consumer who wants to buy it on the spot. It is a ridiculous state of affairs. It is that type of thing which makes a failure of control of this nature. I produce grapes, and there is a good market for grapes a few hundred miles from my farm. I may be fortunate in having a farm under irrigation in a dry part, and these people fetch grapes from me in lorry loads at 3s. and 3s. 6d. per paraffin tin. They transport it approximately a hundred miles and sell it in the dry parts which are represented by the Minister. I would be prepared to sell all my hanepoot grapes at 3s. per paraffin tin.

But what do they get for it?

Of course, they get more for it, because they have to transport the grapes a few hundred miles. I am prepared to sell my grapes at that price, but the Deciduous Fruit Board prohibits me from doing so. I have to charge twice as much. I do not want to charge twice as much because if I did the people would not buy grapes from me. The result is that a whole area which, as it is, is buying grapes and which is a greater potential market is totally excluded owing to the policy of this body which is ostensibly trying to establish a closer link between the producer and the consumer. The result of this action is that the Deciduous Fruit Board is not widening our markets; it is making our markets smaller. That is the mistake which is being made by the Deciduous Fruit Board and which was also made by previous boards. Another mistake is this. The hon. member for Woodstock spoke of transport costs. I have in mind the case of a farmer in Paarl who had to send Santa Rosa plums to Cape Town according to the instructions of the Deciduous Fruit Board. In Cape Town the fruit was examined. It was certified and kept in cold storage. After some time all the plums were returned to Paarl to be converted into jam. This type of thing happened even in connection with the Rhodes Fruit Farm. They sent fruit to Cape Town where it was graded, and subsequently this fruit was returned to their own station to be converted into jam. The hon. member went on to speak of the prices, and I fully agree with him. Let me give an example of something which happened some time ago to a relative of mine. He sent plums to Cape Town. Those plums are graded into three classes, the price varying from approximately £3 16s. per ton for the poorest to £9 per ton for the best. The plums were sent to the depôt in Cape Town, and he was notified that they were ungraded plums—in other words, that they were poorer than the lowest grade, namely those which are sold at £3 16s. He was then asked to remove the fruit. He sent it to the Cape Town market, and he got £22 per ton on the Cape Town market for those plums for which the depot would not pay £3 16s. per ton. I mention these things to show the chaotic position in which we find ourselves. What we want is that there should be as little interference as possible with the existing channels which are designed to bring products to the consumers. There will be time for that at a later date. In the meantime we should create new channels to bring these products to potential consumers who in the past have not been able to obtain the products of the farmers. Let me mention a few other points in connection with this matter. I know the position in Langkloof, and there are large numbers of farmers in the Western Province who are in this position, where the farmers, after many years, have built up a good reputation for their fruit. The farmer markets his fruit under his own name and builds up a reputation. The consumers get to know the fruit of the farmer concerned and they are prepared to pay a little more for his fruit because they know that it is of the best quality. It costs money to build up a reputation for one’s product, but there are some farmers who have done so in the course of years, and today the benefit of that market which the man has built up for his own products is totally destroyed, because all the fruit is now sold through a pool and the good reputation which he built up is no longer of any value to him. The hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) has indicated two methods whereby, in his opinion, the price which the consumer pays can be controlled. I think I correctly understood him to say that the maximum price should be fixed at which the retailer will be allowed to sell. That may be of assistance—it may be of temporary assistance—but what he suggested is tantamount to treating the symptoms of the disease. If a cure is sought, medical men will certainly agree that it is of no avail to treat the symptoms; one has to go to the root of the evil and cure the disease at that point. Then the different symptoms will disappear automatically. I am now speaking of Cape Town, of which I have experience, and the fluctuation in prices, as far as the products of the farmers are concerned, and the gap between the price which the farmers get and the price which the consumer has to pay, are, in fact, due to defective channels between the producers and the consumers. If we could remove those factors which block the channels, so as to permit of a faster and natural flow from the producer to the consumer, we would obviate the price fluctuations to a great extent and we would obviate the payment of abnormal prices by the consumer. I just want to give one example to show what I mean. I am thinking of a certain product, the name of which I do not want to mention. It is a variety of fruit, but I do not want to mention it by name lest I be ruled out of order. This was sold at 4s. and 5s. 6d. to 6s. per sugar bag. There was an average of 17 to 18 of this type of fruit in each sugar bag and the housewife paid 3d. to 4d. apiece. The farmers received from 4s. to 6s., but in December the market for this particular variety of fruit collapsed; it was on about the 18th December. I happen to know because I personally produce that type Of fruit. The price suddenly fell from an average of 5s. per sugar bag to 6d. to 1s. The average price fell from 5s. to 9d. per sugar bag, but the consumers in Cape Town still paid exactly the same price as previously and the housewife did not get a penny reduction as a result of the tremendous drop in the price of this particular product. There is a leakage somewhere; there is something radically wrong. The system of sale in Cape Town has a great deal to do with it. You get the vender who goes about with his push cart. He goes to the early morning market and buys a load of peaches. Whether he has to pay 5s. or 6d. per box, he only fills his push cart and then he goes to the streets where he usually hawks and sells the load there for £2. He may have paid 6d. or 10s., but he sells his stock to regular customers only and he sells just the one cart load; he cannot return to fill his cart again because by the time he has sold the first load the market is closed. Consequently the consumer derives no benefit from the cheaper price which the farmer gets for his products nor does the farmer get the benefit of a greater turnover as a result of the cheaper price. The same applies to a great extent in the case of vegetable and fruit shops. The greater majority of them have their regular clientele, say 30, 40, 50 or 100 families to which such a shop supplies vegetables and fruit; they know that their clients call every day for a certain amount of fruit and vegetables and there is no incentive for the man to lower the price of his vegetables because he knows that he is going to sell just a certain quantity that day, and for that reason the public does not get the benefit of a reduction in prices. Thirdly, we have far too many vegetable and fruit shops in Cape Town. The other day J was standing at Sea Point and within 150 yards, on either side of me, there were six shops selling fruit whereas one would have been more than enough to serve that spot. And the prices do not come down as a result of the competition. They have to keep their prices high because their turnover is so small. What can we do to meet the situation? Last year I put a suggestion forward. I speak of Cape Town again where I am acquainted with the circumstances. We must create supplementary machinery in order to bring the agricultural products to the consumers in such a way that the consumers can obtain the products without undue trouble and there must be open channels through which the products of the farmers can flow to the consumers. The wholesale and retail prices must to a large extent be fixed. In Cape Town there are two municipal markets, one in Cape Town and one in Salt River. There should be 20 or 25—call them depôts if you like—of the central market. Throughout the Peninsula the position should be such that the housewife can get to the market easily. What will you attain then? Let us again take the product to which I referred and for which the producer at first got an average of 5s. per bag and later 6d. per bag. As soon as the price drops to 6d. per bag, the vegetable shop will have to reduce its price because otherwise the housewife could go to the market and buy the product there cheaply. The moment that happens, the sale of the product will increase as a result of the lower price, the demand will increase and the farmer will sooner get the normal price which is remunerative to him.

What about a mobile market as there is in Johannesburg?

That may also be good. The point is that the system of distribution should be made as convenient as possible. You would have depôts, and the housewife could easily reach the depôt and in that way the public would get the benefit of lower prices whilst the farmer would get the benefit of a bigger turnover. In that way you would promote stability. In that way you would to a great extent restore the natural balance between purchase and sale, and the farmer would get a more stabilised price than he gets today, while on the other hand, you would protect the consumer against prices such as those referred to by the hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Russell), where a profit of 400 per cent., 500 per cent. and 600 per cent. is made on the farmer’s product. We are now again spending £280,000 to keep the Deciduous Fruit Board going. During the past few years, we have spent £1,000,000 in an effort to keep the fruit industry going, but we are in exactly the same position we were previously. We are treating the symptoms of the disease; we are not curing the disease. Let us step in, in a big city like Cape Town for example, and make an experiment with a proper system of distribution, with depôts throughout the Peninsula, at such distances that they are easily accessible to the housewife and coupled with delivery services. It may cost £1,000,000, but then we shall have something for our money. We have now spent £1,000,000 without accomplishing anything. I am convinced that if we put that scheme into operation, we will get something that will benefit both the consumer and the producer and it will work so satisfactorily that it will be introduced throughout the Country.

I have been greatly struck by the addresses of the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) and Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer). There is no doubt that today chaos prevails under this system of control. We have this fact, that people are tired of control, especially in the towns. I do not blame them too much, because we can understand it when we see how control is exercised today. As has been indicated by the two hon. members, there are two sections who have a deep interest in the matter, namely, the man who produces and the man who buys. It admits, however, of no doubt that if you want to have proper control then we must also have cold storage accommodation. You must also therefore have control when you are dealing with perishable products. Otherwise it is impossible to exercise control. I was glad to note that both hon. members pointed out that it is not the producer who is today making money, and who is making the consumer pay through his nose. That has been quite clearly shown. In the past the middleman always came along and endeavoured through the newspapers, and otherwise, to divide the people into two sections. Today they can no longer do that. But now we demand that there should be a proper system of marketing. The farmers prices must be fixed and the middleman must be paid for his services. We appreciate that the middleman must be paid properly for his services, but the middleman must not exploit us as happens today, and as has happened in the past. He must not be allowed to make up to 900 per cent. profit. Such malpractices must be prevented. One can point to what is done in other countries in this connection, but one of the worst faults in our country is the manner in which control boards are composed.

The hon. member may not at present discuss control boards generally. This item deals with the deciduous fruit industry.

We also pay here for control of the deciduous fruit industry, and we point to the fact that the control is inefficient. The hon. member for Humansdorp gave fine examples of this. We realise that we cannot cut out the middleman, but we can supplement the system. Last year he spoke about depôts. I feel that there are in Cape Town far too few depots, and that we ought to supplement the distribution system. Then I should like to say something about the wheat industry. Here a sum is voted in connection with the stabilisation of the price of bread. That ought to fall under “Trade and Industry” not under the vote of “Agriculture.” It is not in its right place here. This is not something that goes to the farmer but it goes to the baker, and it misleads the public to place it in this vote. We are always hearing that the farmer is being assisted, but this amount is not for the farmer. I am always enquiring whether the right costs of production of wheat have been calculated. I fear that we are only guessing, and the Wheat Control Board is used to conceal the mistakes of the Department and of the Government. I wonder whether the actual costs of production are taken into consideration or whether indeed these are known. I believe not. The Wheat Control Board is only there to protect the Government. The Cabinet decides what the price will be, not the board. The wheat Board is there in main to arrange things, but it is the Government that really does so. Then there is a subsidy on the manufacture of jam. I do not know how that can be introduced into this vote, because it should also fall under “Trade and Industry”. It does not really belong here. It gives the impression that the farmers are obtaining the subsidy, which is by no means the case.

I should like to ask something from the Minister of Finance in connection with Vote No. 38, “Expenses in connection with repatriation by exchange of Union and German nationals,” This is a complete vote, not just a matter of an increase. I am not opposed to the principle of the exchange of German nationals and Union nationals, but I think there are one or two absurdities, and I should like to bring one or two instances to the notice of the House. One case that I want to mention concerns a person who was naturalised as far back as 1935, and who in July of last year was denaturalised. His naturalisation was cancelled, and he received notice that he would be repatriated to Germany. He received a form which he had to fill in. For 9½ years he was a naturalised Union citizen, and now suddenly he has to be repatriated. Another case affects a person who fought on the Boer side in the Boer War of 1899 to 1902, and who also has now received intimation that he is to be repatriated. I cannot approve of that. I do not think it is right and I believe that the House will also not approve. The first case affects a person who is very closely connected to certain members of this House, yes, to the Prime Minister himself. I may say this, that his wife was the foster child of the Prime Minister’s parents. So close is the relationship. I have a letter here from the Prime Minister’s mother from which it appears that they had adopted her. Now the husband has to be repatriated, his wife being closely related to the Prime Minister and being my sister. I must mention this case, because I want to give the reason why I cannot approve of the expenditure. I do not think it is right to cancel the naturalisation in this way and then to repatriate the people. I may say that in one case, the case of my brother-in-law, he was interned, but he was released on parole, and later he was freed of all restrictions. Now his Union citizenship is suddenly cancelled and he has to be repatriated. I want to register my protest against that. If Germans are exchanged for Union Nationals, well and good, but do not let us exchange Germans for people who were Union nationals and who are now suddenly made German nationals. I want to bring this matter very strongly to the attention of the Cabinet.

I should like to invite the attention of the Minister of Agriculture to Vote No. 21, Agriculture, where an additional sum of £388,000 is asked for expenses in connection with the stabilisation of the price of bread. This figure makes me nervous. It is in respect of the 1944-’45 season, and I want to draw attention to the fact that this year the crop in the Free State has been a hopeless failure, and that it is right that provision should be made for seed wheat. I want to ask the Minister whether it has been taken into account that provision should be made for seed wheat, so that all the wheat will not be milled.

Apparently these additional estimates have rather disappointed hon. members opposite. In other words, they would have preferred to have seen the amount much larger, because then it would have been easier for them to pass criticism. As the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) has rightly said, the amount is considerably smaller than that we asked for last year on the corresponding additional estimates, and to that extent I accept the congratulations of the hon. member for George. The hon. member for Ceres (Dr. Stals) has apparently been somewhat misled by the figures which he has read in the Government Gazette. Those figures were, of course, absolutely correct, but then the hon. member ought to exercise some caution in the inferences that he draws from them at times. I have already frequently noticed that some of his friends of the Press are also somewhat misled by the figures. It is entirely correct to say that further additional estimates will appear, as I have stated, but where the hon. member has gone wrong is that he has assumed that the expenditure for the remainder of the year will necessarily be on the same average basis as for the first part of the year, and this is particlarly misleading as far as concerns the figures for defence. I may just say that the scale of our expenditure in respect of War Expenditure Account will apparently be lower in the last few months than they were for the first part of the year, and it is to be hoped that our income as far as this particular account is concerned, will also reach a higher average than it was in the first part of the year. Thus although I cannot predict with confidence what our expenditure is going to be, I consider that the position will be better than the hon. member anticipates. I do not want to go into the specific points that have been dealt with. Most of them can be better dealt with during the Committee stage. The principal debate related to the Deciduous Fruit Board, and several interesting speeches were made in that connection, especially by the hon. members for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) and Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) I think, however, that it will be better to leave this matter to the Minister of Agriculture to go into during Committee when we shall probably hear of it again. The other matters that have been mentioned, as for instance demobilisation and commissions and the question of the pear growers, may also be treated better in Committee. The hon. member for Ceres put a question in connection with the Public Service Commission of Inquiry. I only want to say this, that it is a fact that an interin report has been presented in connection with the first part of the Commission’s terms of reference, namely, the question as to what immediate relief should be granted to officials as a result of war conditions. The Government took immediate steps to get the report printed, so that it could be laid on the Table, and the recommendations of the Commission are at present being studied by the Government. In regard to the question concerning the manufacture of jam, I would just mention this that the provision in the main estimates is based on 30,000 tons, while provision is now made for an increase of one-third, so that it is on the basis of 40,000 tons. The other matters, such as that mentioned by the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Brink) can be better dealt with in Committee. I think the Minister of Justice will then be able to deal with those points.

†Then, Mr. Speaker, just a word about the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Sullivan). He was, as usual, very eloquent, but his eloquence on this occasion was spoilt by rather elementary ignorance. The hon. member gave us a lecture on fascism and democracy. He said that these estimates represented the decline of democratic government. He told us that all this expenditure of two-and-a-half millions or so has already been incurred by the Government, and that hon. members have been asked to come here like mindless robots to approve of that expenditure. I hope the hon. member will excuse me if I tell him that he just does not know what he is talking about. The great bulk of this expenditure has not been incurred. We are here dealing with estimates of expenditure still to be incurred between now and the end of the financial year. A certain amount has been incurred, but that expenditure has been incurred in terms of the authority granted by Parliament.

It was the principle I enunciated.

That is the principle my hon. friend enunciates, but when last year Parliament granted increased authority to the Government to incur expenditure by special warrant in anticipation of the authority of Parliament. I did not hear my hon. friend opposing that. That was his opportunity. Last year Parliament gave us, quite rightly, increased powers of incurring expenditure by special warrant in anticipation of Parliamentary authority. Actually the total amount of special warrants in anticipation of these first additional estimates is under £300,000, and that does not mean that even all that money has been spent; only a portion of that money has been spent. So my hon. friend will see that he missed the boat very badly. Nothing like two-and-a-half million pounds has been spent, and what has been spent has been spent in terms of the authority granted to the Government by Parliament itself. There is therefore no question of a break with democratic principles, nor has there been any impairment of the sovereignty of the House.

Motion put and agreed to.

House to go into Committee on 23rd January.