I move—

1. (1) Sittings and adjournments: The House shall meet at eleven o’clock a.m. on each sitting day; business shall be suspended at a quarter to one o’clock p.m. and resumed at a quarter past two o’clock p.m.; and at a quarter to seven o’clock p.m. if business be not sooner concluded Mr. Speaker shall adjourn the House.
2. (2) Precedence of Private Members’ business on Tuesdays and Fridays: On days on which private members’ business has precedence (viz.: Tuesdays and Fridays) if such business be under consideration at a quarter past four o’clock p.m. the House shall proceed to the consideration of Government business standing on the Order Paper next after private members’ business.
3. (3) Application of “Eleven o’clock rule”: In the application of the foregoing sessional orders resort shall be had mutatis mutandis, to the provisions of paragraphs (1) to (4) of Standing Order No. 26 and paragraph (2) of Standing Order No. 102.
4. (4) Sittings of Select Committees: In terms of Standing Order No. 242 Select Committees shall have leave to sit during the sittings of the House.

This motion provides for the sessional order under which we shall continue during this session to sit in the mornings in the same way as we have been sitting in previous sessions during the war period. I understand that there has been contact between the parties on both sides of the House, and that this is the result. We shall adopt this sessional order, which of course is subject to any change which we might make later. There are many circumstances which still make it desirable we should sit in the mornings rather than in the evenings, and as this seems to be for the general convenience of members, I move.

I second.

With reference to the motion of the Prime Minister I should just like to point out that now already, in the beginning of the Session, only one hour and ten minutes is allowed to private members for private motions, because it usually takes until more or less 2.50 p.m. before the questions have been dealt with.

After the first two weeks we will sit in the morning.

Yes, but my point is simply that from the very beginning we now have to deal with this sort of motion, which generally is proposed only towards the latter end of the Session. The time of private members is curtailed. After, four o’clock Government work is dealt with. That is not fair towards the motions of private members. There are a number of important motions of private members on the agenda. They ought to be considered thoroughly because they deal with important matters. There are also a few private members who submitted private bills, and we know from experience how difficult it is for a private member to guide a private bill through this House. For that reason the time of private members should not be curtailed so early in the Session. I want to impress upon the Prime Minister that he should exhibit a little more consideration for motions and bills emanating from private members.

I must agree with my colleague the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) in the matter of this infringement of the rights of private members, in regard to which the Government does not seem prepared to do anything. I consider that there is an unnecessary waste of time in answering questions. We find that if one looks at the Order Paper questions are piling up. There are questions from A—Z which will take almost one hour to answer. That takes away time from the private members and I want to suggest that the Government should consider doing away with this verbal answering of questions in the House. If a member asks a question, I am quite satisfied that he wants some information, and it is quite immaterial whether he gets the information in the House or in typewritten form censored by the Minister. In any case, most of the time it is quite impossible to hear the Minister’s reply to a question. So it appears to me that the only practical purpose which is served by the verbal answering of questions in the House by Ministers is that the Press are then in a position to take them down. But it is never quite satisfactory, and I suggest that the Government should consider abolishing this verbal answering of questions. If questions are answered in type written form by the Minister, the Minister or the member would be at full liberty to hand these typewritten replies to the Press for publication. That would save us at least half an hour to one hour, which is the period of time private members are now to be deprived of. I seriously think that the Minister should consider that, because as things are now private members are compelled to give up some of their restricted rights in the House.

In the previous Session I bewailed the fact that the rights of this democratic institution, Parliament, are curtailed from time to time. We copy what the British Parliament does. There they sit during the whole year, but here we sit for only three or four months per annum, and now our rights are being steadily curtailed. There are members who have a large correspondence and who have to perform much work during the morning. One has to interview departments and one has certain obligations to fulfil towards one’s constituents. If now we have to sit in the mornings right from the beginning, how will we be able to do our work? Why cannot we sit at night, as in the past? Why must our rights be curtailed? I would much prefer us to sit the whole year, and to meet from time to time when trouble arises in order to deal with these difficulties, but now everything that happens during nine months is withheld until we meet, and by that time these difficulties have been solved or have lost their urgency. Why do you speak about democracy? Do not be hypocritical. We as a democratic institution must safeguard the democratic rights of the nations. Only as recently as yesterday we had the case of a motion of censure from the Leader of the Opposition, which was postponed and pushed aside. In this manner we are playing into the hands of a dictatorship. Our Parliamentary institution has become a fiasco and one of the reasons for it is that the rights of members have been ignored. My feeling is that for at least the first month of the Session our time should not be curtailed in this manner. We have here grievances of people that have been accumulating during the year, we must interview Ministers and approach departments, but we have not the necessary time in which to do so. I do not know what the position of the other members is, but I receive many letters, not only from my own constituency but from the whole country, and I cannot fulfil my duties as a member of Parliament and treat all these cases on their merits. I agree with the hon. members that at least during the first month we should not sit in the mornings, and that we should rather sit at night.

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me unfortunate that at a time when the voice of the private member should be heard in the House it is apparently to be rendered silent. Whatever course may be adopted by this House, whether the motion which has been moved by the Right Hon. the Prime Minister is adopted, or whether the suggestion of the member for Fordsburg (Mr. Bumside) is followed, a considerable share of the opportunities which private members at present enjoy of discussing matters of Parliamentary concern, will be appropriated by the Government. As far as I am concerned I think the Government take far too much of the time of the House for themselves. It goes to their heads. They become impervious to the general needs of the country and discussion on matters which oppress the people is curtailed. I strongly object to the appropriation of time of private members by the Government at this stage of the Session. It seems to me, Sir, to savour of oppression, and the strong feeling that there is in the country today to the effect that the public are being ignored, that they are trodden underfoot and that they suffer under the tyranny of civil servants, who should have less power, is strengthened. I hope that the Prime Minister, with the greater wisdom that he possesses, wisdom greater than that of all members of his cabinet put together will say: No, on reconsideration, we do not propose to do this; we shall postpone this change in any case for two months, and then adopt it only if it is absolutely imperative, in order to complete the work of the Session.

I wish to support this motion of the Prime Minister. The Leader of the Opposition, and I personally, will always oppose any attack on the rights of private members, and if I had seen a serious attack here on the rights of private members I would certainly not have supported this motion. But the attack in this case is more imaginary than real. According to the Standing Rule of Orders, as it was always applied, private members in practice had the time of the House at their disposal on two defined days of the week from 2.15 to 6 p.m. I can hardly ever remember private member motions being discussed at night. I cannot remember any single instance when this happened. Generally when it comes to the time for adjournment, 6 o’clock, the postponement of the debate is proposed, whether discussion on the motion has been completed or not. Sometimes it is stretched out for a little while after 6 p.m., but as a rule there were no evening sittings. If that was always the rule, it means that this motion really does not curtail the privileges of private members. Except for this: If I remember correctly I raised this same point last year, when a motion of this nature was before the House, and I then asked the Prime Minister whether, when there are important motions of private members before the House, and some of these motions are unfinished at 4.15, when the House breaks off in order to continue with something else, the Government would then extend special consideration in connection with motions of this nature. The Prime Minister replied favourably. He did not make a hard and fast promise but he answered favourably that the Government would, if it was in any way possible, grant facilities for the discussion of such motions, either then or when a later opportunity arose. I hope that the Prime Minister will give the assurance that this will also happen in the future.

The whole object of the Government in proposing this measure is to make the same arrangement that was applied last year. I want to assure the Leader of the Opposition that there is no intention of making any change in the application of this rule. As far as the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) is concerned, he accuses the Government of now trying by means of this motion, to curtail the time of private members.

I say that it is being done too soon.

I can give him the assurance that that is not our object. As far as the Government is concerned it is all the same to us whether the House sits in the morning, or in the evening. I understand that it is the wish of the large majority of members on both sides of the House that we should have such an arrangement, and this wish has been transmitted to the Government and we are now putting it into practice. We have no real interest in whether we sit in the morning or in the evening; we are just trying to consider the convenience of members. Members say that they are now living throughout the whole Peninsula from Sea Point to Muizenberg and still further, and the means of transport still remain scarce and conveniences for travel have been curtailed, with the result that it is inconvenient for members to return at night for evening sittings. Therefore, we are satisfying the wishes of members by means of this motion. There is no curtailment of the time of private members under this motion. Whether the House sits in connection with private work from 11 to 4, or from 2.15 to 6 makes no difference.

My point is that these measures are being adopted too early in the Session

Under the old practice we started with evening sittings from the 11th sitting day. Instead of that we are now proposing this new arrangement. As far as the other point raised by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) is concerned, this is something for which I always had a fair amount of sympathy, namely that we will save time by following the same rule as that of the House of Commons, viz.: allowing certain classes of answers to questions merely to be handed in and published, without the replies being read. I am in favour of that. It is the practice of the House of Commons to lay on the Table answers to questions which merely seek for information, which may then be published. There is much to say in favour of this practice. It is something that the committee for Standing Orders may investi gate to see whether we cannot adopt the same kind of arrangement. There will be questions, the answers to which will be given in the House. That is something which the committee could investigat.

Will the replies then be published in Hansard?

Yes, everything is published, but the verbal answering in the House of a large number of questions is eliminated. I repeat, however, that this suggestion is made to meet the convenience of members of the House.

Motion put and agreed to.

I am forced to repeat today the motion which I put yesterday, namely to move again—

I do this for the same reason I did it yesterday, namely to step into the breach here for one of the most reverent traditions of Parliament, and secondly to give this Parliament an opportunity of discussing the state of emergency which exists in the country. When I put my motion yesterday the Government pretended that there was a misunderstanding. They did not know how fundamental the principle is in our opinion and how strongly we insist on it that the traditions of Parliament with reference to motions by the Leader of the Opposition should be respected. There are people inside and outside Parliament who yesterday perhaps allowed themselves to be influenced by that excuse. Today no excuse of this nature can be made. After what happened yesterday it must be clear to everybody in this House and outside that the action of the Government in again pushing the motion of the Leader of the Opposition into the background is the result of one thing and of one thing only—it is pure and unadulterated obstinacy, and the Government is showing here that it is purposely trampling underfoot the old traditions of Parliament.

Why did you not protest last year?

This is an obstinate course of action on the part of the Government affecting an old privilege of Parliament. It was recognised by the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander), that it is a privilege of Parliament. It is an intentional derogation from the rights of Parliament by the Government if this motion is postponed. The Government has the power. We can do nothing. We can only appeal to the sense of decency of the Government. I wish to inform the Prime Minister that that is our only protection, the sense of decency of the Government, and the respect it has for the practices and traditions of Parliament. Yesterday I appealed to the sense of decency and respect hon. members have for the privileges and traditions of Parliament.

I do so again today.

Are you going to do that every day now?

It is our only protection. We will not try to take revenge and to waste the time of the House. There is a state of emergency in the country. We know that the nation outside, above everything else, wants houses and health services, security for the future, and work. We have come here either to force the Government to do these things or else to expose the Government. Once again I wish to protest strongly against the way in which the Government is derogating from our privileges. It is our intention to divide the House on this matter.

I rise merely to reply to the accusation of the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth), to the effect that the Government is acting obstinately in this matter and that for the sake of decency and good taste it is necessary for the Government in this case not to stand by what it has decided on. Allow me to say that under ordinary circumstances, if there had been a motion of no confidence, we would not have hesitated to stand by the old practice. If the motion had been in terms of a motion of confidence we would have followed the old practice, but the motion of the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) is not in the form of a motion of no confidence. He himself calls it a motion of censure. Under the circumstances doubt arose as to whether it was a motion of no confidence or a motion of censure, as the hon. member himself called it. For that reason we considered it right to arrange a discussion between the Whips of the two sides to see whether an arrangement could not be come to. We are, of course, very anxious, not in our own interest, but in the interest of the Senate, not to keep the Senate here for several weeks, and therefore to have the discussion on the additional estimates completed so that the Senate can deal with it. That is the reason why we want to have it finished before the debate on the motion of the hon. member for Piketberg is continued. It is not that we want to obstruct the motion. Next week, as soon as the additional estimates have been dealt with, all the necessary and reasonable time will be given for the discussion of the motion. It is only for the convenience of Parliament that we tried to come to an arrangement with the other side. A discussion took place and we were informed that there would be no objection to our arranging the Order Paper as it is now being done.

That was the excuse yesterday but it does not hold water today.

After mutual discussion we were informed that there was no objection. After that there was obviously consultation between the leaders on the other side and now they are dissatisfied with the arrangement.

On a point of order, I declared yesterday that no agreement had been come to.

What is the point of order?

That the Prime Minister is casting doubt on my words. I declared that there was no arrangement and the Prime Minister says that there was one. He is doubting my word.

The hon. member can make a statement at a later stage.

The point of order is that my word has been doubted.

The hon. member is not following what I am saying. He bursts into flame without considering what I said. I say that on our information, on the information which we had, there was no objection from the other side, and the Order Paper was drafted accordingly, and because the Government acted within its rights in regulating it like that, it was so regulated, and we see no reason for changing it now. That is the only reason why we acted as we did, not out of obstinacy, not to do violence to existing practice, but because we were given to understand that the matter had been arranged between the Whips and that we could proceed in the way we have proposed.

I regret that we have received from the Prime Minister a speech such as he has just delivered. I do not think that it contributes in any way to the solution of the matter or to good relationship in the House. The Prime Minister reverted to the question which was discussed here at length yesterday, and which I think was answered fully, namely whether one must distinguish here between a motion of censure and a motion of no confidence, or whether this motion of censure is in fact a motion of no confidence. Well, on the Order Paper it is called a motion of censure. The wording of the motion itself is such that not the least doubt can exist about it. If you look at the contents of the motion—you need not even accept our assurance from this side of the House—if you accuse the Government that it has made a mess of its administration; if you accuse the Government of inefficiency and laxity; if you accuse the Government that it is planless and that it breaks its promises; if you accuse it of being incapable of dealing with a matter which is today of the very greatest importance in the post-war circumstances; if you accuse it of not giving social security to the nation, then I say: Is that not lack of confidence? If this motion is accepted no Government can remain in power a day longer, and it will at once accept such a motion as one of no confidence. If the motion is accepted will you remain sitting there? You will not! But if that is so, why did you then throw doubt on the fact that it is a motion of no confidence? The other argument used here yesterday has had the bottom knocked out of, namely that we should consider the convenience of the Senate. Well, is the Senate overworked? Do you think that anybody will say that the Senate has too much work or is overworked in any year? And if it is a question of a week, or even of a fortnight it is the duty of the Senate to remain here; they can deal with a large amount of work. I do not think that the Senate insists on being considered in this manner.

They are enjoying their holiday.

I do not see why this is used here as an argument.

If it were a motion of no confidence they would also have to sit.

The Prime Minister further said that we need not complain because enough time will be awarded to this motion; the Government will see to it that it gets enough time. But it is not our only complaint that not enough time will be given to the matter; or rather that is not the complaint at all. The complaint is against the interruption. A motion of this nature, which is an accusation against the Government, is not only fundamentally so important that it should get preference above other work, but you can well understand how the general impression of such a complaint and the discussion thereon is lost when it is interrupted and spread over a number of days with a large amount of work interposed. We have had experience in connection with other matters last year and practically in every Session. Our complaint is against the interruption. This matter is of still more importance in that we have already discussed it yesterday and today. It is a matter which affects the relationship between that side of the House and this side of the House. It is an infringement of the rights of the Opposition; and not only is it an infringement of the privileges of the Opposition but it in fact ignores the existence of the Opposition as such, and all I can say in that connection is: You may strike, but then we have the right to retaliate, and a method of retaliation exists. The work of this Parliament can go smoothly with the goodwill and co-operation of both sides of the House—only in that case—but if you treat this side of the House as you have treated it then I say: What right have you to ask us to grant you facilities from our side? You have no right to do that. I say it is a more far-reaching question than that which we have already discussed. It affects the goodwill and the co-operation between the two sides, and if it continues like this I say that we will very seriously consider—and that right in the beginning of the Session—whether we should grant any consideration to the Government.

Motion put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—43 :

Bekker, G. F. H.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bremer K.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Erasmus H. S.

Fouché, J. J.

Grobler, D. C S.

Haywood, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Le Roux, J; N.

Le Roux, S. P.

Louw, E. H.

Ludick, A. I.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Malan, D. F.

Mentz, F. E.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Potgieter, J. E.

Serfontein J. J.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swanepoel, S. J.

Swart, C. R.

Van Niekerk, J. G. W.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Wilkens, J.

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

Noes—881

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Barlow, A. G.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, J. C.

Bosman L. P.

Bowker, T. B.

Bumside, D. C.

Butters, W. R.

Carinus, J. G.

Christopher, R. M.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Connan, J. M.

Davis A.

De Kock, P. H.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Eksteen, H. O.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Gray, T. P.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Henny, G. E. J.

Heyns, G. C. S.

HiggertyJ. W.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Latimer, A.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Maré, F. J.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Morris, J. W. H.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payn, A. O. B.

Payne, A. C.

Pocock, P. V.

Raubenheimer, L. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Russell, J. H.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steyn, C. F.

Stratford, J. R. F.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Tighy, S. J.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Wanless, A. T.

Waring, F. W.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Wolmarans, J. B.

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

Motion accordingly negatived.

I should like to ask the hon. Minister, under K, what is really meant by “help to producers”. This morning we went to the Department of Agriculture as a deputation and it was explained to us that the Government intends to provide seed wheat. That will naturally be to indigent farmers. Under the circumstances I should just like to tell the hon. Minister this, that in view of the harvest failures there have been for the last two years and the drought which is afflicting the country today, the Government must really do something in this connection in order to help the farmers. My constituency has asked for seed wheat and even cattle farmers there have asked that the Government should meet them in regard to seed oats in order to see that the animals do not all die. Heaps of animals have perished in the Free State. If we consult statistics it will be apparent that the Free State has suffered heavy losses, and I think that the time has arrived when the Government should review the position. If things continue in this way I am afraid that the position will become much worse and I hope that the Minister will attend to the matter.

The information asked for by the hon. member who has just sat down is the following: That amount is constituted as follows: Subsidy on lucerne seed, making good damage caused by floods, subsidy to citrus growers, trekking scheme at Vryheid, farmers whose cattle have been slaughtered owing to East Coast fever; and on all those items of expenditure there is an amount of £10,200 that must be voted. That is what that vote consists of. I wish to reply to a few of the points which were raised yesterday afternoon, inter alia, by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth). I see he is not present at the moment.

We will have him called.

May I repeat again in connection with what he said that the Deciduous Fruit Board earned no profit; it is not a board which exists in order to make a profit. All they make is 2½ per cent., which they take for their costs of administration, and if a profit is made on the sale of fruit it goes into the pool and the producers are paid out on the basis of what is made. That as far as the £280,000 is concerned, which is paid by way of subsidy.

Do they form a pool composed of everything, or are the various kinds of fruit like peaches and plums kept separate?

I think it is kept separate. Another insinuation made by the hon. member is that the accounts of the Board are kept secret; nobody can discover what the position is in connection with the Board’s accounts. I should like to say that there is no question of secrecy as far as the accounts are concerned; the accounts are submitted to the National Marketing Board regularly, and any member of the House can see them. They will be shown to any member of the House who wishes to see them.

Since when is this being done?

I do not think there was ever a secret as far as I know.

Have you not read the McDonald Report?

I hope that What I say will satisfy my hon. friend, and if he wishes to see the accounts he can go and have a look at them.

†With regard to the points made by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) we had some doubt as to whether this system of sale by weight would be a success or not. I was reassured on that point by the hon. member for South Peninsula (Mr. Sonnenberg) who has been of very great assistance to the fruit industry as a distributor. He has been of very great assistance to the Deciduous Eruit Board not only in making suggestions, but in disposing of the fruit as a very large distributor. With his practical experience and business judgment he has no doubt whatever, that it is a workable system, and if it is a workable system I think everyone in the House will agree it makes for better consumer protection. So I think my hon. friend ought to be reassured on that point as well;

Where does the advice of the hon. member for South peninsula come in?

He has a large store where he sells a large amount of fruit.

I thought the point you made yesterday was that all the fruitsellers are very poor people.

I did not make the point, and if my hon. friend does not agree he can take it up with the hon. member concerned; nor have I said that the hon. member for South Peninsula is a very wealthy man. But that point does not arise now. The other point made by the hon. member for Fordsburg was with regard to the extra penny that was fixed for those centres other than the Cape Peninsula, and he raised the question of fruit growing in the Transvaal. The Transvaal is not a controlled area, and in any case this is only a maximum price, and that fruit can be sold at a lower price, still allowing the traders a fair margin of profit. The hon. member for South Peninsula raised the question as to whether this subsidy was not a subsidy to reimburse the fruitgrowers who have lost their export market. That is so. The subsidy was instituted because the export market had disappeared, and fruitgrowers had to look to the local market only. These growers had to confine themselves to the local market only. They had lost their export market, and to keep them going in this time of emergency, the Government agreed to pay a subsidy. At the start an attempt was made to separate the exporters from those who served only the local market. That was found unworkable, and it was also found not equitable to do that, because the exporters do not export now but they trench on the local market. That was obviously at the disposal of the grower for the local demand. So you cannot discriminate and have to let the subsidy go to all the growers. But I should like to assure my hon. friend that the interests of the Constantia people are looked after as well as possible. The Constantia area has a representative on the Fruit Board, and everything will be done to safeguard their interests as far as possible. Then we have a suggestion made by the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. Waring) that, it would have been far better for the producers and consumers if there had been no Board at all and if this subsidy, this amount of £280,000 had been handed over direct to the farmers, and they were allowed to produce and sell to the public without any interference, and without any measure of control at all. We know that the hon. member is a wholehogger for private enterprise, and one can understand that would be his attitude. We know his view, that all these Boards ought to go. I want to point out, however, that that would not get us over the difficulties that have been reported on repeatedly by Government commissions on the fruit industry, because it would not enable us to eliminate the severe gluts alternating with shortages that would occur from time to time. There would be no orderly flow of fruit, but a glut at one time and then a shortage. There would then have to be a much bigger margin to cover the trade, and in the end it would be more expensive for the consumers. So on the whole I think the best way of dealing with the problem is to make the best we can of the Deciduous Fruit Board, and for that Board to function as efficiently as it possibly can. The Board has also been reconstituted. That is for the benefit of the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Mr. Derbyshire) who wanted to know whether I treated Parliament with contempt because this undertaking had been given that the Board would be reconstituted.

He is only wasting your time.

He has asked for the information and I shall give it to him if he wants it. I stated in the House yesterday in replying to some remarks in Afrikaans, that the Board had been reconstituted, the producer members had been elected by the fruitgrowers, and instead of one consumer member there were now three consumer members on the Board. They are the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) ….

Don’t talk about consumers; they never appointed these members. They are Government nominees.

Under the scheme I had to nominate them, and I nominated my hon. friend the member for Woodstock, Mrs. Harold Jones, who is a member of the National Council of Women, and a Mr. Ross of the South African Trades and Labour Council.

Are you satisfied they are all good consumers?

I am satisfied they are all good consumers, and all good consumer representatives. I think my friend the hon. member for Woodstock has already given proof of that. That is one respect in which the Board has been altered. The other respect in which it has been altered is that there is now a trade representative on the Board which had not been the case before. So the undertaking has been fully carried out;

Who is the trade representative?

The trade representative is Mr. J. van Eeden. I do not know what more my hon. friend wants me to tell him. The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) wanted to know where the fruit was and why it was so expensive. One reason why there has not been so much fruit as at other times is that there was almost a complete failure of crops, both in the Transvaal and the Free State owing to hail and frost, and the result has been a much heavier demand for Cape fruit. I think another reason is that there is very much greater spending power today and people buy more fruit and therefore there seems to be less fruit on the market. I would like to take the opportunity of giving an indication as to what can be expected for the current crop, firstly in the way of peaches, The position as far as peaches are concerned is that there has been a steady decline in the production of peaches, because even before the war it was found that it was not a highly payable line to grow peaches.

The farmers already want to take out their trees.

Yes, a large number of peach trees have been taken out and pears have been substituted. We are expecting only 8,000 tons this year of which the Board will take charge and which will be distributed by it. The plum crop expected is 6,000 tons of which 1,500 tons will be sold on the local market and the balance sold for jammaking. The demand for jam has increased very greatly during the war. In connection with pears there is a large crop, estimated at 18,000 tons, of which two to three thousand tons will be sold on the local market.

You do not handle pears.

6,000 tons to 7,000 tons will be canned and the balance will be dehydrated.

I hope the dehydration will not be done in the same way as it was last year.

I think the position the hon. member is referring to applied to only one firm. I cannot explain it now because I will be out of order in doing so, but there is an explanation and the hon. member will get that explanation at a later stage. As far as grapes are concerned the anticipated crop of table grapes is 49,000 tons, of which 25,000 to 29,000 tons will be sold on the local market and the balance delivered over for wine-making purposes. I may mention that only five to seven thousand tons of grapes were sold on the local market before the war.

Too much winemaking.

The quantity consumed locally has increased at least threefold. That, I think, gives an indication as to the amount of fruit the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) can expect in the coming season.

But what about the fruit which was ripe on the trees and which the people could not sell?

As far as possible all steps were taken to ensure that no fruit was wasted and that everything went to the consumers. As far as pears are concerned, even the peels and the core are converted into cattle forage.

I am speaking of the fruit which was ripe on the trees, and the people were not allowed to sell it.

The people themselves could have sold it to the public under a permit of the Deciduous Fruit Board or they could have sold it through the Fruit Board.

But could the Board refuse to give a permit?

If the hon. member wants to deal with a specific case, he should see me about it. I am not in a position at this moment to furnish him with any information in regard to specific cases. Then the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naude) raised another matter which is not concerned with the Deciduous Board. He stated that the amount of £10,000 which appears on the estimates in respect of assistance to farmers, was far too little and that it ought to be much more. In that connection he referred to the difficult position in his constituency as a result of the drought. Well, it is possible, if the £10,000 which has been voted here is not sufficient, that further provision will be made in the second additional estimates. But in the loan estimates provision has been made for seed wheat and such items. The hon. member need not therefore be concerned about that at all. As far as his own constituency is concerned, the hon. member will admit that I personally went into the matter and that I tried as far as possible to help the farmers. I have already gone out of my way to make tractors available to the district of Pietersburg. When I found that it was not possible for the Department of Defence to make tractors available because the Department did not have any, I approached the Transvaal Administration and I succeeded in getting a few tractors from the roads in order to come to the assistance of the farmers in that district in the state of emergency in which they found themselves.

†The hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) raised the question as to why fruit is so expensive today and made the point that whilst before the war one could buy grapes for, I think, 1d. per lb. today one has to pay a good deal more than that.

9d.

I mentioned the figures yesterday at which the price is fixed, and as from Monday it will be sold at these prices, and if my hon. friend is charged more than that. I hope he will assist us by giving us the information on which to secure prosecution.

But let me come to the reason why fruit is so much more expensive today. The reason is that every item in the production process of the fruit farmer, as in the case of almost every farmer, has gone up tremendously since the war began. Farm labour is very scarce and is more expensive and fertiliser is more expensive.

But the farmer does not get more.

It does not necessarily all go to the farmer.

Of course not. You spoke about the subsidy.

But you get the £280,000 as well. Every item of expense has gone up.

You are barking up the wrong tree.

Let me give my hon. friend the tree and he will agree with me. The biggest item of all as far as expenses are concerned is packing material. That has gone up tremendously and it is therefore understandable that the fruit is more expensive than it was before the war.

You allowed the price of land to get too high.

As far as the farmer is concerned we have now got the distributive margins fixed for both the retail and wholesale prices. After a price investigation and after everybody is satisfied that that is a fair price, the consumer will have no more reason to complain. The price will be only high enough to keep the farmer going in these difficult times and it will allow the trader a decent margin. On that basis I hope that we will hear less about the complaints in regard to the Deciduous Fruit Board. I hope that this step which we have taken will be given a fair chance and will be found to solve most of the difficulties that we have had in the past.

The Minsiter of Agriculture held it against me that I told him that he was barking up the wrong tree. The hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) asked him why fruit was so expensive to the consumer, and he tried to tell her just why fruit had become more expensive. He says that the production costs of the farmers have risen. It is quite true that the costs of production of the farmers have gone up. Everything which they have to buy is more expensive. The Minister is making it practically impossible for them to obtain those things which they require to increase their production, such as super-phosphate. If the Minister were to say that the farmer is faced with greater difficulties and that his costs of production have gone up, he would be quite correct. There I agree with him, but when he advances as a reason why fruit has become more expensive to the consumer the fact that the farmer has to get so much more today, then he is wrong, because in the majority of cases the farmer does not get more today; he gets less for his fruit and in those cases where he does get more, he gets very little more. I should like to read to the Minister a few figures from the McDonald Report in regard to the prices which obtained in the years 1937 to 1939, in other words, in the three years prior to the war, in comparison with the prices which ruled in the years 1943 to 1944. Before the war the average price of peaches was 3.7d. per lb. During the past year it was 3.4d. for first grade, 2.6d. for medium grade and 2.1d. for third grade. The majority is second grade and the average price was therefore 2.6d. as against 3.7d. before the war. Now the Minister states that the farmers are getting more and that for that reason the price to the consumer is higher.

I did not accuse the farmers.

No, but you said that the farmer’s costs had gone up, that he must consequently get more for his fruit and that the consumer has to pay more for that reason. I am proving that the farmer is not getting more. The average price for plums in the years 1937 to 1939 was 2.4d, and in 1943-1944 the average price for the best grade was 2.3d.

Was that the export price or the local price?

That was the local net price at the station of the grower. The farmers are not getting more today than they received at that time. At that time I exported, and I got very much more than I am getting now. I do not expect to get the same price today as the export price. But then the Minister must not tell the hon. member for Jeppes that the consumer has to pay so much more because the farmer is getting a much higher price in view of the fact that his production costs have risen.

I said that the farmer’s costs of production have risen.

Yes, and that for that reaso the consumer has to pay so much more.

I also spoke of higher packing costs.

That is part of the prodution oosts. There is no reference here to the average price plus the box, but the report speaks of the net price at the grower’s station.

But the greatest portion was delivered to the factories.

It does not matter to whom it was delivered. That is the price which the grower got at his station, to whomsoever he may have delivered it. I am getting less at present, and perhaps that cannot be helped, but the hon. Minister should not tell the hon. member for Jeppes that she has to pay more because the farmers’ costs have gone up and because he has to get more for his fruit. The fact is that he is not getting more but less. That is why I said that the Minister of Agriculture was barking up the wrong tree. He does not know what the reason is why the consumers have to pay more. It is not because the farmer is getting more to cover his additional costs. There is another leakage in the channel between the producer and the consumer; that channel gets blocked, and the Minister should make investigations to ascertain the fault. He will not find it with the farmer.

There is also the waste of money by the Deciduous Fruit Board.

I may say that the Minister wisely agreed that the Marketing Board would have control of the finances. Is that so?

Yes.

I am very glad he did so, because we find in the McDonald report that adverse comment was made in regard to this aspect of the matter. But I want to come back to the qeustion of marketing and the question of where the fault lies. I do not want to go into details again. I mentioned them in Parliament last year, and I pointed out the enormous difference between the price which the farmer gets and the price which the consumer has to pay. I then told the Minister that the same things which had taken place during the previous year would again take place, and in December they did take place again. There was a glut on the market, and no provision was made and no machinery provided to protect the producers and the consumers on the one hand against too high prices and on the other hand against too low prices. I suggested what should be done but nothing was done. Now we are having a repetition of the whole difficulty, and I want to tell the Minister again that in my opinion he should adopt that plan, or we shall have another repetition of that state of affairs. The McDonald report says that the only solution is the solution which I suggested, namely the establishment of dépôts in the big cities in order to be able to control the prices charged by the retailer.

And the Control Board now states that they are not going to do it.

I do not care what they do. I have told the Minister what my opinion of the matter is. That is also the opinion of the McDonald Commission, and to some extent that has already been tested in Pretoria with a great measure of success. That is the only solution as far as the consumer and the producer are concerned. This is the third time on which I have had occasion to refer to this matter, and if we again get a repetition of the position which we had on the market this year and last year, the Minister must not say that he was not warned. We warned him as to what was going to happen.

I must say that the discussion yesterday showed very clearly that neither the defence of the Deciduous Fruit Board, by the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) nor the explanation given by the Minister satisfied this House. I must admit that the Minister’s supplementary statement this afternoon has to some extent answered the criticism that has been made. But the essential point which I think the Minister overlooked and which gravely concerns not only this House but also the country as a whole, is that an organisation like the Deciduous Fruit Board—and for that matter it applies in principle to other boards,—has no responsibility to Parliament and is free from all control. I speak as one who is in favour of control boards and of controlling prices in such a way as to ensure a reasonable margin of profit to the producer and distributor and a maximum price for the consumer. But because am in favour of that policy as opposed to uncontrolled private enterprise, I stress the importance of seeing that these boards carry out their work efficiently and in such a way as to satisfy the public and to tell the public why they are incurring these losses. Now, Sir, the McDonald Report on the Deciduous Fruit Board was referred to yesterday and reference was made by the Minister to Mr. McDonald’s business qualifications. I quite agree with him. Mr. McDonald, the chairman of that committee which reported is an able business man. In that report the committee made the following statement, to which no answer has yet been given. It is quoted at page 207 of the Public Accounts Committee’s Report. The Committee said: “The Board or those of its members or officials who actually commit the Board, enjoy, therefore, a most unusual privileged position of spending money without having to give an account for their actions, such as is the case with directors of public or corporate bodies to their shareholders, or even a Department of State to Parliament.” Now that exposes a very serious position, and I think the public is entitled to have these accounts fully investigated and to have them made public in order that we should know why it is that prices are so high and why at the same time there are shortages. Unless that is done, in spite of the statements which the Minister may make, plausible as they may appear, we have no evidence, and the public has no evidence that the Deciduous Fruit Board, at least through inefficiency, shall we say, is not committing actions to the detriment of the public of South Africa. The Minister tells us that after all the Deciduous Fruit Board is not working for profit and that its management costs are only 2½ per cent. Well, if the Board does not work for profit and the administration costs are only 2½ per cent., then obviously the only reply to the dissatisfaction about the shortage of fruit and the high price of fruit must be found in the inefficiency of the Deciduous Fruit Board.

Let us give the new Board a chance.

My friend the Minister says that we must give the new Board a chance. I agree and I welcome the Minister’s attitude. I welcome that because, at any rate, it shows that the Minister is prepared to listen to criticism and to rectify mistakes when they arise. But the point I wish to put to him at this stage is this, that certain transactions of the Board do not bear investigation. According to last year’s report of the Public Accounts Committee grapes were sold to the wineries at a loss, and the explanation is that there were surplus grapes which had to be got rid of. But the public has seen no surplus. The public say that they want this fruit and they cannot obtain it on account of the prices which they have to pay for it. Whilst the public has to pay unduly high prices and cannot obtain fruit, this so-called surplus was being sold to the wineries at a loss. It creates the impression that the wineries were being subsidised. It may be a desirable thing to subsidise the wineries. I do not know. But do not attribute it to a surplus of grapes. The Minister today mentioned the question of dehydration, and I want to say at once that I think that the establishment of dehydration plants in South Africa is likely to be of great benefit in future, not only to the farmers but to the public. But I think we should know more about it. We should know, for example, what are the quantities that are being supplied and what are the prices at which they are being supplied, and whether these prices are in any way different from the prices which the consumer is paying and the distributor is receiving at the present moment. These are facts to which the House is entitled and the country is entitled, and I say finally, therefore, on that particular issue, that I would like the Minister to give the information to the House. He has been very amenable to reasonable arguments, and in the long run it depends on him and the Minister of Finance whether the recommendations made last year by the Public Accounts Committee, which said that the Committee in its enquiry into the Deciduous Fruit Board was, in the absence of a report from the controller and Auditor-General, largely frustrated in carrying out its duties. I would like him now, whilst he is in a mood to make concessions, to state whether he will accept the recommendation of the Public Accounts Committee, and accede to the principle that the accounts of the Board established under the Marketing Act should be reviewed by Parliament and should be examined by the Public Accounts Committee and be subject to audit by the Controller and Auditor-General, so that we may know what the position of these Boards really is.

May I say at once that during the recess I took up this matter with the Controller and Auditor-General with a view to having the accounts of all the various Control Boards audited by the Controller and Auditor-General.

And to put them on the Table of the House.

The report will be put on the Table. That, I think, will be finalised fairly soon. But I really got up to clear up a wrong impression that the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) has created. The trouble is that he is really barking up the wrong tree. I am sorry he is not in his place at the moment: The figures he quoted are export figures. When I asked, him whether they were export figures he evaded the question by saying that they were the figures of net prices at the seller’s station. I am assured that in fact they were export figures. As a matter of fact the farmer’s price on the local market before the war, as we all know has always been less than their export price, and since the war broke out the prices of the farmer for fruit sold on the local market have been increased, so that my point that the fact that there has been an increase in production costs and that the farmer does get some of the subsidy is justified and substantiated. I would just like to say that for the information of the hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. B. Solomon) who made the point. I think that she will realise—I do not wish to let the House get the impression that the farmer is getting away with something which he is not—that probably the bulk of the money paid out in the subsidy has gone into the pockets of the distributive trade.

I deny that.

I do not know on what ground you deny it. You said the other day that you need only look at a fruit trader to know that he is not rich. In any case I think that the hon. member will agree with me now that we have fixed the price, the price for the consumer and the margin for the trade. Let us give that a chance now and see how it is carried out with the co-operation of the public. If it is satisfactory the consumer will be protected. As has often happened in the past, any price is charged and the Board or the Government is blamed. Sometimes even there has been a breach of the regulation and too high a price has been charged for which the Board was also blamed. I appeal to the House to give this new experiment we are making every opportunity and not to prejudice the public by condemning it in advance.

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry to have to express my regret that the Minister should stand up in this House as the protagonist of the Deciduous Fruit Board. I agree entirely with the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) in his criticism of this Board. The matters which were reported on and which were quoted by him have not been put right. When the Minister comes to us down the drain he should be in a position to say what he has done to stop the leakage that has been taking place through incompetence on the part of the members of the Deciduous Fruit Board:

I did not catch that?

The Minister should be in a position to tell us what steps he has taken to prevent leakage or loss which has been caused through the recklessness of this Board. A prominent man, who for thirty years was in the fruit trade indicted this Board in respect of its operations for the year 1943, and he pointed out that according to their own financial statement ….

Who is this gentleman?

The gentleman is Mr. Taylor who wrote in the East London “Daily Dispatch,” and, the effect of his statement is that if one single allegation of his could be proved to be untrue he would donate £100 to any war fund. But that challenge was never taken up. Anyhow, he said that the financial statement of the Board for 1943 showed that they had lost £340,000 in respect of that year. £55,000 was lost on pears, £30,000 on plums, £2,364 on peaches and £121,000 on grapes. If the Minister—and I make full allowances for him—had understood his business, he would have come before us and indicated what steps he had taken to prevent similar losses and similar leakages. He has not uttered a word to reassure us on these points. He has not even enquired into the losses in question. When this Board came before the Select Committee on Public Accounts, of which I am a member, I put this matter to them, and I just want to show what their attitude was. I said—

Their reply to that was—

To that they replied—

The examination then proceeded—

My reply to that was—

Now, Sir, those gentlemen who were plausible to the pitch of being unreliable wrote me a letter in which they made some futile criticisms of the figures, but not a single atom of proof was given of their incorrectness. At that time Mr. Taylor had again returned to the charge, and he had backed his statements with this sum of £100. I wrote to these gentlemen and said if they would come forward with a similar wager to that of Mr. Taylor, we could submit the matter to a reputable authority to judge between them, and the war fund would undoubtedly benefit, and I advised them there and then with the concurrence of the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee—whom I consulted personally an privately—that they had better follow that course and settle their quarrels with Mr. Taylor, whose opinion in my estimation, is twenty times more valuable than that of the Deciduous Fruit Board. Now, Sir, we have had no assurances from the Minister. He has come forward and asked us to accept extravagant prices for fruit. He has suggested a price for grapes that is higher than the prices that were paid in Johannesburg when part of the journey from the Cape was performed by mule waggon. I lived in Johannesburg in those days, and we never paid more than 3d. per lb. for grapes. Now the Minister comes forward, and he suggests the prices that should be paid. He suggests 6d. a lb. for certain grades of fruit, and he expects us to be overjoyed. By what? By his advocacy of the Deciduous Fruit Board, a body that reeks with incompetence. There is not a person on that body that one can rely upon in regard to their statement of affairs before the Public Accounts Commission and as far as we are concerned as representative of the people of South Africa we denounce this thing as a sorry business. It is a great pity that the Minister should have been guided in this matter by people who are responsible for the mess we are in today. He appointed a Committee of Enquiry presided over by Mr. McDonald, but consisting largely of the officials who were responsible for the structure and selection of the personnel of the Board, and so far as the Board is concerned they have never accounted to us as to why these losses occurred. They have made huge losses. The Minister has never called them to account, and actually the report of the Public Accounts Committee says regretfully that these accounts are not submitted to the Auditor-General, but they are audited by a private auditor.

And they have several banking accounts.

They have six banking accounts, and they pay interest oh some of these accounts that are overdrawn, though at the same time some of the others are in funds. That is the sort of business that leads to these large losses. They have set apart £30,000 for administrative costs for this extraordinary Board, and they have carte-blanche in regard to that sum. I want now to read the comments that were made by a Committee of Enquiry which was bound to be favourable to them on the whole. They are as follows—

The Committee of Enquiry then reported—

In regard to the repayment of processing loans, the Committee of Enquiry expressed the view that the existing basis of repaying processing loans “is not very satisfactory.” Under heading of “Administration expenses” the Committee referred to the Board’s provision for depreciation, and they stated—

These are the sort of means adopted to bolster up the losses. The Board applies an extravagant depreciation figure to their furniture every year. [Time limit].

By this time the Minister ought to be convinced of the fact that there is something wrong with the Deciduous Fruit Board. There has been criticism from all sides of the House and his strongest supporters are bringing these difficulties to his notice. This will have repercussions on all the Boards which the Minister is going to appoint in the future. I hope the Minister will take the necessary steps to put the affairs of this Board in order, even though he has reorganised it. In the first place I want to ask the Minister why there is so much secrecy in connection with this Board.

Where is the secrecy?

The Minister stated here by way of interjection that the names of the members of the Deciduous Fruit Board had appeared in the Press. When he got up he stated that the names had not been published in the Government Gazette but in other newspapers. Does he not think that we have the right to expect that any Government notice of this nature will appear in the Government Gazette? The Government Gazette is there for that purpose. We then asked the Minister in which newspapers the names had been published. His reply was: “Do you not read the newspapers?” He does not want to mention the name of a single newspaper. This morning he spoke twice. Yesterday he created the impression that the names of the members had been published; but we cannot get any information as to where the names were published.

May I just explain that I never created the impression that I or the department had issued a statement containing the names. I only said that I had seen some of the names in the Press.

The Minister of Agriculture is still a young man. He is at the beginning of his career. He is an Afrikaner. It would be a pity if the position were to arise that we should have to cast doubt upon the word of the Minister. It would be unfortunate, not only for this House but also for the platteland. I hope the Minister will be a little more explicit. In which newspaper were the names published? I am asking him now to tell us, in view of his statement that he saw the names in a newspaper. Let him produce the newspaper in which these names were published. Did he or his department furnish the names? Why this secrecy? The Minister now says that there are members who have been appointed by the consumers—on their recommendation. We replied that the consumers did not elect them. They were appointed by the Minister.

I said they were consumers’ members.

How can they be consumers’ members if they were appointed by the Minister himself? That is the difficulty. The producers are dissatisfied and the consumers are equally dissatisfied. Since the Minister has now fixed the price or prices for the wholesale trade, I think the time has arrived that he should fix the prices for the retail trade, because even in this House one has to pay 4d. for an ordinary peach. What does the farmer get? If ever there was a scandal, it is in my opinion the manner in which the Deciduous Fruit Board is carrying out its work. But the Minister said today : “Last year I saw that it was necessary to have control over the Boards and I recommended that their books should be properly audited.” The Minister can recommend it, but if he is not going to take steps to ensure that these Boards which are semi-government bodies are properly controlled, what will the outcome be? They are semi-government bodies because they get the support of the Government, but money can be wasted in a reckless fasion without Parliament’s knowledge and while the Minister himself, who ought to be fully informed, is not acquainted with the position. I think the Minister should take steps at this juncture. The House discussed this matter thoroughly and the attention of the Minister was drawn to the unsatisfactory state of affairs. There was only one member in this House who defended the Deciduous Fruit Board and he is a member of that Board. Apart from that the Minister did not get the support of a single member even on his own side. The Minister got up and told the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) that he had given incorrect figures. The hon. member will be able to reply to that, but I want to tell the Minister that the hon. member for Humansdorp gave this important advice that depots should be established in all the big towns, and not only that, but that steps should also be taken to ensure that the foodstuffs are brought to the consumer. Today foodstuffs to the vaue of thousands of pounds are being thrown into the sea.

Where?

That happened last year. I admit it was before the Minister took office, but it happened last year. At Pongola I have just seen oranges falling from the trees, oranges which might have been used as food for the poor undernourished children. There is no doubt that our people are undernourished. I want to make a final appeal to the Minister to put down his foot and to place that Board on a sound footing. Failing that, there is the danger that a feeling of antagonism will take root in the minds of the people against all Control Boards and that there will be agitation to abolish the Control Boards.

Up to the present I have said nothing in regard to the Deciduous Fruit Board. I thought it was not necessary to discuss that question. Let me say at once that I am not a member of the Board. In my constituency there is a small percentage of fruit growers who produce fruit which falls under the control of the Board, but the greatest proportion of the fruit growers produce fruit which is not subject to control. When one hears how the Deciduous Fruit Board is being condemned on all sides in this House and how the Minister and his Department are being attacked, one is forced to the conclusion that there is something wrong. I personally feel very strongly that the members of the Opposition want to make use of the Deciduous Fruit Board in order to be able to attack the Minister and the Government. Let us ask ourselves who the members of the Deciduous Fruit Board are. If hon. members do not know, I want to tell them that the great majority are farmers who were recommended by the fruit farmers, people who have made a great success of fruit farming and fruit marketing and who know what they are doing.

We have not got the names yet.

I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that last year when the farmers had the opportunity of electing members, they recommended the appointment of the same persons. These are people who know more about fruit farming and who have a greater right to claim that they represent the fruit farmers of South Africa than even the hon. members for George (Mr. Werth) and Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer). Let us look at this matter in its true perspective. The members of the Opposition who want to make us believe that they are looking after the interests of the farmers are ill-advised when they try to attack the Government and the Minister by criticising the Deciduous Fruit Board. Last year hon. members on that side said, as they have again said this year, that the people who are members of the Deciduous Fruit Board, do not enjoy the confidence of the farming community. What happened when members had to he re-elected a few months ago? With few exceptions the fruit farmers elected the same members. That shows that the members are people who ought to know what the position is and who have the confidence of the farmers. I personally am not going to justify all their actions. I know that serious mistakes have been made.

What mistakes?

I am convinced of one thing and that is that they tried, in the light of their convictions, to act in the best interests of the farmers of South Africa, and in making these attacks on the Minister, the members of the Opposition are not rendering a service to the farmers. The hon. member for Humansdorp quoted figures a moment ago with reference to plums, and he referred to the report of Mr. McDonald. I just want to say that that commission on whose report he bases his statement, had no data to give these figures.

But it is the report of a departmental commission.

The hon. member says he is a fruit farmer. So am I. I have also sent fruit to Cape Town, and I too have got 1s. for a paraffin box. I say that Mr. McDonald did not have the necessary data, because at that time the market was not under control. A great proportion of the fruit was exported to Europe, and in respect of that fruit figures were available, but a greater proportion was sold to the jam factories and on the inland markets, and in some cases the prices were far below the production costs. I say that the average price today is 30 per cent. to 40 per cent. higher than before the war. I also want to say a few words to the representatives of the consumers. In the first place I want to point out that the Control Board had a very difficult task. They had to take over when the war broke out and when there was a state of chaos as far as marketing was concerned. The export market fell away and all the fruit had to be marketed in the interior. They tried to do that. Hon. members now say that subsidies amounting to nearly £1,000,000 have been granted to the Board. Let me point out that a large proportion of that money was used to erect drying facilities and to obtain boxwood. The expenses in that connection were very high, and as a result of it, the expenditure of the Board was considerable. The Board did its best I readily admit that there is dissatisfaction amongst the farming community in regard to the Board, but I have already pointed out that the same farming community, when they had the choice, re-elected the same members to the Board. They are faced with great difficulties. Matters are improving gradually. The Minister has now intimated that in the future fruit will be sold at a fixed price. The consumers are dissatisfied, but things are improving. One of the hon. members said that in the old days he could buy grapes more cheaply than today. What did he pay for a suit of clothes at that time and what is he paying today?

But 1s. 6d. for a peach?

If that is the price, it must be a particularly big peach. The Minister has now announced that as from tomorrow prices will be fixed. I think we ought to thank the Government for the attempt which it made in these difficult times to finance and to assist the fruit farmers, because what would have happened if the Board had not been appointed and if the fruit which was formerly exported to the value of hundreds of thousands of pounds had been dumped in the South African market? In that case we would have had a greater state of confusion than we can imagine. I believe that the members of the Opposition are sincere when they speak on behalf of the fruit farmers, but they must be reasonable. The members of the Deciduous Fruit Board are not politicians but farmers and representatives of the consumers and the commercial people and they are doing their utmost. If it has not been such a great success as we might have wished, it is due to the difficulties with which they have had to contend, almost insuperable difficulties. I am convinced that constructive criticism will be welcomed by them, but it is wrong to attack the Minister and the Government in this way. The members of the Deciduous Fruit Board are our fellow-farmers and they are doing their work as well as they can.

In the course of a speech by the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) the Minister murmured that he might be prepared to give the new Board a chance to see what it could do with the new scheme that he had announced in the House yesterday. But the scheme that the Minister announced in the House yesterday is one that raises a major issue of policy. The prices that the Minister announced yesterday to be fixed for consumers in the fruit market are prices which cut right across the intention and the direction of policy in fruit consumption in this country. Before the Deciduous Fruit Board began to operate the direction and encouragement that was given to the fruit industry was designed to increase the consumption of fruit in this country, and to build up the security of the industry on a wider basis of consumption among the poorer people in the country, to establish that security on a wider turnover, which is a healthy principle of economic development, in fact the healthy principle of economic development. Since the Deciduous Fruit Board came into control, the tendency has been all in the opposite direction. We have been narrowing the circle of the people who can afford to pay for fruit out of their own pockets. Relatively speaking, we have not extended the field of fruit consumption, though as was pointed out yesterday by the hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) it is urgently necessary that this should be done. It is an established fact in this country, where poverty is much more rife than it ought to be, that certain sections of the community rely on making up some of the deficiencies which they suffer throughout the rest of the year during the period of the fruit season. That is part of the counter-balance which has developed against the disadvantages under which so large a part of the people normally suffer. It has been particularly conspicuous here in the Cape Province, which is our main fruit-growing area. The poorer sections of the community have always known that in these months at least they would have the capacity to satisfy their natural needs more easily than at any other time. That opportunity has now faded out under the control of the Deciduous Fruit Board, and I suggest that the activity of the Government has proved nothing like so satisfactory as the ordinary functioning of the agricultural community that it has displaced. I refer to the subsidisation of the lower income groups. I feel it is about time that we decided this issue of policy as to whether it is our intention to encourage the people to consume the commodities of this country by purchase in the ordinary way, or whether it is our intention to create scarcity, and then in due course to subsidise the misfortunes and the want that are created thereby. That issue was also implicitly raised by the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge). He put his finger on what is probably a very sensitive spot in the affairs of the Deciduous Fruit Board, that is, the conditions on which fruit not now being sold in the ordinary market where it used to be sold, is being passed over to the jam factories and to the dried fruit industry. I strongly suspect that in the affairs of the Deciduous Fruit Board there are both hidden costs and hidden profits which will not appear before the House even in the statements of Account which the hon. Minister has promised. I want to know on what conditions the Deciduous Fruit Board has been passing over fruit to the jam factories and to the dried fruit manufacturers. I think I am right in saying that at this moment when the poorer people of the Cape Peninsula ought to be buying out of their own resources, the fruit that is being produced in abundance on the surrounding farms, they are actually being given subsidised jam and subsidised dried fruits. Those are two of the commodities that are being put through the channels of subsidised distribution in this country. My own feeling is that it is an absurd policy to create shortages, to deprive the people of the natural sources of food and then to offer them subsidised foods to pay the costs of subsidised foods, to impose that burden on the community as well as to deprive the people of the food they ought to be able to buy. The people are losing the value of the natural food that they ought to consume. We are now paying the cost of processing fruits that ought to be eaten fresh and incidentally subsidising the jam manufacturers, the dried fruit manufacturers, the dehydration plants, by giving them fruit that ought to be sold in the ordinary market. In my opinion this is just another instance where we show an obvious lack of integration of our social and agricultural policies. We are again dealing with matters piecemeal and in the long run we do not know whom we are subsidising and we are achieving nothing of permanent value. As I understand it, this Board was originally given the power of trying to deal with the problem of the fruit exporter. In the course of its attempt to do that, it began to interfere with the ordinary home market and in the final result it has neither established an export fruit market nor has it really built a foundation for the producer for the local market. And in the meantime our subsidies are going through two channels, not only the obvious channels which are down here on this Vote, but all these hidden channels at which we simply cannot get with our system of accounting and our lack of integration of our social and agricultural policy. I feel strongly that the case made out by the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) the other day, that we have established channels of trade with the experience of thirty or forty years behind them and that we are now scrapping those, is a just accusation against this Board. I am quite prepared to support any scheme to subsidise any essential interest, whether it is a producing interest or a consuming interest but I feel strongly that where such subsidisation appears necessary to establish these interests on a secure foundation, we should see directly what the subsidy is, where it goes and what it does. The whole policy of subsidisation is presumably to help those industries to establish themselves so that they will become independent, and we ought to be able to know when that point is reached. That is why I object entirely to this sort of vote where we do not know where the money goes and who gets it and we see no result in the organisation of the trade; we see nothing but a disintegration of all the old foundations of the trade and no clear statement of the objective at which we aim.

The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) said a moment ago that there was only one member who tried to defend the Deciduous Fruit Board. The hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. J. C. Bosman) then got up and tried to support the Minister and to defend his case, but unfortunately, as soon as he got up, the hon. member said that there must be something radically wrong with the Deciduous Fruit Board because there was criticism from both sides of the House. But then he somersaulted and said that the Opposition should not criticise the Government. Hon. members on that side may do it but members of the Opposition are not allowed to do it. But I did not get up to reply to what was said by the hon. member for Malmesbury. I think other hon. members will do it, but I want to raise another point and it is this. Yesterday the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) spoke in this House of the big shortage of sugar in our country. It seems to me the hon. Minister did not think it worth while to reply to the accusation that there must be something radically wrong, as indicatetd by the shortage of sugar. I want to express the hope hat the hon. Minister of Agriculture will take the House into his confidence and clearly state what the reason is why there is such a great shortage of sugar in our country. At one time we could get as much sugar as we wanted, and all of a sudden we heard that there was no sugar available. Is that control? Is sugar not controlled just like any other foodstuff? I think there must be something radically wrong. Mealies are controlled. The Minister announces months in advance what the production is going to be and he is able to say whether there will be a shortage. The same applies in the case of butter. What is the difficulty in connection with sugar. An hon. member says that there is a war on; I suppose the war is being blamed for this state of affairs. The Minister stated that a great proportion of the plums which were being produced would have to be converted into jam. I would like to know this from the Minister; is the sugar being stored for the manufacture of jam or is our sugar being exported, or is there really a shortage of sugar in our country. I notice that the Board of Economics and Markets predicts that there will be very little sugar this year. If that is the case, what precautionary measures is the Minister going to take to ensure that there will be sufficient sugar in South Africa for the consumption of the people?

The hon. member must confine himself to Vote L.

I am dealing with it. I should like the hon. Minister to give us a reply. It is very inconvenient for the people in the country. The people have been surprised to find that there is a big shortage of sugar.

The hon. member must confine himself to the reasons for the increase in the subsidy.

Then I want to ask whether the reason for the big shortage of sugar is that the sugar is being given to the jam factories. I want to make an appeal to the hon. Minister to make a statement to the House in regard to the position, and since he is not here at the moment, I hope one of the other Ministers will convey my remarks to the Minister.

Listening to the arguments from both sides of the House, I feel that one should not continue to refer to the past. I am satisfied that the hon. Minister appreciates the position that the produce is not getting a fair price, and that the consumer is getting a very raw deal indeed. It has been stated that the “nigger in the woodpile” is the distributor and various percentages have been auoted showing what the distributor is making, but I want to say this, that nothing lies more than figures. The hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) quoted that the average price in Pretoria was somewhere around 190 per cent. But I would like to remind the hon. member who is now a member of the Deciduous Fruit Board, that deciduous fruit is highly perishable and that there is a tremendous wastage, and even the Food Control Organisation, when they purchase, realise what a big wastage there is. I need only quote one example. The week before last the Food Control Organisattion bought a big consignment of paw-paws, and 75 per cent. of them were bad. On an average they pay 1s. per paw-paw. Let us take 100 paw-paws, 75 of which were bad. They have to recoup themselves to the extent of £5. In order to do that they would have to sell the paw-paws to the so-called poor people of Pretoria at their retail markets at 4s. each. Immediately this were done our experts on figures would state that a profit of 300 per cent. had been made. Nothing of the kind. To be quite honest I have no faith in the Deciduous Fruit Board; for the reason that the producer, the distributor and the consumer are not getting a square deal. Where is the profit going? I can only say this, if one may quote the retail markets which the Opposition and the hon. minister have referred to as something wonderful for South Africa—then I say that the experiment which is being tried out in Pretoria and may be introduced throughout South Africa is going to be a hopeless failure, and I predict that at the next Session of Parliament instead of asking for a subsidy of £280,000 it will be something in the neighbourhood of £500,000—for this reason. I find that the Deciduous Fruit Board does not supply all the commodities which are offering for sale at these retail markets. Therefore they have to go into the open market to purchase certain produce. I need only quote one instance, which can be verified by reference to the Market Master of Pretoria. We find that the fruit control organisation purchased so many crates of lettuce for its retail markets and paid 23s. per crate. After the food control organisation purchased these, the price dropped to 10s.

The hon. member must bear in mind that the Deciduous Fruit Board does not handle vegetables.

I refer to this because the hon. Minister in his reply yesterday and again today, referred to the various retail markets which are being experimented with in Pretoria. I merely quote this to prove that if they are going to sell these commodities at below cost, then I cannot wonder at the criticism of the heavy losses that we are incurring in the way of subsidies. If I made a mistake in referring to the retail markets, then I will refer to the experiement which the Deciduous Fruit Board carried out in Pretoria last year. They sold deciduous fruit. They carried on for three months and then closed down. They made it impossible for the retailer to compete because various produce such a grapes were sold definitely below the cost op the open market. To this day we do not know exactly what loss was incurred. I was very pleased to hear the Minister say that he would consider the question of the Auditor-General auditing the accounts. But it is felt throughout Pretoria, not only in the constituency which I represent, that the Deciduous Fruit Board is responsible for the tremendously high cost that the consumer has to pay for fruit. I will say this in conclusion. I am satisfied that the hon. Minister appreciates the position and has every intention of trying to remedy it, and I wish him all success.

First of all I would like to ask the newly appointed member of the Deciduous Fruit Board, the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell), whether avocado pears are regarded as deciduous fruit.

Do they drop their leaves?

Yes.

Then they are deciduous fruit.

They are deciduous fruit, but apparently the Minister does not want to do anything about it. Quite recently in Johannesburg I saw small avocado pears in a shop window at 1s. 6d.

Robbery!

Of course, it is robbery. I believe avocado pears contain a very high food content. I have heard it said that one avocado pear is equal to a lb. of steak. Personally I would rather have the steak with the avocado pear, but I am always prepared to accept the opinion of experts. The hon. Minister in his reply to me pointed out that the Witwatersrand was not a controlled area. Just what particular point he was trying to make when he said that I do not know but it does seem to me that he was making the point that in fact we do not control deciduous fruit in this country, because it is only the Western Province which is controlled, and the Witwatersrand has to be asked to pay 1d. extra per lb. on the fruit which they themselves produce in order to allow the Minister to control the fruit industry in the Western Province. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? That is the kind of thing that goes on under the control system, and that is why the control system has failed. Measures are introduced which obviously have not been thought out. Measures which are obviously devised on the spur of the moment. It looks to me as if the Minister having listened to the speech of the hon. member for Woodstock the other day, decided on the spur of the moment that he must fix prices for fruit, so he had a conference with his officials overnight and then he found out that the price of food was to be controlled.

I saw the Board in Pretoria a month before I came down here.

And you had these prices worked out?

No, they had not been worked out at that time.

No, the cabinet had to fix it.

Surely the cabinet has more to do than to fix the price of fruit: But I am satisfied that the scheme was not properly thought out. First of all I want to say that if the Minister sets out to control the fruit industry, he must control it right throughout the country. He had the same business with his meat scheme by instituting control in one area and leaving another area free. If you are going to deal with the problem in South Africa, you have to deal with it fully. This problem has gone far beyond export fruit or the position of the farmers who used to grow fruit for export. The problem has now assumed national dimensions in so far as the members of the public are being held up to ransom and charge extortionate prices for fruit while the producer is only getting sufficient to keep him on the land as far as we can gather. It seems quite obvious that the producer is not getting the extra money. In the meantime we have been paying as much as 8d. for a single peach, which in many cases was uneatable, in Johannesburg. Who is getting away with the kill? The Minister does not seem to know. The hon. member for Wood-stock, despite all the figures which he produced, did not tell us. As a matter of fact he set out to explain that nobody was getting away with the kill Then he suggested that the hon. Minister should control the prices of fruit, presumably the hon. member for Woodstock agrees with the prices which the Minister has now announced, so one can argue that if peaches have now gone down from 8d. to 2½d. someone in the meantime has been getting away with a lot of money. What we want to see is the public getting a measure of cheap fruit and the producer getting a fair price for his production, and I cannot see how this scheme is going to work. First of all, is there any particular reason why the Minister should not extend the control to the whole of the Union of South Africa? Is there any particular reason why the Minister should not extend on the milage. Surely that is a simple matter. Thirdly it is simple enough to say that if fruit is produced in the area of the Witwatersrand or in areas contiguous to the Witwatersrand, then the price shall be the same as in the Cape Peninsula. If it is railed from the Cape, then of course, a penny extra is quite a legitimate charge. The hon. Minister made another remarkable economic statement in his reply to me. He said it was not a controlled area and that the fixed price was the maximum price. Has the Minister made up his mind whether these prices are fixed prices or maximum prices.

I said they were maximum prices.

Even if they are maximum prices, one knows that the maximum price will be the minimum price. We are not so simple; we have seen all these things happen before, and it is quite obvious that the dealers of Johannesburg are not going to reduce the price of their own free will. If they are allowed to charge 10d. per pound for peaches, they will charge 10d. per pound and we will be paying this penny extra per pound for peaches which are probably better than those sent from the Cape for the simple reason that the peaches from the Cape have to travel over a thousand miles, and obviously the peaches grown in Johannesburg must be in a better condition. We have to pay 11d. a pound for them merely because the peaches come from the Cape. Let me return once more to the question of selling peaches by weight. I do not care two hoots what the hon. member for South Peninsula (Mr. Sonnenberg) says. I do not know whether he has ever sold peaches by weight, but I am satisfied that in this country you cannot sell peaches by weight. You are going to land yourself in all kinds of difficulties. You will need a hoard of inspectors to see that the regulations are carried out. As I said the other day, we will have the usual game of prosecution against some poor unfortunate little shopkéeper.

What happens if you cannot get the exact weight?

Well, according to the Minister, you have to chop a piece off and throw it away. But I know what will happen. The dealer will put three or four peaches in the bag and say: “Well, that is 14 ounces. I am not going to calculate 14 ounces to you; I will slip another small peach in the bag and make it 1½ lbs.” That will be done. This seems to me that the idea of selling peaches by weight is ridiculous, particularly in this country. I am quite satisfied that it will be very difficult as far as the non-European section of the population is concerned. Why does not the Minister listen to some good advice and alter the scheme. Surely his scheme is not like the laws of the Medes and Persians, completely unalterable. He has had enough advice from all sides of the House to show that as his Board is at present functioning if is not doing the job it has set out to do. [Time limit].

In reference to Vote 21 K I just want to express my disappointment at the amount, in connection with the item “General assistance to agricultural producers.” Seed wheat ….

That comes under the Loan Vote—seed wheat.

The hon. member cannot raise it here. The hon. member must confine himself to the reasons for the increase.

Yes, I am discussing the increase. I should have liked this subsidy to be increased. This comes under general assistance to farmers.

There is nothing here for seed wheat.

With all due deference, I think I am perfectly in order, because I want to ask for assistance.

The hon. member can only ask the Minister whether this sum includes assistance in respect of seed wheat.

I just want to point out that this is not only a question of assistance to farmers, but that it is a national problem which faces us. We are faced with starvation today. It may sound as though I am putting it very strongly, but if one takes into account the crops of the past, there is a great deal to be said for it.

I regret I cannot allow the hon. member to proceed with that subject. He will have an opportunity of discussing it at a later date.

The hon. Minister has not yet replied.

I shall reply in a moment.

I should like to know why there is a shortage of sugar although there was a surplus before the institution of control; why a subsidy must now be given to the jam factories? Is there an agreement to be carried out for which the Government is responsible? I believe there was a surplus and because there was a surplus the price of sugar was fixed. The jam manufacturers got the sugar more cheaply. I take it that the cheaper price is now being cancelled because there is a shortage of sugar; and now the State has to supplement the shortage in order to give the jam factories an opportunity of manufacturing jam. Why, if the Government gives a subsidy for the manufacture of jam—because the jam factories are all controlled by rich people—why should not the poor housewife who makes jam at home bacause she cannot afford to pay the high prices charged by the factories, also get this subsidy? I understood that under the item General Assistance was included an amount for lucerne seed to render the soil in certain parts of the country more fertile. I have no objection to that. I am quite satisfied with it. I have already asked the Minister of Agriculture whether that subsidy could be extended to those areas where lucerne cannot be used but where certain types of grass can be used. He promised to go into the matter, but I have not yet ascertained what has been decided in that connection. Then I should like him to tell me whether the Government is prepared to approve of a higher price for wheat this year than that which obtained in the past.

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

I am doing so. I am dealing with the subsidy which is being paid in respect of cheap bread, because it depends on the price which is paid for wheat.

But the hon. member is asking what the price of wheat is going to be in the future.

But there is no reference here to the future. It reads: “Expenditure in connection with the stabilisation of bread prices, wheat season 1944-’45.”

Yes, and for that very reason I cannot allow the hon. member to enlarge on this matter.

I briefly wat to put two questions to the Minister under item K of this vote. The first is whether under General Assistance to Farmers provision has been made for the fruit farmers in the vicinity of Johannesburg, particularly at Linden and Fontainbleau which recently suffered extraordinary damage as a result of hailstorms. The second question, in case this amount does not cover it, is whether the Minister will be prepared to meet those farmers.

At this stage the hon. member may only discuss the reasons for this increase.

I just want to know whether this matter is covered by the amount in question.

Then the hon. member should confine himself to the question as to whether or not it falls under this vote.

May I then put that question to the Minister, and I hope he will reply to it.

Mr. Chairman, sitting here as one of those who know a little about the sugar industry, might I say this, that there have been several views raised by hon. members on the other side of the House in connection with the shortage of sugar which I wish to clear up.

The hon. member cannot deal with the shortage of sugar. He can only deal under this head with the manufacture of jam.

The position is that several members over there have been raising the point as to why there is a shortage of sugar. Am I entitled to reply to that particular item?

The hon. member must confine his remarks to the subject under discussion.

At last the Minister of Agriculture has received assistance from his own ranks, but the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. J. C. Bosman) admitted that certain things were wrong. But in addition to that he asked that we on this side, who are in this House as representatives of the people outside, should not criticise the Minister or attack the Government, although he admitted that things were not what they should be.

Is there any person who is infallible?

The hon. member may say there is no one who is infallible, but the point is that we as Nationalists are not here to protect the Government, when we know that there is something amiss.

But you should help the Government to assist the farmers.

The hon. member can assist the farmer by telling them the true state of affairs and by refraining from asking us to cover up things which are wrong. When we look at this amount of £280,000 we cannot help feeling that, although this big subsidy is being paid, no assistance has been given to the consumer up to the present. We have also had the statement which the Minister of Agriculture made yesterday in respect of the fixation of fruit prices to be paid by the consumers, and we must say in all honesty that the mass of consumers, especially in the big cities, cannot feel reassured by that statement on the part of the Minister. According to the statement which the Minister made, the position is that there will be practically no change as far as the price of fruit to the consumer is concerned. The Minister of Agriculture himself has noticed that there has been a drop in the price of peaches. The hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) said that the farmers were cutting down their peach trees, and the Minister signified his assent. They have no alternative. The great aim, after the Deciduous Fruit Board was created, was to bring down the price of fruit so that it could be brought within the reach of the less privileged section of our people in the big cities, but what do we find now? The position has not altered. The farmers are practically getting less than they got before this scheme came into operation.

That is not true.

But on the other hand the consumer is paying very much more. The hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) correctly said yesterday that we were paying very much more for our fruit than we paid formerly. The Deciduous Fruit Board has definitely not improved the position as far as the consumer is concerned. I want to make this point, that today we have thousands of the less privileged section of the population in our big cities, people who have flocked to the cities, and they are not in a position to buy fruit at the ruling prices. There is this danger attached to the fixation of prices, as announced here by the Minister. Although the producer is getting no more than he got previously, the consumer is paying the same and even more, and the result is that the consumers in the cities are beginning to feel that everything is going to the farmers. That impression on the part of the consumers brings about illfeeling among the consumers and the producers, and in the future it may have disastrous consequences for both sections. For that reason the Minister should do everything in his power with a view to reducing the tremendous gap between the price obtained by the producers and the price paid by the consumers. The Minister has been asked repeatedly why there is such a big difference between those two prices, and he simply does not know. He cannot tell us. He admitted that the farmer would not benefit by the fixation of prices. He will also have to admit that the consumer is not benefiting by it. It is only the rich man who can afford to buy fruit; and that very section which is continually being advised by the Minister and the Government to consume more fruit, cannot afford to buy it. The Minister cannot tell us where the huge sum of money between the consumer and the producer goes. I think the whole fault lies with his own Board, and he should make investigations there. As has already been said the Deciduous Fruit Board has been reorganised, and we expected to find an improvement after the reorganisation. But things remained as they were and became even worse. The Minister told us of three members who represent the consumers. Later we discovered that those people were not elected, but that they were appointed by the Minister. In the meantime things were going from bad to worse. The Minister should intervene and find out where the big leakage is. That leakage must be closed. He should see to it that the fruit market is so arranged that the fruit is brought within the reach of the less privileged section of the people, especially in our big cities. The Minister said a great deal about peaches. We find that on the Witwatersrand, in a place like Linden for example, a fairly large quantity of peaches is being produced this year, and now the Minister tells us that the people in Johannesburg will have to pay 1d. per lb. more for peaches than in Cape Town. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) said that those peaches were being sold in Johannesburg at 2s. 6d. per basket. That is correct. At that price the fruit is brought within the reach of the poor man and his child. If the Minister is going to fix prices in this manner, he is going to deprive the poor man in Johannesburg of the little fruit which he can get at the moment. It is a crime against that section of the people. I want to ask the Minister to give his serious attention to this matter. I agree with the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) who said that it seemed to be ridiculous to sell peaches by weight. The Minister should reconsider that matter. The plan will simply not work, and in the long run we will have to admit that it is an impracticable scheme. We expected the consumer to derive some benefit from this huge sum which is being paid out. He has derived no benefit from it at all, and I want to make an appeal to the Minister to look after the poor section of the people and to eliminate the big gap between the producer and the consumer. These two should be brought closer together.

I should like to say a few words in reply to the further points that have been mentioned by hon. members. In the first place, the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) put a question about the sugar subsidy in reference to the manufacture of jam. The reason for it is that the rebate which was previously given through the sugar industry to the jam factories disappeared, and the subsidy is to take its place, on the same basis as the rebate. It was mainly given on behalf of export, and consequently cannot be extended to the private housewife. As far as concerns the other point in connection with the subsidy for lucerne seed, the hon. member during the previous Session mentioned the question of grass seed. He mentioned special Rhodes grass, which is a very good type of grass. We have already extended that scheme to include grass seed where grass seed is sown together with lucerne seed. Further consideration is being given to the matter, and I am not in a position to say whether we can widen the scope of the scheme to include grass seed where grass alone is sown. Various hon. members have spoken about the so-called sugar shortage, and if you will permit me, Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a few words about that. It has been very lightly accepted that the cause of the shortage has been too great an export of sugar. That is not the position. Actually, during the current season we have exported less sugar than heretofore. I shall give the figures. During the 1944-’45 season the export was limited to 90,000 tons, while in the year 1943-’44 it was no less than 160,000 tons. This year there will also be a big crop in comparison, for instance, with the year 1938-’39. In that year it was 280,000 tons compared with 480,000 tons for this year.

Are you referring to the crop or to the consumption?

I am sorry. Those are the figures of the consumption, and that is the reason for the great shortage that there is now.

The reason is the 90,000 tons that have been exported.

There is an extraordinarily great consumption of sugar. It has increased very considerably. It is simply a case of increased consumption, and the present shortage is entirely a question of adjustment at the end of the sugar year. There is not actually a shortage in the sense that people will not be able to get what sugar they need from the food angle. It is simply a question of an adjustment over the last few months before the new sugar year begins. Then the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) (Mr. Tighy) asked me whether this amount will also include assistance for the fruit-farmers of Linden. No money has been voted for that. The matter has never been mentioned, but if the hon. member will come and discuss it with me it will assist us in arriving at a decision. The hon. member for Lichtenburg (Mr. Ludiek) also spoke about the sugar shortage, and I have already replied to that point.

†The hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) has suggested that the McDonald Committee reported and that I have done nothing about it. Well, several steps have been taken since that committee reported. In the first place there is no blank cheque given to the Deciduous Fruit Board now. The Government subsidy is limited to the amount of £280,000. Secondly, I have explained to the House that I am endeavouring to arrange for the Controller and Auditor-General to audit the accounts of the Board in question. In the third place the Board has been reconstituted and there has been a tightening up in regard to matters affecting the administration of the Board. The hon. member has insinuated that members of the McDonald Committee were such as to make them all favourable to the Board. Well, of course, that is not so. The members of that committee were Mr. McDonald, the Chairman, Mr. Adams, as under-Secretary of my Department who had nothing to do with the administration of that Board, Mr. Keegan, the former food controller, and Professor Leppan, a member of the National Marketing Council. There was only one member of the committee who was directly connected with the Deciduous Fruit Board and that was Dr. M. S. du Toit, and I think those who know him will not accuse him of trying to cover up any of the activities of the Board if they ought to have been criticised; he would not whitewash them. He is sufficiently fair-minded to criticise them. In any case the members who were not connected with the Deciduous Fruit Board heavily outnumbered him. He was the only one amongst the five of them. The hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) put certain questions to me. She wanted to know the conditions under which the Board passed fruit on to the factories. The position is that the fruit which is passed to the factories is not subsidised. I think that is one of the things she wanted to know. About thé question of price, the position is that the factories get the fruit at cost price, i.e. the cost to the farmer plus the cost of transport and the cost of delivery. That is the position as far as that aspect is concerned. I think that this deals with the various points which have been made.

†*May I now revert to a hare that was started yesterday by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth). I thought that that hare was long dead, but it has again been started by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) ; it is the question of the publication of the members of the new Deciduous Fruit Board. The position is that I am not required in the Act to publish the names of members of the Board in the Government Gazette or any other medium, in the case of a Board such as the Deciduous Fruit Board. My hon. friend was himself Minister of Agriculture, and he knows that it is only in the case of Boards mentioned under a special Act that the law requires that the names of the members of such a Board shall be published in the Government Gazette. If the impression was conveyed that I stated that I published a list of names, it is a misunderstanding. I did not intend that. There is no obligation resting on me in this case to publish the list of names. What I endeavoured to make clear yesterday, first by way of an interjection and later even by speech, was that I had seen the names published in the Press in the Transvaal. It was not done by me. I understand that the list of names also appeared in the Cape Town Press. If it is a question of great importance to know who the members of the Deciduous Fruit Board are, I am prepared to read the names out now.

Why did you not do that long ago?

The following are the representatives elected by the producers: Messrs. C. J. Clark, J. A. Fernhout, G. S. Hauptfleisch, E. F. Kotse. D. Barry, M. W. van Niekerk, G. P. Rourke, Col. Q. C. Cunningham and Mr. Jas. Baldie. The representative of Trade is Mr. G. van Eeden. The representatives of the consumers are Mrs. M. A. Jones, Mr. J. Hamilton Russell, M.P. and Mr. A. W. H. Rose. I nominated Dr. M. S. du Toit as my departmental representative. He was formerly member of the Fruit Board. The representative of the Transvaal is Mr. W. J. Stiglingh.

What is their remuneration?

I understand that they receive an allowance for an attendance, at meetings. They do not receive any salary.

That is the position, and I hope that no further charge will be brought against me of keeping secret the names of the members of such a Board, and that my word will not be questioned. I think that I have now cleared up the position. If it is the wish of hon. members that in future I should make an immediate announcement in the Press after the eleceion of a new Board, although this is not a legal requirement there is much to be said for it, I am willing to do so for the information of the public.

Now that we have listened to the discussion on the Deciduous Fruit Industry, there is one conclusion that we can all reasonably draw, and that is that there is fairly general dissatisfaction over the distribution of fruit. I do not want to find fault with one party or the other, although I have certain mental reservations on that. I have not all the information at my disposal to enable me to judge this party or that. But so important are the economic principles at issue which have not been made clear, that I should like to put a few questions to the Minister in reference to the factors that he investigated and which brought him to the conclusion that he must fix the prices of fruit. In the last few years there was of course a tremendous quantity planted, and the natural result is there is a larger crop to handle. Moreover, we have the additional factor of the war, which has lost us our export market, and consequently the producers in South Africa are saddled with large quantities of fruit that must be consumed within the country. Then we come to the big question of what steps should be taken to dispose of this greater quantity of fruit. That is fundamental In the first place, everyone would have expected that as great a measure of freedom as possible would be allowed the producers to dispose of as much fruit as they possibly could, accompanied with safeguards, if necessary, against certain possible abuses. In addition to that, it would have been desirable for auxiliary factors to be created in the shape of a Control Board to promote distribution in the event of the producer himself not being able to dispose of his products. I mention these factors because it is obvious, the more so because in the course of the last 25 years and more the Minister’s department and the whole population of South Africa have been pleading in season and out of season, for the principle of co-operation. So I want to point out that it is at the root of co-operation that there should be as few intermediaries as possible between the producer and the consumer. And now with the withdrawal from the producer of the right to bring his produce to the market himself, we not only ignore that fundamental principle of co-operation, but we create a new intermediary between the producer and the consumer, which is a feature of the capitalistic system. I do not want to digress in order to discuss those principles, but an additional link has been incorporated into the distribution system, and on account of this having been done, the responsibility rests on the department, who are answerable for the establishment of that link to make certain that that link will contribute to the disposal of the fruit, and to the reduction of the costs of disposal. If that is not fulfilled by the Board, then the. Board is not only useless, but it is a menace. With a view to increased production, there must be increased disposal. It is only if the producer himself cannot do this properly that an additional link is required. Only then should a new factor be created, and that factor should contribute to the reduction of the costs of distribution. That is fundamental. I have not heard from the Minister of Agriculture of a single thing to prove that this factor has contributed to assist in the disposal of fruit. Unless the costs of distribution are lowered, that is not to be expected. I do not want to omit the factor from accounts, that the producer has higher costs, but the intervention of this supplementary link can only be justified if it contributes to the reduction of the costs of distribution. In view of the fact the Minister has gone so far to fix the price that will be paid by the consumer, four questions immediately arise. It has been stated that this is the maximum price that he may pay. But the maximum price rests on certain computations, and I should like to put a question on that to the Minister. I have not had an opportunity to peruse all the reports, but it is in the interests of the people and of this House to know, seeing that the Minister has fixed the price for the consumers, whether in the first instance he had sufficient information to enable him to calculate the cost. Was he in a position to calculate the cost of production for the product in respect of which he determined the price? I will at once admit that it is a very difficult matter to assess costs of production in respect of agricultural products. That is a very difficult task, but it can be done approximately. For years I served on the Board of Trade and Industry, and I know that it is feasible to get an approximation of the costs of production. Has the Minister the information regarding the various products in connection with which he has fixed the prices? There is, of course, a tremendous difference between the costs of production of various sorts of fruit. Has he the data? In the second place, I want to ask what the cost is going to be’ of this new link that has been brought in. Heretofore you have had the costs from the farmer to the trader, the costs of transport, but now you are getting a control board, and according to the Minister the costs of the Board will be about 2½ per cent. of the turnover.

That falls on the consumer. In addition to that, there is the profit of the retail dealer. What is the position going to be? A number of producers have voiced their dissatisfaction to me over the prices that the consumer must pay, because in their opinion this is goig to reduce their turnover. Has the Minister any information that he can furnish us with in connection with these two points? Then I should like to say something in connection with “N”, the ex-gratia payment to the pear growers of £12,150. The Minister will recall that a deputation of my constituents waited on him in Pretoria in connection with the pear pest. This compensation is an admission from the side of the Minister that there is something more than a local need for assistance. I personally would like to express my appreciation that the Minister should hereby have acknowledged that it is not a local pest but a national pest. I refer to the moth, which is ineradicable and a great menace to pear production. I have before me a telegram from a small farmer in my constituency, which says “I have now sprayed twelve times this year.” and in reference to the Minister’s expectation of 18,000 tons of pears this year, I merely want to say this, that the Minister must of course realise that only a small pro portion will be first grade. The price pays in respect of first grade pears, but in respect of third grade the amount is altogether too small for a living to be made, bearing in mind the costs in connection with production. The pest has assumed such formidable proportions that it has become a national problem, and threatens to be a national disaster. I had the privilege to lead the deputation to the Minister, and I shall be glad if the Minister avails himself of the opportunity to reassure my constituents to some extent as far as concerns this matter. The pear producers are faced with two alternatives, namely to resort if they can do so, to effective combative measures, or to change the industry. The latter is very difficult, for some of them have thousands of pounds, and even hundreds of thousands of pounds invested in the industry.

The hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. J. C. Bosman) rightly appealed to the farmers and said that this Deciduous Fruit Board is their Board and that this money is their money. He added: “They are doing things for you, and therefore you must not run them down.” From a sentimental point of view I am prepared to accept that. But I want to go into the facts because we are paying £280,000 to the Deciduous Fruit Board, and I want to analyse those figures to show to the House what has happened. We have heard that 1¾d. was the average return per lb. that the deciduous producer got for his products. If you reduce the £280,000 in proportion to the crop of 42,000 tons, which has been quoted, you will find that that represents ¾d. per lb That means that this wonderful Deciduous Fruit Board has got for the farmers for the fruit of the country an average of 1d. per lb. Now the hon. Minister stated in regard to my arguments that the House knows I am a supporter of private enterprise. I will answer the hon. Minister and tell him I am not a unique member of this party who believes in private enterprise. That is also the policy of the Prime Minister. It is the policy advocated by the Minister of Economic Development, but it is not the policy advocated by the Department of Agriculture and the Control Board. Sir, could private enterprise at any time have handled together with the producer, the fruit of this country and done it for him at less than 1d. per lb. during those last four or five years? Could it have been possible with the demand on an increasing market, with the responsibility of finding markets, and not having the losses just debited to the farmer and collected from the consumer, could it have been possible for the fruit of the producer to have been sold at 1d. a lb. if it had been done through the ordinary channels of private enterprise? That is why I believe in private enterprise. I do not believe in it just because it is a wonderful ideology. I believe in it because it proves itself by results. You have seen in the last few years that we have written off practically over £1,000,000 as subsidies for the Board. You have seen the irresponsibility that comes because they did not have to pay for the goods. There is the stuff that has been wasted in refrigeration. No man if he pays 1d. a lb. for stuff can let it go bad. The only people who can let it go bad is some State body or semi-State body. I maintain that if this was a company with shareholders it would have been a case of criminal negligence in the way they have carried on their business. In this country we advocate the idea of private enterprise, and yet we try to force the idea of socialism, which is really no socialism as the hon. the Native representative has said. On the one hand we bolster the thing up and grant a subsidy, on the other hand we get the grapes at a low price and then subsidise back again. That is where the money of the country is being wasted. We have been told that we must give the Board a chance. For four years we have been giving the Board a chance, and I say we must come back to the fundamental ideas of private enterprise, with its knowledge that it has to find its markets and not leave it to the mentality of a man who has got a wage and who has no responsibility. I maintain that the Minister of Finance, who is the custodian of this money, should see that this money is expended for the benefit of the country with the least economic waste. We are crying for hospitals, we are crying because there is poverty, and here we hav.e a vote of £280,000, and I am convinced that that money goes down the drain, representing the greatest of economic waste. As was mentioned, this last year was a short crop. If there had not been a short crop would we have had the debacle of the previous years? In any case, to my mind there is waste when the stuff is sold to the wineries, even if they are owned by the Deciduous Fruit Board, at very much lower prices than they are and should be sold to the consumer. What are we building up in the midst of our economic structure? I say it is the biggest economic racket this country has ever known. That is because it bluffs, it tells you wonderful things it is doing. It says it is going to benefit the farmer, and I ask you to consider the figures which I have tried to give this afternoon. Then there is the argument that if we did away with this Board we would do away with an orderly market. Do you really think you have had the experience of an orderly market during the last four years? You can call anything “orderly”, but to my mind orderly marketing is marketing that goes through the channels quickly and with the least possible delay. You are building up a corporate body, superimposing it with monopoly powers on the economic structure in the Deciduous Fruit Board. The farmer himself with the price at l¾d grumbles. I agree with him. After all, wheat at 36s. a bag is nearly 2½d. per lb. So in comparison l¾d. a lb. for fruit is not a high price. An article like deciduous fruit is very difficult to grow, and it does not suit the consumer to see the farmer getting uneconomic prices, because then he does not produce. He ploughs up his peach trees, he ploughs up his vines, and we will not get the fruit of the country. Why do we keep it? Purely because of unsound economics. It is unsound. Then it is thrown back that one is a believer in private enterprise. I maintain, and I always have maintained, that this system is neither efficient nor is it incorruptible, as to my mind the amount of negligent wastage is so really startling, the wastage of Government money that might be devoted to better purposes, that I regard that wastage of trust money as corruption.

I must say, Mr. Chairman, that there is a lot of good in what my hon. friend has said I am a great admirer of the co-operative system, but I want to agree that even in co-operative systems you must have competition, and after all, it is efficiency that counts. We feel that as far as the Deciduous Fruit Board is concerned, the Minister has made certain mistakes. First of all, the constitution of his Board is wrong, and unfortunately there are no consumers who have put men on the Board, with the result that the Minister has now placed on the Board political agents to further the interests of groups, and not the national interests. That is certainly one point on which he made a mistake. I feel that our aim should be to get the producers and consumers nearer together. As far as the citrus industry is concerned, it is useless to have local depôts and control it locally. You must have the whole thing on a national basis, and control must be 100 per cent. or not at all. Here we come back to the old system. If you want to control you must be able to store the article, and unless you have adequate storage where the produce can be kept for a period, the whole control falls away and the undesirable element creeps in. We feel that as far as citrus and also vegetables are concerned, the position is this. Was there really efficient machinery before the new system was introduced? I say there was not. That is why we have the scarcity. The whole system is bad. It is rotten. If you fix the price to the middleman, the overtrading will automatically disappear, whether it is a question of co-operative or private enterprise. The man who gives the value will be the man to survive, and here I feel that the existing channels of distribution must be extended. You cannot take away your existing channels and just bring in new depôts and hope to solve the question in that way. It is something that takes time, and the price you pay your middleman automatically does away with the difficulty. I feel that the Deciduous Fruit Board is very much handicapped through there being only a small sectional body. The principle should be extended right through the country, otherwise I certainly should not like to be on such a Board. It is no good having a system in one town and not in the other. It should operate right through the country. That is the only way in which you can have control and ensure an orderly marketing system in South Africa. We do not mind what the system is so long as it is orderly, and if the grower is satisfied by being able to make a decent living. I do not want to say more about the Deciduous Fruit Board, but I want to ask the Minister a few questions about Item 2. As the Minister knows, there is a very big shortage of wheat in the country. Could the Minister in his reply, tell us something to satisfy more or less the people in this country, because we are very perturbed about what the shortage is; and could he tell us what efforts are being made to import sufficient wheat. I think it is the duty of the House to give security to the people outside. If the Minister does not do that and if he does not improve the position of the wheat farmer ….

Order, order! The hon. member cannot discuss wheat now.

I am not going into that ….

The hon. member is going beyond the reasons for the increase.

Here.again I also say that the operations of the Board and the way the distribution is done can be very much improved. I think on former occasions we have told the public that we would like to have a good scheme from the other side, so that we could discuss this matter from a national standpoint. The food of the people is not a political matter, but it is a national matter, and if anyone in this House can bring forward a good scheme, we on this side of the House and the country generally will be grateful. We are prepared to act in an advisory capacity and to assist in the furtherance of such a scheme in any way we possibly can. Unfortunately, these boards are being so prostituted that they are being turned into political institutions without no real power at all.

I should like to answer quite briefly one or two points that have been raised by the hon. member for Ceres (Dr. Stals). As he has himself admitted, and he has had considerable experience in connection with the matter, it is very difficult to reckon the costs of production of an aritcle, and I want to tell the hon. member that we have not worked out all the figures of production costs, but by approximation we have fixed the price, more or less, that a farmer ought to receive. As regards the trade, we have not worked out the figures, but we have sufficient information to enable us to fix the maximum prices that I announced yesterday. As regards the other matter the hon. member has touched on, as the representative of a district where there are many pear growers I want to tell him that we realise the seriousness of the codling moth pest. I cannot say in advance what we are going to do, but I can give the hon. member the assurance that we are watching the position very carefully. I think that the hon. member will admit that we must first wait to see how the pear crop turns out, and what the farmers are going to get. We must first see what the farmers get for their crop.

†I think the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. Waring) did not quite interpret what I said. I did not merely say that he was an upholder of private enterprise and that there was anything wrong about that. We all stand for private enterprise. What I did say was that he was a wholehogger for private enterprise without any exception being made in any circumstances, and that he was anti-control of any kind whatever, complete laissez-faire. That is what I tried to make plain, and in that sense knowing he is against all Control Boards and all forms of control, and against any restriction or interference at all with private enterprise, I suggested, with some justification, I believe, that he was bound to express his views irrespective of the merits of the case, holding the sincere convictions that he does. I do not quite agree with the argument he has just made, that in every case where there is waste it is a proof of corruption. I think that is a non sequitur. If you applied that test you would probably convict private enterprise as much as any other form of enterprise. Private enterprise, of course, has its losses every day. So do not let us pursue that. It is quite clear that is an untenable proposition that my hon. friend has propounded. With regard to the remarks of the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) I should like to say that the Government is vigilant. Immediately our crop estimates indicated that it was necessary to import wheat, we took steps. In fact, we have taken all the steps whenever an opportunity offered of importing wheat, and we are actively pursuing measures to see that we will have adequate stocks in this country to see us through, so that there will be no necessity to restrict the bread of the people. I can give him and everybody that assurance, that we are wide awake, and that we are doing all that is required to ensure that our Wheat stocks are adequate.

And you are exporting at the same time.

I have heard a lot about export, but I do not want to pursue that. We are importing wheat, not exporting. I hope that after this full discussion on the vote the Committee may see its way to pass it.

I propose to add a brief word to the discussion on the Deciduous Fruit Board, which it would seem might more aptly be called the “Insidious Fruit Board.” The Minister would do well to interpret the criticism levelled against the Board in its proper light. It would, in my submission, be a mistake to regard this attack as limited in its character, and as being an attack purely on the functions and management of this control board. Similar criticism might have been so interpreted years ago, when the way in which the Board manages its affairs was of very little concern to the people, because in its consequences it did not noticeably touch them. But today the attack on the Deciduous Fruit Board is only part of an attack on the whole food position and reflects public concern over food shortages. It is levelled against the Board because on account of the other shortages of essential foodstuffs fruit has assumed tremendous importance in the nation’s diet. Fruit today is, or at any rate ought to be regarded as essential foodstuff and the shortage of it is naturally a matter of great concern. The consensus of opinion would appear to be that the fruit position is rotten. And the consensus of opinion is equally that the consumer is very badly served. He has to eat through the mouth but pay through the nose. The hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) speaking for the Board admits quite frankly that the consumer has come very badly out of the whole business. I want to pass quickly on to another aspect of the matter I particularly wish to raise, but may in passing, refer again to the views of the hon. member, and of the plea he made for the Board, when he said that on the whole the conduct of the Board and the management of the industry by the Board was satisfactory. Surely, Mr. Chairman, the acid test as to whether the Board has managed its affairs satisfactorily is whether the producer gets enough money for his fruit, the consumer enough fruit for his money, and on both these issues the hon. member admits that the Board cannot justify itself. The hon. member concedes that the farmer is getting probably just enough to keep him on the land, while the consumer is paying exorbitant prices. How it can then be suggested that on the whole the Board has done fairly well, that it has done satisfactory work, it is very difficult to appreciate. We are now dealing with this particular Board, but there has been a demand in recent years for more consumer representation not only on this Board, but on all similiar Boards, and to a certain extent that position has been met by the appointment of nine consumer representatives. But I want to make this observation. The consumer representative on a Board of this kind stands on an entirely different footing to the representatives of those engaged in the industry. He is in an entirely different position to the representative of the producer, or in the case of the Wheat Board for instance, to the representative of the miller, and so on, because the producer can represent adequately the interests of other producers by merely bearing in mind his own selfish interests. When he looks after his own interests on that Board he knows he is serving the interests of others in the same position. If he is looking after his interests as a farmer, he is serving the interests of his fellow farmers. That applies equally in the case of the miller. But how does a person because he is a consumer, and we are all consumers how does he représent the interests of consumers who are after all the whole community? What qualifications does he have which entitle him to go on the Board as a representative of the whole community, and not as a representative of sectional interests. I concede that distinction should be drawn in the case of a representative who can speak for the womenfolk of South Africa. But apart from that, there must be something for the consumer representative to justify his seat on the Board, and the justification is not merely that he is a consumer. The trouble with the Board is maldistribution, and because of bad distribution the consumer suffers. The interests of the consumer are therefore met only then when you have representing his interests on the Board a man who by virtue of his experience in the industry and by virtue of his general business talent, can ensure there is sound distribution and so safeguard the interests of the consumer. I hope in relation to all these Boards, when it comes to appointing consumers’ representatives, the Minister will ensure that these people have the qualifications I have enumerated, which in my opinion are essential qualifications.

I rise just to clear my name. When I last took part in the debate I communicated certain figures to this House. They were not official figures obtained from the Department of Agriculture, but figures that I obtained from prominent farmers in the districts of Worcester, Ceres and De Doorns, and those farmers gave me thier word that those figures are correct. I mentioned those figures in the House. The Minister stated yesterday that the figure I gave the House was wrong. He went further.

I naturally assumed that the figure had been given to the hon. member.

The Minister went further. He actually said that the accuracy of figures furnished by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) is not his strong point. I then gave other figures. I said that the maximum price that the farmer gets today for his peaches is 2s. 5d. per single tray, and the Minister said the figure was wrong, and that it was 3s. This morning I was in telephonic communication with the farmers who furnished me with that information, and they assured me, on their word of honour, that they are right, and that the Minister’s figure is wrong.

Two and fivepence is the initial payment.

I have here the official figures and I want to ask the House to judge whether the Minister was justified in saying that I misled the House, and that any figures that I furnished to the House are wrong.

I have “Die Burger” in front of me, and it says—

That is what has gone out to the world. I am entitled to have this matter put right with the Minister. There is the official figure. According to the official figure the price that is today fixed for the farmer is 2s. 5d.

That is the provisional price.

What guarantee is there that there will be a balance to be paid?

There it stands “Top grade selected 2/5.” Has the Minister the right, when I give that figure to the House, to cast doubt on my word and to proclaim to the country that I am inaccurate?

That is true as well. You know it is so.

Order, order!

Has the Minister tried to prove that my figure is wrong? It states here that should there be a surplus ….

There may be a loss.

…. then the board can pay the farmer an additional 7d. so that there is a big “perhaps” that if all goes well the farmer may at the end of the season receive 3s. in all. The price that he receives today is 2s. 5d. and when the Minister made that announcement that the farmer would perhaps get a bonus, he knew that last year they were not in a position to pay the bonus. The hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) knows that, and the hon. the Minister knows that they were not in a position to pay the bonus last year and here the Minister comes and makes out that I am lying. If I were to tell the Minister this afternoon exactly what he did yesterday, I should have to use unparliamentary language. But all I can say about the Minister’s address is this, that his action yesterday is unworthy of a Minister of the Crown. I must say that after what has happened in connection with these figures I cannot attach any value to any ministerial statement in this House. Every man is concerned about his honour and his good name. I gave figures that were correct. The Minister has to try to stretch the truth to the utmost to provide another figure, and that only shows what a poor case the Minister has to defend when he is compelled to do violence to the truth in this manner. That assertion has now gone out to the world. I hope that tomorrow the press will make it clear that the man who gave the misleading figures to the House is not the member for George, but the Minister. He did that with the official figures in his hand. He gave the House a wrong impression in an endeavour to make some sort of case.

But you seem to know a lot about agriculture. Who gave you the information?

I hope that the Minister of Agriculture will now have the decency not to apologise to me—I do not ask that from him—but to beg pardon of the House for having yesterday attempted to mislead it.

That is very strong language.

That is very strong language, but I have the right to say it on account of what happened yesterday. I only want to add this, that a Minister who veils everything in secrecy and then comes along with figures, and it is proved that those figures are not accurate, does not deserve the confidence of this House. [Time limit].

I should like to ask the Minister something under “E”. I notice an amount of £488,000 is asked as a subsidy in connection with the stabilisation of the price of bread. Now I want to tell him something that happened to me, and to ask him whether that does not supply the reason why there is a shortage and why extra money has to be voted, and how it is perhaps the case that with the Wheat Board things are going in much the same way as with the Deciduous Fruit Board, namely that the Board is not doing its work properly, and that it does not enjoy the confidence of the public. I want to tell the Minister now what happened in my case. The miller there was appointed as the agent to purchase the wheat from the farmers. A shop there made application to the Wheat Board to buy 300 bags of wheat at the miller’s, and he also asked permission for the wheat to be ground at the local mills. He received an answer that a permit was granted to him to buy the 300 bags of wheat but that it must be consigned to the milling company at Port Elizabeth to be ground there. Can you understand that position? There where the wheat could be ground cheaper than at Port Elizabeth, a shopkeeper is told that he can buy the wheat in the village but he has to take it out of the mills and consign it to Port Elizabeth and let it be ground there by the milling company. The railway freight there and back is 2s. The transport from the station and back is 6d. and at Port Elizabeth transport is also 6d. In other words, he has to pay an additional 3s. for transport of the wheat in order to have it milled, and that is a request from the Wheat Board, that he should have the meal ground in Port Elizabeth. Now I ask this: Is the Government, or the Wheat Board, or whoever it may be, there to protect the interests of the milling company, or is it there to see that the consumer gets his meal at the cheapest price? It is self-evident that if that wheat is milled in Port Elizabeth, the man must pay at least an additional 3s. above the price he has to pay for the milling of the wheat. If he were allowed to mill it where it was stored he would be able to sell it at 3s. cheaper. I want to ask the Minister whether it is his attitude that those things should be permitted, or will a change be effected so that you may have your wheat milled at the place where you can have it done most cheaply, and in that manner give the consumer the cheapest meal? I am not one of the people who are against control. This side of the House is not opposed to control; but we are against the manner in which things are carried out. The public has no confidence in this body. We heard this afternoon what the Minister and other hon. members said. There is only one other member of the House who attempted to defend the Deciduous Fruit Board, and that is the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) who is to-day a member of the Deciduous Fruit Board. The position is this, that the farmer is not getting more than he formerly got, and you can go to the sellers and buy third grade grapes for 6d. a lb. Everything has gone wrong; Is the Government not in a position to stop these things? If the Boards do not answer their purpose, do away with them. We are worse off to-day than we were before control. We have to pay more for fruit and everything. Take the case of wheal. I consider it a disgrace that wheat should be sent from those mills to Port Elizabeth to be ground. The miller is the appointed agent; he buys the wheat from the farmer, but the wheat has then to be consigned to Port Elizabeth to be ground. Is that the policy, to play more into the hands of the big millers, so that their shares may rise; or is it the policy of the Government that the consumer can buy wheat as cheaply as possible.

I shall go into the matter if the hon. member will give me the particulars.

I would like to speak under “L”, “Subsidy for jam manufacture in respect of the withdrawl of sugar rebate”. Here an additional amount of £23,500 is asked. The Minister has just said something about this, but unfortunately the matter is still by no means clear to me. In the first instance, if it is a subsidy on the manufacture of jam, why does it appear under the vote “Agriculture”. The manufacture of jam is by no means an agricultural matter. And if it is a subsidy on the manufacture of jam, or rather if it is a subsidy on sugar for the manufacture of jam, then I must direct the attention of the House to the fact that the sugar industry is one of the richest industries in the country. The hon. Minister has already £70,000 on the original estimates, and he now asks for an additional amount of £23,500. This is a great industry in which millions of pounds have been invested by a few big capitalists, and that industry employs only their friends and a bunch of Indians, What is the object? Is the object to subsidise this sugar so that it can be exported cheaply, so that people overseas may have the benefit of the subsidy?

Order, order. The hon. member may not discuss that matter.

Very well, sir, I shall leave it at that. If the question is one of the increase of the subsidy to jam factories, as appears here, then I want to ask the Minister why has the industry discontinued paying the subsidy to the factories itself? Years ago an agreement was entered into between the jam factories and the sugar industry that that industry would provide the jam factories with sugar at the old price.

The hon. member may only discuss the reason for the increase. The hon. member will have an opportunity later to discuss this matter.

May I then put my point in this way? Why does the Minister now ask for an increase in order, apparently, to support private concerns?

The reason is that the subsidy has to be paid on 40,000 ton while the estimate was in respect of 30,000 ton; there is a difference of 10,000 ton.

If that is the case, I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister that I have learned from good authority that this subsidy was paid to jam factories who are making jam and canning fruit and vegetables for sale to the Admiralty. In other words, this increase is going to the industry so that they may produce jam and export cheap jam to other countries.

And in this way help our farmers.

The position is worse now. I am informed on good authority by big factories that since the position in the East has improved for the Allies, this demand has declined to such an extent that they are saddled with large amounts of accumulated subsidised jam, which they cannot get rid of and which the Admiralty now refuses to take. If a large subsidy of £70,000 has already been granted, I should like to know why the Government does not take steps to see that the manufactured jam is taken up in due course for the purpose for which it was manufactured.

I should like to ask the Minister of Finance whether he is not prepared that we should report progress at this stage. I can tell the Minister why I am asking this. I have information in connection with the Deciduous Fruit Board that I am anxious to lay before the House.

My hon. friend can do that at the second reading.

It is of such a serious nature, that it may perhaps be necessary to appoint immediately a Select Committee of this House to go into it.

The hon. member will have the opportunity to do that later.

I consider that this is the occasion. It is very important information. It is information—I do not want to say anything further at the moment unless I can go into the matter—but it is of so serious a nature that it may be necessary for the House to appoint a Select Committee to go into the affairs of the Deciduous Fruit Board.

Just a word over what the hon. member has said in connection with my speech. He has spoken rather strongly, and he has gone rather far and insinuated that I have done him a great injustice. Well, I had no thought of insinuating that he had intentionally given wrong figures to the House. There is nothing of that sort. But I think that the hon. member has shown by what he himself has stated that I was entitled to hold that he had not placed the complete figures before the House. Take this price about which he now feels so hurt. He told the House that the most that the farmer could get was 2s. 5d. But he admits now that the most that the farmer can get is 2s. 5d. plus the bonus.

Do not now twist my words. I spoke about top grade, the price for the top grade.

I will leave it at that, because what I have said has been confirmed by the hon. member’s own words.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 22—“Agriculture (Forestry)”, £55,000,

I should like to say a few words in reference to this vote. Is the hon. Minister now prepared to agree to the postponement of the discussion?

I leave it entirely in the hands of the House whether we should adjourn now or later. I would rather leave it to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. If he wishes us to adjourn I am prepared to accept that, but if he desires that these estimates should go through, we can carry on.

It will also perhaps help us in respect of the motion that I have before the House, if we now adjourn. I should like to have seen this motion that I have proposed just come up formally, and it would then be held over until Monday. That would suit us best. If you then proceed with this business tomorrow after the private business has been disposed of, there will be time left over. But we do not wish that our motion should be interrupted further, and I therefore move that my motion should just formally come on the Order Paper, and then be adjourned till Monday.

I cannot give an undertaking that unless the estimates are not disposed of by that time that the Leader of the Opposition’s motion will enjoy precedence on Monday. If private business is rapidly disposed of tomorrow, we shall probably dispose of the rest of the estimates, but if that does not happen we shall have to dispose of them on Monday. I leave to my hon. friend to say what he chooses. If we now adjourn there is, of course, the danger that we may not be able to proceed with his motion on Monday.

Tomorrow is in any event a broken day, and for that reason we would prefer to have our motion on Monday in the hope that Monday will then be an uninterrupted day for us.

I understand the hon. member’s attitude. He would prefer that this discussion be adjourned, and that we should then bring his motion formally before the House, and that we then should adjourn the debate on his motion to Monday in the hope—I say in the hope, I do not give an assurance—that we will be able to begin with it fairly early on Monday. If we can resume this discussion tomorrow and dispose of it, which is probable, then I believe that hope will be fulfilled. However, I give no assurances, but we shall do our best to bring my hon. friend’s motion before the House as early as possible on Monday. But I give no promise, and I hope that we understand each other.

I also do not want to give any promise that if the estimates are not disposed of early on Monday, that we will then not protest if my motion is relegated to the background. I also do not want to give that assurance.

I move—

Agreed to.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported progress and asked leave to sit again.

House to resume in Committee on 26th January.

I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

Debate adjourned; to be resumed on 29th January.