Before I proceed to deal with the cases of soldiers who also received notice to vacate their farms, I wish to touch on a few other matters. I see that the hon. mem bers for Barberton (Mr. Raubenheimer) and Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans) are here, and I made a few notes while they were speaking. The hon. member for Barberton said that the Minister of Lands is ruining the farmers. He went further and said that the Minister of Lands gives preference to natives, in other words, that he does not chase natives, but only European lessees off the ground. He went further and spoke about “this Government of officials”. I think that we on this side have never used stronger language than that hon. member. He went further and said that the Minister is an impractical Minister, that he should know better, being a practical farmer, and he spoke of the dominating replies of the Minister of Lands. The hon. member for Losberg spoke in more or less the same strain. I do not think that we can draw up a stronger indictment against the Minister of Lands than has been done by his own people. However, I just want to tell those hon. members that it is not very chivalrous of them to fire at the Minister from behind. I wish to invite them to come and sit on this side and to fire at the Minister from the front. That would be more interesting and more effective. We know that the Minister of Lands is afraid of sabotage, and now he is receiving it from his own side. After that the Minister of Lands made an attempt to pacify these members a little. Whether he managed to pacify the hon. member for Barberton I do not know, but the Minister must now realise that even in his own circles things are not going well, and that feeling is runnig high about these lessees. On a previous occasion I had touched on the case of one soldier who received notice, namely Corporal L. G. Botha. He joined up in 1940 and fought right through Abyssinia, Egypt and Libya, and at present is in the 6th Division in Italy, where he received the notice to vacate. The name of his farni is “Silona” in Ubombo, Natal. At the moment he is fighting in Italy and he received notice that he must vacate the farm. But I go further. His father is substituting for him while he is fighting., and his father has also now received notice to vacate his farm. Both farms were leased. The father and son have both been there ten years. According to the. Minister the son did his duty and gave his life for his country, and did his best to make us safe, but that is the treatment he is receiving from the Department of Lands. Is that fair treatment of this soldier and his father? The father has already spent about £1,200 on the farm in the ten years. 4,000 cement blocks are lying there to improve the farm and he will have to leave them there, or try to transport them, which is almost impossible. He spent much money on improvements and now he must break down what he built and leave the farm. I turn to an instance in my own constituency, also a soldier, named Barnes. He is in the Air Force at Kimberley and comes to the farm now and again. He also received notice to vacate.

I am glad that you are now beginning to take an interest in what you people call “the red lice”.

You just wanted them to go and fight and now you are leaving them in the lurch.

A little further, near Barnes, there is one Johannes Combrink. He has been on the farm for 31 years. This man is 80 years of age and his wife is 78. She is so sickly that she could not go and vote at the election, although she was keep to go. She fainted three times along the road and had to receive treatment, and with the Provincial election she did not dare to try to vote. Now these old people must leave the farm and go on the road. Next to them there is staying one P. Sauer, not the hon. member for Humansdorp, but his uncle. I do not want to insinuate that the Minister, because of the clash they have had in the Karoo wishes to be revenged on the uncle, but he has been there for 36 years and is more than 80 years, of age. He also received notice. Next to him there is a window. Her husband died of Miners’ Phthisis. They have been staying there for 18 years. Let us take the cases of Combrink and Sauer who have been there respectively for 31 and 36 years. If one counts all the interest which they paid on the farms, they have practically paid the purchase price of the farm. Now the Government; out of gratitude for the fact that they have paid the rent all this time and have made improvements, tells these people to leave. These farms were given out under the Milner Government. There was nothing on the farms. These people improved the farms, erected fences, built houses, erected windmills and put down boreholes and other improvements. They tamed that bit of country. After all these years they are now being told : As a mark of appreciation for your having made these parts habitable, you are now receiving notice to quit. The Minister ought to differentiate, especially in cases where people have been on the farms for 30 years. It is almost the duty of the State to give these people the farms as a gift. I think I can put it as strongly as that. But I go further. I have already drawn the attention of the Minister’s office to the fact that the people who now have to vacate the farms will have to take down the fences, remove the windmills, and strip the houses. They will have to take everything away and go elsewhere, and when the soldiers or other people arrive, perhaps even the same people, after a few months, they must again erect fences and windmills and build houses. That is a waste of money and time and manpower. I want to suggest that these people should receive a reasonable compensation if they now have to leave. I would prefer to see them stay there, but in any case they must receive fair compensation; and in any case I want to press it upon the Minister strongly that these people should be left there until the farms are allotted to other settlers. The Minister has said that they allow the farms to be trodden out, that they entrench themselves, but, these people have been there for 30 years. The farms are under quota and may not have more than a certain number of cattle and sheep, and the inspectors arrive there from time to time to see whether everything is in order, and if they contravene the regulations, a bad report on them is submitted and they are liable to lose the farms. These people look after the farms well. There are many poisonous plants on the farms and if a stranger comes there and grazes his cattle he will be liable to heavy losses. The people who are there now know the ground and the conditions. Let them remain there. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) said that there was even a scheme of putting caretakers there. Why not let these farmers look after the farms until they are allotted at a later date? Then it will not be so hard on them. They can still continue on a little and keep everything in order and production will not be interrupted. Through the Minister’s actions production will be affected for months and even for years. I also want to ask whether the Minister really thinks it is in the interests of the returned soldiers that they should be placed on that sort of farm. If we consult history we find that this happened in three periods. Firstly in 1903, under the Milner Government, farms were allotted on a large scale to returned soldiers who had fought in the Anglo-Boer War. If one goes to the constituencies where these farms were allotted to them the only thing remaining is the names, which they gave to the farms,. “Just-in-Time”, “Home Sweet Home”, and names like that; but those soldiers are no longer there, nor are their children or grandchildren there. It was a hopeless failure. In 1919 we had the same thing again. Then the returned soldiers were first sent to the agricultural colleges. Perhaps the Minister remembers that these soldiers were supposed to be trained in the agricultural colleges. Later that caused almost a revolution and it ended in a fiasco. It was not a success. Now, in 1945, we have the third episode. I should like to refresh the Minister’s memory in connection with Ganspan; Last year I asked him questions about that. Returned soldiers were placed there but they were unsuitable. What happened there, however, indicates the mentality and the attitude of the returned soldiers towards such settlements.

That falls under Social Welfare.

I know, but it shows the soldiers’ attitude to farm labour. Up to 28th March, 1944, 23 soldiers had been placed there. Married families received £3 per family, £2 for 4 children and something like 15/- in cost of living allowances, altogether round about £15 in cash or services. Furthermore, they had the use of draught animals and implements, and they had a free house. In spite of all the wonderful privileges these people received, 13 had left the place up to that date. What were the reasons for their leaving. The one said that his wife could not wash the dishes herself, another said that the wind blew too much, a third that they were too far from their relatives and the fourth said that the ground was too small. They left. Now I want to come to another aspect of the matter and I would like the Minister to devote his serious attention to it. In 1940, the Moratorium Act was passed. In terms of the Act no soldier could be hindered as regards his family life while the war was in progress. If he has debt he cannot be forced to pay for a period of six months after the war. He cannot be summoned. In 1943 War Measure No 37 was passed, providing that not even civilians could be put out of their houses, not even if the owner himself wishes to live in the house, if the owner had not lived there before for a certain period. In 1944, War Measure No. 97 went further and laid down that not even a soldier’s father could be put out of the house. The whole trend of this law and of the War Measures was that the people fighting at the front should be safeguarded at home. What does the Minister of Lands do? I mentioned two cases of soldiers who must vacate their farms. But it is not confined to soldiers. Not even the ordinary civilian population may be turned out of leased houses, provided they pay the rent properly. The Minister now gives notice that people who regularly paid the rental of the farms must get out. Is that legal? Is that not a contravention of the Moratorium Act? Many of the farmers have already taken legal advice and were advised that it is not for them to vacate the farms and they decided not to do so. The Minister will take them away in lorries or something of that nature. I do not know whether that will be practicable. I wish to bring this to the Minister’s attention very seriously. His attitude is not in accordance with the spirit of the times. Where must these people go? Where must they find other houses and plots? There are at present about 2,500 plots lying vacant at Vaal-Hartz, Loskop and other places. They are not being occupied at present. Why not? Returned soldiers or other persons can be placed there. Leave these people there in the meantime and if later it is felt that the plots are required, they can be allotted to others. Furthermore, I wish to suggest that the Minister should first allot to soldiers the 1,500,000 morgen of ground which was bought during the war. That will mean about 1,000 farms. There is therefore room for a thousand soldiers and together with the 2,500 plots it will mean that there is room for 3,500 soldiers. That was the position last year and by now I suppose it has risen to 4,000. Leave the people on the leased farms, and later, if it is necessary, they can be given notice to vacate. Then, if the ground is allotted to applicants, and these people do not receive it, they will be satisfied to leave.

The whole of the 1½ million morgen has been leased under contract.

There are leased farms which were allotted more than 30 years ago and that ground could not have been bought now. The 1¼ million morgen which was bought was bought in time of war.

It is all leased.

In those cases the people have not been on the farms for long. Why must notice now be given to people who have been on the farms for a long time, who cultivated those farms and built them up? We ought to give them a reasonable chance and to wait until the farms have been allotted. If then these people have not received the farms they will be prepared to leave. I come then to the question of compensation. It is something about which we feel very deeply. I do not know how the Minister is going to decide what amount of money must be paid to people, but the fact remains that those people improved the farms and spent money on them—in one case £1,200, as I indicated. I think the Minister should have a valuation made through the Land Board and a reason able compensation should then be paid to these people. The new occupier of the farm will then have the benefit of improvements and the amount paid by the Government as compensation can be added to the purchase price. He then has the benefit of the work of all these years. If it is the same person who receives the farm, it is not necessary to break down and to build again. I think that will be very fair. I really think that the Minister should embark upon a strategic withdrawal in this matter, and we very strongly recommend it. He must realise that there is force in our plea, and it is not yet too late for him to do so. Even his own supporters will be quite satisfied if he tells the lessee that he can remain on the farm until it is allotted. If the Minister makes them leave before the farms are Hotted, the farms will lie there useless for months and perhaps years. If the fences are taken away from the farms I mentioned, they will be ruined. The neighbours will allow their cattle to graze there at night and game will be exterminated. I am not even talking about windmills and such things. It will be the ruination of those farms and the new occupier will have to rebuild everything. To act as the Minister does is not developing the country. At the present moment we in South Africa are trying to bring social security into the foreground, and what the Minister is doing here is not the practical application of social security. Let the people remain there; let them feel safe there and make a living for as long as possible. I want to tell the Minister that he must give heed to our appeal if he does not want further trouble in his own ranks—and we see that there is already trouble in his own ranks—and if he wants to put the country in a state of contentment. In the Transvaal about 500 people received notice. There should be about 2,000 of them in the whole of the Union. Those people are upset today. I know what it means to them because there are many of these farms in my constituency, and therefore I think that the Minister should reconsider the matter. I use the word “reconsider” which was used by the hon. member for Barberton purposely. He asked the Minister to be more practical. In conclusion I want to say this. In the few cases I quoted of people who have been living on the farms for 30 and for 31 years, the Minister can well, ask the question why those people did not apply to be included under the squatting system. Let me remind the Minister that that ground all these years has been proclaimed ground for diggings. It was first proclaimed during the war and during the war no farms have been allotted. It was therefore impossible for those people to get any of that ground. Now the farms have been deproclaimed; now that it is possible for them to apply, they are told that they must leave and that later on they can apply and then they will be treated on an equal footing. As far as the equal treatment is concerned I am wondering whether it will be a decisive factor if a person can say that he was at the front. It appears to me that that will be the decisive factor, and investigation will not be made into whether this man can cultivate the farm in a practical manner, but only whether he is a soldier or not. I hope that that will not be decisive but fear that it will be the case. The people on the farms are also afraid that the merits of the matter will not be investigated but only the question of whether applicants fought in the war or not.

Mr. Speaker, I want to draw the attention of the House to the importance of the relationship between budgetary procedure and the demobilisation of our veterans, war workers, and to some extent, our war industries. I suppose it is fairly correct to say that the priorities that the Government has in mind in regard to demobilisation are: First, work; secondly, housing; thirdly, a guaranteed economic status at least equal to that the men enjoyed before they went on war service. If we intend to honour those priorities we must get quite clear at the outset what our budgetary pattern is going to be; so that the financial instrument to make a success of demobilisation can be created. There is still in the country a lack of appreciation of the profound economic significance of the annual budget presented to this House. The general opinion is, that the Minister of Finance is just the national book-keeper; and that, if he achieves a balance, or now and again achieves a surplus, he is occasionally called a financial wizard. The fact is that budgetary policy affects every farm and factory and business in the country, and the standard of living of us all. Unfortunately, too, there is still the obsession in the country of the balanced budget; and that, Sir, notwithstanding the methods adopted by the hon. the Minister during the war, when, and it is no mean achievement, a sum of £240,000,000 was raised for war purposes, and was largely obtained from the savings of the people. The obsession of the balanced budget still, prevails, notwithstanding the historic experiment made by President Roosevelt in 1933, when in order to meet as nearly as possible the conditions for full employment in the States, he deliberately budgeted for globular deficits. The principle he went on was that human needs in our budgeting must come first; and that finance is merely the instrument for the realisation of those needs. That is very different from the old way which means that human needs are frequently chiselled down in order to meet the requirements of an artificial monetary scarcity. If that is to be the policy for South Africa after the war, if housing plans and health plans and work plans are to be governed by that consideration, then our demobilisation programme will remain at a token standard, in order to subscribe to the fiction of budgetary solvency. The claims of our ex-servicemen on demobilisation are enough to demand from the Minister a reversal of that policy. During the war we deliberately put our national needs first; instead of saying national needs I think I might appropiately say we put our human needs first; and we use our national finance as the instrument to ensure that all these war needs shall be met. If the war goes on for two or three or more years we shall continue to meet the war’s financial needs, no matter how heavy may be the burden. After the war, and even today in preparation for the peace, the people are demanding that their urgent public and family needs shall be met. It is my conviction, my confidence, that the present Minister of Finance can make the achievement of the satisfaction of those needs possible through his budgetary policy in the same way as he has so successfully prosecuted a budgetary policy for the conduct of the war. Our people, our serving men and women demand that; and they demand with that policy the elimination of the licence we now give to a few people to exploit the country’s war situation and the war sacrifices, so that they will not be able to exploit the peace in the same way. What I want to convey is this, that South Africa, after the war, expects a policy of economic expansionism, leading to full employment. I assume that the Government aims at the creation of plenty after the war, and not the creation of scarcity. By plenty I mean plenty in the sense of houses, educational facilities, food, income, public works and so on. If we do not budget for an expansionist economy on those lines, then there is a grave danger that we may repeat the economic folly of 1920 and afterwards, when we went into extreme inflation followed by a depression; and that was followed, in turn, by an attempt at stabilisation on what we called the gold standard. By that policy we drove a whole generation practically into economic slavery; and we had the sorry spectacle of mendicant soldiers, homeless, workless and despised. Some of us here in this House went through that bitter experience after the last war. Mr. Speaker, there is a way out of an impasse like that; and the power lies today in the hands of the Minister of Finance of this country. By deliberately budgeting for full employment; and doing that separately from the normal budget, by budgeting in a capital budget, he can, I believe, promote a policy of economic expansionism and head off depression. We have to keep in mind that the factors leading to inflation, followed by a depression, are now present in South Africa to an ominous degree. The danger of mass unemployment after the post-war boom is a very real danger. In the coming budget, we must get to grips with these factors, or inflation will wreck our demobilisation plans. Immediate action is necessary in order to control it; not by cutting living standards, not by a reversion to 1939, but by a policy of stimulating production, the State taking the initiative, stimulating the production to an increasing degree of consumers’ goods on a vast scale. My contention is that budgetary policy can be so managed as to make the production of consumers’ goods on a gigantic scale possible in this country. In view of the dangers that loom ahead in South Africa, this Parliament must therefore, have at its discretion a system of control that would make economic disequilibrium very unlikely in South Africa. I mean that this Parliament should deliberately plan its economy, have a planned system of production, leading to full employment. We can do that. The experience of Sweden in 1932, when the great depression, like a blizzard, swept through the world, is one we can well keep in mind. There, under a deliberate policy of budgeting for full employment, the Swedish people were able to avoid depression. Gustav Moeller, then Swedish Minister of Social Welfare, describing what was done by Sweden in those days, used these words—

I believe that a budget designed to achieve full employment will have to be based fundamentally on the fact that our people are not merely taxpayers. They are producers and consumers; and as such, State finance should be so directed to do everything possible to ensure the maximum investment by the State and by private industry. Maximum investment means a continuous demand for labour. That means the expansion of our internal market, a crying economic need in the countrdy today; and that in turn means the maintenance of employment. I would like to quote some remarks by Prof. Copland, economic adviser to the present Australian Federal Government. Dealing with the factor I have just referred to he says—

In the light of the thesis I wish to present to the House, I am convinced that our men and women in the army today, are looking to the Minister of Finance, not without confidence looking to the next budget, for an assurance that work will be provided for all in terms of that budget; and that it will be guaranteed to the limit. They believe, these fighting men believe, that houses for the poor and proper housing for ex-servicemen are more important than luxury flats for the rich. They believe that health centres and hospitals are more important than cinemas; that funds for agricultural development, soil conservation and the re-settlement of our ex-servicemen are more important than subsidised uneconomic industries, whether they be primary or secondary; more important than the luxury of an army of controllers. The men in the army anxiously await from the Minister of Finance a budget that will show he is definitely budgeting for the full employment of our people. No one better than the hon. Minister understands the economic and social needs of our people. The people are looking to him today for leadership. They are looking to him, in hope and in confidence, that in bridging the transition from war to peace, he will not sacrifice the fundamental needs of the people in order to achieve a balanced, budget. I was talking to a businessman in Port Elizabeth some time ago; he was discussing the question of budgetary policy. Referring to the possiblity of unemployment after the war, he used these words—

If we do not budget for full employment then, Sir, in view of the colossal programme of reconstruction that must be undertaken in this country I have a fear that we shall be plunged into an unparalleled economic disaster in South Africa; and dissipate the hopes of thousands of men who have made sacrifices for this country, partly because they believe they are coming back to a South Africa of work and economic opportunity. A special budget designed to five full employment would, in my conviction, go a long way to make such an anticipation possible. We had a White Paper placed on the Table last week. It suggests a number of splendid social possibilities. If that White Paper is expressed in terms of budgetary items next month by the Minister of Finance, then we shall be able to say that this country has made a very big step forward towards the achievement of full employment. The policy I am advocating is this, that the Minister should depart from the orthodox budgetary procedure, that he should go in for two budgets. I have mentioned this before in the House; it is worthy of reiteration. On the one hand he should prepare a revenue budget, that is a budget designed chiefly as an accounting instrument, and only an accounting instrument, for current State expenditure; that is to say for debt services, for defence, justice, education and so on. It should be drawn up on the principle that any increased expenditure in those items should be met from increased taxation. On the other hand he should have a second budget, a capital budget which, as I visualise it, would be something far different from an ordinary revenue budget. It would be a dynamic work-creating instrument, not necessarily balanced, and the funds for that budget might come from loan funds. Personally, I would like to see the funds coming during the early days of development from special credits. This capital budget would create in the main productive assets; that is to say all the credits would gradually be self-liquidating, or in other words would be constantly earning income. Here, too, we have an opportunity to use what is today partly, and what should be wholly, our national bank, the South African Reserve Bank, to provide the necessary funds for the reconstruction purposes contemplated in the capital budget. These funds could be practically interestfree; that is if they were used for public purposes. I think the Minister could well extend the practice he now adopts of going to the Reserve Bank for short term credits. He could get these credits for a limited period in order to put the reconstruction programme on its feet. I believe a capital budget so financed, or even financed as we are financing the war, would make the necessary provision for housing, capital construction for health services, agricultural development to develop nutritional services, schools, public works, soil conservation and so on. In fact, that budget would provide the very outlay to begin the programme of demobilisation and full employment. If the State would lead in that way, the response from private enterprise would be as effective as it has been during the war. I believe it would be more so, as the outlay would be, as I have said, for income-producing assets, that is for industries, improved farms, public assets, better homes, healthy children and so on. The hon. the Minister may reply and say: Well, I already have two budgets; I have a revenue account and a loan account. I am not pleading for an account but for a workcreating instrument, one that Would make, in South Africa as the governor of our economic system not the bank rate, as today; but full employment; to which objective we shall have to harness every business of every description in the country. In that way I believe our policy and our economic action will keep in tune with the many promises we have made to our people. Shirras, a leading modem economist, referring to the two budget system as essential to post-war economy, uses these words:

In a booklet dealing with full employment and issued recently by Lever Brothers, the two budget system is again recommended, as follows—

That represents, I suggest, the view of the big progressive industries in this country and overseas. I conclude with another quotation, very different in tenor, but very much to the point. Discussing our failure during the great depression to provide against unemployment; and reminding us how we let down our fighting men after Great War No. 1, Herbert Agar, puts his case this way—

In fulfilment in South Africa of the promises we have made to our fighting men and our people, may it be said of us: They played the game ; as in war, so in the building of the peace, they scorned to ask: Where will the money come from?

I propose to say a few words in connection with building control in South Africa generally and in Johannesburg particularly. When it was appreciated that there would be a shortage of houses in South Africa, we were advised to hold on to what we had; We were told that if we had a house we should not sell it or alienate it in some way or other. A building controller with arbitary powers was then appointed in Johannesburg. One of the first things that happened was that this very same building controller sold his house and took occupation of one of the experimental houses of the Minister of Public Works. I assume that he is as keen as any other person in the country to have his own house. Shortly thereafter he applied as a private individual to the building controller to be allowed to build a house. I should not like to mention names, but I am afraid I may have to do it later. Of course, he got a permit to build and in the near future he will take occupation of a luxurious house which was, of course, built within the limits of the building control, on the slopes of Asvoëlkop near Johannesburg. He did so after having warned the people of South Africa to hold on to what they had. I now come to the building of luxurious stables and motor showrooms, and that type of thing.

May I remind the hon. member of the motion of the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) with reference to housing.

I bow to your ruling. I just want to say however, that apparently there is sufficient building material in South Africa for the building of luxurious stables and showrooms, for luxurious residences for controllers and for cow sheds, which can be obtained by well-to-do people while the poor people and the returned soldiers are dependent on rooms in slum areas and garages. Many of these people are scandalously exploited by hotel owners and boarding house owners, while those beautiful buildings are going up in Johannesburg, in which thousands of tons of cement are being used. With your permission I should like to say a few words in regard to the controller of glass. We have a number of controllers whose actions are fairly suspicious One finds cases in Johannesburg where enemy subjects are able to get all their requirements in the form of bottle glass, and all the raw material they require for the manufacture of useful articles. But when a returned soldier asks to be provided with a large number of bottles for certain things which he manufactured before he went on active service and where he sacrificed his business in order to go on active service, he cannot get it. I have here a letter from a returned soldier which ends as follows—

Why should our soldiers be treated on an equal footing or worse than enemy subjects? Why should they have to be subject to this unfair competition? Why should they have to go short in the provision of bottle glass while enemy subjects are able to get everything they want? I now come to a matter with which I am closely connected, and that is the inefficient handling of the Department of Mines. I want to say a few words in connection with the inefficiency or negligence of the inspectorate of the collieries, especially the collieries of Natal. I want to read to the House a list of catasrophies which took place in the Natal collieries owing to the explosion of gas fumes. In 1906, 18 persons were killed in the Elandslaagte collieries. In 1908, 77 persons were killed in the Glenco collieries; in 1921, 6 persons overe killed in the Burnside collieries. In 1922, 22 persons were killed in the Bumside collieries; in 1923, 12 persons were killed in the Hlobane collieries; in 1926, 125 persons were killed at Dannhauser in colliery No. 2. In the Marshfield collieries in the Transvaal, 27 persons were killed. In 1930, 38 persons were killed in the Bumside collieries; in 1938, 6 persons were killed in the Makateeskop collieries; in 1941, 16 persons in the Utrecht colliery; in 1943, 78 persons in the Northfield collieries; in 1944, 58 persons in the Hlobane collieries. If supervision is kept in the collieries by the inspectorate of the Department of Mines, it would be unnecessary to suffer this loss of life. In reply to a question which I put to the Minister of Mines, he replied that a case was pending against the management of the Hlobane collieries. In my opinion that is altogether wrong. That case should have been pending against the inspectorate of the Department of Mines in Natal. In the investigation which was instituted in connection with this catastrophe, a question was put to the inspector by the Magistrate. The question was—

His last inspection took place in February, 1944. His reply was I do not know. I did not specially take any notice of the distance of those shafts.

Has life in South Africa become so cheap or are the mine workers of South Africa of so little importance that we allow them to be fatally injured on a large scale through the inefficiency of the inspectorate of mines?

If we have reached that stage, then I say we have reached a sad stage for the people of South Africa. Those mine workers are flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood. Their hves are just as precious as the lives in this House. These are lives which contributed to the building up of South Africa over the past 40 or 50 years. Why then should the life of the mine worker be toyed with in such a reckless manner? Then I want to discuss another aspect of the Department of Mines, and that is the incapability of the Minister to come forward in fourteen months’ time with miners’ phthisis legislation for the mine worker on the Witwatersrand. One of the first questions which was put to the Minister of Mines last year was: “When are you going to introduce miners’ phthisis legislation?” It took three years for a commission of investigation to report in connection with miners’ phthisis matters. It took another year—fourteen months up to now—to draft a Bill. In reply to a question which I put to the Minister, he said that he was not yet ready to bring that Bill before the House. Then we come to the unsympathetic action of the Miners’ Phthisis Bureau towards the mine worker and the victims of the mining industry. The Miners’ Phthisis Bureau has the lives of the mine workers in its hands. The destinies of thousands of dependants of miners’ phthisis victims are in their hands, and what do these people get from the bureau? I should like to say a few words to show what they do get. I have here the case of a certain Van Wyk. In his death certificate the doctor gives the cause of death as “cerebral haemorrhage and phthisis of the lung”. The widow received no compensation for the death of this man Van Wyk who is flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood. Then I come to the case of John Edward White. He was advised by the bureau hot to wait longer than two months before he came up for further examination. This man suffered from miners’ phthisis. He was employed in the gold mines of Johannesburg for. 28 years. After the bureau had already told his widow that he had not died as a result of miners’ phthisis, I advised her to appeal. The result of it was this—

Charles Milne Porter died of—I cannot say that he died of miners’ phthisis because the bureau says that is not the case. He died on the 24th December, 1944. The death certificate says the cause of his death was “chronic myocarditis, chronic bronchitis and miners’ phthisis.” His widow is receiving no compensation. Daniel Lewis Barr died on the 26th October, 1943. This is a tragic case.

Where is your Minister of Mines?

He is asleep. This man coughed out his very lungs, but he did not die of miners’ phthisis. This is what someone writes in connection with this case—

That was a month later—

The reply to this letter reads—

I have the death certificate here and the death certificate says that this man died of “miners’ phthisis haemaptysis”. The bureau says he did not die or miners’ phthisis, and the widow is left to her own devices. The widow did everything in her power to obtain right and justice. She addressed letters to the present Minister of Mines. He says—

The question is whose interests does the bureau look after? The interests of the mine workers or the interests of the owners of the mine? If the bureau looks after the interests of the mine owners, I say it is the duty of the mine owners to maintain the bureau, and the people of South Africa should not be saddled with its expenses, and if they look after the interests of the mine worker, why rob widows and orphans of compensation to which they are entitled to? I want to know whether the bureau is protecting Piet van der Merwe and Jack Jones or whether it is protecting the interests of John Martin and other great mining shareholders and of the Chamber of Mines? I say the bureau is not qualified to protect the interests of Piet van der Merwe and Jack Jones. The ignorance of the bureau as far as the human lung is concerned is just as great or greater than that of private doctors. To prove what I have said, I have here a number of sworn statements. A person may go to the mines as John Stallard, and he is turned down as a wether which is not yet fat enough to be slaughtered for the mining industry in South Africa. But if he goes back after six months as Johannes Josephus Stallard, then he is fat enough to be slaughtered. We believe that a wether can be fattened sufficiently in six months’ time for slaughtering purposes; but there are thousands of mine workers of whom I am one, who do not believe that one’s lung can undergo such a wonderful change in six months’ time that one is then qualified to work underground. I want to conclude by saying that it seems to me that the Miners’ Phthisis Bureau is just as incapable as many of the controllers, and that they are also inclined to get hold of the wrong end of the stick.

I wish to associate myself to a certain extent with the remarks made by certain members on this side of the House with regard to the low prices fixed for dairy products, and I particularly wish to refer to those pertaining to cheese, milk and butter-fat. It is true that during the last few days the winter premium has been extended for commodities such as cheese-milk and butter-fat, but it would seem to me that it requires something in the nature of a shock in the drop in production to make the Department realise that these producers were entitled to higher prices, and I say that because in a statement recently issued it says that “the need for assisting producers as well as consumers is apparent from recent production as well as consumption figures”, and then it goes on to give the average weekly butter production for the last three years, and particularly for the period October to January, 1944-’45, is 880,198 lbs., but that in February-March the consumption went up for the same period to over 1,306,000 lbs. I say, Sir, that it would seem at any rate, that there had to be a realisation that there was a drop in the production before the Department agreed to give the higher price

That was because of representations made by you.

I thank you. I appreciate this increase but I still contend that when in future representations are made on these matters, dealing with cheese-milk and butter production, that more timeous consideration will be given to the representations put forward by us. Those of us who represent constituencies where these commodities are produced are definitely alarmed at the sales of dairy stock which have been taking place, and that has only been done because of the uneconomic prices paid for these commodities, and this will without doubt have its inevitable result on the production of these commodities. If, therefore, the dairy industry is to be considered as a national asset, I submit that it should be properly protected. Regarding the manufacture of margarine, I am afraid that I cannot quite associate myself with the pessimistic views expressed by some of my colleagues. I realise that there has been a considerable increase in the purchasing power of the country and that with the drop in the production of cheese and butter the lower income groups are undoubtedly entitled to get these essential foodstuffs, and the supply of margarine may ease their requirements; but I would like to say to the Minister that I am insistent both upon the limited quantity to be manufactured and the limitation of the period in which such manufacture shall take place. If, therefore, satisfactory assurances can be given on both these points, no doubt a good deal of the misapprehension which now exists may be dispelled. I come to this point now that it is unfortunate that authoritative statements of Government policy are often so delayed and are only put into effect when public agitation starts, whereas if they are timeously made I consider that a considerable amount of anxiety and misapprehension will be spared us, and I seriously commend this to the Government. Dealing with the meat scheme as it was announced last Session, I was one of those who stated in this House before it was brought in that there should not be undue haste in doing so, because of the very difficulties which have since shown themselves. Some of these difficulties it is true have since, to a certain extent, been overcome, but which should have been more fully anticipated and removed before the Scheme was brought into force. The Minister himself has my full and entire sympathy. He was prevailed upon to introduce this scheme and he has battled against considerable odds and it would be churlish to lay any blame for its shortcomings at his door, but we can only hope that with the added experience he has now obtained that he will hasten slowly with any new scheme. It will be essential to remove the dissatisfaction regarding grading for instance, and although I know the Minister comforts himself with the report of the recent three-man commission he appointed, I say, with due respect to the members of the Commission, that their findings have not given any confidence to the producers, and it will be essential to any future meat scheme that better and more reliable graders are employed. Then there is the question of cold storage and abattoir facilities which I understand a Committee is also now investigating and after this investigation, suitable action should be taken with as little delay as possible, as the absence of these facilities are considerably affecting the present scheme and will undoubtedly be prejudicial to any future scheme. Then there is the question of distribution, and it is here that I feel the scheme has suffered most. The foolish and ill-conceived ideas of closing up the then existing channels of distribution have brought their inevitable result and in consequence of which we have experienced these acute shortages. I say, emphatically, get rid of these wrong ideas and there will be a constant and equitable supply to the markets in proportion to uncertain climatic and similar conditions. I say quite candidly that I am concerned that all is far from well as far as distribution is concerned. Take Cape Town, for instance, where you have such a monoply as is held by the Imperial Cold Storage. I feel positive that a good deal of the trouble in the Cape Town controlled area is due to the activities of this concern, and the Food Controller should make an investigation into their activities. To ensure better supplies at present prices should also be fixed on a sliding scale to cover periods of plenty and of scarcity. Then I see from the Press that commandeering of stock is being resorted to. Let me at once say that whilst I support the Food Controller’s desire, and indeed his duty, to see that the people in the controlled areas are reasonably fed, I can imagine no better way of creating antagonism and discontent than by con tinuing with such a course—namely, commandering. It requires the utmost tact and sound judgment on the part of the commandeering official in order to obviate trouble, and I have information which substantiates my statement that commandeering is going to create bitterness and confusion, and I hope it will be stopped at once. I also am reliably informed that breeding stock has been commandeered, and this should not be the case, and I hope that immediate steps will be taken to put a stop to this practice. I have already made representations to the Food Controller in this connection. Mr. Speaker, it is not my practice to indulge in recriminations, but when I cast my mind back to the discussions which took place in this House when the present meat scheme was launched in May, last year, our friends on the Opposition benches were definitely more concerned about the prices fixed and the stirring up of an agitation in the country against the scheme on that ground. It is true that the prices fixed under the scheme were below the current market prices which prevailed in the open market, and this naturally came as a shock to producers but to their credit let it be said, they supported the scheme at a loss to themselves, to make it a success for the future, but if members opposite were sincere in their desire to get a permanent scheme which would ensure stability of future prices to the producer, then surely the prices which the scheme had to fix could not be the top or high prices prevailing then, but had to be on a basis only approaching those high prices, otherwise how could future stability be reasonably obtained without later on a very big drop? This basic fact was completely lost sight of by members opposite in their anxiety to decry the scheme. Mr. Speaker, let me say at once that I am wholly in favour of a meat control scheme which will be a permanent one and one which will be the means of stabilising future prices, and the country is looking forward to such a scheme with eager and anxious anticipation. Then, Sir, we are informed that in the light of the experiences already gained a new scheme is to be introduced which is to be the promised permanent scheme, and it is in consequence of this proposal of a new scheme that I wish to make a few further remarks. Although the Minister has not yet given any idea of his intentions, a scheme has been advertised under the Marketing Act. I am concerned about this, because although the Marketing Act is looked upon as the Farmers’ Charter, and which no one wants repealed, it is nevertheless too rigid for a meat scheme, and although it may be the intention to make it more flexible by the introduction of amendments to that Act, I think that it would be a grave risk to bring the new meat scheme under the Marketing Act. I wish to emphasise that we cannot take any risks. We want the scheme to be given every chance of being a success, and our past experience of other boards has not tended to lessen our fears and, more especially in view of the well-known implications of Section 20 of the Marketing Act if granted to a board and which will give to them such wide powers, far too great, to risk a major industry such as meat, being subject thereto. The new meat scheme to be effective and satisfactory must of necessity be a complete departure from the system of marketing of meat that has appertained in the past. It must, therefore, be of a revolutionary nature, and being such it should be given every chance of being a success. Anything of an experimental nature and which has to be tinkered at from time to time should be avoided as likely to cause discontent, and a possible breakdown. This should be avoided at all costs, and as far as possible the new meat scheme should be fully fledged from its inception. I wish to courteously impress upon the Minister to take no risk in connection with the premier farming industry in this country, which is entitled to a scheme of its own under its own special Act, to ensure its future success. I commend this to the Minister, and urge upon him to “go slow and plan carefully.”

Although we on this side are very glad that the Minister of Lands is always present when land settlement questions are discussed, at the same time we want to express our disappointment that he does not always remain in the affable state of mind in which he was this morning, when we discuss his last regulation in terms of which notice has been given to tenant farmers to leave their farms. The day before yesterday the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) voiced constructive criticism in very clear terms, but then the Minister lost his temper; he was practically in a rage. But when the hon. member for Barberton (Mr. Raubenheimer) spoke, he returned to his former affable, sociable state of mind. I mention this merely to show that the Minister is not being very fair.

Unfortunately I was not here when the hon. member for Barberton spoke.

The hon. Minister was here, because immediately after the speech he went over to talk to the hon. member for Barberton in a friendly, brotherly way. I am courteous towards the Minister, and I just want to draw his attention to the fact that he acted somewhat unfairly towards the hon. member for Gordonia. The hon. member spoke of temporary lessees throughout his speech, and the Minister said that he had made himself guilty of misrepresentation.

Where does the uprooting come in then?

I am still coming to that. But the hon. member for Gordonia quoted these words of the Minister—

At this point the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) exclaimed that that was not true. The hon. member for Gordonia then said that he could send for Hansard to quote the exact words, and thereupon the Minister of Lands reacted in these words: “That is what I said.” The hon. member for Gordonia did not therefore make himself guilty of misrepresentation.

On appoint of explanation. The hon. member is again putting a completely wrong interpretation on what I said. I said from the beginning that it was the policy not to grant any land until such itme as the soldiers return, so that they will have an equal opportunity along with other citizens of the country. During the previous Session of Parliament I said in reply to this question which was put to me: “When the soldiers return, will our sons who are in this country also be given an opportunity to apply for a piece of land?”; I then replied—it was not a change of policy—“Yes, they can apply. I have to invite applications under the Act and any citizen can apply, but I do not want to leave hon. members on the other side under a wrong impression. I want to explain to them that when applications are made for holdings by young men who remained behind and by soldiers, the soldier will receive preference if all things are equal.”

But then it is no longer equal treatment.

They also asked why the soldier was being given preference. My reply was: “Because he fought for his country.”

I accept the explanation of the Minister of Lands, and he only strengthens my opinion that the land settlement policy of the Minister of Lands means, in effect, that after the war holdings will be granted on the basis of favouritism and preference.

You wanted to give this country to Hitler as a present.

The Minister has now made his statement, and we accept it. This morning he said by way of interjection—I think briefly it amounts to this—that he was glad to see that this side of the House was also taking an interest in the soldiers.

“Red lice”.

We did not call them “skunks”.

I am very sorry that the debate is again being dragged into troubled waters. We were very glad that the Minister was in such good humour, but he now deliberately seeks to drag the debate into troubled waters. But nevertheless I want to interpret the attitude of this side of the House in connection with the settlement of soldiers. We are not opposed to soldiers being placed on the land after the war. We were pleased to learn that approximately £1,500,000 had been made available to purchase land for settlement purposes. But what we are really opposed to is the fact that the Minister is adopting a policy under which he is going to make holdings available by throwing out people who are at present on the holdings. As it is when the soldiers return and they are placed on the land, there will be a feeling of antagonism on the settlement. We are not rehabilitating the people in a psychological and social way. But I also want to point out that the Minister advanced two reasons why he wanted the people to be taken away from the holdings. In the first place he said the Department of Lands was not a department which leased land, and the second was that he was cancelling their leases because he wanted to give the land to soldiers. The question which occurs to me is what is the attitude, the mental attitude, of the soldiers in respect of the policy of land settlement. I have before me a letter about “a serving soldiers’ attitude to settlement proposals”. I shall be glad if the Minister of Lands will give his attention to it. The soldiers in the Sxith South African Armoured Division formed an agricultural group, and at that time they were notified that they could contact the Minister of Demobilisation in order to discuss their scheme for settlement after the war with the Minister. A deputation of soldiers came to the Union and had an interview with the Minister of Demobilisation. The person who wrote this letter, was chairmain of the organisation. Inter alia, he says—

This will show the Minister that the soldiers on active service considered his land settlement policy. Those who return and who are placed on the land want to be placed in such a way that they will at least be completely rehabilitated. But what does the writer go on to say—

That is the attitude which is revealed in this letter. He goes on to say—

That is the attitude, and now we find that the Minister of Lands is driving away the tenant farmers in order to make room for people, for returned soldiers whom he wants to place there, and who have shown this attitude in respect of land settlement.

Where is Hitler now?

The Minister referred to Hitler by way of interjection. The soldiers regard the settlement regulations at Vaal-Hartz and elsewhere under the amended Land Settlement Act of 1944 as methods which are employed by Hitler. But this letter goes further.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

Afternoon Sitting.

When business was suspended I was quoting certain phrases and paragraphs from a letter under the title “A serving soldier’s attitude towards the Government’s Land Settlement Scheme”. I pointed out that the soldiers were dissatisfied with the settlement policy which was being followed by the Minister of Lands. Inter alia we read this in connection with the Vaal-Hartz scheme—

He says this after having made a study of the regulations which are in force at the settlement, and then he comes to this conclusion—

And then he goes on to say—

In other words, when I spoke here, the Minister of Lands, interrupted me and said that we wanted to give the land to Hitler and not to the soldiers, but here this soldier says that the Minister of Lands is the Hitler in South Africa. This soldier is chairman of the Farmers’ Committee of the Sixth Armoured Division. He makes this statement, and he concludes with these words—

This man is not even acquainted with the wondferul Act which the Minister of Lands piloted through this House in 1944, because this letter preceded it. He goes on to say—

Then I also want to read a second letter to the House.

What did the people in Brits say?

There we have the same state of affairs. Because the soldiers in Brits hold exactly the same views, I cannot see why the Minister should make use of this regulation to cancel the leases of settlers. It is altogether unpsychological I have a further letter here, and it throws even more light on the opinions of the soldiers in regard to the regulations which are applied to the settlements. It deals more particularly, however, with the Land Settlement Act of 1944, which the Minister of Lands introduced and against which we warned him. The Minister of Lands may know that we in Brits submitted his Act impartially to the settlers, and all parties, supporters of every political party, took strong exception to it. But we gave the people good advice. We did not incite them against the Minister of Lands. We told them: “Cultivate your holdings well and pay your arrear payments, and we give you the assurance that in the near future a Government will come into power which will repeal this Act to a certain extent.” But what I should like to bring home to the Minister of Lands is this, that here I have a letter in regard to the opinion of the soldiers in connection with the Land Settlement Act of 1944 as well. I am going to read only a portion of it to the House so as not to bore hon. members by quoting the whole letter—

That is precisely what this side of the House pleaded in connection with that Act. It will be seen therefore that what the soldiers in the farmers’ organisation of the Sixth Division say is precisely identical with the attitude of this side of the House. I say therefore that it will definitely be to the advantage of those soldiers if this side of the House can come into power in connection with land settlement in South Africa. He goes on to say—

I just want to add this. It is often said that this side of the House is against the soldiers. This side of the House was opposed to this senseless war, but it was never against the soldiers. When the soldier returns he must be absorbed into civil life. What we are opposed to is that people on the other side who are war-inciters cannot distinguish between the economic and military fronts of the war. What right have you to discriminate between the people who fought on the military front and those who did their share on the home front or on the economic front?

The people who threw bombs.

No, these are not people who threw bombs. The charge which the Minister has just made is not applicable to the settlers. Only one or two of my settlers were interned, and the Minister gave the land back to them. It was Mr. Meiring and Mr. Rademeyer But they are not bomb throwers. But these people who discharged their obligations and who built up their holdings are now being driven away. The soldiers want the schemes which you held in prospect and not those which you want to give them now. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister is here and I am convinced that when the soldiers return and he decides to hold a concert for them, the Minister of Lands will also want to take part, and I am afraid he will only be able to sing one song over and over again, which will be more or less on these lines: “I am dreaming dreams, I am schemeing schemes”.

And I am screaming screams.

Yes, that is the whole case as far as settlement is concerned, as we have it from the other side. I said at the outset of my speech that I wanted to emphasise the two reasons which the Minister of Lands advanced to justify his cancellation of the leases. I have tested the one reason which he advanced by pointing out the mental attitude of the soldier, which will have to be fully taken into account. For one or two years after the war you will have to take into account the mental attitude in which the soldiers return. Now I come to the second reason which the Minister of Lands advanced as to why he cancelled the leases of these people. He said: “My department is not a department which leases land.” Is that what the Minister wanted to give us to understand? “My department is not a department which leases land.” But for years the Department of Lands did lease land; has the Minister now altered his policy? I say that even if he wants to alter his policy, he cannot do it now. If we want to develop densely populated settlements, we must select settlers who can adjust themselves to the land on which we are going to place them. In connection with the establishment of densely populated settlements, we have had the development of the concept of probationary lessees. You use the term “probationary lessees”. You cannot therefore eliminate the concept of tenancy in a sound land settlement policy in our country, because you must have a period of tenancy in which you can select the settlers. There must be a selection of settlers on the grounds of psychological economic, domestic and other considerations. That is at the root of a sound settlement policy. For that reason we must have those people on the land as lessees for a certain period at least, so that we can select them. I notice the Minister of Agriculture is also here, and I think we should place the Minister of Lands and the Minister of Agriculture against the same background. I think we can better test this regulation in regard to the cancellation of tenancy when we place the main reason which the Minister of Lands advanced, namely that his department does not lease land, against the general alarming position which we find in this country. Hon. members know that 68 per cent. of the total population of the Union is a platteland population. Four hundred and seventy five million pounds has been invested in agriculture. Approximately £60,000,000 is the average value of the production income of agriculture. In other words, since 1934, the rural population has contributed approximately 13 per cent. of the national income. That goes to show the alarming and critical position. We are inclined to associate only the Minister of Agriculture with this. But there is a second Minister whom we should associated with this, and that is the Minister of Lands, because one of the most powerful factors which can contribute to an increase in production is that land be given to landless people. Can the Minister of Lands deny that it is vital to South Africa to have a sound, established farming community in this country? The Minister has no right therefore to hold out the excuse to us that it is not necessary for his department to let land. Oh, no, because the value of a sound rural social policy lies in the fact that it will enable the people to rise to a position of sound independence on the land. But there is also another advantage which is greater than that which results from the policy of putting the people out on the street. Farming is not only a question of technique but of a fixed mode of life, and if we do not lease land to the people, or when we chase away people to whom we have leased land we are not acting in accordance with the requirements. We are not taking into account the social, psychological and even the historical factors which are so necessary, namely to keep the people on the land in their accustomed mode of life. The Minister asked this morning by way of interjection in what way he had uprooted the people. In today’s “Burger” there is a caricature which shows the Minister in the act of cutting down a tree. He is not only engaged in cutting down trees but he is pulling them out root and branch. It is criminal towards the platteland population on your part in the critical position in which the platteland population finds itself, to adopt a policy of uprooting the people from their farms, the greatest cultural possession of the Afrikaner; to uproot them from their accustomed mode of life and to throw them on the street and to condemn them to ruin. By doing so you are adopting a policy which will lead to national impoverishment. We must test the regulation in that light. The heart of a Minister of Lands should beat in unison with mother nature. We cannot simply cut down and uproot. What is more, the Minister of Lands should constantly bear in mind the possibility of providing a future to people on the platteland. It should be his aim to make the people independent, to cultivate initiative and if you want to cultivate initiative, then at least you should place the ideal of becoming independent within the reach of the tenant farmer in this country. By means of this regulation the Minister of Lands wants to put thousands of people on to the street and deprive them of their established mode of life, and not only that, but he is also destroying the essential initiative and struggle for independence on the platteland. But I think I should also touch upon another aspect. A few days ago I charged the Minister of Agriculture with having no scientific agricultural policy. I want to say that in South Africa there is a great need of a sound settlement policy, of sound rural, social politics. I shall tell you why I advocate this. Time and again the charge has been made against land owners that there is not a good relationship between those who have no land and the land owner on the platteland. In the cities there is a fixed relationship between the employers and the employees, but there is a lack of that relationship on the platteland between those who have no land and land owners, and tenant farmers are sent on their way without further ado. Now I want to ask whether the Minister is setting a good example to the big land owners by his treatment of the tenant farmers of the State. The Minister, more than any other Minister, should test the regulations which he promulgates in the light of a sound rural policy. But I should add that this regulation is on the same lines as all the other regulations which have come from the office of the Department of Lands from time to time. I need only remind the House of the prohibtion in the Act of 1944, in terms of which major sons and aged persons were also driven off the land by means of a regulation. It was said that it was the most unscrupulous and resented regulation which has ever been promulgated, because people were uprooted from the land in an unpsychplogical manner. Today we are dealing with the same type of regulation, and hundreds of people will again be driven off the land. In other words, the platteland population is systematically being driven to the cities by means of a regular policy of rounding-up. We speak of the tenant farmers. We also have a responsibility towards the tenant farmers. We cannot simply say that they are without land and then leave them to their own devices. If we have to follow a sound rural policy, then it must be a policy under which the man on the platteland can rise from the position of tenant farmer to owner, but you are not adopting such a policy. Instead of giving the man an opportunity to rise, you are forcing him to go down from the position of tenant farmer to unemployed and then you throw him on the market. I make an appeal to the Minister of Lands. I do it because I am deeply convinced that he is not adopting a sound rural social policy. I have tried to put my case impartially and to test the motives of the Minister of Lands against the background of a sound social policy, and also against the background of the alarming position on the platteland. The Minister of Lands must not be indifferent towards the platteland population nor towards the tenant farmers. The time has arrived for a sound rural social policy in our country.

It is very interesting to listen to how the Additional Estimates are being used to provide a wordy feast, how each one expresses his ideas and delivers his plea, and how everyone criticises the Ministers and the Government, but not one suggests anything which can be accepted by the Ministers for the benefit of the country. It reminds me, as a farmer, of the time when I invited a number of people to come and hunt on my farm, and these people got busy with my blesbuck and killed or wounded a large number of ewes and lambs. Later I had to go and kill off the wounded buck and Iambs. In this debate I shall try to nurse the wounded buck and lambs. We had the example of the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) who delivered his plea. He at least suggested something to the Minister. He said that the Minister should take members of Parliament and make them controllers. When I listen to all this criticism, the criticism of people who refuse to suggest a policy which is practicable, I want to tell them that they should propose a policy, because if they want any credit they can only receive the credit if they propose something which is acceptable and practicable. If the Government accepts it and executes it they will get the credit, but if they only criticise they will receive no credit. I can give hon. members over there the assurance that their credit in the country is very low and is sinking by the day. I want to gather some of the wounded buck together. I want to ask the Minister of Agriculture to make provision for the future. We put into existence a meat scheme when the breaking point in the meat position had practically been reached, and when the butchers in the country were running all over the country to gather meat to supply the demands of the people. At that stage, when the breaking point had practically been reached, when things were in an unbalanced state, the scheme was introduced. It is now gradually getting into its stride, after all the chaos that we had. I would, however, ask the Minister to take the public into his confidence and to explain to the public why there is a scarcity. It has perhaps been referred to here and there, but the public has not yet been fully informed as to why there is a scarcity. For example, there were people who bought large tracts of ground, perhaps even before the war, and they also bought thousands of oxen to develop their farming operations, and bought thousands of breeding cattle in order to start farming. That is one of the main reasons why there is a shortage. Because although we have more cattle in the country than we had three or four years ago, if thousands of cattle are kept off the market—I speak from experience because people came to me to buy oxen with which to plough, oxen which usually go to market, and which today are still ploughing—if so many cattle are diverted from the market, it must have an influence on the market. The Minister must also take the country into his confidence and warn the nation to be thrifty. There are still places where people are not thrifty as regards the use of meat. If they are asked to economise one will be surprised to see how much meat can be saved and with how much less meat some people will be able to manage, if there is a little co-operation. The public must receive information and instruction from the Minister, and they must feel that they are co-operating. Then there will not be that antagonism against the Government and against the farmers, because the farmers are also being blamed for keeping cattle from the market. There is another point. Even bona fide farmers, practical farmers, bought oxen in order to extend their operations, because in some cases the tractors broke down or spare parts were not available, and they bought oxen to substitute for the tractors. That is another reason for the shortage today. I don’t think it will take long before there is again enough meat on the market. Distribution should graduallyp be improved, because everything depends on that. We have a system which has existed for many years, and of course it takes time to switch over to another system, but if the Minister takes heed of these few hints things will come right. Then he will be able to institute a long-term scheme, which is eagerly expected by the farmers, a scheme which is acceptable and practicable. I have a letter here which was written to me. I am sure the Minister also received a copy. It says that the farmers in my district took a unanimous decision to ask the Minister, courteously but urgently, to draw up a scheme which is simple, acceptable and practicable. We as farmers, for example, feel that when a board is appointed, the majority of its members should be farmers. I do not wish to discuss this further, but I urgently wish to ask the Minister that when he goes over to a long-term scheme he must consider having farmers in the majority on the board. He must also take the consumers in his confidence and discuss the matter with them, so that the scheme may be simple, acceptable arid practicable. I wish to touch also on a point which affects us deeply as farmers, and especially as dairy farmers. The dairy farmers of the district of Heidelberg held a meeting and decided to send the following telegram to the Minister. They sent the telegram to me and I suppose they sent a similar one to the Minister—

I just want to make clear what we are asking fot. We do not want there to be misunderstanding. We do not wish to manufacture margarine, but we wish the centuries-old industry, the dairy industry, which exists over the whole world, to be protected in South Africa under these circumstances. Then I come to the Minister of Lands. I said a moment ago that there was a verbal featst in the House. The Minister of Lands was attacked. According to my view the Minister is quite right. We are thankful that the Minister of Lands, after such a long time, is taking the step—it has been said here that there are people who have had the land under lease for 40 years—of making that ground available for settlement. We are thankful that the ground is being made available for settlement. If the Minister wants to do something like that he must of course use the machinery of his Department to effect it. The Minister must give these people notice. He must get the ground back in order to prepare it for settlement, and in order to do that he must give these people notice according to their contracts. I can give you the assurance that the Minister of Lands is a great-hearted man. He will not only give these people notice to vacate according to the terms of their contracts, but he will treat them fairly and honestly. He will give them time to harvest their crops, and I would go so far as to say that the Minister has not yet said in this House that he will not treat certain cases on their merits. If all these things happen, the Minister still has the fullest right to treat certain cases on their merits. No-one can say today that the Minister refused to deal with certain deserving cases on their merits. When I speak of deserving cases, I do not mean cases where people have entrenched themselves, but I refer to cases where people have adapted themselves. I speak from experience. In the district of Heidelberg, along the Vaal River, there is a sandy waste, ground on which only these people can make a living. They have adapted thémsélves. If one ploughs there at a certain time of the year everything blows away. They must know how to plough and to sow and to plant. They have adapted themselves and no one else will make a living there. The Minister will riot be so unreasonable as to take these people away and to put others there who cannot adapt themselves, because then he will be putting those people who can make a living there in the road and substitute people who cannot adapt themselves. I am sure that the Minister will treat these cases on their merits. But we attack the Minister even before he has had an opportunity to show what he wants to do and before the time has elapsed. Is that fair and right? I wish to ask members to procede with the work and not to continue shooting the ewes and lambs amongst the blesbuck.

I have chosen this occasion when the Prime Minister is present, to broach a matter which I think everyone in this House expected would not be overlooked in connection with this Bill. It is a matter that affects the department of the Prime Minister, and which also affects him personally, to a large extent; it is the war position as it stands at the moment. The war has reached a stage of extreme importance. Not only is it very important, but it is a stage during which decisions are being taken which can have the most farreaching consequences. That is so in general so far as concerns the war position, but more especially does this apply in reference to a conference that was held over a period of eight days, and which has now concluded, a conference in Yalta in the Crimea in Russia. That conference between the so-called Big Three was of great and far-reaching importance. It is preliminary to the peace which must eventually be conculded if the war continues to develop as it is doing at the moment. It lays down the basis not only for co-ordinated military operations for the rest of the war, but also for the peace which is expected to come. The statement that was published in the newspapers yesterday morning sets out what the position will be in Europe, and what the position will be in a great measure in the world not only for a year or a few years, but perhaps as is also the intention—for generations. This pronouncement that has come from Yalta also undoubtedly affects South Africa and South Africa’s interests very deeply, in the first place because South Africa has participated in the war and the question that must arise in our minds, that must naturally arise, now that we know so much of what is in the minds of the Big Three with reference to the basis of the peace, is whether the objective has been attained that this Parliament—the majority of this Parliament—and the Prime Minister had in view when they originally plunged us into the war. The question is whether the object for which we entered this war has been attained. Apart from that the further question exists in how far South Africa is being affected by this pronouncement and the peace that is expected to follow on it. I think there can be only one answer to that, and it is that this war, apart from all the other things, is of vital importance to South Africa, because it is being decided here, or has already been decided in principle, under the influence of what ideology South Africa will have to stand. While this is so, I think it is only right that the Prime Minister at the earliest possible opportunity, and I hope it will be today, will make a statement in this House, a statement to the country regarding what his position is in this connection. Before I go further I first want to put a question to the Prime Minister, and it is this, seeing that the expectation exists amongst a large section, and apparently with him as well, that possibly the war will rapidly come to an end, and that it will possibly be best that an armistice will be asked for at one time or another, I Want to ask him what steps he has taken or what plan he has in mind to prevent a repetition of the riotous events that occurred in our country at the end of the last war. I am putting this question not only because it is right that we should put the question, but also because the churches, more particularly an English church, have occupied themselves with this matter for some considerable time already, and I believe have already approached the Government to ask what the Government proposes to do to obviate such riotous happenings as occurred after the last war. Hon. members will call to mind very well what happened then. Processions took place in the streets, people were molested and in respect of certain buildings which accommodated people or institutions who were not sympathetic or not sympathetic enough in connection with the war and the objects of the war, revenge was taken and windows were smashed and attempts were made to set them alight. And now the question I want to put here is whether the Government will take timely and appropriate steps, and what are the steps it will take to prevent such excesses. If the position in this respect was to a certain extent serious on the occasion of the termination of the last war it is undoubtedly very serious today. In this war we must take account of the fact that an almost revolutionary change has occurred in the mentality of the coloured section in our country, more particularly because they were called on to take an active part in the war, because they were put under arms, and because there has been awakened in them a new spirit which we have never previously known in South Africa. The other consideration to which we must refer is that a large section of the non-European population has come under the direction and control of Communistic agitators of the first grade. They are being led by Communists and are being incited by Communists to all sorts of actions. Accordingly, I am asking here—it may be too early, but in connection with this matter it cannot be too early—together with certain church organisations, what the Government is going to do to prevent such excesses. In connection with the progress of the war, and more particularly in connection with the Prime Minister, I want to make this observation that the Prime Minister obviously was more silent on the last occasion in connection with the trend of events in Europe and in connection with the war than he was previously. We have been accustomed from the commencement of the war and for several years, to the Prime Minister being ahead of the course of affairs and of the resolutions that are taken in connection with the war. Whether this anticipation always amounted to advice from his side to those overseas with whom the decision really rested, in other words, whether he really was giving advice and leadership to them in connection with those matters, or whether he only made use of an early opportunity of informing the world of what had been decided in the councils of the Great, I leave undecided. That is a matter of minor importance. But in any case I think it is clear that the Prime Minister of South Africa became more silent in connection with these matters than he had formerly been. On the occasion of another debate I also made this remark, that if I had to interpret the Prime Minister correctly I must say that he is bitterly disappointed with the course of events and with the results so far reached in Europe—I do not refer to the military sphere, but to the sphere of politics and other spheres. That is the impression I received, that in connection with those matters he was deeply depressed. The Prime Minister gave no indication as to whether my inference was right or not. But in any case, what I see here one can also see in the light of the speech he made more than a year ago in London, the so-called explosive speech. That explosive speech which he made was an expression, not only of the situation as circumstances had developed at the time, but it was an expression of pessimism, of deep pessimism, on his part. About the position after the war, if peace were to be made, he in effect said that the power of England on the Continent of Europe, in comparison with what it was, had deteriorated considerably; that instead of Germany, if that country were to be completely conquered, there would be another power, the power of Russia, and that Russia would be more powerful on the Continent of Europe than any—these were his words—than any power has ever been in the whole history of the world. That is how he explained the position. He was pessimistic about England’s own position—it is no longer amongst the great powers there. On one side there is Russia, powerful as he described her; on the other side there is the mighty America with its inexhaustible sources; and in between them there is England, weakened and economically exhausted. That is the picture he held up before us, and now that a declaration has been made by the Big Three about the basis laid down for future negotiations, for future peace, we have good reason and right to learn from him whether he now thinks different from what he did at the time he made that speech in London. I think we have the right to expect from the Prime Minister that he will openly tell South Africa so. There is also another question I wish to ask him, before I deal with the merits of the Yalta Declaration. I put this question not generally but more especially in connection with Poland, and the question is whether last year he was consulted by the British Government in connection with the declaration about Poland; and I think that we have the right to ask this question of the Prime Minister, regard being had to his previous statements. Last year, in a speech in the House, I pointed out that a very important statement had been made by Mr. Eden, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Great Britain. It was in connection with Poland. He made the statement as Minister of Foreign Affairs, but of course he spoke on behalf of the British Government, and in that statement he expressed his agreement that part of Poland would be cut off on the east and given to Russia, and that on the other side a part of Germany would be cut off and added to Poland. I then reminded the Prime Minister of the fact that this was a most important statement, in the first place because this war was declared, amongst other things, also because of the principle of territorial inviolability, the independence and freedom of Poland. For that we were dragged into the war. That was the main argument used in this House when war was declared. It seems that that aim of the war, with which we started, was thrown overboard in the statement of Mr. Eden. That is a most serious and most important matter. It is opposed to the principles, the basic principles laid down in the Atlantic Gharter. The Atlantic Charter was not only accepted by England and America, but the Prime Minister declared in this House that he also supported the Atlantic Charter. What is more, in 1919, at the end of the previous war, when negotiations for peace were in progress, and when the position of Poland was also being considered, and when certain parties insisted that the Polish Corridor to the Baltic Sea and especially Danzig, which everybody knew and recognised as a wholly German city, had to be given to Poland, the Prime Minister stepped into the breach and told the Peace Conference the following: “If you want to do a thing like that, is that not a proof that we are suffering from shell-shock? It is nothing else but sowing dragon’s teeth as the seeds of a future war.” That was his position and that is why last year I had the right to ask the Prime Minister, seeing that he was so deeply interested in the matter and so deeply compromised in connection with it, whether the British Government had consulted him. The reply of the Prime Minister was, and he again gave that reply this year in connection with the same question, that he was definitely not consulted. Now I ask the Prime Minister to give us an explanation as to why he was not consulted. If he was not consulted in regard to this matter, it seems to me that there are few other questions where consultation with him can be justified. In that case they might as well have left him outside in the cold. It seems to be nothing less than a slap in the face; it is nothing else than a slap in the face for the Dominions. I say it is nothing less than the undermining of that basis of equality and sovereignty, of that principle of consultation in regard to foreign affairs, on which the Prime Minister laid such great emphasis and which he appreciated so much. I am now speaking from the point of view of the Prime Minister himself. If the position is that they did not consult him in regard to a matter of this kind, it can only have the most serious consequences. When England is in distress and at war, we in South Africa are called to England’s aid. We spend millions of pounds and hundreds of millions in that effort to assist England. We in South Africa sacrifice the lives of our sons, and when such important matters are decided, such as the trend of this war, or the object with which the war was declared, whether that object will be realised or not, and South Africa is ignored, it can only have serious consequences. I think I can say that the time has arrived for the Prime Minister to give the public more information in connection with this matter. Now in regard to the present position—and let me first say a word or two in regard to the spirit in which I want to deal with it. In reply to another debate in which this matter was raised, I told the Prime Minister that they need not reproach us and insinuate that our attitude in connection with the declaration of war in 1939, is an attitude from which we now want to run away or of which we are ashamed. I said, and I repeat, that we have nothing with which to reproach ourselves in connection with that attitude, and least of all is there any reason for reproaching ourselves in that connection now that we see what the actual trend of the war is and the results which have been achieved. But I want to say in dealing with this matter, that I do not propose to reproach the Prime Minister or his followers in any way. We are in this position today that there are bigger things than mutual recrimination. We are faced with a future in South Africa which may be very serious and very disastrous, and in everything which I want to say in connection with this matter, I should like us on this side and also on the other side to keep an eye on the future of our own country and nation. It is in that spirit that I should like to deal with this matter today and always. We are passing through serious times. There are serious times ahead of us—serious times, more serious as some people say, than the time when the war was entered into, and it is as well that we should not only deliberate with reference to this matter in the spirit which I have mentioned, but that on both sides, we should judge the position with the greatest frankness and discuss it in that light. I have referred to the statement which was published yesterday, the so-called Yalta statement, and what I should like to do this afternoon is to find out for myself, and to help hon. members as much as possible to find out, what the true meaning of it is, and therefore what its influence may be not only on Europe, but its influence on our own country. I think we should judge this Yalta statement not in the light of the propaganda messages which have accompanied and still accompany the announcement of that statement. I think we should look deeper than that. Those messages which we will now get in abundance in regard to the reaction in this, that or the other country, or in this, that or the other circle, mainly reflect a feeling of relief, relief that the Big Three met in Yalta; a feeling of relief because although there were far-reaching differences previously, they did not disagree that they were able to show a unted front to the enemy and the world. That reflects a feeling of relief. But let me say that the fact that they would form a united front and that they would find unity of action, is something which we might have known beforehand; and simply because in the circumstances, they could do nothing else. If they had disagreed at that conference, it would, of course, have been a catastrophe of the first order from the military point of view, from the point of view of further co-operation of the Allies. That stands to reason; it would have been the end of the war so far as victory for the Allies is concerned. They simply could not disagree. Their safety compelled them to find a united front. That stood to reason, and the question is not whether they remained together; the question is not whether they found a united front, but a bigger and more important question is: On what basis did they obtain it not whether they obtained it, but how they obtained it; that is the question. That is the dominant question in connection with this matter. Well, when I put it that way, it reminds me of the conference which was held last year between the Prime Ministers of the British Commonwealth. It was very clear in what direction they would have liked the decisions of that conference to go. Mr. Churchill made no secret of it. He wanted a closer union of the British Empire, not only in war time but also thereafter, especially having regard to England’s difficult position in the economic, commercial and military spheres. There was Halifax, who expressed his opinion in regard to this matter very frankly in Canada. Our Prime Minister and Halifax shared the view which Halifax expressed in Canada. There was Curtin, the Prime Minister of Australia, who also associated himself with the desire for closer union. But there was one person at that conference who simply would not hear of it, namely McKenzie King, the Prime Minister of Canada. He is a man who believes in Canada, who believes in Canada’s own nationhood, who believes that only the conception of freedom and complete independence as far as external affairs are concerned can serve Canada’s self-respect and the self-respect of any nation. He did not want to follow the lead of the others. He knew that he was standing alone, but he knew that he held the whip-hand, because without him they could not come to that decision, since it would simply have meant that the oldest, the most important, the biggest dominion would have stood aloof and would not have agreed with the conference. The united front would then have been broken. What happened then? McKenzie King won. The others abandoned their ideas and they sided with him; and it was then announced to the world with a flare of trumpets that there was complete unity; that never in the history of the British Empire and the various dominions had they been so united and presented such a united front. Yes, that was so, but how? It was not Churchill, Halifax, Curtin and Smuts who won there; it was McKenzie King who won. From their point of view the con ferenee was a total failure. Again the question which one has to ask oneself in connection with what happened at Yalta is not whether a united front was found, but how? The question is whether it is really Roosevelt who won or whether it was Stalin who won. On the reply to that question depends everything as far as Europe is concerned and also as far as South Africa is concerned. There is only one reply to this question, and that is that apart from all other implications, it is natural that he who held the trump card in his hands, should have won. To Stalin the Yalta Agreement was undoubtedly a victory. To the Western powers is was without the slightest doubt a defeat. Although we know nothing further, it is still interesting in judging who won and who lost, to look at the reaction to this statement which was published yesterday morning. Without any sign of disappointment on any one of the points, this statement was received with acclamation by Moscow. Expression is given to the views of Moscow in connection with this matter and what its meaning is in the official newspaper of Stalin, who describes the statement as the greatest political occurrence in modern times. What was the reaction on the other side? Satisfaction that the conference did not fall through! This reaction reminds one of the idealist who has to contend with difficulties and who cannot achieve what he is striving for and who eventually abandons his idealism and then prides himself on the fact that he is no longer an idealist who builds castles in the air, but that he is now a practical realist. That is the impression which that reaction makes on us Disappointment was expressed even openly; the western side even spoke with bitterness of this statement. It was clearly said in wide circles that here the seed was being sown for a bigger and more destructive war in the future. I say if we merely look at the reception of this statement, on the one side and on the other side, it speaks volumes in itself. But now I think we should judge the statement of Yalta in the light of the preceding events. For a considerable time there have been certain phenomena which have indicated what the actual position is. The first I want to mention is that in the course of time a sharper contrast has become apparent between the Western and Eastern European ideologies. That contrast has become sharper as the years have passed. The two sides, the East and the West, agreed with each other to defeat Germany, but nevertheless, underlying all this, there are deep contrasts which have come to the fore more and more, and which have come to the fore more and more as the Western powers on the one hand have freed countries which were occupied by Germany, and as Russia on the other hand took military occupation of a number of countries. [Time extended.] The underlying fact is that although it is only covertly admitted today, Russia after all is a totalitarian state; Russia cannot be called a democratic country. Russia is no more a democratic country than Germany is one. That is the reason why the assertion which one frequently hears and which has also been put forward here as being the truth about the Yalta Conference, viz. that the war has been fought and is still being fought between democracies on the one hand and a dictatorship on the other hand, is utterly false. When Russia today ranges itself on the side of the democratic states, which in fact it is doing, then it is merely playing the part of the wolf in sheep’s clothing as far as this matter is concerned. This is one phenomenon. Another phenomenon which has come to light in regard to the course of the war in recent times is that the war aims have gradually changed from the field of political idealism to the field of power politics. The Atlantic Charter which was proclaimed to the whole world a few years ago, was a solemn pact between England and America and Russia also accepted it. That Atlantic Charter was the expression of political idealism. The Atlantic Charter was professed to be the foundation upon which, once the war would be over, the peace of the world would have to be established for all time. What was the spirit of this charter, apparent from its various provisions? Its spirit was that the peace should be founded on the basis of the supremacy of justice and the rule of tolerance among the peoples and on the basis of international friendship. That was the spirit of the Atlantic Charter, meant to be the expression of political idealism. The Atlantic Charter has been the subject of many discussions. I do not know in how far it formed the subject of discussions among the Allies. What, however, did gradually become clear in connection with the Atlantic Charter? That it does not apply to the peace of the world in general, that its provisions were never meant to be applicable to Germany or Italy or to any other country which fought on the side of the enemies of the Allies. The Atlantic Charter was only meant for the Allied side. Parts of the world were excluded in spite of the fact that one cannot find a single word or indication in the Atlantic Charter itself as regards its limited application. One cannot even read it in there by implication. Gradually the Atlantic Charter has also in that respect been torn up like a scrap of paper. The Atlantic Charter as the expression of political idealism laid down that no territorial changes are to be made during the course of the war and if one or the other of the nations should nevertheless do so i.e. if one of the belligerents should place the others before a fait accompli, then such annexations would not be recognised. In this connection the underlying thought was of course that if you want a lasting and just peace for the world, you will have to wait until the war is over before taking decisions, in order that the fury of the war may first have an opportunity to abate. You cannot establish a just peace as long as the hatred and lust for revenge which sprung up during the course of the war are still rampant. But that point of view has long since been abandoned. Especially in regard to Poland and Finland Russia did place the other Allies before a fait accompli, and instead of opposing Russia’s attitude or adnering to the standpoint they previously held in regard to such territorial changes, England and America simply abandoned their ideals, their point of view and merely acquiesced in the accomplished fact. They are dependent on Russia and Russia knows that it holds the whip-hand, and Russia takes up the attitude that it is its own business to decide the fate of these countries, that it is going to decide and to act as it pleases and that the others can do what they like about it. That is the attitude Russia has adopted. And this conference of Yalta has simply put the seal of approval on this attitude. These are accomplished facts. Another provision and fundamental principle of the Atlantic Charter is that no population shall be forced to live under the rule of a power or a country to which they do not want to be subjected, in other words the right of self determination is promised to all the nations of the world, whether small or large. The same happened during the last war. What has happened now? What does the Yalta declaration say? That Russia first of all claims a large part of Poland, and that part of Poland will simply be annexed to the country that wants to annex it, whether the population likes it or not. On that the Yalta declaration put its seal. It furthermore put its seal on the arrangement that a large slice of Germany, although it is German, will be cut off from Germany and will be added to another territory to which it never belonged and to which it should not belong at all. Another thing which is apparently also being considered today—no final decision has yet been taken on it but it seems as if matters are taking that course—is that France will in the future also annex a part of Germany which is definitely German, not because that will be a just arrangement or because it is in the interest of the peace, but simply because on the one hand it will serve to strengthen a weakened France and on the other hand it is meant to disintegrate Germany and weaken it for all time. That is their aim. After the last Great War the Prime Minister held and expressed the view that by ceding Danzig to Poland the seed would be sown for a new future war. The position which is now being created for the end of this war will, however, be ten times worse than the position was then. There was a further point of view and a very serious one on which the Western powers on the one hand and Russia on the other hand differed and that is the fate they have in store for Germany. As far as I can judge they were not of the same opinion as far as this matter is concerned, whatever the ultimate decision taken at Yalta may have been. It is obvious that Russia realises full well that Germany was the bulwark, the rampart between Russia and its power to bolshevise the rest of Europe, and if Germany should remain standing as an independent power, or a power which might at any time in the future throw its whole weight on the side of the Western powers, then that bulwark which existed against Russia and the spread of Russia’s influence to the West would be perpetuated. It is therefore obviously in the interests of Russia that Germany as a power should be eliminated. If Germany’s power is destroyed then the road to the whole of Europe will be open for Russia and Bolshevism. The Western powers on the other hand realised very well what the total destruction and elimination of Germany would mean to them. For centuries England has been a great power because it acted in accordance with the principle of the balance of power. On the Continent it always joined a combination against the strongest power there; either with the second or third power or with more than one power. In this manner England protected itself through the ages and in that way England became great. If, as a result of this war, it should happen what the Prime Minister predicted, namely that England’s power as a nation, England’s influence on the Continent of Europe, should decrease, and if Russia is going to be the colossus standing astride Europe, then England will no longer hold its former position. Then Russia will be in the position in which no other nation has ever been in the past. If that is the case, then it will be the end of the policy followed by England and for many years supported by America, the policy which led to the protection and greatness of England. The Prime Minister also saw the position in that light. For that reason he expressed the view during his explosive speech that England should now form a coalition with the smaller countries of Western Europe, viz. Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain and Portugal. All these should join a combination with England for their own collective protection. What for? If there are no dangers to be faced in the future why then this combination? This is an admission on his part that the position is as I depicted it here. It is not in the interest of the Western powers that a country such as Germany which was the bulwark against the colussus of the East, should be completely ruined. I have not the slightest doubt that the views expressed by the Prime Minister in London as being his own, are just as much the views held by the others. He thought aloud, but the others obviously and for tactful reasons kept their thoughts for themselves. What I said here implies another difference of opinion which exists, and judging from the declaration which we were acquainted with yesterday, Stalin also had his way in this respect. I hope that my deductions are correct and that the Western powers also differ in this respect from Stalin, and that they differ greatly. This is the question of the war criminals, the treatment of war criminals. What Russia wants we know. We know the spirit which rules there. We have noticed it in the tragic episode of Kharkov, where people were hanged who, as the Russians claimed, were war criminals. Let us assume for a moment that that was so. Then there remains the fact that thousands were commandeered from far and near to arrange themselves around the amphitheatre and when the bodies were swinging from the gallows they had to cheer to the Heavens or somewhere else, they had to cheer about what was happening there. That is the spirit prevailing there. The Prime Minister told us that the war on the part of the Allies, and also on the part of Russia, was a holy war. But more than that. In the various countries of Western Europe and also in Italy and the Balkans it has more or less become the rule that the partisan forces which without exception are communistically minded—this proves to be the case—summarily and without any trial execute and shoot hundreds of persons who differ from them politically or who have differed from them during the occupation. No longer is any distinction made between criminal offences and political offences. No, political offences and criminal offences are placed on the same level and hundreds of people are being shot. And our Prime Minister maintains that the war that is being waged is a holy war. Take for instance Roumania. During the last few days Russia has been proceeding there with the same methods. The Roumanian Government is being attacked, an attempt is made to unseat the Roumanian Prime Minister. It is Russia who does that and what is the reason? Because Roumania, in the opinion of Russia, is not proceeding as harshly against war criminals as Russia would like it to do. Now Russia comes along and what does it do? It is one, if I may put it this way, of the most peculiar and astonishing declarations, but at the same time one of the most blasphemous declarations ever made—the declaration we recently received from Russia. Russia makes an appeal to Christianity, the Christianity of the Western nations, and Russia in that appeal tells the people that they must attend the church services more frequently. Russia tells them that the people in the Western countries are not religious enough, that they should show more interest in their religion. And after having made that appeal, there is a further appeal by Russia asking them to see to it that their Christian inhabitants take care that Germany will be harshly dealt with once the war is over, as harshly as Russia is doing it with others and as Russia wants it to be done. Coming from a country which prided itself on being anti-religious, a country which considered Christianity to be its No. 1 enemy, a country which transformed the churches into cowbarns and cinemas, it is a clear indication that it wants to exploit religion and Christianity for its own purposes and its vindictive aims. Christianity has never before been insulted in a worse manner. I hoped that the Western nations where Christianity is established and where as I honestly believe the people want to act as much as possible in accordance with Christian principles, also as far as war and peace are concerned—I say that I hope that those Christian countries did differ from Russia in connection with this matter. What do we find in the declaration, which to me is an indication that Stalin had his way also in this matter. It says there that all German equipment must be removed and destroyed, that all German industries which might be used for military production, must be eliminated or controlled, and that all war criminals must be placed before a court and must be punished; and that compensation must be demanded for destruction caused by the Germans.

Hear, hear.

That is what they did after the last war. Lloyd George at the general election used the slogan “Hang the Kaiser”. He made use of that slogan during the election but the Christian conscience of the English people gained the upper hand and he had to bow his head in shame as far as this matter was concerned. I am sorry to hear those “hear-hears” from the other side. The same thing is today being asked in this Yalta declaration. We are faced here, if we consider the matter properly, not with the triumph of Western political idealism nor with the triumph of Christianity, but with the victory of Eastern barbarism over Christianity. And then the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa declares that this war is a war of God. I shall not say anything about him having said that in the past, but to keep on saying this under the present circumstances simply amounts to blasphemy. It is obvious that Russia is bent on the Russification and Bolshevisation of Europe. Quite a number of states are already under its domination, or in fact in its possession. There is for instance Poland. He enforced a government on Poland. The Polish Government in London—we can find it in the Yalta declaration—is utterly condemned and rejected. Russia is the boss there and has appointed the Government it wanted Poland to have. Then there is Roumania, there is Bulgaria, where we noticed the same things happening and where in spite of their being allies, Russia ejected the ambassadors of America and England from the capital. Then there is Yugoslavia where Russia threw in its weight on the side of the Tito organisation, the Tito provisional government opposed by the others. Also in this case Russia supported an out and out Communist government. But that is not all. It is undoubtedly trying at present, in collaboration with the partisan forces in the various countries of Western Europe, to instigate revolutions—Communist revolutions. Russia even went as far as trying to dominate countries which had kept themselves outside the war. When an air conference was to be held at Chicago and all nations, also the neutrals, were invited to take part or were supposed to take part in it, what did Russia do? It declared that it would not take part in it because Portugal, England’s old ally, would be represented there; because Spain was invited, and to crown all because Switzerland would also take part in it. For that reason Russia would not sit around the same conference table with other countries. What is the implication of this? It means that unless those countries elect for themselves governments of which Russia approves, it will have nothing to do with them. That is the way Russia behaves. It openly aims at the Boshevisatiqn and Russification of Europe. Furthermore we have noticed the stirring appeal which was issued from Moscow to all countries of the world and which also had its repercussions in South Africa—the appeal to the workers of all countries to stand together and to organise themselves, to form labour fronts and to submit their demands for the future to their governments, an interference with the domestic affairs of all countries of the world, and here in South Africa it resulted in the Communists at their conference deciding that they also want a labour front, that they will not insist that everybody joining them must be a Communist; they want to cast their nets over a wide area. But the understanding is that the labour front will be under the leadership of the Communist Party, and the Communist Party is tied to Russia. The conclusion we come to is that this Yalta declaration does not form a general peace foundation for the world; it amounts to a Russian peace and if it should come about, not only the doom of Germany would be sealed; it would also seal the fate of Europe and the fate of the world. What is going to happen with Europe depends more than hon. friends on the other side perhaps realise on what is going to happen to Germany, that is to say whether Germany is going to turn Communist or whether it is going to adopt the Western ideologies; that is the crux of the matter. According to this declaration Germany is to be given a choice. It must abandon its Nazi doctrine; it must do away with its Nazi administration.

Which is a heathen one.

You may assume that, but what is the choice before it. Germany has to chose something; now it has to make a choice between the Western ideology and the Eastern ideology and I ask you whether, if this declaration of Yalta should be put into practice and Russia would occupy what would most likely amount to half of Germany and if that army of occupation would perhaps stay there for years, I ask you whether there can be any doubt that that part of Germany and with it perhaps a large part of the remainder of Germany which they will select—can anybody have the slightest doubt about Germany becoming Communistic, and if Germany becomes Communistic then I maintain that the way for the Russification and Bolshevisation of Europe is wide open. If the other stipulations of the Yalta agreement in regard to Poland and Germany are to be realised, then I should like to know what the future will bring. Poland will receive territorial gains in the west; that may be alright; one may say that Poland should now not be smaller than it was in the past but what will its internal position be? It will incorporate a large part of Germany. Will that be a source of strength to Poland or will it be a source of weakness? When Germany annexed Alsace-Lorraine after the war of 1870, it did not constitute a source of strength or a source of power for Germany’s future; it was a source of weakness and further wars resulted from it, and France in order to protect itself against Germany and to have its way, had to look for protection from England. If you create a Poland such as is envisaged by the Yalta declaration with a large slice of Germany added to it it will be a source of weakness as far as Poland is concerned. Poland will be afraid of its western neighbour and its power, afraid of its revenge. To whom then can Poland look? It can only look to its mighty eastern neighbour. It will turn towards Russia and Poland will not become an independent autonomous nation which might form a buffer state between East and West, but it will become a vassal state of Russia. The same will happen if France should succeed with its demand in regard to the Rhine provinces. You will have the same position in the east as in the west. I maintain that this will simplify Russia’s self-imposed task of dominating and Bolshevising the whole of Europe. It will certainly not make it more difficult It is therefore not surprising that when this declaration was published Moscow cheered. One cannot be surprised about that. You may say that Russia has now agreed to an important principle, something to which the western powers attach much importance, and that is that those countries will now be able by a general referendum to decide what their future and what their form of government will be, whether it will be a Communist one or not. Russia agreed to that, but why did it agree? Simply because it is sure of its ground. It is an easy matter for Russia to act so democratically now and to allow the peoples in those countries to hold the power in their own hands; at the moment that suits Russia because it knows that it holds the whiphand. Finally I just want to ask the Prime Minister the following. That this position which is being created in Europe will also affect South Africa, I take it he will not deny, especially in view of the composition of the population, European and non-European, which we have here in South Africa. I now ask the Prime Minister: Please tell us clearly in this debate what your attitude is towards Communism.

Tell us what your attitude is towards National-Socialism.

He told the churches that Communism is a danger for South Africa. He declared that it cannot be denied that Communism is increasing. Has he taken any steps in view of the opinions he holds according to that statement? On the contrary, he has given Communist agitators a free hand in South Africa and he is still doing so today. And more than that; in his Cabinet he has a Minister who is a committee member of a Communist organisation. He allows that. He gives the impression, and it is an actual fact, that he will not stir a finger against the increase, the flooding of South Africa by Communism.

You must not mention the Broederbond.

Yes, if the Prime Minister should remain at the head of affairs, he would behaps do as he did in the past in connection with the labour troubles on the Rand in 1922. He may again say “I do not want to take any steps at the moment. My principle is Let things develop’”; and if things develop and go on developing until a certain stage, he finally does take steps but then blood is running freely. Is that the attitude he will ultimately adopt in regard to this matter? If that is the case, then I think he should be candid about it and tell us so. No, there are other ways in which to tackle this problem and I say that the Prime Minister and his party cannot do it. The first way is, fight Communism by a comprehensive scheme of social security. Look properly after your poor people. Do not let them slide into despair. Despair among the poor people is a fertile soil in which communist agitation thrives. Apart therefore from the merits of the case there is one thing on which we on this side of the House have concentrated, and that is to hold out the prospect of a programme of a socio-economic policy and social security, and to do our utmost towards its realisation. That will eliminate the necessity of Communism gaining ground on account of its claims that it is the champion of the poor people. We must give the poor people what they are entitled to. Give them a better world. Give them a better livelihood and then you will be able to combat Communism successfully in this country. I say again that the Prime Minister and his party cannot achieve this. You cannot on the one hand protect capitalist interests and on the other hand give the poor people social security at the same time. That cannot be done. Another matter we must proceed with in order to fight Communism—and this is a fight that is bound to come—is to see that we face the coloured problem of the country honestly and squarely and that we solve it. And there is only one solution, and that is on the basis of separateness. Allow the non-European what he is entitled to. Give him his opportunity to develop himself. Assist him in this development but in his own sphere of life, separate from the Europeans. That is the only solution, the only effective solution, but if you let matters drift as they do today, friction between European and non-European results—and this is bound to result if the European wants to protect himself and the future of his children; friction must arise and is arising more and more—let these matters drift and you play into the hands of the communist agitators. I want to conclude with the following. South Africa must at last awake from its imperial death sleep. Keep South Africa in mind in the first instance, keep South Africa in mind before anything else. The other day I told the Labour Party during another debate here that as a party in this House they adopt a certain attitude, but outside this House they adopt another attitude, and we deplore this very much. This is a party which claims to champion the cause of the under-dog This is a party which so to say claims to possess a monopoly in that respect, but in spite of that their present antics are a hopeless failure. Outside this House, as I said, they sometimes behave like lions but here in the House they act like a lap-dog being led on a leash. What is the reason for this? The reason simply is that today they are still entangled in the net the Government has cast around them. They can be and they should be the spearhead in South Africa in the fight against the growing communist danger. They should form the spearhead. They also talked about a labour front they want to establish to further the interests of the poor people—as they say with the exclusion of the communists. The communists say they want a labour front but under their leadership. But to behave as the Labour Party is still behaving today because their leader has a seat in the Cabinet and they themselves sit there as officials of the Department of Defence, is to my mind nothing less than playing into the hands of the communists of the communist danger in this country. I say therefore, look after our poor people. Solve the coloured problem and awaken South Africa from its imperialist death sleep.

The Hon. the Leader of the Opposition has risen ostensibly to put certain questions to me, but it was apparent from the whole trend of his speech that his intention was hot to get answers from me, not to put questions to which I should provide the answers. His intention was to air his own opinions.

And why not?

I do not find any fault with that; but what opinions! What opinions on such an occasion! The matter that the Hon. Leader of the Opposition has broached here is one of supreme seriousness and importance. It is a matter that is shaking the world to its foundations; it is a cause to which millions of lives have been given, and the end of the suffering is not in sight; and the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition uses this subject and this occasion to peddle trivial party politics. He did not want to know my opinion about Yalta; he did not want to learn my opinion regarding what is going on. No, he wanted to give his own paltry and miserable opinion. That is the position. I do not believe that it was in the least the intention of the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition to enlighten us here in an objective way. To him it was just a question of “How can I exploit this subject for my party purposes?”

His speech got under your skin.

Allow me to refer to a few points that were touched on by the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition. He wanted to know what would be done to prevent dissipation after the war. When the war is over and everything is finished, and the people rejoice …

The Hottentots.

Yes, that is the level from which that hon. member looks at the whole matter. To him it is a question of Hottentots. This is a question of the greatest victory in the history of the world. To him it is not a question where the greatest points in the history of the world are being decided. No it is the Hottentots. It is that pusillanimous spirit that sickens the people of South Africa. Let there be special occasions on, which the hon. member, or other hon. members on his side of the House, can give rein to his feelings and express his feelings about classes here in South Africa. But when we are discussing a matter such as this, namely, the ending of the war, the steps that will have to be taken to bring to an end the sufferings of humanity, the steps that are being taken to create a new order of peace for the people, such language should not be employed as we have heard this afternoon and such debates such as we have had this afternoon should not be carried on.

Who now is using ugly language?

The Hon. Leader of the Onnosition was considerably depressed when he started, and we can understand that. He has not always been depressed when discussing the subject of the war.

He has continued to follow his policy.

I recall the year when he rejoiced that Germany had won: the war was over: England the enemy of South Africa was done for; Germany that would bring us a republic, had won. Then there was cheering. Then there was not this plaintive tone in the song of the Leader of the Opposition. Today he is depressed. He has reason to be denressed, because he says he adheres to the same standpoint. He says he is not ashamed. He is proud of his standpoint the un-African standpoint that he has adopted the Nazi standpoint that they have taken up right from the start. He is proud of that, and I can understand that, with that state of mind in which he is still persisting he should feel depressed. He asks me whether I am also depressed. No, I am not depressed. Read the story of Yalta. Read the document under dismission that has been mentioned by the Hon. Leader of the Opposition, and you will see there that a new dawn is breaking.

In the East.

And it is because the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition is deeply disappointed that today he is more pessimistic, more jaundiced than ever before in a debate in this House. The Hon. Leader of the Opposition asks what my view is about Yalta. I shall tell him. I agree with what that Russian newspaper said yesterday. It is one of the greatest things in history; without doubt it is one of the greatest things in history. What does Yalta mean? It means two things that are expressed in this document that has been published by the three Great Powers. Let me touch on the two main points, the final results of that conference—

These are things for which we have fought, the things for which the whole world stepped into the breach. It is definitely the end of Nazism of the political system of the Nazis and of the military system which dragged us also into the last war, the Prussian system. That is. No. 1. Then we come to No. 2. At the end of the document we find this statement—

That is No. 2—Nazism dead, the Prussian sysytem dead, and there is now amongst the Great Powers of the world after this consultation at Yalta, a unity of purpose and a unity of action that is a guarantee for the future of the world. That is what Yalta signifies. I think that all who pay serious regard to this position in which the world has been for the last five of six years, will rejoice that we are now coming to the end, and they will also rejoice not only because we are coming to the end of the war, but that as far as concerns the future there will now be a Unity of purpose and action between the Great Powers which we hope for many long years, will be a guarantee of world peace and world liberty. That is what Yalta signifies. Let us pause for a moment to consider how the great war began. Who started it? Who began with mighty armies, and after great preparations to attack one small nation after the other in Europe? Who brought that matter into the court of mankind?

Russia.

Are you now talking about Finland?

I speak of Germany. After a five or six year struggle unprecedented in the history of the world, the matter has been decided, or is now being decided, and this is the result: Those aggressions, that possibility of aggression supported by the greatest preparations, by the greatest force that the world has ever seen, has been defeated or is being defeated root and branch. There you have the decision; there you have the great historic decision in the fight in which we have been involved, and into which Germany forced us. That is Yalta. The Hon. the Leader of the Opposition wants to know what Yalta means. It means not only the ending of that aggression and of those attacks, but it means that in the course of years with co-operation, with unity of purpose and action, as has been expressed here, the world will be able to get peace, the world will witness recovery, and humanity will make new plans for the future.

What is the difference between Yalta and Versailles?

The Hon. Leader of the Opposition says now this is a Russian victory.

Of course.

Great Britain, the British Empire, the British Commonwealth count for nothing. America, the United States of America counts for nothing. All the other nations which have participated in the struggle count for nothing. It is only Russia. It is that “gogga” he now sees; he sees that “spook”. Let me say this; the Russia of today is not the Russia of 20 years ago. The Russia of today is in all probability not the Russia of twenty or thirty years hence. It has become one of the great nations of the world.

The colossus

Yes, the colossus. It is a young nation with a future; it is cutting a road to its destiny. It has made history in this war to the extent that almost no other nation has. It is on the march. It is advancing, it is not standing still. This is not the Russia of the revolution of 24 years ago. Nor will the Russia of today remain; it will change just as other nations in the world have changed. What one desires, and it is the best that can happen for the future of humanity, is to look forward to Russia going hand in hand with the other great powers with America and Britain, with a unity of purpose and action. Then there will be a happy future for humanity. The Hon. Leader of the Opposition has used language here, which if he had the influence, would have tempted me to say that he had made an explosive speech. It will, however, only cause an explosion in this House. But those words about a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and all the other disparaging and offensive expressions that he used about a country which obviously is one of the greatest powers in the world, if they were published far and wide, and if any importance were attached to the utterer of these expressions, would have made it an explosive speech.

They are not so afraid as you are.

No, they will not be afraid. Russia will not be afraid. The braying of Cape Town will not be heard in Moscow, but I am touching on this point merely to show that we are a State, that we are a Sovereign State together with Russia in the great commonwealth of the world. We stand on the same platform and it does not become a leader of a party in South Africa to employ such language as he has employed here today against another country, whether that is a great country or a small country. One speaks respectfully of one’s fellow-men and of great nations. All that the Leader of the Opposition sees in this matter is not the triumph of right, not the perpetuation of peace in the world on a basis of unity and co-operation—he only sees a “gogga”; he sees only Russia, and he describes that country as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The colossus.

Yes, and the hon. member alongside him sees a colossus. Let me express a few views regarding the matter itself. The Leader of the Opposition referred to the importance of the position in Europe and the importance of Germany in the position of Europe. Now let me say this. I myself am deeply impressed over the question of the dangerous position in which Europe is. There is no doubt that that continent, the old mother continent of the world is in the greatest difficulties; it has been smashed to fragments, fought to a standstill and exhausted, and East and West must spring to its assistance. The position of Europe and of western civilisation is today very difficult and dangerous.

That is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition said.

Yes, but the Hon. Leader of the Opposition always looks at the matter from the wrong side. How is it that we have arrived at such a position in Europe? It was a happy continent of big and small nations. Prosperity and civilisation were being built up; there were great treasures of art and literature in every sphere. Why does Europe lie in ruins? Who has done it; who has perpetrated the murder, and who is responsible for it? There is only one country that is responsible, and it is Germany and I say this: With the experience that I have acquired in my lifetime and with the light of the events of my lifetime, it is my opinion that unless Germany’s power is broken as it is now being broken, there will be no peace and no security, and there will be no future for Europe. What assurance have countries like Holland and all the other small states and big states alongside Germany? Here you have one of the biggest powers in Europe, a great nation, a brave nation, a clever nation with a high level op civilisation, which is out to use its amazing position of power to get other nations under its control and to dominate—to be the herrenvolk. I say that so long as that state of affairs continues, you will agree with me, and I think the world will agree with me, there will be no peace and progress and no future for Europe or for the whole world. The only way out is that now that at long last the end has come now that that power is being broken, and it is being broken, we must see to it that there is no repetition of anything of this sort. The Leader of the Opposition and members on the opposite benches may perhaps deplore that their ideology and the standpoint which they adopt, has not triumphed; they may perhaps still say that it would have been a blessing for the world if Germany had won, and if Germany had impressed its standpoint. But judging from the facts that have occurred there and the course of events in Europe, the grief and woe that has overtaken all the countries there, large and small, I say that I think the opposite. Germany abused its terrible might, and it became a curse to Europe, and it is the cause of Europe being in the position in which it finds itself today.

And now you are looking for another curse in its place.

Such a thing cannot be tolerated. I see no future for Europe, no recovery and no guarantee against wars which will go further and further, with more dangerous weapons, with more scientific application; I see nothing else but the total destruction of that continent if such a power is allowed to repeat what it has already done. This is in a very large measure due to Germany’s misuse of its power, to the idea that it must be a herrenvolk, that it must rule and dominate the continent and the whole world, that we have got this position in Europe. When we judge on these matters, we must go into the causes of them. We must look for the origin. I say that Europe was a happy continent. During the nineteenth century it was on the road to something great, and in the twentieth century it should have seen its zenith. But it is lying today in ruins, and there is only one reason for it, and that is the misuse of the power of Germany, its outlook, its philosophy of life and its application of it. There is a sequel coming unless we can stop it now We cannot learn the same lesson twice or thrice without extracting wisdom from it. No, the great powers have agreed that an end must be put to this. We shall do our best to see that Germany is curbed so that nothing of this sort can happen again, and I say that we must all agree that this is the only solution. This is the solution that has been found at Yalta. The matter will be clinched later at the larger world conference that will be held but the substance and the guiding principles were given to us at Yalta. It will remain what it now is, one of the turning points in the history of the world. The criminal has been caught. The criminal is being put in chains, the criminal is being placed in a position where he will never be able to repeat what he has essayed two or three times. All the other points that have been touched on here are small in comparison with that matter. Poland was mentioned. The Leader of the Opposition is to a great extent correct. At the last world conference I tried to give warning about the Polish solution, and to a certain degree I predicted what has happened. But what happened subsequently? Let us go into the facts. The Curzon line which has now been fixed by the three Great Powers as the eastern boundary of Poland was fixed by the Paris Peace Conference after the peace conference that followed the last war.

No, that was not done.

It was after that, but I know what the trend of events was at the first commission that investigated it. Poland at that time got a reasonable eastern boundary. After that war occurred between Russia and Poland. The victory lay with Pilsudski, and he was not content with the boundary that he got after the Peace of Paris. He then absorbed a large part of White Russia, and that is the territory over which the disputes have occurred. He went further and collared a portion of Lithuania, and that also became part of Poland. Thereby Poland got a boundary which made its position impossible in the long run. The matter in reference to which I gave a warning over the Polish arrangement was the corridor. But this became a very small point in comparison with the later extension. What has happened now is this. The Great Powers have said: Back to the Curzon line; so that Poland will not have inside its territory millions of subjects who are purely White Russians. I have no objection to that.

What is your objection? You said that you did not agree with the arrangement.

Where did I say that? The hon. member is wandering in the wilderness. The objection that I made was 25 years ago, and not now.

Where does Danzig come in?

That has still to be decided at the coming conference. The only thing that we know at present is that the Curzon line will be the eastern boundary. The Hon. Leader of the Opposition has no reason to employ this as an argument that we have departed from the Atlantic Charter. He says this is another instance of annexation, because a portion of Poland has been annexed. If we look into history we will see that that dispute is the result of matters that went awry in the years following the Peace Conference in Paris. The Atlantic Charter postulates certain ideals which it will be very difficult to carry out. That is admitted by all, even by the framers of it, namely Churchill and Roosevelt. Roosevelt clearly intimated that it will be very difficult to carry fully into effect the ideals of the Atlantic Charter. Really, that cannot be done with anything on earth. Nothing, is perfect.

What deceit towards the world.

No, the hon. member deceives himself. If you want to have anything in this world and you take up the standpoint that you must have 100 per cent. perfection you will never get anything. In politics and in the practical world there is nothing so absurd as to demand what we call perfection. We find people who will not have anything if they cannot get everything, and that is of no use at all. To think that the Atlantic Charter can be put into execution 100 per cent. from A. to Z. is to make a big mistake. You will not be able to fulfil it 100 per cent. in Europe, in Africa or in South Africa.

Then you are misleading the people.

But did you not promise it?

Where did I make such promises? South Africa has signed the Atlantic Charter, and I hold myself to that as the ideal towards which we strive.

A dummy.

I maintain that is the ideal towards which we are striving, and we cannot expect to carry that out 100 per cent. One does not get that in a practical world. The Leader of the Opposition stated that a few years ago we setup ideals, and that our practical realism today is just the opposite. No, our ideals are there, and we are striving towards them.

But what sort of political morality is this?

Social security will go the same way.

We can work for our ideals, but to think that those ideals can be carried out 100 per cent. is stupid. I do not think it is necessary for me to go further into that matter. The debate was opened by the Leader of the Opposition as an objective discussion on great international problems; not to look at matters from the angle of the world’s interest in South Africa; nor to regard it from the smallest standpoint of narrow-minded party interests in order to see what capital he and hon. members opposite could gain from it. The whole world applauds what was done there. While the very opposite was hinted at and threatened at Yalta there happened what is contained in this announcement. It was said that the three Great Powers would not dare to meet. In Germany the big thing was that the three Great Powers would never agree. It was stated that they could not venture to meet and that that was the reason why over the course of months there had been no meeting of the three Great Powers. They would not dare to venture having a meeting, because then they would fly apart. The exact opposite is now shown. It has been shown that faced with the greatest and most difficult tasks that could come up for discussion at such an international discussion, they agreed with each other 100 per cent., that they reached an agreement there, and that they laid down a clear course along which the international conference which will be held some months later can proceed for the restoration of the world on principles that have a firm foundation.

It is very obvious that the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition scored a bull’s eye today, and not only scored a bull’s eye, but that he inflicted a severe wound, for I am sure that the attitude which the Prime Minister adopted here today must have been a surprise even to his own followers. He jumped about here like a wounded animal, from one side to the other. He also adopted an attitude to which we are not accumstomed as far as he is concerned, and I think that he did not do justice to himself. At the beginning of his speech he tried in a cheap manner to rant against what he called the “petty opinions expressed by the Leader of the Opposition”. Of course we know from the biographies published about the Prime Minister, especially from the one published recently by Crafford, that if there is one thing which the Prime Minister holds very dear, then it is his own opinion. But never before have we witnessed, when a serious matter was discussed in a serious manner by the Leader of the Opposition, the childish, narrow-minded attitude on the part of the Prime Minister which we witnessed today. The Prime Minister was not his own self, and I can only say that his standpoint and attitude are due to the state of nervousness in which he finds himself—a nervousness not due to his climbing number of years, but due to the realisation of the position in which he, together with his friends such as Churchill and others, have landed South Africa. He talks about the petty opinions of the Leader of the Opposition, and the next moment he says that the Leader of the Opposition has raised a very important subject, and then he goes on to discuss that subject. But a still better indication of the condition of fear and nervousness on the part of the Prime Minister is the fact that within a few minutes he left Poland absolutely in the lurch. The same Poland in regard to which he said in September 1939 that the war began on her account, the country of which he and his press could not publish enough—that selfsame Poland he now discards without any more publicity and declares that it deserves to lose those parts of its territory. Those parts belong to Russia! He even goes further and torpedoes the Atlantic Charter. He torpedoes the same Atlantic Charter about which at the time he used the same kind of grandiose expressions as he has used a few moments ago in regard to the Yalta agreement. He and others proclaimed that Atlantic Charter as a new beginning for the world. I can imagine the Prime Minister on that occasion also referring to the new light that had begun to shine. He now comes here and laughs about it and practically derides it. He merely declares that it cannot be applied—it cannot be applied anywhere in the world and not in South Africa either. It is far too idealistic! But that same Atlantic Charter which he now so to say mocks about, is mentioned twice in this Yalta declaration. A large part of the Yalta declaration is based on the Atlantic Charter! The Prime Minister, however, comes along and in so many words says that it is a scrap of paper and that it is too idealistic, the same thing he said about the report of the National Health Services Commission, which was also too idealistic and could not be put into practice. He says that a new light has now commenced to shine. Oh yes, a new light has begun to shine, but it is the light of the Red Star. His nervousness and fear of that new light has brought him into the state of mind in which he finds himself today. Although he admits that the matter raised by the Leader of the Opposition is a serious one, we find that he gets up here and for ten minutes tries to crack jokes, and after that he disposes of the whole matter within fifteen minutes. That is the manner in which the Prime Minister deals with this serious matter. Of course we realise that the Prime Minister may feel nervous about the position. Since the beginning of the war we have seen him in various states of mind. There was the first phase when he was the “child of the Cross” and enlisted recruits to march to “God’s war”. Then came the second phase, when he was in the depths of despair and misery. That was after Crete, Dunkirk and Tobruk. Thereafter came the third phase. He mustered up courage after the victory in North Africa. And now we have the fourth phase. We on this side, standing and watching, we who advocated a policy of neutrality, witnessed a very interesting spectacle in recent times when the Prime Minister and his supporters, in spite of the fact that to all intents and purposes they have gained the victory, were nevertheless in a depressed state of mind. At the beginning they were worried lest the Allies might not be victoribus, and now on the other hand they are worrying about the question whether England is going to participate in that victory. The Prime Minister and his friends are worrying not whether England is going to win the war but whether it may not after all lose the peace. That fear is always hovering in the background. Whatever praise they may bestow on Russia, in the background there is always the consternation about the unequal partnership. In the background stands the ominous figure of Josef Stalin. The Prime Minister would like to believe and his friends would like to believe that all is well. He wants to make himself and the world believe that this declaration which was issued straightens out everything very nicely, but at the back of their minds they always have the dismay that everything is not as it should be, that a swindle is being perpetrated on the part of Russia in regard to the whole position. This is not the first declaration we have had after a conference of the Three Great ones. There have been similar declarations in the past. The position of Stalin always was that he did not take part in those conferences, that he also took part in the discussions and in the issue of declarations, but when he had finished with that, he simply did what he liked to. The Prime Minister knows that. If there is one man who should know that, then it is the Prime Minister himself, who in his London speech admitted that Russia is a new danger for Europe. I shall not quote from the newspaper report but from a copy of the pamphlet issued in connection with that speech. I do not know how many of these pamphlets reached South Africa. He very clearly states there—

A little while ago he shrugged his shoulders and referred mockingly to the Leader of the Opposition in regard to the latter’s remarks about other countries. The following is what the Prime Minister had to say about England. He said that England comes out of the war covered with glory—

Those are his own words. The Prime Minister should therefore appreciate what I am saying here, for as long ago as 25th November 1943 he admitted that Russia will be the boss in Europe. Now they have again held a conference. I think the Prime Minister will admit, for no secret was made of the fact, that only after the greatest trouble did they succeed in getting Stalin to attend that conference. Does the Prime Minister deny that? There were serious difficulties. He did not want to attend such a conference. Only after the greatest trouble did they finally succeed in persuading him to attend a conference together with them. There is, however, a further important aspect of this matter. Joe Stalin has never yet come to them. They have to come to him. On the previous occasion the conference was held just outside the Russian border, viz. at Teheran. This time the conference took place within Stalin’s own territory. And this is the position not only as far as Stalin is concerned. His Foreign Minister also does not go to England. No, Eden and Cordell Hull have to come to Moscow. That is the behaviour of a man who realises that he holds the whip-hand. They have to come to him. As far as the Yalta declaration is concerned I can well imagine the Prime Minister in the state of nervousness and fear which he is in, studying that document very carefully to see how much comfort he may derive from it. I also studied it and I am satisfied that he will not derive any consolation either for himself or for England from this document. Let us for a moment scrutinise the document more closely. First of all we have the usual assurances in regard to military collaboration. We had the same assurances after Teheran. We know what happened then. At the establishment of a second front in Normandy when one would have expected co-ordination and joint action, Russia did not even make an attack on the Eastern front. There was no co-operation. And afterwards when the British and American troops had been pinned down in Normandy for a long time and at last were able to break through Belgium and tried to cross the German frontier near Aachen, the Russians never attacked during all those weeks. It was all quiet on the German Eastern front. Then came Von Rundstedt with his break through. Stalin waited until the English and American armies had been driven back, and when the latter were engaged in slowly advancing again, at that moment Stalin and his armies started their mighty attack on the Eastern border with the purpose of reaching Berlin first. Is that co-ordination? We have again had the same assurances we had in the past. They are not worth the paper they have been written on. We now come to the document’s conditions of surrender. These are being kept secret, very likely to the extreme consternation of our Minister of Finance who recently adopted the rôle of the new apostle of charity, of charity to all. We are not being told what the conditions are going to be. I doubt whether even the Prime Minister knows them, for he told us that lately he is no longer being consulted by White Hall. Then we come to the areas of occupation and the control commission. Immediately three questions present themselves. The first is that Russia is also going to have a certain area of the north-eastern part. The question is whether Russia will ever leave it again. England and America will stay for some time in the areas they occupy, but the costs of occupation are high and by and by they will leave. The question arising now is whether Russia will ever be prepared to yield the territory it has under occupation. More important, however, is the question what kind of government system, if any, will be established in occupied Germany, and under whose influence Germany is going to be in the days to come? I cannot see clearly from all the information we receive that Stalin’s plans are already cut and dried. The Prime Minister knows that he has already established a German National Committee, just as he established the Lublin Committee for Poland, and that Committee is today at the head of affairs. There is even a rumour of the possibility of von Paulus, the German General in command at Stalingrad, being appointed as Prime Minister of East Prussia. Stalin has prepared his plans and if a government should be formed in Germany it will be a government which is well disposed towards Russia. In other words, the prospect exists that Germany will be under Russian influence, that it will fall within Russia’s sphere of influence, and that the administration will be inclined towards Communism. We now come to the penalty provisions in the declaration. Apparently they are in full agreement about this matter, but I want to point to a few things. I assume that the Prime Minister is also a person looking to the future. He has witnessed what happened as a result of the treaty of Versailles. In the Yalta statement mention is made of the elimination of all industries which might be used for war production. The Hon. Prime Minister knows that as a result of developments during this war there is hardly an industry which cannot be converted for war production. Did the Prime Minister ever consider that Germany with its 80,000,000 inhabitants, however much they want to destroy it, will nevertheless have to play its rôle and will play its rôle in the economic structure of Europe? Does he realise what it will mean if German industries have to be destroyed because they might possibly be converted into war industries? They furthermore say that their aim is not to destroy the German people. That is a funny thing to say. Did the intention perhaps exist to act in accordance with the recommendations of van Sittart and others? The Hon. Prime Minister on a previous occasion asked who van Sittart was. I hope he has found it out in the meantime. Was the actual idea perhaps that all the Germans had to be butchered or something of that nature? Why else that peculiar paragraph in the declaration? Is it perhaps to somewhat satisfy Roosevelt and his people in America? Then we come to another part, a very important part, viz. the one about compensation. As it was after the last war, this is going to be a very important part of the peace. It is therefore very remarkable that the control organisation in regard to compensation will be in Moscow. It will have its seat there. One of the most important sections of the peace treaty will be executed from Moscow. The Prime Minister will remember what happened after the last war. Then they were also afraid that France might get a larger share of the compensation, and then the Prime Minister came along with something which has already caused him many a headache, namely the proposal to include the pensions and allowances of soldiers for compensation purposes. Are we going to say the same again? We thus see that Russia scores on every point. The Prime Minister cannot find the slightest morsel of consolation in this declaration. Where compensation is concerned. Russia again comes out on top, and the control will be done by Russia. Then we come to the International Organisation, and it is announced that a meeting will be held at San Francisco. It must be as far away from Russia as possible. Or is Russia going to break its agreement with Japan after that date and is it going to help its Allies as a compensation for its annexation of Poland? We now come to the most interesting part, the treatment of the liberated countries of Europe. Here we find a reference to the Atlantic Charter, which the Prime Minister today declared to be worthless. He said that it is merely an ideal, but in spite of that, we are now being told what will be done in terms of article 3 of the Atlantic Charter. Article 3 of the Atlantic Charter acknowledges the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they want to live and it states that the sovereign right of self-government will be restored where it has been taken away by force. These are wonderful words, but the Prime Minister declares that they are nothing but words. To him they do not mean anything. Today in this House he has torn up the Atlantic Charter. The declaration, however, does not tell us how they are going to restore the democratic form of government in the liberated countries. It is furthermore very peculiar that in this solemn “momentous declaration”, as the “Times” calls it—and which has to protect the smaller States against aggression—it is very strange that nothing is said here about Esthonia, Latvia or Lithuania. I should like to know what the Prime Minister’s views are in regard to these countries. Are they not going to derive any benefit from the Atlantic Charter? Why have these countries not been mentioned. I will tell you. Because Russia has already pocketed these countries and has no intention of surrendering them again. They ought to belong to the so-called liberated countries, but they have already been fully annexed. Finally we come to the unsavoury part which can be found at the end of the declaration. Whatever the Prime Minister may say, he knows that a tremendous agitative movement has been afoot during the last few weeks, both in America and in England, even to such an extent that the other day Mr. Churchill was forced to refer to it in his speech. He said: “I repute these aspersions, whether they come from our best friends”—that is to say America—“or our worst enemies”. Very severe criticism has been levelled by persons in America and prominent newspapers against the attitude of England and America towards Poland. It is quite understandable that they are very touchy in regard to this matter and the Prime Minister of the Union is even more touchy than they are. The position is now that Russia will be allowed to keep that part of the country which it has conquered. We still remember very well that at the beginning of the war Russia was vilified here in South Africa on account of its aggression against Poland. I now want to refer to the “Cape Times” of 18th September, 1939, and to what they said when Russia annexed the same piece of land which the Prime Minister now wants to give Russia for keeps. The “Cape Times” stated under the heading “Hammer and Anvil”—

That is what the Prime Minister’s own paper, the “Cape Times”, wrote at the time and the Prime Minister used more or less the same words about it, whether he wants to admit it or not. Today he comes here and declares that Russia is fully entitled to obtain eastern Poland. There were these circumstances and those circumstances; there were white Russians and red Russians and another kind of Russian; and it is quite in order that this part of Russia should now be taken away from Poland and made a part of Russia. It is small wonder that the Prime Minister is so nervous today for he has to commend something which he condemned in the past. The whole world knows what his attitude about this matter was at the time. Let us understand one another well. England and Mr. Neville Chamberlain’s government gave a guarantee to Poland that if they were to be attacked by Germany, England would side with Poland and would guarantee its frontiers. Today this guarantee is being broken by England and Mr. Churchill and by the Prime Minister of South Africa with them. Then there is the further section of the declaration which states that the communistically minded Lublin government will now be recognised. It will undergo a so-called extension, but all these years there has been a Polish government in London. I think the Prime Minister certainly must have met them too when he was in London and he must have had discussions with them. That government is now being brushed aside and the Russian-inclined Lublin government will be recognised. What does this mean? It means that Russia is not only seizing half of Poland but that the other half will fall within the Russian sphere of influence. That cannot be denied. Russia therefore retains the Baltic States, receives that part of Finland which it has seized, receives the half of Poland which it has seized and the remaining part of Poland remains within its sphere of influence. We now come to the next part of the declaration. In Yugoslavia Tito will be recognised and no mention is made anywhere of King Peter. Don’t we remember the Prime Minister exclaiming over the wireless at the time “we now call him ‘Peter the Great’.” Now this poor Peter the Great is dropped overboard just like Poland and just like the Atlantic Charter. Peter the Great is a goner. Russia is commanding now, the communists are the bosses in Yugoslavia. The Prime Minister takes up the attitude that this is not a serious position. He is not afraid of Russia. “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?” That is the kind of attitude he takes up. And he very much resents the fact that we say that Russia is a danger. What is the position of Russia? In Greece the communists formed the EAM and according to the news about the agreement which has now been reached, the communists are delighted. Mr. Churchill said these people were Trotskyists. I do not know whether the Prime Minister also believed that Story. According to the statement of one of the British ministers, there is no question about Trotskyists in Greece. They are ordinary Stalin communists, nothing more. Greece is therefore being included within the Russian sphere of influence. In Yugoslavia Tito, the protege of Russia, is at the helm of affairs. Bulgaria and Roumania are under Russian influence and it is now busy marching towards Austria. What is the position in Italy? When Churchill and Roosevelt were still busy quibbling about the question whether they wanted Badoglio or somebody else, Joe Stalin interefered and saw to his men being included in the government. Today you find Communism throughout Italy. What do we find in France? When Churchill and Roosevelt were still busy arguing about the recognition of De Gaulle, Joe Stalin intervened and got three representatives in the French National Committee. In Belgium there is a strong communist influence. We know what the difficulties there are and how serious the position is. The whole Continent of Europe with the exception of Spain, Portugal and Switzerland is either today under Russian influence or will be strongly inclined towards Communism. I have here before me the well-known American periodical “Life”. The Prime Minister is acquainted with it, for only recently he specially cabled a long letter to them and some time ago they published a large portrait of the Prime Minister on their front page. Therefore he and “Life” are great pals. What did they say—

Whether or not they were planned or controlled by Moscow, the uprisings in all countries seemed spontaneous. The commuists did not put forward a common economic charter for the liberated countries. The universal slogan was “democracy” which was hailed everywhere but nowhere defined.

In the Yalta declaration mention is also made of democratic governments! They are going to establish democratic governments in those countries, but as this paper correctly points out, this will include communist governments. Communism is the boss in Europe and for that reason the Prime Minister is nervous and for that reason he was beating about the bush when he had to reply to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition. But may I ask the Prime Minister, if he is not afraid of Russia, why did he develop the idea of a bloc of nations in Western Europe? Against whom was that directed? It was admitted that the western front was to all intents and purposes meant as a sort of “cordon sanitaire” against Russia.

Russia interpreted it as such.

Oh yes, and the idea originated with the Prime Minister. Why a combination of West European states if it is not on account of a fear of Russia? But of course today they are Allies? Now and again he has to pacify and satisfy his followers somewhat and he now comes here and does as if nothing is amiss. I think the Minister will admit that a new period in the history of Europe has commenced. He said so in his explosive speech. During many centuries we have had the supremacy of the Latin, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon races in Europe. This has now come to an end and we shall witness the predominance of the Slavonic races, a new phenomenon. Europe has entered a new phase, whether the Prime Minister admits it or not. This will also have grave repercussions in South Africa. If we look back over the past five years and notice the course things are taking now and what the possibilities for the future are, possibilities which the Prime Minister himself envisaged, then one sometimes feels inclined to ask whether after all Neville Chamberlain with his appeasement policy was not right, and whether future generations in Europe will not say that Chamberlain’s policy was the right one, namely collaboration with Germany, as opposed to the policy of the Churchill clique. That question will be asked in the future. The population of South Africa is entitled to feel concerned. We have the right to ask whether it was in order to make Stalin the master of Europe, to introduce Slavonic control in Europe, that so far we spent more or less £400,000,000 on the war? Was it in order to make Stalin the master of Europe that we already suffered 28,000 casualties in this war? We furthermore are entitled to ask whether it is in the interests of South Africa that, as a result of our participation in the war and the alliance with Joe Stalin and his people, Communism has gained the upper hand with all its consequences. The consequences are clearly visible throughout the country. We are entitled to ask that question in the interest of South Africa. But we are also entitled to declare: In view of the course matters have taken and our future prospects and dangers, we are entitled to claim, as the Leader of the Opposition said, that we had every reason to adopt the attitude we adopted on the 4th September, 1939.

Before the hon. member took part in this debate, I always doubted the rumour that the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) took part in the last war as a soldier. But having listened to the wonderful military strategy that he unfolded, I really believe that he was a soldier, if only a corporal. But I should like to put the question, what is the background against which the Opposition are conducting this debate? What is inspiring them? What is their conception of our attitude in respect of the world, in respect of the Russian position or in respect of the other Great Powers? Is the idea in their hearts or in their heads that we ought to have fought against Russia and these nations, should we have taken part in the war against Russia with or without Germany? Would it make the slightest difference to the position that Russia has assumed in the world today if we had not taken part in the war? Is the Prime Minister responsible for the war in Europe against Germany? It appears to me that hon. members of the Opposition think that if the Prime Minister had not been here there would have been no war.

We would have remained out of the war.

Would we have gained anything by that?

Of course.

Would the position of Russia have been in any way different if we had remained out of the war? Would the Russian menace that the hon. member for Beaufort West has spoken of, be in any degree less? Would its position of power in Europe have been less if South Africa had remained neutral?

Of course.

I did not know that our small force could stop Russia, that we could have prevented the great victories they have gained. I cannot understand that any Opposition front-bencher should stand up in this House and talk in a humiliating way about any leader of any other country. It is enough for us to hear that the Prime Minister is often treated in a humiliating manner by the other side of the House, and that they try to humiliate him. The respect that we are accustomed to show towards leaders of other lands and the government of other lands has not been evinced by the members of the Opposition. The hon. member who has just spoken has stated that there is no co-ordination in the war policy of the Allies. He, as the great strategist has made that allegation. But can he deny that there have been amazing successes? Who has gained the victory, who is gaining the victory today? Is the co-ordination of all the people who are involved in it so, weak? Why is it that the Germans are supposed to be better than the Allies; why is the one down and the other on top? No, it does not help matters for the Opposition to try to make accusations against this side of the House and to attempt to criticise us. The whole thing boils down to this, that the Opposition wants to help the enemy in one way or the other. It is more concerned for the enemy than for the real friends of South Africa. That is the position. The enemy is shielded and our friends are slandered. Throughout the whole debate you can see this clearly.

Are the Communists your friends?

The hon. member opposite reminds me of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom). He has only Hottentots on his mind, and the hon. member has only communists on his mind. That is all he thinks about. What the heart is full of, escapes from the mouth.

I am only asking whether the communists are your friends.

Anyway, you are not answering the question.

My attitude in that connection is absolutely clear. There is nothing to be said about it.

What is your attitude?

The Hon. Leader of the Opposition talks in that humiliating way about the great people of the world, of the “so-called Big Three.” Will the Opposition not recognise these men as great leaders?

Now you have only two-and-a-half.

Those hon. friends have not admitted it. Our friends on the opposite benches may try to mock at everything, but one thing is certain, and that is that South Africa’s position in the world is not improved by that. The Hon. the Leader of the Opposition has told us—and also the hon. member who has just sat down—that it looked as if the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister was nervous when he spoke about the position in the world today; but if you think about the speech made by the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition when he began by telling us that we must see to it that we did not annoy our opponents after the war, then I wonder who is nervous. Who has to be given protection? For whom must precautions be taken lest they be annoyed. Who is the man who is going to be molested? Who have hon. members opposite in mind? It seems to me that when one’s conscience pricks one, one seeks a way of escape, and still more if one has a guilty conscience. Then one thinks first of all of protection. The other man who knows that he has done nothing detrimental to the welfare of this country will not worry about protection.

Is that why detectives have to look after the Prime Minister?

If there is any anxiety or nervousness it is certainly not on this side of the House. The Hon. Leader of the Opposition stated here that when we divided on the war question the Polish question was given as the most important reason why South Africa should enter the war. We have referred often to that question, and often explained that this Government and this Party have never entered any war because Poland was involved in war, but because Poland was attacked by a great and mighty nation, and because we knew what would happen, that Germany would dispose of Poland, and that it would then deal with the remainder of the smaller countries. We did not enter the war on that account, and that sort of charge only shows how hon. members on the opposite benches misrepresent the actual state of affairs right throughout the country. I in turn would like to ask this. The charge is being made that the Prime Minister was not consulted in connection with this last conference at Yalta. I am sorry that the Hon. Leader of the Opposition is not in the House. I would like to put this question to him. What consultation took place over the telephone when he discussed with Germany the question of the establishment of a republic, when he was going to get it on a plate from Germany? I want to know, and I think the whole country is deeply interested in knowing what consultation there was with the Leader of the Opposition. We would like to know that. It is easy to say that the Prime Minister was not consulted; it is easy to make a shot in the dark.

But was there any consultation?

That is what I want to know from the Opposition, whether there was consultation with Germany in connection with a republic.

We can put your minds at rest, there was nothing of the sort.

Do hon. members on the opposite benches deny that anything of the sort occurred, that there was not a discussion with Germany about a republic?

I say that is untrue.

The hon. member says it is untrue. Is he not aware then of what his own Leader tells the general public?

What did the Leader of the Opposition say at Ventersdorp?

Yes, what did he say at Ventersdorp? Hon. members opposite must remember that we listened in on our wireless; what did we hear over the radio in this country?

I say it is untrue.

I hear the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) saying that the remark that I made is an untruth. I would like to ask if an hon. member is permitted under the rules of the House to say that what another hon. member says is an untruth?

He does not say that you are lying, he says it is untrue.

Perhaps I should not say it inside this House, but if I were outside I should make this challenge to the hon. member: I shall wager £100 that it is true. The Hon. Leader of the Opposition said one thing which struck me as an amazing observation in this House. The Hon. Leader of the Opposition made this remark, that the Russian Government should have then made an appeal to the humanity of other nations. I want to ask the Leader of the Opposition whether he is not aware that an appeal was made by the Russian Church in Russia, and whether he will deny that there are Christians even in Russia ….

Stalin is opposed to them.

I want to know whether those Christians in Russia did not make an appeal.

Despite Stalin.

I am not talking about Stalin. If we listened to what happened in our own church today we would not be Christians.

Shame. What church do you want to join?

The hon. member does not need to imagine that I want to join the English Church. I am not so near to the English as he is. The Hon. Leader of the Opposition stated something marvellous here; he said that we must look the coloured and the native question honestly in the face. He said that the time had arrived that we must look this question honestly between the eyes. I in turn would like to ask the Hon. Leader of the Opposition what he has done in the past in connection with this problem. I would like to refer him to the speech he made at Oskraal, and that other speech in which he wanted to give the coloured people the vote. Was he dishonest then? Now he says that the time has arrived when we must look at the matter squarely. I then am entitled to put this question to him, have you not done that before? As far as concerns a question of Communism, I should like to know from hon. members opposite whether they desire that we should act along the lines that were followed in Germany and that we should endeavour to prevent other lands from following their own opinion in connection with their own form of government. Do they want us to go so far as not to recognise the form of government of a country such as Bulgaria, where the communists are in power? Is that the position? They condemn this; they belittle it, and they belittle the people who choose that form of government for themselves. What is their attitude in that connection? Would hon. members go so far as to come into conflict with those nations because they are communists? If difficulties arise between South Africa and one of those countries will they take part in the war if it is decided by this country to go to war with them? These are practical questions. I do not believe that such things will ever happen. I would like to return to another aspect of the debate, and that is in regard to the Lands Department. I want to explain here that a certain group in this House who described themselves as the soldier group, are giving thought to these soldiers who are temporary lessees on the Land Department’s land. I want to make it clear that this soldier group, which is very strong, who are certainly just as strong as the Opposition on the other side, are of opinion that every soldier who has served in this war should receive preference in connection with this land for services that he has rendered, and I would like to know whether hon. members opposite agree that soldiers who have fought in this war should receive preference. I know that I shall not receive an answer to that question. I want to know whether they will admit that a soldier who has fought for his country should receive preference when it comes to a question of appointments in the Government service or anywhere else, or when it comes to the allotment of Crown land.

We must look after him when he comes back.

That is no answer to my question. Hon. members opposite make out that they are friends of the soldier.

So we are.

I would like to have the question answered. Do they take up the standpoint that a soldier who has fought for his country, who has been prepared to shed his blood for his country should get preference?

I said that we should look after them when they return.

There should be no discrimination.

There now we have the answer of an hon. member albeit he is not the leader on that side of the House. But it is noticeable that he has not been contradicted. This is, of course, the truth. They do not want to have any discrimination. I would like to know what the Opposition’s real opinion is. They now want to hold out that they are the champions of the soldiers, and I should like to hear what their opinion is. You must not make out that you are the soldier’s friend and then forget him; you must not try to come in by a subterfuge.

I have already got work for several of them.

The hon. member talks such a lot about the soldiers. He says now that he got work for many of them. But I am certain he has also given a lot of work to Italians.

I have given work to more soldiers than you have.

I want to know whether that is not the position that has prevailed in the northern Provinces in all the wars that we have had against the natives, that when it came to the allotment of land preference was given to the burghers who fought? Did they not receive preference over those who did not fight? If that is the case why should we not give preference now to the soldiers who have fought for their country in this war.

In those days they did not take farms from one person and give them to another.

The hon. member says that they did not take farms away from one and give them to another. I challange the hon. member to show me where a farm has been taken away from one person by this Government and given to another. These temporary lessees were told beforehand under what conditions they could remain on those holdings, and there is not a single instance in which land that was allotted to one person has been taken away from him and given to another. These are all words. I challenge the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) to mention the name of one farm where that has happened.

Do you also want to give preference to native soldiers?

That hon. member thinks about nothing but Hottentots and natives.

Tell us. You want us to give preference to the soldiers. Must we give preference to native soldiers?

The temporary lessees all knew under what conditions they would take over the land. I am sorry that we have not sufficient land to enable us to leave them there. I am really sorry that these people cannot get the land.

Are you in favour of them having to leave that land?

I want to make my position absolutely clear. If there are two people who want the land and one of them is a soldier, then I say that preference must be given to the soldier.

That is no answer. Don’t be evasive.

That is the attitude that we on this side of the House take up. We have made a promise to the soldiers. We have told them that we will look after their families while they are away.

And now you are chasing them out on to the road.

The hon. member says that we are now hounding them on to the wagon road. Is the hon. member serious when he talks about the wagon road. The hon. member has stated that the aged people and the old fathers and mothers and the lads who have turned 21 will be thrown out on to the wagon road.

Not all of them.

I only need to remind the hon. member of what was done by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) when he was Minister of Lands. The letters that were read out here by the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) indicate that the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, when he was Minister, put those people on to the wagon road.

Yes, but now it is a big round-up compared with what occurred in those days.

From those letters that were read by the hon. member for Rustenburg it appears clear that this happened when the hon. member for Wolmaransstad was Minister.

Then it was a regulation, now it is a law.

Whether anything of this sort happens under a regulation or under an Act makes no difference if they have the same effect. It has the same consequences for any man who has to suffer under it.

This is the difference; now it is laid down for the future; it is not for the first time.

It does not carry us any further for the hon. member to say anything like that. We have made a promise to those soldiers that we would look after their dependants and hon. members on this side of the House meant it, and we still mean it. And if on that account we have now to fight each other hon. members opposite will have to excuse us. We promised this. We are going to carry out that promise. That is what we believe in. When we believe in a thing we see it through. I should like to see this also the belief of the Opposition, but we shall never see that.

Are you in favour of the soldier being benefited at the expense of the other man? Is what you want that the soldier should be fixed up even though the other man will be thrown on the road.

The hon. member now wants to put words into my mouth. I shall give the answer at the right time and in the right way. If it was explained to any temporary lessee that he could be told at any time to leave the land under the terms of his lease ….

That is if he has done anything wrong.

No, the people were not told that. There is no such condition in the agreement.

But this was a condition.

I want then to see that condition in the contract.

That is the intention.

I ask the hon. member to bring me any contract that contains that condition. I have seen many of these people on their farms. I have seen soldiers there. If the hon. member wants to know what my attitude is in regard to the soldier I want to tell him this. If there are a number of people on the farm and there is not room for a returned soldier, the returned soldier must receive the preference. I make no secret of that. That is my opinion.

Do you also include the coloured soldier?

I do that because it is the same policy that we had in the days of the Republic which I lived under. We gave what we could to those burghers who fought, and we did not give anything to those people who remained at home. I am not at present speaking for the Government. I am referring now to the feelings of the ordinary member of this party as far as concerns the soldiers. I say that the opinion of the ordinary member on this side of the House is that we shall do everything to assist the soldier.

Mr. Speaker, it is always very difficult for a back-bencher to rise to participate in a debate, more particularly when that debate has centred round questions of international politics, with experienced speakers, particularly the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister, who is a recognised authority on international affairs. I am, in making my plea, coming down to more mundane matters, and I am fortified by the fact that the last speaker, the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. Van der Merwe), although in the initial stages dealing with international questions, later came down to domestic issues. My plea is concerned with higher education in agriculture, and in that connection one feels that we cannot get away from the fundamental precept that the farming industry, and particularly an industry built up on sound agricultural principles, is indispensable to our national welfare. I am almost tempted to say that a sound agricultural industry is a basic requirement in so far as a stable agricultural economy is concerned. I think members will agree with me when I say that agricultural efficiency has not kept pace with industrial development. That, in itself, is most unfortunate, because when we regard the mining industry, which is the other primary industry in this country, as a wasting asset, it is then obvious that we must pay attention to scientific farming methods if we are going to secure a sound agricultural economy, and it is imperative that agricultural efficiency must keep pace with industrial efficiency. I think this is a fact which no-one can dispute. One felt last Session—I feel that I do not stand alone in this regard,—that the tabling of the agricultural Reconstruction Report gave hope for the future, because it dealt with the reconstruction of agriculture; and I was particularly interested in Chapter 11, which dealt with research, experimentation and agricultural education. Since last Session and during the last Session, very important debates indeed have centred round matters of social security, and in this Session we have had discussions centering round the National Health Services Commission’s report. I have stressed these two things because I feel members will have appreciated this important feature of the discussions in connection with both these matters that the fundamental need in this country, if we are to pay attention to the well-being of the community, centres round one word, and that is food, and this fact was endorsed by the United National Conference on Food at Hot Springs. They maintained that the one single unit which had a more important bearing on the well-being of the community than any other aspect was food, the nutrition of the people; and I emphasise that aspect of nutrition because the sound nutrition of the people is so closely linked up with a sound agricultural economy. Past agricultural practices have impaired the soil. Land utilisation in relation to meteorological factors and geological factors has not been given the due attention in agriculture which it deservs. I had the privilege, along with other hon. members, to view the film about soil erosion shown in the library of the Hon. the Senate, and I am sure that my emotions, my experiences in that connection were in common with them, and were of alarm at the extent of soil erosion in this country. One does feel that sound land utilisation, which governs the conservation of soil, and which governs productivity in relation to climatic factors, and soil factors, is something which cannot be overstressed. It is therefore important that higher educational facilities should be available in this country since it is through the medium of the Faculties of Agriculture of the universities of Pretoria and Stellenbosch. I hope therefore that my plea receives the sympathetic ear of the Minister for a Faculty of Agriculture in Natal—that this knowledge will become available to the country. The Faculty of Agriculture in Pretoria is concerned with defined environmental and soil factors, which emphasise a particular type of agriculture. Similarly Stellenbosch, with its own environmental conditions, also pays attention to the needs of the Cape. But there is no Faculty of Agriculture in this country which is associated with an area of the Union concerned with the production of essential foods, the vital foods so necessary in combating malnutrition in this country. I refer to the essential foods in the shape of milk, butter and cheese. It is I think well-known that the area east of the Drakensberg, with its high rainfall and its good soil, has potential value in relation to the production of essential foods, which cannot be excelled in any other part of the Union of South Africa. I feel that it is a crying shame that these areas have as yet not been considered by successive Ministers of Agriculture to be worthy of having a Faculty of Agriculture. If a Faculty of Agriculture were situated at Pietermaritzburg to pay due attention to the needs of the population in relation to the production of these essential foods, I think very good results would be obtained. I stated earlier that I was pleased with the tabling of the Agricultural Reconstruction Report because it gave me hope of greater things to come. It is quite likely that some of the passages in that Report, which I feel are most important paragraphs, would bear reading out here in order to emphasise the point which I wish to make in relation to the installation of this Faculty of Agriculture at Pietermaritzburg. In Chapter 11, and that is the chapter that deals with research, experimentation and agricultural education, this is what one paragraph says—

Section 283 of that report continues—

A very important paragraph in that report centres round the inadequacy of technical staff, and if we are to improve our agricultural system, if we are to improve farming methods, it is basic that we should have the necessary technical staff to teach and demonstrate sound farming methods. This is what Paragraph 288 says—

Another paragraph stressing the importance of higher education is Section 302, which reads as follows—

I trust the Minister will listen to this passage—

That agricultural reconstruction report emphasies the importance of higher agricultural education secured through the medium of the faculties at the two big universities, at Stellenbosch and Pretoria, and it stresses that, in order to fulfil the recommendations of that report, the staff is at present inadequate. I feel that the report should be implemented, and that there should be facilities for a university education in an area which has the soil and climatic conditions to produce the essential foods so necessary to combat malnutrition. Let us examine the facilities that exists in Natal for the Faculty of Agriculture. It is obviously necessary that when we create a faculty, there has to be available the opportunity for practical experience. First in that connection, we have Cedara, a matter of 15 miles or less away from Pietermaritzburg; it has excellent opportunities for training. Then secondly, we have Bavnesfield Estate, which I understand was left in trust for the nation, and there there are excellent opportunities for the practice of dairy farming. From the veterinary point of view Allerton, only two miles from Maritzburg, has the necessary facilities for training in that connection, and one does feel that with these facilities available within very short range of the university itself, and in view of the recommendations in the Agricultural Reconstruction Report of the Department of Agriculture, little or no time should be lost in implementing that report and in offering the fullest facilities for education throughout the Union and then securing the technical staff trained on the highest scientific lines. One feels, too, that if that faculty of agriculture received the approval of the Minister of Agriculture and the necessary finance from the Minister of Finance, it would serve to integrate the whole of the facilities which I have mentioned into a much more powerful whole, at the same time strengthening the facilities already existing at Cedara, Baynesfield and Allerton. In regard to the Faculty of Agriculture, one feels that the facilities for study should be extended as far as possible not only for improving scientific knowledge in relation to the production of essential foods, but also for expansion to absorb in the post-war period a considerable number of ex-servicemen, who will, no doubt, desire to study agriculture from a scientific point of view. This is a point that I feel very few members appreciate. I do not want to appear to be touching upon or delving into any constitutional issue, but in reading a pamphlet recently which gave the speech of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister at Bloemfontein in 1932, I found that he said under the heading of “Agriculture”—

I am not standing here in this House making a plea for agriculture to come under the control of the Provinces. I am not speaking on this matter to emphasise what may be regarded as local and provincial views. I am stressing the importance of a faculty of agriculture centering round an area which is so vitally concerned with the production of our essential foodstuffs. But I feel, at the same time, that that understanding which brought about Union in 1910, when the two smaller Provinces were only persuaded to go into Union by virtue of certain promises and certain concessions that were made, that that in itself should influence the Government to pay heed to the plea for a faculty of agriculture at the Natal University College. I would like to end on this note, which serves to emphasise the importance of food as a basic factor in our economic well-being. It is an extract from the Nutrition Council’s Report—

I conclude now with making an earnest appeal to both the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Finance to be unstinting in their help for the creation of a faculty of agriculture at the Natal University College.

I offer no apology for returning to a subject that is of great concern and which has been broached by the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition. It is a great pity that the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister is not present because it is a subject that falls specially under his jurisdiction; and in view of the fact that he will probably be one of the delegates from South Africa to the conference that will be held on the 25th of April of this year at San Francisco I should very much have liked him to have listened to these few observations. I must say that the statement that we have had today from the Prime Minister is not one that fills one with much hope. For him to have forthwith disposed of such an important matter so curtly is something that cannot be reconciled with the dignity that one expects whether it is from the Prime Minister as an individual or in respect of his office. I know that the Prime Minister is in a difficult position. This is a very delicate matter that has been broached. There were difficulties in the way of the agreement that was arrived at at Yalta, and if there has ever been an occasion when the Prime Minister has employed words to conceal his thoughts that was the case today. He did not use words to express with force what is going through his mind but he used words merely to hide his real thoughts. If one contrasts this speech with the “explosive” speech that he delivered in London, when he thought aloud, then hon. members will agree with me that the Prime Minister did not want to think aloud here but his intention was to conceal what was in his thoughts and in his mind. He was silent over his thoughts. I am astonished that after the speech by the Leader of the Opposition in which he declared very clearly and definitely that he did not want to make any recriminations, but to express his opinion objectively, and also that he wanted to gain the opinion of the Prime Minister, and to put his cards on the table, I am astonished that such an invitation should have evoked such a painfully petty reply from the Prime Minister. The only excuse for it, and I will readily grant it to the Prime Minister, is that this is a very delicate matter for him to have spoken the truth about. He gave the impression of the man who went to sea and when he became seasick first feared that he was going to die, and later was so sick that he was afraid he would not die. This was also the position of the Prime Minister. There was a period in this war when he was afraid that the country would die, now a period has commenced where, if one could look into his heart, he fears that the country will not die. He has spoken here with satisfaction over the solution that was reached at Yalta; a solution but at what a price? This was a compromise that was struck. The United Front was protected, but at what a price. We know now that the price that was paid for that unity is the complete capitulation to that great colossus that stands astride over Europe. Those were the Prime Minister’s own words. He may present the agreement as a compromise, and hon. friends on the other side may regard it as a compromise, but then it is the sort of compromise that was reached between a man and his wife, a man who was proud of the fact that he and his wife could always reach a compromise. If he said that the wall should be red and the woman said that the wall should be blue then they reached a compromise and made it blue. The compromise that was arrived at there is a compromise that amounts to a complete capitulation. But in spite of this disheartening attitude of the Prime Minister I will nevertheless pass on to give the House a few ideas regarding my view of the very dangerous direction in connection with postwar peace that has resulted as events have now developed. It is this, that we are again developing in the direction of what one can describe as the Great Power principle. That is that the peace of the world should be entrusted to a few great powers, to the exclusion of the smaller powers. I say that this is a very dangerous principle, and I want to prove that. We have seen the tendency in that direction in the case of Unrra, where there was a big committee, but then there was a small and limited executive committee of the Great Powers. We have seen this in the discussions that occurred at Bretton Woods and also at the discussion at Dumbarton Oaks. We see it now also in the case of the Yalta Conference. If one goes further, to the explosive speech of the Prime Minister, one finds the same principle there, namely, that there will be four big powers. The world has to be divided and each of them must have its sphere of influence. In that manner peace must be obtained. We know that President-Roosevelt spoke about a world council that would be controlled by the great powers, and those great powers would be Russia, the United States, Britain and China. It strikes us that during the week at the conference at Yalta the same idea was propagated, and this recalls to one a similar conference that took place a century ago, 130 years ago at Chaumont. In 1814 a conference of the four powers was held there; these were the powers who were active against. France and Napoleon, who in the world of that day played the rôle of Germany and of Hitler. One hundred and thirty years ago, on the eve of the victory over Napoleon, the four great powers, Russia, Prussia, Austria and Britain, gathered at a conference and they discussed what they should do when the victory was achieved. I want to repeat a few things that were stated there, and to compare them with the declarations of the great powers at Yalta. At Chaumont they said—

At Yalta we had the announcement—

Again at Chaumont in 1814—

In 1945—

In 1814—

And then in the Yalta pronouncement of 1945—

You notice the striking parallel between what happened in 1814 and what has now happened. Let me carry the parallel a little further. Some of the small nations made objection against the leading rôle filled by the four big powers of 1814. Sweden expressed herself very strongly, and as a result of that Czar Nicholas of Russia convened a conference of all the nations in 1815, where the Holy Alliance was formed, and which was subscribed to by all the countries of Europe with the exception of the Papal State and Turkey. A dummy was given to the smaller nations. It was suggested to them that they should take part in the great movement for peace. But the Holy Alliance was a hopeless farce, because the real power was reposed in the four great powers, just as is the case today. History is busy repeating itself. Now we are also getting objections from small nations. We know what the attitude of Canada was. We know what the attitude of Brazil was, and also of the Netherlands when proposals for a Western league was made to them; just as was the case at that time objections were raised on this occasion, and I am afraid we shall again have the position that a dummy will be given to the small nations. We shall have a gatehering of the United Nations in April at San Francisco. But what real power will the have? I fear that they will again be dominated by the four Great Powers And that domination of the four Great Powers, the great power principle, is a principle that is a danger to the peace of the world. It is not only in 1814-’15 that we had this; but after the last war a league of Nations was established, and a dummy was again given to the smaller nations. They were all members of the League of Nations, but the actual power rested with the Council of the League, which placed the Great Powers in a position to dominate the whole League of Nations.

What would have happened if Germany had gained the victory?

I stated a moment ago that there are people who use words to express their thoughts, and that there are other people who use words to conceal their thoughts. But the hon. member who has interrupted me does not belong to either of those two classes. He uses words in the place of thoughts. If I may continue. We are engaged in enquiring what direction the peace negotiations can take. That Holy Alliance was founded, and one of the objects was—

What was the result of that? History proves that when the Great Powers are charged with the task of protecting peace, then there is no peace. Self-interest is the first law of the Great Powers. Their self-interest and their lust for power and jealousy make it impossible for them to ensure a lasting peace. In the international sphere it has always been from the small nations, and I am making my appeal here today on behalf of the small nations, that great things have emanated. It was small Holland that in the sphere of international law gave us a man like Hugo de Groot. It was another small nation, Switzerland, which enabled the idea of the Red Cross movement to take root throughout the world. On the other hand, it is the small nations who have frequently been the greatest sacrifices in the rupture of peace, and of war. It is those peoples who have the greatest interest in the preserving of peace. But the misfortune in history has always been that the smaller nations have so often been divided amongst the spheres of influence of the Great Powers, and this has often been the cause of war. This is the position that faces one, that the great-power principle entails the sequel that the world is divided into spheres of influence, just as has occurred today. We have seen that the seven seas of the world must be divided between the Great Powers. The Pacific Ocean and the eastern part of the Atlantic Ocean have to be controlled by America. The West Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea must be controlled by England. There is also the idea that Russia should have is sphere of influence. This is the first step. The second is that no sooner does a Great Power obtain its sphere of influence then it wields its sceptre in that sphere of influence, and it begins to oppress the small powers, within its sphere. That is what we found after the division of the world into spheres of influence in 1814. Precisely the same thing occurred. Italy was within the sphere of influence of Austria, and in 1821 it was attacked by Austria. France was later admitted to the Great Powers. Spain was within its sphere of influence. In 1823 there was an invasion of Spain, and a new government was put into power. This is what always happens. Once it obtains a sphere of influence the dominating power begins to exploit its power as against the smaller nations. We are finding this already, although the spheres of influence have not been mapped out Russia is busy enforcing its will on Finland, Poland and the Baltic States. That is its territory, and it is beginning already to impose its will on them. This is not all. Difficulties arise later between the Great Powers themselves. Each one wants to extend his sphere of influence, and in that process of expansion it comes into conflict with the other great powers, who also have spheres of influence that they want to enlarge. When those clashes occur between two big spheres of influence the seeds of a world war are already sown. We have had the position of Prussia, one of the great four of 1814, which endeavoured to extend its borders against the interests of Austria and other states, and we got the war of 1866. A little later there was another collision between the expanded Prussia and France, which culminated in the war of 1870. Austria, which in the meanwhile had got the thin end of the stick, endeavoured to expand at the cost of Turkey, and annexed Bosnia and Hertzogovonia, and this led to the War of 1914. That happened in 1908, but it was one of the leading causes of the World War. Russia also wanted to widen its sphere of influence, and that brought it into collision with Japan, with the result that we had the Russo-Japanese war of 1904. Just as quickly, as the great powers try to extend their spheres of influence, collisions occur. Not only that, but you also get the position that as soon as a great power begins to dominate in its sphere of influence then the other great powers remain silent and do nothing about it. They do nothing because they are afraid that the other great powers might prevent them from dominating in their own spheres of influence. Consequently, they make no objection against domination in another sphere. One found this in the case of the United States, when Russia invaded Finland in 1939. When Russia made that attack President Roosevelt protested strongly and declared that American sympathy “is 98 per cent. with the Finns in their effort to resist invasion.” Russia was put out of the League of Nations. In 1940 that was his attitude. The United States was incensed over the invasion of Finland by Russia. The United States was until then not compromised in reference to the great power principle, and it was prepared to condemn Russia. But today now that it has become involved in the great power principle, we find that President Roosevelt, in 1944, gave the following advice—

Now it is no longer a question that we should resist aggression. Now we must abandon them to “the self-restraint of Moscow.” The great power principle is that every power can function in its own sphere of influence. The whole principle that the United States subscribed to in 1939 and 1940 was smiply thrown overboard as it itself accepted the great power principle. As I have said, this change of heart was unfortunately a necessary result of the great power principle. We see today what the position of Poland is. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister has stated that the Curzon Line was adopted by the Peace Conference at Versailles. His memory is perhaps playing him tricks. I quote from an article by Raymond Leslie Buell in the “New York Times”—

Thus this Curzon Line has no justification. It was not adopted by the Peace Conference, and I am afraid that the Prime Minister’s memory is playing him tricks in connection with what occurred there. I will not go further into the point, but as I have said, we already have here these difficulties in embryo. Everywhere we see these same things sticking out their heads. We see the danger of collisions between the groups which are today the victorious groups, the groups of the Great Powers who have to assure the peace of the future. The danger in there that within a short space of time they will themselves come into collision with each other. And another and a greater danger looms on the horizon, namely, that of the four great powers of today who have to ensure peace. One is a purely Eastern Power, China, and the other is a semi-Asiatic power, that is Russia. We see the danger of a clash of interests between spheres of influence. Take France’s and England’s interests in the East. Do you think that the Eastern Powers will be prepared to put up with them always remaining there? Do you not think that the time will come when they will say that they regard these spheres of influence as spheres of influence that they will want for themselves, and then perhaps you will get an even greater clash, World War No. 3, a clash between the East and the West. I say again that we must be very careful not to be like the Bourbon kings, never forgetting anything but also never learning anything. Let us learn from history. The Prime Minister spoke of suffering humanity that will be released from its affliction. Let us remember that efforts that were set up in that spirit in the past have never succeeded and never were in a position to ensure the peace of the world. Today we have the admission by the Prime Minister that the Atlantic Charter means nothing. It is just purely an ideal. It can be eliminated. It does not matter. Let me read something from the Charter, the first paragraph, “Their countries seek no aggrandisement, territorial or other”. In the Yalta discussions they made it clear that this was the basis and Joseph Stalin also subscribed to that. They had “re-affirmed faith in the principles of the Atlantic Charter”, and the first principle of the Atlantic Charter is that the countries “seek no aggrandisement, territorial or other”.

What country is enlarged by it?

Russia.

In what way?

It gets the whole territory to the east of the Curzon Line. In the same pronouncement that states, “We reaffirm our faith in the principles of the Atlantic Charter,” we have the aggrandisement of Russia. One-third of Poland is taken away. If this is political morality, if this is what we must expect from the Great Powers, then I maintain that the world would be much better off if no great powers were existing in the world. It is a farce. They are only seeking their own interest, to see whether they can get still more in addition to what they have already, and we look in vain, and any man who is honest with himself looks in vain for morality as applied to the international activities of the Great Powers. I maintain that we are not prepared to entrust the peace of the world to the Great Powers who are exhibiting their political morality in this manner. If we want to do that we shall be living in a fool’s paradise. We are living in a fool’s paradise if we think that any perpetuation of the world’s peace can be arrived at along that road. In this declaration we find capitulation to the Russian colossus. By no single word is reference made to the Polish Government in London, but the Lublin Government is acknowledged, with a little extension—that is all; but silence is preserved about the government that was recognised by Britain and the United States of America. The Polish Government in London that was recognised by Britain and the United States is being shoved aside. But the government that Joe Stalin recognised is being acknowledged. That, then, is the great agreement of Yalta. I say that we are on very dangerous ground. The Prime Minister stated that we should look to the origin of the difficulties. He has stated that Europe was a peaceful Europe, and that today “it is rent asunder”, and he asks them what the reason and the origin of it is. I want to reply to him in his own words. In a speech that he made in November, 1934, that is to say nearly two years after Hitler came into power—Hitler came to power early in 1933—he gave the reasons for what led later to the breaking of the peace in Europe—

This was the opinion of the Prime Minister. We see what the causes of the present war are, that attention was not paid to those words, and because the position of inferiority in which Germany was placed was preserved by the Treaty of Versailles. You cannot keep down a big nation like Germany. I may perhaps be permitted also to read this passage from the Prime Minister’s speech in 1934—

In this spirit I want at this stage to plead for a peace that will be a durable peace and that will not be broken again in this manner.

At 6.40 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1945, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 15th February.