I am very glad that the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister is present, and I hope some of the remarks which I passed yesterday will be conveyed to him in case he will be a delegate to the conference which is to be held on the 25th April. Yesterday I did not have the opportunity of going into it, but it struck me as rather strange to hear the Prime Minister accusing the Leader of the Opposition of having referred in undiplomatic terms to a foreign power. That struck me as very strange, because I am afraid the Prime Minister himself cannot be exonerated in that respect. His speech in London last year invoked a great deal of comment, and the action of the Prime Minister therefore reminds one of Satan punishing the sinner. What did they say about his speech? That it gave an impression of unskilfulness and clumsiness. “The Economist” said this—

Then the journal goes on to say that the feelings of France were hurt, and it says—

Not only “The Economist” charged him with undiplomatic conduct, but I notice that the “New York Times” made more or less the same comments in regard to his proposal—

I say therefore that it is a case of Satan punishing the sinner. But I want to come to another point. Yesterday I spoke of the dangerous course which is being followed here. In my opinion, if one is to learn from history, we are on the wrong road to peace, and once again we are pursuing a course of concentrating all the power in the great nations to the exclusion of smaller nations. I pointed out that the smaller powers were protesting against it and I hope South Africa too will make herself heard; that the Prime Minister, when he attends the conference in San Francisco, will also make an effort to prevent the world from pursuing the course of placing the whole concentration of power in the hands of a few great nations. Judging by what the newspapers say, the smaller nations are already opposed to it. Mr. McKenzie King of Canada is one of those who is opposed to the proposal that the smaller nations should be bound hand and foot to the big powers. There are other countries too, which are opposed to it. Brazil has protested, the Netherlands, through its Prime Minister, Mr. Van Kleffens, has protested and I hope our Prime Minister on behalf of South Africa will also use his influence to prevent the wrong road to peace being followed. Now there is another matter which I want to touch upon. I realise that at this stage, while we are still in the war, while the blight of war still rests upon us, it is very difficult to convey the basis of the peace to an audience which may still be suffering a great deal from the war psychosis. The basis of the peace must not be revenge and hatred. That is the wrong direction. I am glad to notice that already voices have been raised to point out this danger. As yet these are only isolated voices, perhaps voices in the wilderness, but it is a gratifying sign In the midst of the thunder of cannons to hear these clear voices plead for a better world, based not on revenge and hatred but on more lasting principles. I hope these voices will swell to a mighty chorus which will exercise influence on the character of the peace. We have heard such voices in South Africa too. We have heard the voice of ex-Judge Stratford, as well as the voice of the Minister of Finance. But it may be just as well to quote what the chairman of the Congress of the Labour Party in Britain, Mr. Harold Laski, said—

I hope these words will find an echo not only in South Africa, but also in the world overseas. At the moment we are still suffering from the blight of war, and the feelings of the people are still so obscured by the desire for revenge that the people are not capable of clear thinking. In these circumstances it requires moral courage to plead for the principles, the enduring principles of right and justice but nevertheless that is what I want to do today. I want to make a plea that at the peace which is entered into, we must not lose sight of the principles upon which alone an enduring peace can be founded. The Prime Minister has expressed himself in favour of that in the past. I do not know whether he is still of the same opinion as he was in 1918 and 1919, but if he is still of the same opinion, he will again have the opportunity of raising his voice in favour of those principles. I say that that is the direction in which there lies hope, and if the Prime Minister goes to San Francisco I hope he will exert himself in this direction: firstly to see to it that the machinery of the peace is not put exclusively in the hands of the Big Powers. The smaller nations must have an equal say in the machinery of the peace, and they must be able to have a say by means of a federation of free nations, which will not stand under the domination of the Big Powers.

The Prime Minister he says he no longer believes in small nations.

I am sorry to hear that, because I think a great rôle remains to be played by them. Just as they have taken the lead in the past in international matters, so I hope they will in the future take the lead. And my second submission is that if the peace proposals which are to be made are based on purely mechanical arrangements and on the strength of the possession of territories, or if they are purely of an economic nature, it will be of a fleeting nature; the only basis for a lasting peace is the basis of the Christian principle, in contra-distinction to a solution which is based on the ideas of fear and hatred and vindictiveness. And I think in conclusion we must admit that the destinies of nations, big and small, are in the hands of the Supreme Being. If these principles are brought to the fore more and more and if they find expression in the peace effort which is to be made, then and then only we can look forward to a better world order, a world order in which the principles which have withstood the test of the centuries, will be able to come into their own to a greater extent. Then only we shall prevent a repetition of all the failures which are strewn on the path of peace efforts in the past.

I think I would be neglecting my duty if I did not make use of the first opportunity presenting itself—and this is the opportunity—to voice my strongest disapproval of any decision of policy by virtue of which the families of soldiers who are at the moment in the North would be removed from Crown land. I do that because I no less than anyone else in this House, stood on platforms, and from day to day encouraged young men to go to the North in order, as I felt, that they should do their duty. Those who obeyed I promised in all honesty that I would stand by them through thick thin when they return, and always. It would be a dishonest departure on my part if I were to watch the wives and children of the people who joined up and are now up North being put off the ground and obliged to leave with the cattle beloning to their husbands, without voicing a word of objection. I must earnestly protest against that. The excuse that the people are being told to vacate in order to give the Department the opportunity to prepare the ground for returned soldiers when they return, does not hold water. The ground can be prepared in spite of the fact that these families remain there or it can be left until these men come back and are again able to manage their own affairs and to look after their families. But I cannot agree to it, and regard it as inhuman, that any wife should be asked to leave the ground on which she lived while her husband is away. That conflicts with what I meant when I asked these people to go to the North. If we can make regulations in the cities to ensure that in these abnormal times people cannot be made to vacate their houses if they pay the rent, one can just as well expect from the Government that it will not remove the families of men who are up North, until those men return. The same argument can also be used there. I am speaking very earnestly about this matter because I feel it deeply. As I know the Minister of Lands I cannot believe that he will approve of such a policy. Not at all. He is a man who always considers the interests of our soldiers. He has always done so and I know he will do it. If it was suggested to him from another source, I hope that he will take the matter into consideration, and I plead with him to take into consideration the views of all of us sitting behind him, and not to act in that way against the families of soldiers who are fighting in the North.

You only seem to be worried about your Party.

I now want to reply shortly to the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges). May I tell the hon. member in all courtesy that if we, on both sides of the House, were able to deliver our speeches as absolutely without bitterness as he treats matters, and on the merits as we see them, a much better atmosphere will be created here. Although we might not agree with what the hon. member says, we can at least listen to what he says and deal with the points on which we differ from him in a friendly spirit. For a long time I have felt that we, as members of Parliament, very often do not set a good example to the younger generation. We ought to act here with more sense of responsibility, no matter what points of view we represent. I would like to deal with a few points, but firstly I want to say something about two points made by the hon. member for Fauresmith. He delivered a forceful plea that the small nations should be heard when they put forward their points of view, and he expressed the hope that in connection with the coming peace the voice of South Africa would also be heard. But if the case is stated in such a loose manner as it was put yesterday by the Leader of the Opposition, we, as a small nation, cannot expect that the big nations will listen to us. The hon. member for Fauresmith said that we as a small nation will not have much authority. We can only talk and put our case to the large powers. With that I agree 100 per cent. But we can put our case in a fitting way, and must try to do it, so that we will be heard. And if the hon. member thinks that we ought to try to create a position where we will be heard in connection with world affairs, the Opposition must at once revise its policy of isolation.

We especially want isolation.

The policy of the Opposition as regards internal affairs and also as regards external affairs, in the past was based only on isolation. If we as a small nation set to work in that way We will not obtain what the hon. member for Fauresmith suggests as a hint to the Prime Minister when he attends the Peace Conference. The hon. member also made it clear that as a result of the course of the war, the Eastern part of the world, Russia, will have a tremendous influence, and that this must eventually lead to a clash between the Western world and the Orient. That may be true. I also think that the possibility is there. But I do not think that we in South Africa will reduce the danger by means of a policy of isolation. On the contrary, if we as a small nation accept the policy of isolation, we will not, as the hon. member desires, be heard. If the policy suggested by the Leader of the Opposition and his supporters that of isolation and insulting attacks on great nations, is followed, we cannot expect to be able to do anything in regard to the developments which the hon. member for Fauresmith foresees. Let me come to the Leader, of the Opposition. I followed his arguments carefully and I wish to deal with two matters to which he referred. The first is that we were dragged into the war because a guarantee had been given about the security of Poland, and the second is the question of which ideology is going to triumph in South Africa. In regard to that he was naturally thinking of Russia, of Russia’s preponderance in Europe, and with an eye to that he asked the question. I should like to deal with these two points, and firstly with the point that we were dragged into the war in connection with what happened in Poland. That is not so. I should like to prove to the hon. member in the light of the facts that that is not so. Hitler instituted his dictatorship in Germany and nobody interfered because each country has the right to regulate its own internal affairs and to select its own form of Government. He proceeded to rule Germany, but after that he tried to attain all his aims by means of force. First he re-occupied the Ruhr, then he invaded Sudetenland. Then the Munich Agreement was arrived at and he agreed not to annex any further territories by force. After that he invaded, by force, Czechoslovakia and then he was warned by both France and England that if he went further by means of force there would be war. After he had stated that he desired no more territory, that he was satisfied, the matter of Danzig cropped up. The King of Sweden, the King of Belgium, America, everybody at one stage or another offered to act as arbitrator to see whether the difficulty could not be settled in a peaceful way. Hitler took no notice and refused the offer. When he showed signs of wishing to take Danzig by force and to attack Poland, a clear warning was delivered by France and England that if he intended to take Danzig by force it would mean war. That is a horse of quite a different colour. Every day he went further in doing things by force in Europe and it was possible only by using force to stop him. Therefore the war was not caused about Poland, but in principle by the fact that Hitler had invaded various territories by force of arms and refused peaceful arbitration. If that is so, was not the Prime Minister correct in saying that Germany was the cause of the war? It was warned and it was told that England and France would intervene, but no heed was given.

How do you regard Russia’s attack on Finland?

It is the same thing. I regard Russia’s course of action against Finland in the same light. But Finland taught us one thing. We small nations must not talk so much. I do not exonerate Russia. I forgive no country which conquers a smaller nation by force, but I say that a small nation like us must be careful not to use insulting language about other nations, so that the same fate does not overtake them as happened to the nations I mentioned. The hon. member for Fauresmith read a quotation yesterday to the effect that the Prime Minister had stated in 1933 that unless Germany were treated more reasonably war would eventually result. I agree with that. But what happened between 1933 and 1939? By 1939 there was not one portion of the world which previously had belonged to Germany and which had not been returned to her or recovered forcibly by her, at all events, as far as Europe is concerned. The colonies she had had before in Africa were not returned. We still have control over South West Africa, but did the hon. members opposite ever come forward to propose that it should be returned to Germany?

What about Danzig and the Corridor?

There an international position was created and it cannot be said that it belonged to Germany. In any case Poland was not responsible for that position. Apart from that, as I have already explained, other states outside had already offered their help in settling the matter in a peaceful manner, but Germany refused the offer. The Prime Minister therefore had every right to tell us yesterday that Germany, and Hitler, were the cause of the war, because they had an opportunity to settle that difficulty in a peaceful way, but they definitely refused to subject it to peaceful arbitration by a power which stood outside the quarrel. They refused the offer and preferred war. Therefore, the Prime Minister is quite right when he says that Germany was the cause of this war. That being so, we come to the position of Russia. The Hon. the Leader of the Opposition stated very clearly yesterday that the important question to decide is what ideology will apply in South Africa in the future. He explained to us that Russia had become a tremendously strong power; that it will have power over a large portion of Europe, and he said that from Russia Communism would spread over the world. Let us now consider the facts. When we entered the war Russia was not yet in the war. We decided to participate in the war because it was time to show Germany that it could not continue to do things by force. When the war began Russia was an ally of Germany.

It was awaiting its opportunity.

Yes, that may be so, but apart from that the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) did not say a word about the communistic danger when Russia was Germany’s ally, and therefore threatened, with Germany as its ally, to become a great danger. But enough of that. Russia was not our ally, but Hitler’s when the war broke out. Later as a result of Hitler’s actions she became our ally, and a welcome one. We are very thankful for the rôle played by Russia in this war. If we did not want to accept her as an ally, what should we have done? Should we have withdrawn from the war because Russia became a partner of the Allies? Should we then have made peace with Germany? If we had done that, it would have been a blot on our history, because we would have left our Allies in the lurch. Let us now investigate a little closer this so-called danger of the spread of Communism. I have no time now to read what appeared in the “Voksblad” on 31st January but perhaps I shall be able to do so later. In that article Russian domination is welcomed. I do not know whether they were a little too extremistic for the Header of the Opposition when they spoke like that, but there it is, and perhaps later I will read the passage. But let us test this so-called danger. When Russia was still a really communistic country several other countries lay adjacent to it, like Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia and others and did they become communistic? But before I come to that I just want to say this. I agree with the Prime Minister that it may possibly come about later that Russia will not retain precisely its present form of Government. We generally find that when a country becomes poor and the people suffer, certain leaders arise and a system of Communism is decided on. But afterwards that nation will slowly return to something which is more akin to the old capatilistic system. But round about Russia there were smaller states like Roumania, Czechoslovakia and other countries, and did they become communistic? Not one of them went that way. The same applies to the countries found about Germany like Holland, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries. Germany had a dictatorship but did we find that the countries near it accepted dictatorship? No. Germany was a tremendously strong power with great influence. It had every right to choose the internal form of government of a dictatorship. Round about Germany there were countries with which Germany traded, but did it oblige them to change their forms of government or did the Fascist principle spread there? No, it did not do so. Why then should we in South Africa think that it will happen now if Russia emerges from the war as a conqueror? What is more, if Russia and Germany had won the war together and had become a tremendously great power, would not the same danger feared by members opposite have existed? Why are they afraid, now that Russia is our ally, that after the war it will have such a strong influence that it will make the other countries communistic? I cannot appreciate that argument. I wish to give an example showing why we say that Russia may perhaps depart from the communistic system. We have had slavery in South Africa. We departed from that because things developed in the country and we improved our ideas. In Russia there will also be development. We have certain ideologies which we regard as being correct, but after the war we may perhaps accept something else, and so may Russia or any other country. If we believe that the principles which have developed in our country are the best, then we decide to accept those principles. Russia did the same and we must leave it to the people of each country from time to time to decide what is the best. If a new ideology should be evolved in our country and the majority of the people wish it, I and the rest of us must subject ourselves to it. It is the will of the people and we cannot do otherwise. If the communistic influence becomes so strong that the people accept it as the system for our country, we cannot do otherwise. But if we disapprove of it and convince the people that it is unsuitable, the world will not force it on us. Each democratic country has the right to lay down and to discuss its own policy and to convince the people of what its views are. I also wish to point to something else in the speech of the Leader of the Opposition which seems contradictory to me. What right have we as a small nation to concern ourselves with the form of Government of another country? Each country has the right to choose a form of Government according to the points of view of its own people and to go its own way, and if we want other countries to allow us to choose our own form of government, then we must be willing also to allow other countries to choose their own form of government. I also wish to deal further with the following matter. I do not know what the Leader of the Opposition aimed at. He made a long speech, but what did he actually mean that the Government should do? I listened to it carefully but I could not discover what the Leader of the Opposition meant. Did he mean to convey that we should make peace and withdraw from the war? Neither from his motion nor from his speech could I discover what he really wanted. He suggested certain matters which I am going to discuss. But I wish to ask him in what measure his past policy contributed to attaining those ideals, to buid up the country and to prevent Communism from gaining a footing here? If we want to avoid having Communism in the country I can honestly assure the Leader of the Opposition that as far as concerns our side of the House—I refer to the United Party, because there are also other Parties which support the Government—that there is not a single hon. member who is in favour of Communism. I do not think there is a single Afrikaner who is in favour of Communism, and if the Hon. Leader of the Opposition tells me that it is his honest aim to fight that danger and to avoid Communism in the country, is it not desirable then that the Leader of the Opposition should consider why it is that they so lightly play with this matter instead of concentrating all their powers in order to fight Communism?

But the Government does not move a finger to combat Communism.

Let us in this connection view the position of the Nationalist Party which in 1939 was regarded as the Party to which a large section of the Afrikaners belonged, the so-called “true Afrikaners”. What is the reason for the disintegration of that Party, and does the Leader of the Opposition think that a splitting-up of that nature will help us to combat Communism? Just before the war the Ossewa-BrandWag supported the Party opposite; it was rejected; the Afrikaner Party was rejected; the New Order was rejected. In other words, all the powers which could have helped the Leader of the Opposition to fight Communism were disintegrated by him and his Party. Is that the way in which to divert a danger like that of Communism? No, the method ought to be to collect power and not to divide it. If the Leader of the Opposition really thinks that we are threatened by a communisitc danger and that we should fight it, it is his duty to help to collect all the energies in the country in order to divert that danger, and he should not divide his power and the Afrikaner nation. He further told us that the Opposition is there to contest Communism. Let us now consider, if we bear in ttiind that we should not divide our strength in order to contest that danger, what the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition is towards the other sections in the country, sections he needs to fight the danger of Communism. He adopted a policy in this country which made it impossible for the Englishman, for the Jew and for the coloured man to support him, and thereby to have a united front against Communism. He breaks up the whole strength of the country to support him in that respect. Take the position of the soldiers. It is not the case now but I am talking about the beginning of the war when matters were different from now. The language which was used about those people, if they should remember it, would make it impossible for them to support the Leader of the Opposition in his struggle. When those people return one day they will have a broad outlook and they will be willing to co-operate in diverting any danger of Communism from the country. But the Opposition slapped their faces and insulted them. I mention these matters in order to point out to hon. members opposite that if a great danger to the country exists the Leader of the Opposition must be careful, and every leader in the country must be careful not to divide our strength, but that they should look further ahead and unite all these powers. I should like to pass on to another point. We cannot argue away the point that the whole argument of the Leader of the Opposition arises out of the difference of opinion which exists between members on the opposite side and we on this side of the House. They are against the war and we are in favour of it. That is the difference. He said here that there was only one way in which the Government could safeguard the country and avoid Communism. It must provide proper social security for the population; it must not allow the poor to sink into despair, because despair is a fruitful breeding ground for Communism.

Do you agree with that?

I agree with it 100 per cent. He further says that the coloured problem must be solved. I agree with that 100 per cent. also. I hope my hon. friend also agrees. Then he says that we must think of South Africa. I agree with that also. I agree with these statements. But then we come to the application thereof. We are all in favour of those principles. Poverty must be avoided because it is the breeding ground of Communism, and we agree with all the other things. But now we come to this point, that we are in favour of the war and he is opposed to it. I have already explained that I was in favour of the war because I realised that if we stayed out of the war the world will lie in ruins and insolvency and starvation will stare us in the face. The reason for this proposition is quite clear. If we had acted as the Opposition wanted us to act we would not only have been neutral but we would have been neutral with pro-German sympathies. Generally a country simply remains neutral when it says that it will not participate in a war. In the case of the Opposition that would not have been so. The Opposition pleaded for neutrality but from morning to night they were making pro-German propaganda. If we wished to avoid poverty in the country and had elected to remain neutral I wish to put this question to the members of the Opposition: Are they able honestly to say that the decision we took to participate in the war did not result in the benefit to the country which I and others expected from it. Today we have industrial development and general development in the country which we would never have had if we had not participated in the war. Do those hon. members wish to tell me that countries like America and England would have given us all the machinery and raw materials which we needed for our industrial development if we had remained neutral?

Did they do it in the case of other neutral countries?

Yes, certainly where they were friendly. They hardly had enough machinery and materials for their own countries. Hon. members opposite now wish to say that if from the beginning we had remained neutral England and America would have provided us with the machinery and raw materials we needed for our industrial development. If they really mean that, it amounts to this, that they were unfriendly towards those nations but still wanted to eat out of their hands. That does not suit us. We do not find that sort of thing in the world. England and America provided us with the necessary machinery, because we were manufacturing articles which were needed for the war. If we had remained neutral they would have given those things to other countries who supported them. I assure you that apart from other industries, our iron and steel industry would not have been able to continue if it were not for the fact that England and America made available to us machinery and raw materials. The mining industry would not have been able to continue if it were not for their good offices. If the steel industry and the mining industry had closed down, it would inevitably have resulted in unemployment and the disappearance of a large part of our internal market. We would then have had the poverty which is the fertile breeding ground of Communism referred to by the Leader of the Opposition. Communism would have come into existence. We must keep in mind that the white population in South Africa is very small, and Communism in our country will have a different meaning from what it has in the white civilsed countries of the world. A type of Communism most dangerous to our European civilisation would have arisen. That is probably why the Hon. Leader of the Opposition spoke of the solution of the coloured problem. But if he adopted a policy which would have brought poverty into the country, then in truth there would have been a fertile breeding ground for Communism. We must not support the policy of isolation. We must make friends with the world, with whom we can trade, in order that our country may develop. That is the only method by which to avoid that poverty, and I say that all those things could not have been effected by adopting a policy of neutrality. I want to conclude by saying that if we were to ask the country whom they want at the head of affairs when peace is made, whether they want the point of view of this side of the House or the point of view of the opposite side of the House, with all the arguments they adopted in connection with Communism, like poverty, the solution of the coloured problem and so forth, the general desire will be that the present Prime Minister should remain in power. The decision will be that the Prime Minister is the man who can lead the country and who has the influence to obtain for South Africa what is our due, and to create for the country a future in which poverty will be avoided so that Communism cannot gain a footing in the country.

I should like to bring the debate back from external affairs to internal affairs, and to say a few words about the food position, particularly in reference to the Deciduous Fruit Board. Since the opening of this Session much has been said about the food situation, and the Deciduous Fruit Board has been constantly under fire. Much destructive criticism has been levelled at the Minister from all sides of the House, but unfortunately and regrettably there has been all too little criticism of a constructive character. I have a feeling of sympathy towards the Minister, and perhaps it will encourage him a little to have a modicum of sympathy. He is in the position, it seems to me, of the badly henpecked husband who, on entering his home, was told by his wife that the barber had cut his hair disgustingly short; he replied that he had not had his hair cut at all, and her retort to that was: Well, it is about time you did. The hon. the Minister is in a somewhat similar position. What he does is wrong and what he doesn’t do is wrong. If I may refer in retrospect to what, in my humble opinion, is the cause of the unsatisfactory functioning of the Deciduous Fruit Board, it is the very hasty decision that was made in the first instance to uproot the existing channels of trade; we have to admit that whatever may have been the faults of the system existing at the time the Board came into operation whether such a system operated on principles that were good or bad, or whether or not it was conducted efficiently or inefficiently, it did at any rate function to the extent that it got the fruit to the people at a price they could afford to pay. But the Deciduous Fruit Board, when they were vested with authority and power, immediately uprooted that system, and the result was that they created a series of bottlenecks. Owing to the rapidity with which deciduous fruit perishes, the consequent result of this was not only waste on a considerable scale, but the creation of a chaotic state of affairs, and the price of fruit rose higher and higher, while at the same time it got scarcer and scarcer and was seen less and less frequently on the tables of the more needy consumers. One would have thought that the Board would have realised that their first duty was to have allowed the continuance of the then existing system at any rate for the time being, and then by application of the principle of trial and error rejected what was found to be bad in that system and retained what was good. Particularly considering they were faced with the problem of the surplus due to the export of fruit having been made impossible due to war conditions, though as an off-set to some extent against that, was the additional requirements of the British ministry of food in providing supplies to troops and convoys. One would have thought the Board would have appreciated that one of their first obligations was to have off-set those factors, and for instance to have eliminated the use of so many kaffirmelons in the manufacture of jams and preserves and to have taken steps towards the production of a better quality of jam and preserves, even if a slightly higher price had to be asked for them. The Deciduous Fruit Board also, in my opinion, failed to function as it should when it took autocratic advantage of the powers with which it was vested in its attempts to eliminate the middleman. In the eyes of many people the middleman has assumed the proportions of a Frankenstein. The methods thus employed in this connection have largely been responsible for the way in which they have landed themselves in trouble. If the Board had followed the example of the Citrus Fruit Board, which was faced with the same difficulty, and instead of clashing with the existing channels of trade had collaborated with them and built up their organisation on that basis, I am satisfied that better results would have been forthcoming. Even now it is not too late for them to take a survey of the existing position, and return to a policy which will bring back into the machinery of distribution those channels of trade which functioned satisfactorily before the Board came into being.

I want to follow on the line taken by the last hon. member, and say a few words on internal affairs. I do not know, however, that it is necessary for me to take up the points that have been mentioned by the hon. member in reference to the Deciduous Fruit Board. My own feeling is that we have had a very full discussion regarding the Board on the Additional Estimates, and I think we should now give that Board an opportunity, after the steps that have been taken, to carry out its task in connection with the present season. I want to say a few words at the outset about the points that have been raised by the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mr. Abrahamson). He expressed a few criticisms of the Government, as he is of course quite entitled to do. The Opposition has tried to derive a great deal of comfort from the criticisms that have come from the hon. member. They must be somewhat hard up if they can derive any real comfort. A party such as this, which is big not only in numbers but in spirit, accepts reasonable criticism from its members, and I certainly did not in any way resent the criticism that was offered by the hon. member. That is far from saying that I agree with what he says. I would like to deal with the points that he made. He seemed to find some fault with the fact that I had appointed a committee to go into the question of the cost of production of dairy products, and that I then decided not to continue the investigation through that committee. The fact is that the committee that I appointed had on it a number of very important officials who had been taken away from their ordinary duties, and with the shortage of staff we have at present it was rather difficult to let them continue to serve on the committee. I think, however, that I can reassure my hon. friend, because the chairman of that committee is a member of the National Marketing Council, and with the experience he has gained and the information he has acquired as chairman of that committee, he will continue this investigation as a member of the National Marketing Council. The other query raised by the hon. member was in connection with his uncertainty about the subsidy to be paid to the dairy producers as from the 1st February. The first subsidy of 3d. a lb. on butterfat is being paid as from the 1st February instead of from the 1st May. I do feel that that step ought, in the meantime, to compensate the dairy farmers for the difficult period they have gone through, particularly in view of the drought conditions they have had to contend with, and I earnestly hope it will have the effect of encouraging them to increase their output of dairy products in the season which lies before us. Then the hon. member took the line that it was not a good thing for the Government to subsidise the dairy producers to enable the consumers to obtain their dairy products at a lower price. His view is that normally people can afford to pay the full price for dairy products, and that the Government should raise the price of dairy products and then subsidise the low income groups instead of subsidising the dairy industry. There are two points that the hon. member overlooks. He overlooks the fact that all the lower income groups have to get their requirements of fat in the form of butter, and if the Government were to subsidise the lower income groups in the way the hon. member suggested, the subsidy would be enormous, and there are limits to which one can go in subsidising foodstuffs. The other point that he overlooks is this, that if you allow the prices to the ordinary consumer to go up all the time, you will increase inflation. You will have inflation, which is a very bad state of affairs and which the Government is trying to avoid. I think it would be obvious to most people why there will be inflation if you put up prices all the time.

You will not give the farmer a reasonable price for his product, but you import it.

Yes, we did import it but we were faced with an emergency state of affairs, with a very severe drought.

Then why talk about inflation?

We simply imported it because condensed milk is something which goes to feed the poor people who cannot afford to buy frigidaires. But we have now taken the other step of putting up the price in the meantime. Enquiry is still being made by the Marketing Council and when they report the Government will take the whole matter into consideration again. Then the hon. member said something which I felt that he might not have said if he had considered it. He rather laid the charge that the Dairy Board is not functioning today and that the Government and I are merely ignoring the Dairy Board and that they have no hand in fixing the prices. Let me tell the House the facts. The facts are that the Dairy Board asked us to have this enquiry. It was appointed at their instance, and when the report finally came into the hands of the Government, the Government considered the report after having had an opinion on it by the National Marketing Council and after the Board of Trade and Industries had also reported on it.

Yes, again the Board of Trade.

My hon. friend objects to it but he knows that it was done in terms of the Marketing Act. It had to be referred to the Board of Trade and Industries, and they accepted it. We considered the whole question and it was then referred to the Dairy Board and the Dairy Board was told that this is the report and that the Government feels that it is prepared to go this distance. So the Dairy Board was consulted and was in all fairness told how far the Government was prepared to go, and they considered the matter. Then the hon. member expressed certain very alarming fears about the manufacture of margarine in this country, and he went so far as to say that on the one hand the Government was, by doing that, going to set up an import industry in this country, and on the other hand killing a local industry. Well, Sir, that is very far from the facts of the position. Not only will margarine not be entirely an import industry, if we manufacture a certain amount of margarine in this country, but on the other hand the hon. member need have no fear whatever that it will harm or hurt the dairy industry. The Government’s attitude, as I see it, is simply to see that the population receives the necessary quantities of fats which it requires. In the last year or so, with the tremendous expansion in consumption, the diary industry has not been able to produce the full amount required which is demanded today, and it therefore seems necessary to supplement the output of the dairy industry in some other way, namely by making margarine, and the policy is that the margarine will be distributed by the Social Welfare Department, and its distribution will fall under the Dairy Board, and it will be given to the lower income groups by the Social Welfare Department. That means that the Government will save the amounts it has been paying up to now in the subsidisation of butter. I want to reassure the hon. member and the House, and the dairy industry as a whole, that it is not the intention of the Government in any way to injure or to harm the dairy industry. The report of the Reconstruction Committee on Agriculture visualises a very great expansion of the dairy industry in this country. It feels that that would fit in with better farming methods and better soil conservation that we have in mind for the future of agriculture in this country. There is no intention whatever of departing from that idea in any way. I therefore hope that my hon. friend will not again give voice to these fears. I can assure him that there is no foundation or reason for having these fears at all.

Is the policy of the Government that we will be able to buy margarine on the open market?

The policy is that the Department of Social Welfare will take all the margarine which is produced, and it will be sold to the lower income groups, for whom it will not be enough in the beginning, and I do not think there will be any available for the open market.

What quantities will be produced?

These are questions which we can consider when they arise. I do not think there is enough butter produced in the country today. There are countries, as my hon. friend knows, which produce a large amount of butter and also margarine, but they export their butter at a profit, and many people live on the margarine at a very much lower cost which, from the national point of view, is not at all a bad state of affairs. But I do not want to enter into these hypothetical questions at present. The position is that there is a shortage of butter and we have decided to manufacture margarine.

What quantity?

I mentioned the quantity in the press announcement made some time ago. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) (Col. O. L. Shearer) yesterday afternoon made a very eloquent plea for a faculty of agriculture to be established at the Natal University College, and I want to congratulate him on the way in which he stated his case for the establishment of that faculty. The matter was also raised last year, when, I think, it was supported also by the member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick). I then said that I was favourably impressed with the idea of establishing a faculty of agriculture in Natal. Since last Session the position has been investigated. Just towards the end of last year I sent the Acting Secretary of my Department to Pietermaritzburg to investigate the whole matter there. I am not yet in a position to announce any decision to which the Government has come on that matter, but the question will be further investigated and will be very carefully considered, and in due course I will be able to announce what the Government intends to do with regard to this question of a faculty of agriculture in Natal. Then the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) has made certain remarks with regard to the Government’s agricultural price policy and its food subsidisation policy. He complained that there was no proper co-operation between the two. I do not think I can agree with him in his criticism. The price policy of the Government has been, as I stated previously, to stimulate production as much as possible. The Government has fixed a price which will stimulate production up to the fullest extent possible for the farmers in this country and to help them to overcome the tremendous handicaps they have with regard to shortages of all kinds, shortages which I mentioned in detail in a previous debate. And I think that policy has been a success. On a previous occasion I gave figures showing the extent to which our farmers have increased production in order to supply the increased food demands of the country during war time. In this price policy the Government has aimed at giving the farmer a fair return for his products, taking into account not only the difficulties which I mentioned, but also the fact that practically every item in the whole of the production process of the farmer, every cost item, has increased. The Government took that into account and took into account the increase in the cost-of-living of the farmer himself, and on that basis it fixed a price which would give the farmer a fair return for his products. The price policy also had to take into account the position of the consumer; in so far as the consumer is concerned, the Government has taken steps to see that the price is fixed within reach of the large body of consumers in this country, and I think, Mr. Speaker, if one takes into consideration the tremendous increase in the consumption of the products produced by the farmers, one can say that that policy also has been a success. The products of the farmers have certainly not been found to be out of reach of the large body of consumers in this country. In some cases the Government has gone even further. Where the price fixed has been reasonable to the farmer and has been found to be somewhat high for the consumer, the Government went in for a scheme of food subsidisation and we have paid subsidies in respect of wheat, in order to keep down the price of bread and of flour, and a subsidy to keep down the price of dairy products. Last year we also started paying a subsidy on maize and over three quarters of a million pounds was voted by this House last year to subsidise maize. So that the hon. member will see that there is co-ordination between these two policies, proper co-ordination, and that the Government was out to stimulate production to the fullest extent and to protect the consumer as far as possibleô and I think one can fairly claim that in both respects the policy has met with a substantial degree of success. The hon. member also made the plea that there should be an expansion in consumption. Of course we are passing through temporary difficulties at present. The consumption is somewhat high for the supply at the moment, but I certainly dp not quibble with that point of view. From a long-term point of view I am in entire agreement with the hon. member. Both from the national point of view and from the point of view of agriculture it would be a good thing to have an expansion of consumption in the country.

†*Now I have to say a few words in regard to criticism which came from the hon. member for Albert-Colesberg (Mr. Boltman). As one may expect, nothing new has come forward in connection with the criticism which he levelled against the meat scheme. What surprised me, however, was that while the hon. member himself, as I quoted in a previous debate, said even before the meat scheme was introduced, that the farmers would be quite prepared to make a sacrifice as far as the meat scheme was concerned, to take less for their slaughter stock if only it were made a long-term scheme and the farmers obtained stability in that way—well, the long-term scheme has now come; the stability has come although the prices are not just as high as the exceedingly high prices which obtained on the market at certain times before the scheme—but now the hon. member still complains about the prices, and he attacked me in regard to the figures which I had given, where I drew a comparison between the price of beef on the Johannesburg market under the scheme and the indicated price which I mentioned in a previous debate. My hon. friend then made the discovery that the 2½ per cent. commission which has to be paid to the commercial agent had not been deducted from the price which I gave under the scheme, and that if it were deducted the price under the scheme would not be higher but lower than the indicated price. But my hon. friend has hold of the wrong end of the stick. If you deduct 2½ per cent. from the price which I allowed under the scheme you must also deduct commission from the indicated price, and that commission is much higher than 2½ per cent.; it is 4 per cent.; so it makes my case very much stronger then I put it at that time. I do not think that type of criticism will help us very much in connection with the meat scheme, nor the other suggestion which the hon. member made, namely that I should send officials to buy stock at the platteland auctions. As the hon. member will understand, it would completely undermine the basis of the scheme which is, after all, the dead weight and grade basis. And we cannot compete with speculators and buy stock at the auctions. We accepted the recommendations of the Meat Commission which recommended that we should buy at auction sales in the native territories. That is that exception which the Meat Commission made, and that recommendation was accented by the Governments but we cannot buy stock on the platteland auctions in competition with the ordinary speculator. Then the hon. member, said that he was a supporter of the scheme, but that he gave it another ten days and then the scheme would crash. He said he was a supporter of the scheme and it almost seemed to me that he would be very pleased if that prediction of his came true. What will his farmers say if that happens? It seems to me that the hon. member will be glad if his prediction materialises. But I can tell the hon. member that although the position during the past few weeks has been difficult in two of the areas, namely in Pretoria and Cape Town, the position is not of such a nature at all that it gives him any reason to make that pessimistic prediction in connection with the meat scheme. We still had 94½ per cent. of our requirements, namely 94½ per cent. of the fixed quota for the Cape Town controlled area the week before last, and in respect of this week, up till yesterday, we had 70 per cent. of our quota.

Yes, as a result of commandeering.

And there is only today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow to bring in cattle, so it is clear to me that the hon. member’s prediction will not materialise. It is only wishful thinking.

Ask your advisor; ask the advisory member, the hon. member for Griqualand East (Mr. Fawcett).

Let me say this to the hon. member, that I do not believe the population as a whole or the farmers in the country will ever hold it against me if I accept the advice of practical farmers, of whom the hon. member for Griqualand East is one. The hon. member says that one day I do not pay any attention to the advice of practical farmers, and the next day I sin if I do pay attention to the advice of practical farmers.

Is the hon. Minister still going to commandeer?

I made a statement in connection with commandeering in reply to a question and I have nothing further to add. The hon. member for Marico (Mr. Grobler) spoke of the question of the Codling moth which is undoubtedly a serious matter. As far as our fruit industry is concerned, it is a matter of the utmost seriousness. During the past few years it has increased appreciably, and the agricultural department has been doing its best to find the best means to combat this plague. The difficulty is that in these abnormal times in which we live we have not been able to obtain the necessary nicotine for spraying purposes. The Western Province Fruit Research Station has done a great deal of research work in recent years in connection with a biological method of combating the plague. They have a large number of parasites which, it has been found, have given fairly good results up to the present, and that research work is going on, and we trust that it will prove a successful method of combating the plague. If that proves to be the case, it will be a very big step forward in connection with our big fruit industry, especially in the Western Province. The hon. member for Barberton (Mr. Raubenheimer) raised certain points of objection in connection with foot and mouth disease which broke out in his part; and his first point of criticism was that the department should have been in closer touch with Portugese East Africa in connection with the foot and mouth position, that we should have sent people there to ascertain what the position is. I want to tell the hon. member that my department is always in close touch with the Portugese veterinary section as far as foot and mouth and other stock diseases are concerned. There is always reciprocal consultation between the two sections, and it was not necessary therefore to send a delegation to investigate the position there. And then he also raised an objection in connection with the request which was made by the farmers that the origin of the foot and mouth infection should be determined. I think the hon. member knows what the position is in that respect. Even in November last year the veterinary division was trying to ascertain the cause of the last outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Not only are all cattle over a wide area examined, but the incidence of the disease amongst game is also receiving attention.

It is too late now.

They have been engaged on it for a considerable time. But the hon. member must understand that it is much more difficult to determine whether there is foot and mouth disease amongst game, than in the case of ordinary tame animals. One cannot get hold of game in the same way, and one must therefore examine the carcases of game killed by beasts of prey or shoot individual animals and in that way try to determine whether they suffered from foot and mouth disease. I can inform the House, however, that foot and mouth disease sores were found in impala antelopes, kudus and sable antelopes in various areas in and about the Kruger Game Reserve. Apart from those steps a number of susceptible head of cattle was sent into the Game Reserve with the idea of seeing whether they would contract the disease from the game in the Reserve, and to try to determine in that way whether the game was the cause of the last outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Then the hon. member also spoke of the marketing of stock from the prohibited areas. He complained that farmers in the prohibited area of Barberton could not get a reply to their request to export cattle to the markets of the Union. The position is that that request was refused because the position within the infected area was still too dangerous and did not permit of susceptible animals from those parts being sent to various parts of the Union—especially since the railway line which has to be used there is entirely in the infected area. So I hope the hon. member will understand that although one has great sympathy for the farmers who have to suffer, one has to be careful not to allow bigger areas to become infected and other parts of the country to suffer as a result of the steps which are taken. The position is, however, being carefully watched and as soon as it is safe to grant relief it will be done. Then the hon. member also raised the question of the conveyance of mealie meal from the infected and prohibited areas. It is well known that foot and mouth disease can be transmitted by such articles as mealie meal, not only by animals but by vegetable articles such as mealie meal, and that precautionary measures must be taken in that connection. I went into the whole matter carefully and I can assure the hon. member that although I have the greatest sympathy for the farmers who are placed in that position, I want to ask him to realise that the Department has a very great responsibility towards the rest of the country to ensure that that disease does not spread further. I think only a few questions remain which were raised by the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans) in connection with our friend, the Deciduous Fruit Board and in connection with the grading of fruit and hail-marked fruit in the Transvaal. I think generally speaking we must admit that it was a good step to obtain grading of fruit. I do not think we can object to it in principle. But as far as hail-marked fruit is concerned, I want to assure him that instructions have been issued to take into consideration the position in the Transvaal especially, where it is common to find hail-marked fruit. As far as undergraded fruit is concerned, it can be sold on the markets except the eight controlled markets in the Union. Finally the hon. member asked whether the producer had the right to sell direct to the consumer. There is no objection to it provided the fixed price is not exceeded. The fixed price must be taken into consideration, and provided that is done there is no objection. I think that applies to the various agricultural points which have been raised.

I am very sorry that the hon. Minister’s speech should have come at this juncture.

You have had a lot of time to talk.

No, the hon. Minister is now listening to the advice of the hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood), and he is busy belittling the Opposition just as the Great Powers are belittling the smaller ones. The hon. Minister knows that as far as this side of the House is concerned there has been hardly any debate on the subject of agricultural matters. He also knows that on the previous occasion this was the objection to his conduct; this was the objection during the Additional Estimates. He then jumped up a moment after the debate in order thereby to dodge criticism. He believes appafently in the principle which says that you must run, but you must have a good start. On the following occasion he filled in his time in the lobbies.

That is untrue.

I have seen you there myself.

Now there is a good opportunity here for the Minister to exhibit his good intentions in respect of agricultural matters, and what has he done? The Minister knows that the representatvies on this side of the House represent, for the most part, the platteland community. He comes and intervenes in the debate at a stage such as this, and then he wants to shield himself behind the excuse, if criticism comes later, that his turn has passed. I think that the conduct of the Minister is so lax that the less one says about it the better. I want to say the same in connection with the hon. member for Vereeniging, who posed here as if he wanted to make a speech in an exceptionally lofty tone. He stood up and attacked the Minister of Lands and said he was terribly disappointed that the Minister of Lands had gone and given the wives of temporary lessees who were at the front notice that they had to leave their farms. But he only worried himself about the soldiers, not about the rest of the community who have to be driven off the farms. He was only concerned about his party, and the associates of his party. The hon. member for Vereeniging then pleaded that we in this House should try to avoid acrimonious discussion. I wondered then whether he was referring to the speech that the Prime Minister made yesterday. I think the hon. member succeeded in bringing home to him severely the lesson as far as this is concerned. To me it is peculiar that when the hon. member for Vereeniging talks about Russia having invaded Finland and conquered it, it is because little Finland talked big. It ought to have kept itself away from the claws or have remained quiet. But when Germany attacks Danzig and the Corridor then it is aggression. One stands dumbfounded before such statements. The hon. member is, however, not here, and I do not want to go further into his speech. I want to return to the seriousness and the importance of the debate as it was yesterday introduced by the Leader of the Opposition. I want to express my appreciation that the Minister of Labour listened to my request to be present here, and that he is prepared to listen to the debate, principally because I want to tie him down to a few questions which were also put by the Leader of the Opposition, more particularly to the opportunities for employment that exist today and that will be present in the immediate post-war period. The Leader of the Opposition put a few very serious questions which are of actual vital importance to the people both today and immediately after the war. We cannot escape from them; the war and its effect will have a sequel for the whole world. The question that the Leader of the Opposition put to the Prime Minister was, how do we stand in regard to Communism and its spread over the whole world, over the whole globe? Just tell us, so that we shall know what the position is. I am sorry that the Prime Minister has not answered that question, or one of the other questions in this connection. It struck me at the same time when the hon. member for Vereeniging rose and said that if we wanted to stop Communism we must do it in a nice manner and only in a nice manner, and in that way voice our disapproval of Communism. What then about the refusal of the Prime Minister yesterday to give an answer to a very proper and serious question such as this? A second very important question was put by the Leader of the Opposition. He asked the Prime Minister what his policy was in reference to separation of Europeans and non-Europeans in South Africa. That is a very serious question. We have a history behind us, and history shows that if there is friction between Europeans and nonEuropeans, that friction develops into clashes, and that has stained our history with one blood-bath after another. If we want to avoid that in future we shall have to tell the public and the world in general what our policy is. The Prime Minister, as head of the Government, should make a declaration of how he regards the future and how we can avoid these clashes. These are very important questions, but we got no answer. A further question was put to the Prime Minister in reference to labour conditions in the country and the prospects in the immediate post-war period. We have seen how in 1918 after the war, the position got out of hand. The policy was followed of “Allow things to develop”, and they did develop until they came to the point of bloodshed. These were fair questions that we put. What is your policy? Have you not a policy? Are you prepared to let things develop, and is South Africa going to suffer again under that in the period immediately after the war? I do not want to go further into the qeustion of why the Prime Minister has not answered very proper and serious questions. Perhaps he is too busy with affairs of the big world, so that he is unable to deal with matters of the greatest importance to our people, because they are too trivial for him. It may also be, quite probably it is the case, that the Prime Minister has so many conflicting interests in connection with the matter on his side of the House, that he dare not give an answer without offending one section or the other. That may also be the position. Taking them together, the three questions amount to this: What about the future of South Africa and the people, of South Africa in the immediate period after the war? This question touches specially on labour questions in the country. In the immediate post-war period when people must be reinstated in their work, when the industrial machinery must continue to operate on a peace basis, when work must be found for many, the question is of great importance. We want to try to prevent chaos and difficulties arising as they did in the past. The Minister of Labour will admit that Labour is an important portfolio, and it is all the more important at a critical period such as that we are now entering. Last year we mentioned this same point, and the Minister agreed, and thus I think that the Minister of Labour ought to tell us how he is going to act in connection with the special questions that have been put, and regarding the workers and working conditions in our country now and after the war. Labour is just as essential for our national existence as capital or anything else. Labour is more necessary than all the others. If we want to create sound conditions in the sphere of labour after the war we must shape our course in the direction of promoting accord between employers and employees in order to institute co-operation from both sides, and in that way avoid clashes which later may develop into strikes and disasters.

I have to draw the hon. member’s attention to the motion that is on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel) in this connection.

I shall not go further into that. On the general question of labour conditions, I merely want to tell the Minister that those problems were partially dealt with in the previous Session of Parliament, and I now want to ask the Minister what he has done in connection with certain aspects of the problem. Last year we had the Apprenticeship Bill. It is a very serious matter that our people should be trained, that they should receive proper technical training, and be prepared for after life. The Minister himself announced at that time that this is very necessary ligislation, that it is “long overdue”, that it should have been adopted long ago and that conditions must be put right. The Minister stated that this is the “charter”, and that it was going to put South Africa on the map. After the Apprenticeship Bill was adopted, a very urgent and necessary measure, a year elapsed, and now we must still get the reply from the Minister that the Apprenticeship Board has not yet been appointed. What does this mean? In the second place, I want to refer to the Bill about the reinstatement of soldiers, a measure that the Minister of Labour piloted through this House last year in face of several difficulties. I want to ask him whether the allegation that we made in the debate last year in connection with the Bill, namely that the Government had entrusted this measure to the Minister to pilot through the House, but that they were busy transferring the administration and placing it in the hands of the Minister of Demobilisation, was right or not. A special Department of Demobilisation has been called into existence. Already 63,000 people have been discharged, if the figures given by the newspapers are correct. Already 63,000 people have been demobilised. I want to ask the Minister how many of them fall under the legislation that he piloted through the House. Who bears the responsibility? We have again the divided responsibility that has been introduced. We shall again have the position that when men are walking round unemployed and without any means of existence, the one will accuse the other. Last year we uttered a warning against this sort of thing. Last year the Labour Vote was hastily disposed of on a Saturday afternoon. I put a few very serious and important questions, but the Minister did not go into them and the vote was hurriedly dealt with. But I want to repeat the questions, and I put them now If you want to solve the labour position in this country and if you want to see that there are avenues of livelihood for every section of the community, if you want to have concord between employers and employees, then the State must contribute its share. The State must ensure that labour is in a healthy condition and there are three possible directions in which a solution may be sought. The first is in the direction of capitalism. Capitalism believes in collaring as much as it can. That is the standpoint of the capitalists. So many “hands”, that is the way it counts, not so many “human beings”, nor so many “men”. It just puts the question how labour can be used in order to gain as much profit as possible from labour, and let it run into its pocket. Capitalism has never yet in the history of the world solved labour difficulties, and it is not solving them now. On the contrary capitalism seeks its own welfare and its own benefit, and the capitalist tries to seize what belongs to another, even if it is his right to exist. Those are the things which cause a clash between capitalism and the rest of the population. Neither in South Africa nor in any other land in the world is salvation to be found for labour along this path. The second direction in which a solution may be sought is in the direction of Communism. I do not want to enlarge on the aims and aspirations of Communism, because I think they are all clear to us. I think, however, that it is necessary to put the question whether Communism as such can efficiently solve the labour difficulties that will arise from the war and that are in existence today. What is the direction along which Communism wants to solve these difficulties? Communism is the dictator of the proletariat, and just as capitalism places the big possessing class into a group and serves their interests alone at the expense of the rest of the community, so with Communism all the workers are thrown together over the whole world on an international scale, and they get together to institute the dictatorship of the proletariat and to form a separate group of the workers. It demands sole control of the workers. The dictatorship of the proletariat looks to the interests of the workers alone, and endeavours to obtain control of affairs in order to cherish those interests quite apart from the right of others to exist.

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

Afternoon Sitting.

When business was suspended I was indicating that certain basic principles exist on which a solution must be sought for the labour problem in the lives of the people. The first is along the path of capitalism. No solution can, however, be found along that road, because the capitalist looks only to his own comfort and his own pocket at the expense of the rest of the people. The protagonist of that is Communism which envisages the establishment of a proletariat, the domination of the worker himself. There, too, a clash must eventuate, and there can be no reciprocal feeling of affection and understanding. Then there is the third possibility along which a solution can be found, and that is the standpoint of this side of the House. That is the way of nationalism which embraces that which is your very own; and love and esteem for that which is you own. There are certain things in the world to which one feels drawn, and in the first place it is your own people and to what belongs to your own people. It is along that road of love for what is your own and what is your people’s that the best solution of the problem can be found. It is written that you must love your neighbour as yourself. It is in this third trend of nationalism that the problems are viewed from a national angle and that we can get the right understanding between worker and employer; it is along that road that we can get a solution. It is also written—I see the Minister nod his head—am I my brother’s keeper? Yes, if I only know who my brother is. This is the Minister’s difficulty, that he does not always know who his brother is. But if we know who our brother is then it is a sound proposition for the solution of our labour problems that we shall be our brother’s keeper. When we look at our neigbours and at our brother we can find the best solution for the difficulties in connection with labour affairs. That is all taken step by step, and the Minister has also adopted that in his legislation, necessarily so, that the State must be responsible for labour conditions in the country, for the provision of avenues of employment and supervision over work. The responsibility of the State is there. If the State is responsible to account for the employment facilities for the people and for their safety, and if the State does not see that a safe means of existence is created for the people, then the State is neglecting its trusteeship towards the citizens of the country. When we accept the basis of State responsibility, then we may not discontinue the acceptance of that responsibility. When we do not abide by that then we do not give effect to that trusteeship. On the other’ side of the House considerable mention has been made of the Planning Council, of postwar social security—plans that hang in the air and dance around like a soap bubble—and if we think of them we gain the impression that they also hold out the giving effect to the idea of State responsibility. But then it cannot remain merely at promises. If the State bears responsibility for those conditions, then the difficulties in connection with labour are solved by the care of the State and by the active participation of the State in the provision of facilities for employment, and by State control. I want to put a very clear question to the Minister in this connection. When we look for a solution of labour difficulties in the country, and they are going to be tremendous after the war, then we must know where he stands in respect of certain matters. The first is Communism. Does he agree that Communism will find a lodgment in South Africa; should we here take up the standpoint that was taken up this morning by the hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood) that we actually must merely tolerate it, that we should hardly attempt to stop it, and that South Africa will then find its own path? Must we just leave the communist attitude in regard to the welfare of the workers after the war? I think that the Minister owes the House a candid answer to this question. The other question that I want to put to the Minister is the one that was put yesterday to the Prime Minister and that was not answered by him. Where does the Minister of Labour stand in respect of the question of the colour bar in South Africa? Last year we had in this House the sorrowful spectacle in connection with various Labour Bills that were introduced that this side of the House had to urge an insist on the colour bar being applied in that legislation, and we did not always succeed in that. I remember, for instance, the Apprenticeship Bill and the institution of the Apprentice Committees. The Minister of Labour eventually triumphed, and that sort of intermingling of workers may occur. In every sphere in the legislation of last year we had to engage in a tremendous battle to carry through the policy of separation. Consequently we should like to have a frank declaration from the Minister of Labour concerning his attitude on this matter. In order to test the attitude of the Minister on these imporant matters, I want to refer to certain labour problems in the country. I want to confine myself to conditions such as we find them in South Africa today in those parts of the country, where the workers are to a great extent congregated. I refer principally to the Witwatersrand. When I come to those circumstances, I want to give a few general hints regarding how we wish to solve labour problems and prevent disturbances. When we on this side of the House offer constructive suggestions in connection with these matters, we hear the cry from the opposite benches that we are only doing all this for the sake of political propaganda; and when we do not we are asked by the other side why we are not offering constructive criticism. We are reminded that an obligation rests on the Opposition to be constructive. I want now to mention a couple of matters in a constructive manner. There are certain principles that you must carry through in your Labour legislation if you want a solution of the Labour problem in such a way as to build up sound labour conditions and so that there will be goodwill and prosperity on the side of the workers. The first urgent necessity is that a policy of separation should be instituted between Europeans and non-Europeans. When the policy of separation is not carried into effect there is friction and clashing, and the difficulties continue indefinitely. It is impossible to solve those difficulties. The trusteeship of the European over the non-European must be protected. How should this be done? We must have the proper wage scales; we must have proper social security in that sense—social security of which we hear so much on the other side. There must be the provision of appropriate avenues of employment, which ensure a proper scale of wages to that section of the people who have to perform labour in our country. We should like now to hear from the Minister of Labour what his policy is in connection with that matter. Does he regard the wage position as it exists in South Africa at the moment as satisfactory, or is he of opinion that an improvement can be effected? There must be a system of reasonable working hours. The capitalist wants to squeeze as much labour as possible from the worker in order to fill his pockets as much as he can. It is the responsibility of the State to ensure that the worker has proper working hours. He must be enabled to work so that he has at least a growing love for his work, and so that he will not be thrown on the street tomorrow or the day after tomorrow because he has overworked himself. On behalf of the Government and otherwise, there must be a pension scheme in the country. A national insurance fund must be created to which the employers and the State should contribute in order to ensure that the workers in their declining years after they have worked a lifetime, will be looked after. They should know that they will be cared for in their old age. Naturally I am not talking now about those people who draw double salaries. Perhaps they do not need a pension, because they can grab enough at present to do quite well one day without a pension. I am referring to the workers who will need it some day. I only want to suggest to the Minister that he should consider whether certain key industries in South Africa should be under State control or not, and whether there should be as is already the case in other countries, a participation by the workers in the profits of industries and activities. You get great undertakings in America where that principle has been incorporated. This enables the worker to feel that the undertaking is his, that he is busy building it up just as a farmer feels that the farm that he has developed is part of himself. That is a consideration that deserves attention. We should like to know what the Minister’s attitude is in this connection. I want now to be more specific regarding the circumstances in our country, to mention a certain undertaking, and to ask the Minister whether the regards the state of affairs in that undertaking as satisfactory, and for him to put it to the House whether the House takes that view. On that test depends what the Minister can do in the way of solving the labour problems I am thinking now of the position that did exist and which still exists in the Garment Workers industry on the Rand. We have trade unions. We have even recognised the trade unions by way of legislation. The recognition includes the confirmation of the closed shop principle. If I am interpreting the closed shop principle correctly it means that instead of the State being responsible for the people in certain spheres of employment, for their discharge or for their remaining in employment, for control over the undertaking, that the control is now left in the hands of the management of the trade unions. The closed shop principle includes this, that whenever the executive committee or the management suspend a person from a trade union that person loses his job in consequence. He is thus dependent on the good will of the people who exercise control over the trade union. That is to say, and it is no secret, it has been revealed over and over again, that malpractices often creep in, and they creep in today in connection with the election of the controlling bodies of trade unions. Those people who come into the management in a wrongful manner are often placed in a position of control The principle of the closed shop is also the cause of new movements continually being called into existence amongst these trade unions. That happens especially on the Rand For instance, we have now got the Workers Protection League on the Rand, and they endeavour to protect the interests of the people. It is necessary to seize the first opportunity to revoke the principle of the closed shop, and to ascertain whether the malpractices that exist cannot be eliminated. The second principle that is in vogue is that of collective bargaining. Last year I put a question to the hon. Minister and I repeat that question today. Is the Minister convinced that the principle of collective bargaining, without the State having a voice in it, is entirely satisfactory, and that it produces satisfactory results? Now I want to return to the specific position that I wish to deal with, namely, the clothing factories on the Rand, and it is a position that you also get elsewhere. Last year we made an urgent request to the Minister of Labour, and we said that he position in the clothing factories could not be allowed to continue any longer. We referred to the fact that the churches had taken action to protect the workers in the factories as far as concerns their spiritual and material welfare. The Minister agreed to meet the commission from the Church, and also to meet the workers who had been suspended, as well as to meet all interested parties, with a view to searching for a solution to the problem that had arisen. I do not want to go into the whole story again in connection with the activities of the Church Commission, but I think it is necessary by way of repetition to state what the demand was that was put forward from the Church Commission, that is to say by the people who had been busy on this matter all the time. What possible solution did they discover in connection with the difficulties in the clothing factories at Germiston? In the first place, the Church Commission came and asked for the cancellation of the priniciple of the closed shop. They endorsed my argument in this connection. So long as the State is excluded from control we shall have the malpractices, and the people in the factories will be subject to the force and the whims of the parties who get the control of the trade unions. The Church urged the cancellation of this principle. In the second place they asked for the reinstatement of two women who had been discharged, the rectifying of the wrong that was done to them. If they were not reinstated the feeling would continue amongst the people. In the third place, the Church made a reasonable demand. The Church asked the Minister—I assume they did this in a private interview—and we asked that also in this House, and it was also put to the Minister of Finance who at that time was Deputy-Prime Minister, that a judicial commission of enquiry should be appointed with an equal number of representatives from the State and from the Church, to make an investigation into this particular industry and to ascertain whether the difficulties could not be settled. I want to ask the Minister what his objection was last year and what his objection is this year to the appointment of such a judicial commission. Then the Church placed its finger on certain specific things that should be enquired into; first of all there was the matter of the closed shops, then the question of collective bargaining, and they went further and said that an investigation should be made into the communistic propaganda within the trade unions and the causes that were leading to the threat of outbreaks of rioting. They urged that investigation should be made as to whether communistic propaganda was not behind it all. Finally, it was urged that an enquiry should be made into the financial position of the trade unions. Last year I asked the Minister seriously whether he could place his hand on his heart and declare before this House and the world that he is convinced that the money that has been collected from the workers, male and female, is all being used in the interests of the workers and of South Africa, or whether a certain part of the money is finding its way through certain channels to Moscow. I put the question again. Let the financial position be investigated. Furthermore, an investigation must be made into the system of the election of the committees. All sorts of malpractices occur in connection with the elections. Some of the ballot boxes that are in use are a disgrace to any public body who uses them, as has been shown here previously. The church demands and we demand that a commission of enquiry should be appointed into these malpractices which, if they exist, should be eliminated. Now I should like to bring something home to the Minister, and it is a matter on which we feel very strongly in connection with our factories in the country. I do not want to occupy the time of the House by drawing a picture of these conditions which are well known to all of us. Everyone knows, no one will venture to deny it, that the Garment Workers Union trends to be out-and-out communistic, and in addition to that it has become the advocate for equality between European and no-Europeans in every sphere in our country. I have here the paper issued by that Union, a copy from 1942, in which a report appears of a conference that was held on the Rand; and if one examines the speeches of the members of the boards attending the conference one finds that they are riddled with communistic propaganda, and that they all mention absolute equality between European and non-European. There is, for instance, the secretary of the union, a certain Sacks. He expressed himself as follows: “If we want to strengthen our trade unions we must not divide the workers on racial lines.” He is a champion, as is well known, of equality in every sphere. Another person, a certain Wolfsohn stated: “It is fundamental that we should work together, European and nonEuropean must work alongside each other, they are friends together in the factory, sometimes they have lunch together.” Then I want to quote something else that was stated by a certain Miss K. Viljoen—

I want again to remind the hon. member of the motion of the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel).

I bow to your ruling, but I should like to have an answer from the Minister to these questions. The fact is that the process of making for equality has been set in motion, and my charge against the Minister is that last year he made the promise that he would meet these bodies, and that these malpractices would be eradicated. But they still continue. The difficulties remain in existence. The Minister went further and last year he said that the matter had assumed wider dimensions, and it had made its appearance at Paarl. After investigating for a year, and after having a period of a year in which to give the matter his attention, I want to ask him whether he is satisfied with the position, or whether he is convinced that the position is better than it was a year ago. I only want to point this out that the Minister undertook that committees would have the right to contiue with the investigation into the position of the Rand, and that the most alarming revelations were made. I do not want to anticipate the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans). Last year he was on pins and needles time and again when we mentioned this matter. His heart is here, but his seat is on the other side of the House. I admire the hon. member for being able to preserve some connection between his heart and his seat. There were other members on the opposite side of the House who felt the same way as we did on this matter of principle, but when it came to the vote they were not men enough to stand by their convictions. I will give the hon. member for Lohberg credit for realising the seriousness of the position. There are people who say that this is nonsense, that we only want to make political capital out of this matter, and that we are broaching these things for the purposes of party politics. Perhaps the hon. member for Lohberg also thought that last year, to a certain extent, but he has had the opportunity to accompany the committee and to inspect all sorts of factories. What was the finding of the hon. member over the conditions that they encountered in the factories? I have here a public announcement from the hon. member as published in the “Potchefstroom Herald” of the 17th November, 1944, wherein he states—

That was the summing up by the hon. member for Lohberg of the conditions that he saw in the factories.

Where did he make his investigation?

The Minister should ask the hon. member that. The hon. member for Losberg undertook to broach the matter in Parliament, and I will not deprive him of the opportunity to give the information to the Minister.

Have you got segregation on your farms?

Yes. I am quoting what hon. members on the other side have seen and what they have said about the conditions that they encountered. I have before me a long notice which appeared in the “Westelike Stem” of the 8th January under the headline “No colour bar in factories”—“What a member of Parliament has come across in factories.” The reference is to the hon. member for Losberg.

The hon. member is again disregarding my ruling.

I am sorry. I shall not go into details, but merely emphasise my question to the Minister. What is the position he stands in today in regard to the workers in our country? He will not be able to place labour problems on a sound foundation so long as these conditions continue. The Leader of the Opposition has stated that the problems after this war will be different to what they were before the war. Changes have been introduced. After the previous war we did not have the mass of nonEuropeans, who as a result of the war and their participation in the war, whether on the home front or in the front line, have created a special problem. This problem will consequently be more acute in the immediate post-war period than ever before, and I think we are entitled at this stage to ask the Government for an explanation. If we cannot get it from the Prime Minister let us get it from the Minister of Labour, if he has that amount of responsibility, and I hope he has. How is he going to act in connection with labour matters? In the legislation that was before the House last year we also heard several arguments in reference to this matter I recall, for instance, the question of returned soldiers and avenues of employment for them, and the consideration of the question whether employers can be obliged to reinstate them. I know that there was even a plan to oblige farmers to reinstate returned non-European soldiers on their farms. I want to warn the Minister against that. On the Select Committee the members from the opposite benches went with us and one of them had the courage to vote with us on a certain matter. If such things are allowed to continue, the Minister will be saddled with the greatest difficulties. The farmers of the platteland do not want any of the non-European soldiers who have been infected with the pest of Communism, and who will want to rule the roost on the farms. [Time limit.]

I should like to deal with certain aspects of the matter raised by the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition. One who examines the international scene objectively, must come to one conclusion; if we are to reorganise system of collective security after this war, it is essential for the Western democratic countries to act in close and willing collaboration with Russia. The same considerations which make Russia of crucial importance in the whole war strategy of the United Nations will make her a vital factor in the peace. The Opposition would have us believe that in fighting on the same side as Russia we are creating a greater danger than the one we are seeking to destroy. They argue, in effect, that we cannot afford to let Russia defeat Germany because that would open the floodgates of world revolution. That, Mr. Speaker, is a proposition which we on this side of the House cannot possibly accept. It is highly significant that the German propaganda machine is busy on precisely the same theme. It is the self same propaganda which Hitler used so effectively before Munich. Let us at least learn the lessons of recent history. The anti-Soviet bias which Hitler exploited so successfully before Munich was largely responsible for the disastrous policy of the democratic powers towards Russia. Hitler used the anti-communist propaganda as a smokescreen. It was designed to conceal his naked purpose, which was none other than world domination. The democratic countries failed to realise that Germany, stung into ceaseless aggression by the burning devil of Nazism, was as much a menace to themselves as to Russia. They were only too anxious to appease Hitler. Every concession they made to Hitler was in effect a transfer of power from the peace-loving countries to the potential aggressor. If finally the democratic countries were compelled to call a halt to this process, it was not because they felt more tenderly disposed towards Poland than they did towards Czechoslovakia. It was because they were brought face to face with the final and inescapable alternative, a bloodless surrender to Nazi domination. In the light of this experience it would be the height of folly if we allowed this anti-communist propaganda to influence our attitude to Russia either now or in the post-war period. As a famous Frenchman once remarked: “Stupidity is a great gift, but it must not be abused.” If we are not to have collaboration with Russia, what is the alternative? The Opposition have stated their policy quite clearly. They would like to build up Germany, Italy and Poland as a bulwark against Russia.

No.

Don’t say no; read your resolution of last year. That is a dangerous and reactionary course.

Tell that to your Prime Minister; that was his speech in London.

If Russia is faced with a combination of powers which do not admit her freely and fully into their counsels, she will regard it with grave misgivings. She is bound to see in such a grouping of powers, under whatever style and title, the shape of an anti-Soviet war coalition. And if Russia feels herself threatened by a bloc of powers, she will seek a system of alliance to safeguard her own security. She will find allies in the most unexpected quarters. For let us remember the old truth that in world affairs there are no eternal allies and no eternal enemies. Thus in the end, the strategy of building up Germany as a bulwark against Russia will recoil upon its authors with annihilating force. Mr. Speaker, the fear of Communism is no basis for a foreign policy. Personally, I do not believe that a system so alien to the traditions of South Africa will ever take root here, but in any case you cannot build a bulwark against ideas.

Did you attend the meeting on the Parade this afternoon?

Wherever you have poverty, privation and social injustice, there you will have a fertile seedbed for subversive ideas. You must bear in mind that there is a profound crisis in economic affairs, of which this war may not be the last manifestation. War is like a flash of lightning; where it strikes it kills; but it illuminates. And this war has shown up startingly and vividly the utter bankruptcy of the old order of things. One thing is certain, we cannot return to the evil economic conditions which existed before the war. In those days, confronted with the problem of poverty in the midst of plenty, we very cleverly tried to solve the problem by abolishing the plenty. We destroyed wheat, we allowed oranges to rot on the trees. It is a sad reflection on our society that it must take a war to give us an alert social conscience, and the lessons that have burnt themselves into the public mind will not readily be forgotten; in a world better equipped than ever before to supply human needs, the masses will no longer acquiesce in grinding poverty and want, and, unless we eliminate these evils from our society, revolutionary unrest will grow without the slightest intervention on the part of Russia. As a matter of fact, Russia has long ago abandoned the theory and practice of world revolution in favour of a policy of national security: For Russia, considerations of national security, override all ideological considerations. Long before the war Russia made a genuline attempt to build up a system of collective security. Her spokesmen were the most brilliant exponents of the doctrine that peace is indivisible; and at every stage of this war Russia has given evidence of a sincere desire for continued collaboration after the war. She has entered into a 20-year treaty with Britain; she has dissolved the Comintern; she has subscribed to the Atlantic Charter and she has reached perfect accord at Yalta. In shaping a foreign policy for the future, we can safely build on the fact that Russia seeks first and last, above and beyond all ideological considerations connected with Communism or the class war, the preservation of Russia as a state and as a people safe from outside domination and interference. The attitude of the Western democratic powers towards Russia will determine whether we shall enter upon a new era of collective security or whether we shall relapse into the barbarism of power politics. Mr. Speaker, the best news that has come from Yalta is that the work which was begun at Dumbarton Oaks has been carried a stage further. We shall have to face many complicated problems after the war, but transcending them all in importance will be the problem of building up some system of collective security, a system more effective than the old League of Nations. As a small nation, the solution of this problem is a matter of vital concern to us. I know that the Opposition have a simple solution to this problem. They say: Let us dissociate ourselves from the Commonwealth and its entanglements and seek refuge in a republic. Well, Mr. Speaker, to me it seems illogical to think in terms of a sovereign, independent republic, until the major problem of security has been solved. The one great lesson of the last twenty years is that small states cannot, under modern conditions, be really independent. In military power they are bound to be ineffectual. In the old days, when the rifle was the chief offensive weapon, and a fortress was an impenetrable barrier, a determined small state could offer serious resistance to an aggressor. Nowadays it is quite impossible for these small states to pay for the munitions and enormously expensive equipment which mechanised armies require or to establish the great industries required for modern warfare; and in a world, in which the appeal to force is still the ultimate decisive factor in international relationships, the state which cannot defend its independence is an anomaly. Its sovereignty is an illusion. I know the answer of the Opposition. They look to a renovated League of Nations to safeguard the independence of small states. The statesmen of Versailles also had this aim in view. They also aimed at the abandonment of the appeal to force, but their attempt to found a League of Nations for this purpose was doomed to failure from the moment they decided to establish the League on the recognition of the sovereignty of each of its component states. For a sovereignty, by its very nature and essence, rejects any thought of being bound by a higher authority. In practice the League of Nations was a mere meeting place for the delegates of the various Governments. All power to take effective decisions was withheld. If all the leading governments agreed, the League would be in a position to act, but it could act no more effectively than these separate governments could have acted if there were no League of Nations at all. In effect, therefore, the League was the fifth wheel on the chariot of history. The League of Nations envisaged by the Opposition, although admirable in theory, would produce the same essential features. It would have no power to enforce its decisions. Each sovereign state would still be the final judge in its own case and exercise the right to use force in the last resort. What then is to happen to the small state if it has no effective force at its command? That is the crucial question. Such a small state must exist either on the sufferance or under the guarantee of its more powerful neighbours, and recent history has tended to show that neither sufferance nor guarantee is a sufficient safeguard where these powerful neighbours fall out or when one of them is animated by a spirit of aggression. We know now the value of such guarantees, even when printed on the most expensive parchment. And let us not think that the geographical position of South Africa will give us relative immunity. Our distance from a potential aggressor gives us no strategic advantage. Modern warfare has destroyed the old political and strategic conceptions. From the earliest times up to the year 1939 the tempo of warfare has never varied. It has been the pace of the marching infantryman. But today its speed is the speed of the tank, and, if we take advance artillery preparation into consideration, it is the speed of the flying fortress. This war has already revealed that our frontier extends in a wide arc from Dakar through Tobruk to Singapore. We must adjust our political thinking to these factors. The position of South Africa as a small independent state would be extremely precarious in a world governed by power politics. Outside the Commonwealth, we should be completely at the mercy of external forces which we can neither influence nor modify. Inside the Commonwealth, we can be an effective political force. This will be proved at the next Peace Conference. I believe that our Prime Minister is designed to play a distinguished rôle in establishing the peace, and it is fortunate for South Africa and fortunate for the world that his wisdom and experience, his genius for statesmanship are at their disposal.

I think it is now almost the twentieth time that we have heard the kind of speech made by the last speaker. Conditions as they were from that time up to 1939 will continue as long as the human heart is what it is. All the talk and the things which we hear now we heard while the last war was in progress. When this war began we heard that it is a war on behalf of small nations and for the freedom of the world. Now that hon. member says that small nations have no future in the world. We realise that. As far as I am personally concerned I realise that as long as the heart of man is what it is at present, conditions will remain as they are. Two years ago I said here, and I repeat it today, that you cannot change a man’s heart by talk, by contracts and treaties. Within three years after the end of this war all that talk will have been forgotten. Then lust for honour and greediness will be the order of the day. America says straight out that it is going to prepare for the following war. Those people look facts in the face. They are not guilty of wishful thinking; they do not just talk and argue about matters because it is pleasant for them to do so. I agree with the Prime Minister when he said that this war was being waged to destroy a great nation, but that it gave rise to the existence of a still greater giant. That is the position and you cannot argue it away. Stalin is in Russia. When Churchill and President Roosevelt wish to interview him they must go to him. He does not visit them. He does not talk; he just takes what he wants. He took the Baltic States. He will take Finland and he does not mind what the others say. We can speak here as we like but we have no authority. The Prime Minister was quite right when on that occasion he expressed what was in his heart. He told us that England had become comparatively poor and that it must now receive help from the small nations against its partners, America and Russia, in order to enable it to compete with them. That was the statement of the Prime Minister, and have members opposite now forgotten it? They are now saying quite different things. No, the Prime Minister was right on that occasion and we cannot change the position. The hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood) told us here that we need not fear Russia because she will become capitalistic. He said that that was the usual course of events. You have a dictator, and Socialism and Communism; but as soon as you have built up power the development is towards capitalism. I agree with him. I also think that Russia will become capitalistic. I also believe that they will try to evolve a democratic system which is used by the capitalist for his own purposes. Again we will have the capitalistic system of government in the world, where coffee is dumped into the sea in order to enable the capitalist to make his money. All the talk now indulged in will not change those matters.

What do you want?

As far as South Africa is concerned I should like to see the European civilisation triumphant. There I differ from the hon. member because he does not mind if a generation of bastards is evolved here. I want to see European civilisation victorious. That is one thing. Then I should like to say that as far as the churches are concerned I want every man to be able to hold his devotions according to his own rights and lights. I do not want the churches to be changed into stables and cinemas and that it should be said that the Bible and parsons are the opium of the people. That is what Russia believes. It does not help members on the opposite side to come and talk a lot here. As far as I am concerned I will fight to the last for democracy and against Communism.

Why did you not fight against Hitler?

He did not threaten me. I am not going to fight with other people. The hon. Minister knows as well as I do that this war was started to help England and because we are a member of the British Commonwealth. The Minister of Native Affairs can argue as much as he likes because he is orientated towards the British, but he knows that that is the case. He tries to pose as an Afrikaner but we know that that is only a cloak. We cannot stop Russia. Stalin will take what he wants and England will be able to say nothing because she cannot fight against him. Nor can America stand up against him. Members on the opposite side know that just as well as we do. They themselves do not believe that the Bolshevists have suddenly changed. Russia took Poland and England will do nothing. Russia will keep Poland. Now they say that they will give Poland a part of Germany. Why should we excite ourselves about those matters? We can do nothing about it. Russia will dominate Europe and will do just as she likes, and they well know that Russia is as serious a danger to the British Commonwealth as Germany was, and probably more so. The Minister of Native Affairs said that Russia will be satisfied to control the Balkan States. Even before they spoke to Russia the Prime Minister of England said that Russia would control the Balkans. The next step will be the Dardanelles, and they will not be able to stop Russia if she wants to control that also. I just want to say these few things so that the people will know that members on the opposite side themselves do not believe what they say here. They know what the situation is and it does not help them to do wishful thinking.

What is your solution?

I have not the time to explain it to that hon. member. I have finished with that part of my speech and I now wish to talk to the Minister of Labour. I should like to have a statement from him The mine workers on the Witwatersrand last year started an agitation for increased wages. The Minister of Labour and the Minister of Justice held a meeting together with the miners and the representatives of the Chamber of Mines, and one of them was the chairman of the meeting. I therefore consider that the Minister of Labour is under an obligation to give this House a declaration about what happened there. It seems to me that the mine workers were and still are entitled to an increase in wages. The position is that the products of the gold mines have doubled in price, not because the gold mines improved that product, but simply as a result of something which was done by the Government of the country. Seeing that that is so, I should like to know what the position is in connection with the wages of the mine workers; how that compares with the increased value of the gold taken out; are they justified in asking for an increase and what has been done to see that those people receive an increase? I do not know who represented the Chamber of Mines atthat conference but I presume that the Minister of Labour represented the workers. After they had conferred for a long time an offer was made by the Chamber of Mines that for five years they would, pay £100,000 to the Mine Workers’ Union, which that Union could then use in connection with housing for the mine workers. The Minister of Labour was present in the House when a few years ago I analysed the balance sheet of the Mine Workers’ Union. He knows that the money was used in a way which necessitated his saying that he was going to prosecute one of those people. The people concerned joined up and the matter remained as it was. The Minister of Labour therefore ought to have known that as regards the control of money, things were happening in the Mine Workers’ Union which should not have happened, and now £100,000 per annum is being given to these people. I can understand that the mine workers are dissatisfied with their executive committee. I understand that all sections are dissatisfied. They want a change made but it is alleged that the Minister of Labour or his Department advised the Mine Workers’ Union to alter their constitution in a certain way. Funnily enough, the executive committee consists, to the extent of almost half its members, of paid officials of the Union, and they can change the constitution. The allegation is that the Minister of Labour and his Department advised them to amend the constitution in this way, so that the executive committee could not be changed before the war is over. I do not speak about these things outside, like so many people. I mention them here in the House, so that the Minister can give us some information. The Minister can deny it or else he can give us further information. I now see in the papers that there is going to be a case about it. The same man Roderick who at the time was also secretary of the Mine Workers’ Union is still the secretary. We must keep in mind that already there has been a waste of money and wrongful use of money, and how can the Minister of Labour now expect that executive committee to control the funds of these people, especially in view of the fact that he told us here that unless those people do something wrong he can take no steps against them? As I say, already there has been wrongful handling of money—I do not wish to call it fraud—but the people concerned joined up and they were not prosecuted. A case will now be heard about the amendment of the constitution. The amendment was to the effect that the constiution could not be changed before the end of the war, and the executive committee will remain in power until after the war. As it is being said that the Minister or his Department advised these people to that effect, I should like the Minister to make a statement. I take it that the Minister of Labour was the chairman of the conference held between the Mine Workers’ Union and the Chamber of Mines. He must know everything that happened and he will be able to give us full information, and that is why I direct the question to him. I do not wish to speak here about generial matters, like providing employment and such things, but I wish to bring one matter to the Minister’s attention. When wages are being fixed his Department goes so far that the same wages are fixed in certain trades for places like Cape Town and a country town like Swellendam. I want to point out that the Government alleges that the cost-of-living is higher in Cape Town than in Swellendam. A man in Cape Town receives an old age pension of £5 per month while at Swellendam it is £3 10s. The Minister of Finance says that the reason why the man at Swellendam receives less is because the cost-of-living is lower there. In the printing trade wages are fixed, and now we find that they apply the same wages in the cities as in the country towns. The wages which they announced put the printing houses in the platteland into such a muddle that some of them are now coming to Cape Town. Originally wages were fixed according to the cost-of-living. Now they are again being fixed not on that basis but on what they call a competitive basis. In other words, a man at Swellendam must pay as much as the man in Cape Town, or else printers in Cape Town cannot compete with printers in Swellendam. I have the data here and I can show it to the Minister.

What about the principle of equal wages for equal work?

Yes, in equal circumstances. I want to give the Minister another example. I have already given him the document and he is busy investigating the matter, but I should still like to mention it here. It affects the mills on the platteland. The Wheat Control Board has practically eliminated the small millers. They rendered the country a very good service because they were able to mill the farmer’s wheat and to give him back his own wheat. The small millers in these parts have now formed a large company, or have taken over a large company. But there are still some of them in existence. Now the wages have been fixed, but they did not consider that those small millers do not employ the qualified men employed by the larger millers. The wages have now been fixed so that this man cannot continue. His only chance to survive is to mill more cheaply than the large mills. He has not the large machinery they have. But if you close a mill, as at Riversdale, the people must all go to the large centres in order to mill and you are robbing the population there of an essential service. I should like the Minister to see to it that all these aspects are considered when wages are fixed. I do not say that I am against the fixing of wages or that wages should not be such that people can exist on them, but there is justification for differentiation in wages. A man in a big mill works in a place where large capital has been invested. That mill can mill more cheaply than the small one, but if the man on the platteland has to send his wheat to the large mill it costs a lot in freight and it is cheaper for him to have the wheat milled in the village. I therefore say that the Minister must be careful, without doing harm to the worker. I have a case which has not yet been solved. It has already been pending for twelve months. It is the case of a wagon and cart maker who makes bodies for lorries, not the engines. He is the only artisan who knows his trade and he has four or five coloured men working for him. Now the inspector has told him that he must pay these people the wages of skilled workers, like the wages paid in large garages. He probably makes a few lorry bodies per annum and he says that he cannot possibly pay. He will have to close down his shop if he has to pay such wages. He is the only artisan in the place and the others do the work under his supervision. Another case came to my attention, namely that wages are fixed for the time apprentices, for example, work in a garage. A man is taken into service for five years, and for the first year he receives so much, the second year so much, and so much for the third, fourth and fifth years. Now one finds a man who learns easily and becomes a good tradesman, but one also finds men who never become good artisans although they work for ten years. Because he has reached the fifth year, however, he must receive the higher wage, and then his boss says that he cannot keep him on at that wage. The boss must then give him a certificate to say that he was in service for so many years. He goes to another place with this certificate and there they pay him the higher wage, but if he cannot deliver the work he is speedily sacked. These people, as the result of fixed wage scales, are later out of work, because his reputation spreads in these circles, and they know who he is. That side of the question also deserves attention. The Department of Labour has my sympathy. I know that rich people, who are able to pay decent wages, easily make use of the opportunity to bring down wages.

What do you suggest?

If one wants to become a doctor one can be in the hospital or the university for ten years, but if one is not able to pass the examination one cannot become a doctor. The same applies to other branches. A test must be put and wages should be based on the results of the test. I think that will be a solution. I am glad that the Minister of Agriculture is here now because I should like to speak to him also. I would like to ask him whether, because be did not replly to the question which I asked I must now accept, that he agrees that he was wrong.

Which question?

By way of interjection you admitted that condensed milk has been imported. My information is that you imported 80,000 boxes.

It has not yet been imported but it is on the way.

My information further is that part of what has already been imported had to be thrown into the sea because it turned bad. My question is, what objection the Minister has against paying the farmers a higher price for their milk, say an additional 4d. per gallon. The price of condensed milk is fixed at 8½d. and 9½d and the manufacturers of condensed milk say that if the farmers are to be paid 4d per gallon more it will make condensed milk only 1d. more, and will bring it to 9½d. and 10½d. Instead of doing that and giving the farmer 4d. more, you are importing condensed milk from America which costs you l/3d. in this country. But if you pay the farmers 4d. more they will be assisted and the price of condensed milk only rises by 1d. I want to tell the Minister that dairy farmers cannot continue if they only receive 7d. per gallon for milk, and it is not reasonable. You pay a large price to the American dairy farmer while your own farmers suffer damage. I simply cannot understand it. The prices of the products of the farmer are fixed, and they are fixed in such a way that the product can be sold cheaper in our country than it can be imported from other countries. Take the position of wheat. We see that on imported wheat £500,000 to £1,000,000 per annum must continually be paid extra. That means that that additional amount must be paid for imported wheat over and above what is paid for the wheat in the country. The same happens in the case of condensed milk and tinned meat. Just imagine, we are exporting, tinned meat cheaper than we are importing tinned meat in order to provide the people with food. If we eat our own meat we know what we get, but if we import it we do not know whether it is horseflesh, donkey flesh or perhaps dog meat or cat meat. What reason has the Minister for refusing to pay the dairy farmer 4d. more? If the price of milk is not raised for that purpose many of the farmers will have to switch over to another kind of farming. At Robertson Nestles are prepared to pay 4½d. and the people in Montagu want to deliver milk there, but at today’s prices they cannot do so. The costs of transport are more than 3½d. and as a result they only receive 7d. a gallon. If the Minister has a reason let him give it.

The price was raised a few days ago.

By 4d. or by 2d.? It hurts me that when you are dealing with the Department of Agriculture and you want 4d., you must ask not for 4d. but for 8d. Here the farmers want 4d. but the Department gives them only 2d. The condensed milk manufacturers say that the farmers should temporarily be given 4d. more which will mean an increase of Only 1d, per tin on condensed milk, but they only give 2d. more. The people in Robertson now prefer to send milk to Cape Town instead of selling it locally. I now wish to ask the Minister further whether he is continuing to export cheese, and if so, whether the Government is bearing the loss.

When was cheese exported?

Don’t ask me such a question. The Bonnievale cheese factory, which is a co-operative company, receives a quota, like all factories, of what it must export. Last year their balance sheet showed that they lost £444 on the export of cheese, and our people cannot get cheese to eat. If they produce 1 per cent. of the cheese manufactured in the country then the dairy farmers in the whole of the country lost £400,000. Therefore I ask whether the exportation of cheese is still continuing. People in the country have the money and wish to buy cheese but cannot get it. You export it. And there is a less on the export. The same applies to sugar. There is no surplus but so much has been exported that we must now be rationed.

I gave the figures recently.

My wife had to go to all the shops in order to get sugar to make canned fruit.

We exported much less than we did last year.

I accept that but Why do you export before you have looked after your own people? If I have to provide for another man’s wife and children before providing for my own, there is something wrong with me. And if the Minister supplies the population of another country before he has supplied the needs of his own, there is something wrong with him and he must rectify the matter.

I have listened to this debate with a great deal of interest, because it has covered so many topics. Unfortunately, however, I have also been greatly disappointed. There is no member in this House who knows better my assessment of his ability than the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition, and he will therefore appreciate how disappointed I was at what I would term the most shocking performance which I have yet seen him give. The speech was ill-conceived. He must know by now that he made a mistake all along the line since 4th September, 1939. He must know that all his Hopes and aspirations have dwindled to nothing. He must know that all his prognostications have proved untrue. And yet we find the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition, holding as he does that responsible position, proclaiming from the house-tops all these innumerable errors he has made in recent years. His tirade against Communism has been effectively dealt with by several other members in the House. There was a time when he soft-pedalled the theme; that was during the Russo-German Pact. It came up again for criticism when Hitler invaded Russia. A few days ago it was used to support the arguments of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp), who tried to show how shockingly the Minister of Agriculture was conducting food distribution. Now within a few days again we have again an exhibition of decrying it. It is legitimate for anybody to alter his opinion, but at any rate there should be some degree of constistency, and I cite this as one example of inconsistency in many of the arguments put forward by several members of the Opposition. To me it is pathetic that the hon. gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition, blessed with a superabundance of grey matter as he is, should get up here and expect this House in particular, and the country in general, and the world at large, to believe that he is solicitous for the welfare of Poland. The thing is ludicrous. Surely we cannot credit the Leader of the Opposition with any degree of sincere solicitude for the future of Poland. But if the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition is so interested and so solicitous for the future of Poland, why does he not, with his numerous supporters, concentrate attention on the future of our own beloved South Africa? I may be painting a gloomy picture, but is my considered opinion that South Africa is completely and absolutely futureless ….

Future-less?

Or if it sounds better, without a future. My reasons for saying that are purely scientific. Here we are in a country four times the size of Britain, of which two-thirds is wind-swept desert, the Karoo. I have heard an hon. member say that it is wonderful soil and that all it needs is water. That reminds me of what is said about Sheffield: It is a wonderful city, and all it needs is sunshine. In this country we have two and a half million Europeans divided into two big camps, and I should like to point out to the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition that during his regime, from July, 1924, to the 4th September, 1939, one of the greatest problems in this country increased tenfold; that is the question of poor-whiteism. The hon. member is not backward in pointing out we have not done that which we promised as quickly as he liked. But about one-third of the Afrikaner section of the population is in dire need, the poor-whites, and that problem increased tenfold during his regime. It is not sincere, in my estimation, for anybody to get up and be so solicitous about the future of a country in which he can have no interest if he does not display the same solicitude for our own country. The hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) waxed wrathful about Russia’s treatment of Christianity, and he is not the only one, but he will understand that he is grossly misrepresenting the facts to this House. It was not against Christianity, as such, that Stalin and his advisers worked. It was rather against those so-called practising Christians who oppressed the poorer classes for so many years during the reign of the Czar.

We have a few here too.

It is not for me to defend Russia, far from it. I would like to ask the hon. member for Piketberg if he knows and if he has read the works of a man like Rosenberg, whose special and specific duty it was to preach to the German youth that it was no longer the Nazarene they must worship but that the new object of worship was Adolf Hitler, and that the Bible must be replaced by “Mein Kampf.” The hon. member need not compare the position in Germany and Russia, because thank God, Rosenberg was dealing with a different type of mentality. The attempt was made none the less. So it ill becomes the Hon. Leader of the Opposition to speak against the work of Russia against Christianity. How can we be expected to respect an opinion expressed by the hon. member for Piketberg with regard to a statement of this nature? “Russia is doing what she likes with Poland.” There may, in a measure, be some truth in that, but does he know that Germany has done what she liked with Belgium, France, Norway, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, as well as with our own beloved Holland? No word was said about them. No disapproval of all that was expressed by him.

He agreed with Holland being overrun.

I noted one significant sentence he did utter; it is very significant and true: “What is going to happen to Europe depends on what is going to happen to Germany.” That is quite right; and what is going to happen to Europe is that it is now going to live in peace and tranquillity and that it will carry on without fear of military aggression. That is what is going to happen in Europe because we know full well what is going to happen to Germany presently. The hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) spoke during the debate, and referring to the Prime Minister, he read from a book and said: This is what the Prime Minister said in 1933 about Germany—

No doubt if we ask the Prime Minister now, he would tell us the same thing about Germany, but not about Nazi Germany. Yet the hon. member for Fauresmith thinks he scored a point by reading that speech of the Prime Minister’s. The Prime Minister was right then, and if he repeated the speech he would be right again. Nazi Germany is a totally different Germany from the Germany of 1933. They have become a nation given to mass drill and goose-stepping, a nation of mechanical robots. In fact, they have become a nation where the brain is actually of less use than the spinal cord. They were a great nation and we had every respect for them; but for the hon. member for Fauresmith to try to chastise the Prime Minister about what he said regarding Germany in 1933, is ill-founded, and would hold today if we did not apply it to Nazi Germany. Nations do not change so rapidly. A nation like Germany, that has contributed so much to art, science and music, does not change so rapidly at heart, except in war, for which we blame the Nazi school. I must say I was also disappointed by the statement made by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren). He exclaimed: “What is the use of all our talk here, because if you uproot one big nation another monster will take its place.” That may be true in the annals of history, but we must remember we did not uproot this great nation; Germany uprooted itself and has allowed another great nation to take its place. That is just the subtle difference, and that the hon. member for Swellendam conveniently forgets. I am not in accord with the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Friedman) when he says it will be a good thing for the great democracies to work with Russia in the future; I would like to tell him that it will be an equally good thing for Russia to work with the great democracies.

The Leader of the Opposition put certain pertinent questions to the Prime Minister. These questions were put with the primary object of getting the Government to make a statement in regard to certain aspects of its post-war policy. They were put quite clearly, but all the Prime Minister did was to say that he was determined to exterminate Nazi domination, to destroy the Nazi system to its very roots. He did not get any further. The hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood) got up and admitted that there was a Communistic problem. But what does the hon. member for Vereeniging do? He says: “We must not discuss this problem now. It is dangerous.” Does the hon. member want us to adopt the policy of letting things develop until there are clashes and bloodshed in this country, as happened after the previous war? In the second place the hon. member made an attack on the Leader of the Opposition, because he said the Leader of the Opposition was not able to keep the people together. I am sorry the hon. member is not here, because I want to tell him that he is the last man who can talk of keeping the people together. Does he not know that at the by-election at Vereeniging he organised the campaign in such a way that numbers of workers were thrown out of employment because they were opposed to his policy. He did the same in the last election. When he is involved in a fight with people who are dependent on him for their bread and butter, he is not even sporting enough to allow the people freedom of thought and freedom of speech.

That is untrue.

The hon. member for Hillbrow (Mr. Friedman) get up and made a much more serious statement. He asked whether we believed that the ideology of Communism would ever take root and spread in our country. I thought the hon. member represented Hillbrow, and that it was a Witwatersrand constituency. If I am correct, I want to ask him whether he is not aware of the extent to which Communism has taken root on the Rand? Is he going through the world with closed eyes? But I should like to confine myself briefly this afternoon to labour problems. As a townsman who is continually in touch with the working classes, I want to confine myself to the various national groups. I want to show the origin of employers and employees; that it is realised that the present economic policy has seen its day; and then I should like to make a few suggestions to the Minister of Labour. Serious times are ahead of us, and it seems to me that as soon as we suggest anything good in connection with the solution of these problems, it is branded as an attempt to make political capital. I should like to make a few suggestions in all honesty and sincerity and then I want to confine myself to the evils and mal-practices which exist today, especially in certain factories, amongst the employers on the Witwatersrand. The Labour policy of the Union is determined mainly by the Wage Act, the Industrial Conciliation Act, the Unemployment Relief Act and the Riots Act. These are the principal Acts which today govern the labour problems. I want to admit at once that these Acts have in certain respects done a great deal of good for this country, but under the present system certain problems remain which cannot be solved. And before I proceed I want to ask the Minister to give an assurance to the House this afternoon. It is common talk amongst employees in the country, and he should tell us whether it is true or untrue, that he gave an undertaking when he went into the Coalition with the Government on those benches to see that the industrial laws of this country were not tampered with until the war was over? I should like to know whether that is so. It is common talk in the country that he gave such an undertaking. I say even under these Acts there are problems which are not being solved. I just want to say briefly what the position is in South Africa. We have four national groups in this country today. These national groups are sharply divided, although sometimes not altogether visibly. These four groups can be divided as follows. In the first place, we have the non-European community. Numerically they are in the majority. In the second place we have the Jewish community in this country. Whether we want to admit it or not there is a Jewish problem and we must face it squarely. This Jewish community commands the monetary power of South Africa, and that is the reason why this section of the nation in South Africa practically has the trade in its hands; it has the professions and the trade in its hands; and that is one reason why I say the Afrikaners cannot qualify themselves in all branches—I refer also to the English-speaking Afrikaners—because they do not possess the necessary money. I believe in the Witwatersrand University more than 60 per cent. of the students in the medical faculty are Jewish students. That is what I want to point out briefly in order to show what power is wielded by capitalism. Then we come to the third group, namely the English-speaking population in this country. This section has always striven to obtain political power in this country. Then we come to the last group and that is the Afrikaans community, and this section commands the cultural strength. The second and third groups work together with a view to using a powerful political weapon, the political power, for their own advantage. I say for their own advantage, and they are therefore in a position to manipulate the numerical strength of the cultural group. The capital power is the employer and the political power in this country is favourably disposed towards the capital power with the result that as far as our laws are concerned, especially the labour laws, they have to comply with the requirements of the capital power as far as the fixation of the wages of the employees are concerned, as far as the arrangement of labour conditions are concerned, the training of employees, etc. The cultural training of the Afrikaner has had a struggle for existence all these years. It had to spread itself over a wide cultural front so as not to sacrifice its own national soul and its own national ideals. Its religion, its history, its traditions, its language, its morals, are all factors which go to prove its superiority in this sphere. But while this struggle is going on, the Afrikaansspeaking Afrikaner is coming to the fore in the economic and political struggle, and it is in this struggle that clashes often take place. You may ask me why. Because the national assets in South Africa are not employed in the service of the economic policy of this country. That is one of the main causes and we must say that a system such as this cannot accomplish much for the worker. Today the position is such that one might say the worker has become a source of profit-making; the labour front has become the hunting ground of the capital power in South Africa, It is quite clear that the second and third groups, as I divided them, are known to us as the liberal, capitalistic system of South Africa, a system which is recsponsible for all these mal-conditions in the industrial policy of South Africa. Capitalism, after all, is only an economic policy, the main object of which is to make a lot of profit. That is briefly how we divine capitalism. I do not say that it is a sin to make profits. If that were the case, no undertaking could exist, but what I do want to protest against is that under this liberal capitalistic system the services of the employee are exploited. His continued existence is exploited for the sake of making colossal profits. On the one hand this capital power is organised. We all know that; and the main object is to make large profits. On the other hand we find our working masses. Those masses cannot do anything to protect themselves but to organise themselves into trade unions. I want to admit readily that the trade unions have done a great deal for the worker. The only refugee for the worker has been the trade union to help him to keep his wages high and to regulate his labour conditions. Up to the present that has been the only means which he has been able to use. But it is quite easy to understand; on the one hand we have the employer, who is intent on making profits and on the other hand we have the employee, and it is not in the interests of the great capital power that the worker should receive high wages. The two clash. It is as a result of this policy that we continually have strikes and difficulties. We want to find a remedy; we want to revise the policy in such a way that we can put a stop to this exploitation of the yvorker by the capital power. Liberalism, as we all know, is in favour of giving effect to the principle of equality in South Africain the economic sphere, the social sphere, the cultural sphere and every branch of the community. These are briefly a few of the propositions which I want to mention in passing. We on this side of the House say—and I think I am speaking on behalf of my party in saying this—that the entire existing policy must be altered. The workers must be protected against exploitation. They must be protected against the tremendous capital power which exploits their services for the sake of colossal profits. And then we say that the country’s labour force, just as its capital, must be used in the service of the nation for the economic welfare of the country. One cannot separate those two when one speaks of economic welfare. There should not be any selfish motives in this matter. We say to the Minister that these things are not right. We want to tell him again that in the time which lies ahead of us it will be necessary for us to get a link between the worker and the central Government, and for that reason we again recommend that the Minister should consider the establishment of that central economic board which we recommend. And the Minister cannot say that our object is to make political capital out of this matter. We want to help. It will serve a useful purpose if I just quote to the Minister what we visualise in connection with this central economic board—

Then we say, as far as the Labour Board is concerned—

That will all fall under this board. I do not want to dwell on this at great length; my time is short. We on this side of the House want to say this to the Minister: We have now recommended two boards and we say that a stop ought to be put to the position that the entire onus should rest on the employer and the employee. The onus should rest on the State; the State should be responsible. Then it has been said by the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) that we on this side want the employees to share in the profits of the industry. I do not want to go into that now. I just want to say in the first place that in every key industry the Government should take a controlling hand; it must be under State control and the Government should have control. I cannot go into the question of separate residential areas because there is a motion on the Order Paper in my name in this connection. Apart from separate working places we contemplate three different minimum wage levels in South Africa, and if we cannot get that, if the wages have to be equal, as one hon. member said here, I can assure you that it will have a demoralising effect on the European in South Africa. It cannot be otherwise.

I said equal wages for equal work.

But today we have this position that there is a movement amongst various European groups even that there should be equal wages amongst all sections. We say there should be three minimum wage scales. We recognise the fact that the European is on a higher economic level than the coloured person, and for that reason he should draw higher wages. The coloured person, in his turn, is on a higher economic level than the native, and for that reason too, he should stand on a much higher economic level than the native and draw higher wages. Then we want to tell the Minister that we are fighting for better compensation for industrial diseases. I asked the Minister of Mines that last year, but he did not reply. It seems to me he does not want to reply to it We asked that there should be compensation for all industrial diseases. What is the position to-day in connection with leave of absence for our employees? The hon. Minister of Railways said last year in reply to a question of mine that a certain class of railwayman gets only 12 days annual leave. We say that no man can do his work properly in such circumstances, and we say that every man who works should get at least three weeks vacational leave per year for relaxation. Then we have the restriction in connection with Sunday work. We want the employee to receive double payment in respect of work performed on Sundays. He should be paid on such a high scale that if the employer lets the man work on Sunday, we will know it was absolutely essential. I cannot say much with regard to housing because there is a motion in my name on the Order Paper which deals with that subject. We were challanged by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside)—I am sorry he is not in his seat at the moment—I understand the Government sent him to Port Elizabeth to help to lose the election—but I challenge the hon. member to criticise any points of policy which we suggest here. I want to confine myself for a few moments to the trade unions as they exist to-day, and I want to say very clearly that we on this side of the House want the trade unions to continue to exist. The newspapers which support the Government party have always interpreted our statements to mean that we want to abolish the trade unions. That is not the case. But we want the trade unions to be reorganised, and in the first place we want to extend the system of joint negotiation or as my English friends call it, the system of collective bargaining, or complement it by a scheme of State responsibility. We want to remove the onus from the employer and employee and place it on the shoulders of the State. And then we want to reorganise the trade unions in such a way that they will function in the interests of the workers and the workers only. We are not going to allow, as the Minister is doing, those trade unions to exploit the needs and the services of the worker at the expense of foreign ideologies in South Africa. I want to prove that, and I think the hon. Minister knows it. While I am on the subject of trade unions, I should like to ask this: when I spoke in this House last year in regard to Communism, the hon. Minister got up and asked: “What is Communism; what does it look like?” To-day members on the other side acknowledge the existence of the Communist problem. But I want to say a few words now to show what happens in the factories. Coloured persons of the number two branch of the Garment Workers’ Union under Solly Sachs, are allowed to go to Pretoria to persuade the Minister of Finance, while the Prime Minister was overseas, to extend the coloured franchise from Cape Town to the North. They want absolute equality and I think the Minister knows it. I warned the people on the Rand in a pamphlet. Sachs strongly attacked me about it, and he wanted me to prove it. Well, here is the proof—

The coloured branch had to compromise even the European female workers. The Minister cannot allow anything of that kind to take place, and if the Minister is not aware of it, he should make it his business to become acquainted with it and discontinue those things. A deputation went to Pretoria to see the Minister of Finance, at that time the Acting Prime Minister, and I telephoned the office of the Minister of Finance, but I could not get any information. I then telephoned the Prime Minister’s office, and I could not get information anywhere. I wanted to know who the representatives of the garment workers were. I am now quoting from the “Rand Daily Mail” of the 29th June—

And notwithstanding the fact that the Minister did not want to give me any information, we have a Sapa message which says—

This Sapa message says the Garment Workers’ Union was represented. One can see what goes on here. The hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) quoted this morning what Sachs had said. He is out and out a Communist and he is spreading that doctrine amongst the workers. We want to ask the Minister to keep his eye on these things. The trade unions are there to look after the interests of the worker and not to promote foreign ideologies in this country. It is a bond which exists in order to protect the interests of the worker. I would like to ask the Minister this afternoon why Sachs is practically a Führer today as far as thé clothing factories on the Rand are concerned; why he is always elected as secretary? Is it his influence? No, the Minister has a sworn statement in his possession. He knows what the position is. As a result of the investigations of the Breë Church Committee on the Rand sworn statements were taken down. What do those sworn statements say? They say there is no control whatsoever in regard to the voting for that post. The people come in and, sit all over the place. Circular letters Were sent out, and it is clear that these circular letters are sent only to people who, to the knowledge of Sachs, are well disposed towards him. The others are not notified of the election. A female worker approached me and told me that they knew nothing of the meeting. The Minister has another sworn statement with him in which the women state that they received as many as seven ballot papers with the request to vote for this particular person. The Minister has that sworn statement. If that is the case he should remove those irregularities. I do not want to say anything else; on the last occasion I spoke the Minister made a strong attack on me. He was very vindictive, and he said that Europeans and non-Europeans were not working together in the factories, that there was nothing of the kind. But the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans) placed a damning statement in the newspaper against the Minister. I am going to leave it to the hon. member for Losberg to come out with it. I know he has the courage to come out with it. I just want to put this question to the Minister. Does he know what is happening to the funds of the members of the Garment Workers’ Union? The Minister also has those sworn statements. He was informed that the books of Solly Sachs were seized by the Criminal Investigation Department as a result of the investigation by the Breë Church Committee. Solly Sachs and others who stood at the election stated in their election returns that they had not received money from any other organisation or body. But Miss de Wet, the secretary of the Germiston branch, then revealed that £300 had been made available to each of the candidates to contest the election. The Minister received a letter, and also the Attorney-General, from which it appears that £1,955 of the member’s money had been used to contest that election, and when the Breë Church Committee asked that the Attorney-General should take action in this matter, do you know what the reply was? The reply was that the crime had become prescribed. I obtained legal advice in connection with this matter, and it appears that under the Common Law the crime of perjury does not become prescribed in a year or two. I believe the period for prescription is 20 years. In any event, the Minister should have had that matter investigated, and up to the present time he has not instituted investigations. But these are sworn statements which the Minister has in his possession. I want to know from the Minister whether he is going to investigate this matter further, whether he is going to let the matter rest or whether he is going to remove the irregularities which exist. And then I want to make this appeal, together with the hon. member for Boshof: The garment workers have no protection under the closed shop principle. If those people dare to say anything against Solly Sachs, they lose their means of livelihood. The Minister will tell me that there is a board with whom they can lodge appeal, but that board is composed of Solly Sachs and his clique. The Breë Church Committee recommended that the workers should be given a sort of arbitration board. When the services of these people are suspended let them at least retain their work until such time as a proper investigation has taken place. To-day the position is that when their services are suspended they cannot be employed in any factory; their future is ruined. I hope the hon. Minister will go into it. It is imperatively necessary. Now I want to deal for a few moments with the bogy of Communism of which an hon. member spoke. I have stated briefly how the workers in the clothing factories are tainted with the doctrine of Communism. I can assure the Minister that the position on the Witwatersrand is such that it has practically got out of hand. The hon. Miniser himself stated that during the past year there have been more than 50 strikes and the Minister knows that Communism is at the back of these strikes.

Can you prove it?

I shall quote a passage, and you can put it in your pipe and smoke it. Here I have a small pamphlet. It is this type of propaganda which is allowed. I also have a grievance against the Minister of Justice in this connection. I hope I shall have an opportunity of dealing with him. This pamphlet reads—

The Minister knows; and we all know, that thousands and thousands of natives and coloured persons and even Europeans are incited in this way, but what is the Minister of Justice doing? This incitement is connived at, and I want to ask the Minister what he would do if I were to lead a demonstration on the Witwatersrand with a banner reading: “Refuse to pay your taxes”? I would not be allowed to do it, but the Minister of Justice allows the laws of the country to be broken. The pass laws are still in existence and he encourages the people to break those laws. I want to ask the Minister whether it is not true that he instructed the police of Johannesburg on May Day to escort native demonstrations properly and to see that they were not molested at all. They have no respect for the European. The Communists walk about with banners, “Away with the Pass Laws”, “Away with the Colour Bar!”. And then we find people who live on the Witwatersrand saying in this House that there is no such thing as Communism. I just want to say that both the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour are dead scared of the Trades and Labour Councils. Last year in the course of the debate on Communism I told the Prime Minister what was happening on the Witwatersrand, but his reply was that Communism in South Africa was not halmful at all and that it had nothing to do with Russia. His words still echoed in this House when it was decided by the Trades and Labour Council in the Cape Peninsula to send natives to Russia in order better to learn Communistic propaganda.

Do you say that the Trades and Labour Council is Communistic?

The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. van den Berg), while his colleague who sits next to him was saying that there was a Communistic demonstration before the Houses of Parliament, addressed those people. I do not know what the Minister’s views are in regard to the matter. We no longer know where the Labour Party stands. I am very sorry for some members of the Labour Party. The workers no longer know where they stand with the Party. The hon. member for Krugersdorp goes from platform to platform and opposes the Government tooth and nail. He said he was not in favour of giving a safe investment to the Chamber of Mints in the form of a subsidy of £500,000 which the Government wanted to give to the Mine Workers’ Union for housing. But while he was still on the platform the hon. member for Mayfair (Mr. H. J. Cilliers), speaking on another platform, was praising the Government’s action. Where do the workers stand? The only thing which the Labour Party has left of all those things which it advocated is a State. Bank, and when those members had an opportunity of voting for it, they ran away. I put this question to the hon. member for Krugersdorp at Wakkerstroom, and he had to admit that when they had the opportunity of voting for it, they all left the House. Not one of them voted for their own amendment.

When was that?

That was last year in this House. The same hon. member gets up in this House and attacks the Prime Minister because he is trampling upon the rights of private members of this House. But when it came to a division, the whole Labour Party, like sheep led to the slaughter under the Strauss scheme, obligingly and meekly walked across to the other side to vote with the Government. That game can no longer be tolerated. The workers are sick and tired of it. They want to know from the Minister of Labour what he is going to do. Some of the members of the Labour Party are sincere. They realise what is going on and they are perturbed. The Leader of the Labour Party is in the Cabinet and he is co-responsible for the legislation of this country. They do not mind sacrificing the workers if only they can retain a seat in the Cabinet. The hon. member for Krugersdorp stated at Volksrust that he would vote for any type of taxation, even if it hit the poorest among the poor if only they could see the war through. They have no time for poor ptople at the moment. I do not want to pursue this matter much further but I want to put a question to the Minister of Labour and I hope he will reply to it. What is his policy in respect of Communism? I do not expect a reply from the Minister of Justice in that connection because we know he is honorary president of the Friends of the Soviet Union, and I think he is sincere towards them. We cannot expect anything of him. I want to make an appeal to my friends, both Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking who realise what a great danger the Communistic movement in our country is becoming. We are faced with this danger, and I want to remind the House of the fact that it is becoming very late. I want to ask hon. members to stand together in an attempt to combat this evil. The time is overdue. It may become too late and if they do not co-operate with us in checking the evil, the people of South Africa will not forgive them for this misdeed. They must not expect it.

Mr. Speaker, there have been very many questions asked from the other side of the House which I fear I shall not have the time to answer, but I shall do my best at all events to deal with what I regard as being the most important. I want to say in the beginning, sir, that despite his vituperation at the conclusion of his remarks, we are deeply grateful to the last speaker—I am speaking for the Labour Party and for myself—for the kindly interest and the sympathy he has displayed in the welfare of the Labour Party. We are deeply touched by that.

It is high time.

It will help us to bear our cross with more equanimity than hitherto. Our deep gratitude goes out to him. Now, I propose to deal with the three speakers who have more particularly addressed themselves to me this afternoon, in chronological fashion. That is not to be regarded as my estimate of their importance. There is no ratio of importance attached to these three hon. members in my estimation, and therefore I shall simply take them chronologically, and deal first with the hon. and explosive member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein). He, like the two who succeeded him in the attack, expressed himself, as they all did, in very mild terms indeed, and I appreciate it very much indeed that they approach this matter more in a spirit to conciliation and a desire to construct than in an attempt to try to tear me to pieces. That of course, is a question of difficulty to my hon. friend, to express approval of me. He is like the curate’s egg, very good in parts but very few of them. Now, the hon. gentleman started out, as indeed they all started out, and as indeed they all finished, with an attack on Communism, Communism and Communists. When are they going to find something new on that side of the House? Again I ask it, as I have asked it on numerous occasions in the past: What is Communism?

Ask your Prime Minister.

I am asking you. You are attacking it. You are so enthusiastic about it. What are you condemning? Tell me.

What is a Labourite?

Once again I will answer that question.

You do not know what a Communist is.

A Communist is a person who, whatever his political belief, and it is usually socialism, seeks to impose his belief on the rest of us.

That is Dr. Malan.

I was coming to him. My hon. friend at once recognised the photograph that I have exposed to the earnest and ardent gaze of this House, the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) and the rest of his colleagues and friends. Bringing that unanswerable method of examination to bear on Communism, they stand condemned and are constantly condemning themselves when they refer to Communism.

Is that the only way in which you can treat a serious question?

My dear fellow, when you have proved to me that you have a grasp of your subject I will treat you seriously. But let me deal with the speeches. After my learned friend had hurled across the floor of the House this frightful word “Communism”, immediately ranged himself behind his leader in his attack On the Rt. ’Hon. the Prime Minister—Mr. Speaker, a smaller cavils at the greater mind. So far from attacking him they should be expressing their pride in that Right Honourable member, a representative of South Africa, born in South Africa, a son of South Africa, who takes his place amongst the world’s statesmen. I, who disagree with him on many points, many indeed, and upon which we have agreed to disagree, I take off my hat metaphorically speaking to the greatness of mind and the influence of the Right Honourable the Prime Minister, born of South Africa. It is delightful hearing that they expect, and rightly expect, that he will be taking his place at the Peace Conference and will be exercising a tremendous influence on their deliberations there; but, says the hon. member for Boshof, he is so much obsessed with world affairs—referring to the Prime Minister—so great is his obsession with things outside South Africa that he has no time to consider South Africa itself. I refer to the hon. member sitting there smiling so beautifically at me. It is a smile I appreciate and it will make ho difference to our personal friendship. But is that true? Is it true that the Prime Minister is not interesting himself in South African affairs? I assure you—and no one knows better than I, from the point of view of my critical examination of his efforts—that there is no man on this side of the House who can approach in any way the Prime Minister in his effort to conserve the best interests of the people in South Africa. I know of none.

We cannot help that.

Of course you cannot. That is your unfortunate situation. The hon. member cannot help it. He is placed there by Providence. Or rather, I should say by the Lord of the Netherworld. The hon. member stirred a vibrating chord in my mind when he said: “Labour is the most important thing in our economy. Labour is more essential than capitalism or capital”. I hope I am quoting him correctly. If that be true, if he honestly and sincerely believes that, why is he not ranging himself alongside us, with me and my colleagues, in abolishing capitalism?

Because you do not represent Labour.

You are now in the same crowd as the capitalists.

If you are so interested in the underdog of South Africa as you say you are, why are you at the same time exploiting them to the full? Hon. members there talk about the Garment Workers’ Union. The hon. member for Westdene (Mr. Mentz) whom I am so delighted to see has recovered physically—I do not know about mentally—trotted out the old Garment Workers’ business again and asks: “Why does not the Minister of Labour exercise proper supervision in the interests of the Union? Why does he not see that things are carried out properly, and why does he not see that the closed shop shall not operate wrongfully and oppressively to members of that Union?” That is the effect of it.

Are you in favour of it?

So far as I can I am trying to reply to the question you asked, but I will make my speech in my own way. I do not know whether you will be satisfied with what I say.

You know we will not be.

But figuratively speaking you will be knocked down. Mr. Speaker, the question of the closed shop, in the garment industry, the question of their financial arrangements and the question of their wages and hours and the question as to who shall be in control or not, is one which is decided mutually by the employers and the Union. [Interruption.] Let me say what I want to say, or are you afraid I will hurt your feelings? I know I cannot hurt your feelings because one cannot hurt stone. Why are they not doing their duty? Why do not they supervise the manner in which things are run in the Garment Workers’ Union? Because they are playing a very big part as employers in the garment industry; and this very fellow Van der Walt who was at the head of all the trouble which occurred there plays no small part in exploiting the garment workers in the Transvaal. I appeal to my hon. friends to appeal to their colleagues who are employers in the garment industry in the Transvaal to exercise their influence in the councils of the employers to see to it that the industry is run along the lines they advocate.

Do you say that Van der Walt exploited the people?

Who is Van der Walt?

Do you not know? You are singularly uninformed about your own business if you do not know who Van der Walt is. My hon. friend quite rightly and legitimately asks me why I delay in the promulgation of the two Acts passed last year, one which he said quite rightly that I called a charter for the apprentices. He asks why they have not been promulgated. The reason is not far to seek. Owing to the exigencies of the war and owing to the fact that my Department has been remarkably patriotic and that a large proportion of its members left for the front despite our efforts to retain them, for that reason we have not had sufficient time to deal with the matter.

Did you not know that last year?

Yes, and I said so last year too. But I passed the Act, and as soon as we have an opportunity we have arranged for the promulgation. I do not know whether it will please my hon. friends to know it, but the Soldiers’ and War Workers’ Act will come into force on the 1st March and the Apprenticeship Act on the 12th. They are both in order now. All the regulations have been framed and placed before His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government, and promulgation as far as I am concerned, will take place on those dates.

1945?

Yes, 1945. Of course, my hon. friend is right to draw attention to the actual year because they live in the past, but it is as well to tell them that we are living in the year of Grace 1945. My hon. friend stated that, of course, the capitalists cannot find a solution of all the economic illnesses we will be confronted with. I agree with him wholeheartedly. None can say better than the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) because he has inside information. I think it was my hon. friend the member for Swellendam, for whom I have personally the highest regard, but politically detest, who told us what the Nationalist Party policy is. I hope I am not ascribing the honour to the wrong person. If I am, of course, the hon. member for Westdene and the hon. member for Swellendam may fight it out and I will accept the decision. The hon. member says that one portion of the solution, one item in the direction of the solution, is that the workers should be made part profit-takers or part-partners. Now, that sounds very nice. It is rounded off in terms, part-partnership. But what does he really mean? I want to know from the hon. member, before I accept that as a constructive effort on their part, what are we to understand by part-partnership? Now where am I in my notes? I see in about every line in my notes “Communism” obtrudes itself; Communistic propaganda causes trouble. I come to the hon. member for Swellendam. He brought up the question of the mine workers and quite correctly. No, it was the hon. member for Westdene. He reviewed the history of the Mine Workers’ Union and applied some peculiar methods of examination.

It is your peculiar mind.

No, it is your peculiar argument to arrive at my being the nigger in the woodpile. Someone or other was responsible.

I told you that that was being said and I asked you to reply.

You said that I advised them to alter their constitution.

You or your Department.

Nothing of the sort. It was a spontaneous effort on their own part, and again you were wrong in telling this House that it was the Executive Committee of the union that did it. It could not do anything of the sort. The executive can only recommend to the General Council and the General Council passes resolutions for altering the constitution. The General Council is composed of direct representatives from each shaft on each mine.

How many of them are paid officials?

I suppose about four.

They have not got a vote.

The point is that the General Council, and only they, can alter the constitution, and the General Council altered the constitution and the Industrial Registrar registered the new constitution.

And did you approve of it?

Certainly I did and I do. I will tell you why I approve of it, because any direct change in the control of the Mine Workers’ Union or of any other Union should not take place in my opinion while a very large proportion of their members are away at the front and cannot record their votes.

I think there are only 2,000 away out of a total of 18,000.

No, there are between 4,000 and 5,000 away out of 18,000.

That is just guesswork.

Then my learned friend comes to the question of wage determination. Let me tell the House—and it is information which I think the House ought to know, because I find that not only members of the House but members of the general public are singularly ignorant as to how the Wage Board works—that a reference is given to the Wage Board to enquire into a certain industry. It immediately starts, issues notices, calls meetings, takes evidence and examines the books of the various firms in the industry wherever they may be situated. Then they come to a tentative conclusion. They put that tentative conclusion up for objections. Employers, trade unions and people interested can all come along to state their objections. I think they have one month for the objection stage. Then, and then only, do they make a recommendation that a determination shall be made, and in making that enquiry they go into every detail of the industry they are examining. They come to conclusions based upon the financial operations of the various firms, and the interests of the individuals engaged in work in these various firms, and they balance the whole and then they make their recommendations; and the very points which my hon. friend referred to are taken into account. Now, you cannot make a wage determination—I will admit this—to meet exactly the circumstances of every individual and, Sir, it is well-known that in our economic life, if a man is not sufficiently qualified to stand up to the tests put by his employer, he is dismissed. What the workers refuse to accept is that if a man is not up to the standard of work and therefore cannot be kept on, that he shall be offered a job at a lower rate of pay for doing the same sort of work. That is what he stands up against, and it is inevitable that some people fall by the way. He then must look for some other opening, in which and by which he can earn his living.

I wanted to know what you had to say about mineworkers’ wages.

I do not want to miss any point. A conference was called by the Minister of Justice and myself of representatives of the Mineworkers’ Union and of the Gold Producers’ Committee.

Was it not your business; what had the Minister of Justice to do with it?

We came to the conclusion that sentimentally we were very closely associated. We liked being together. Why should we not be? I wonder what the hon. member is trying to suggest? I might even have taken my hon. friend into collaboration on this matter, but I doubt the efficacy of such a procedure.

Did you require police protection?

Unlike my hon. friend, I have not yet had police protection. Since 1924 my hon. friend’s party has been in power, and they had ample opportunity to consider the benefits of the mineworkers. The result of the conference we had was not very encouraging; in point of fact, it broke up without anything having been done. Then the union asked for arbitration, and arbitration was granted. But as a result of discussion it was thought fit that we should ask the chairman of the Public Service Commission, Mr. Charles Cilliers, to hold a sort of informal enquiry into the position to see what could be done, and the result of his efforts was that the Chamber of Mines offered a housing loan; that is what my hon. friend referred to, and the mineworkers accepted that.

Why was the arbitration dropped?

The Mineworkers’ Union objected to some of the personnel. I do not know what crime I have committed in this matter, except it may be I asked for the collaboration of the Minister of Justice. If that is the only crime I have committed in my life, the hon. gentleman won’t meet me in heaven because he will be down below. That is the history of that trouble. I cannot dwell on it too much. I shall now go to Westdene, not geographically. I think it was the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein), who rather girded at Stalin.

Are you coming back to me?

I shall never leave you.

You are getting into good company.

Yes, I love contrasts. The hon. member said that Stalin was opposed to Christianity. I do not know whether I am misquoting him.

I said it.

You said it. Before witnesses I give him the credit. He said that Joe Stalin had a down on Christianity. Now they are calling on the population of Russia to attend their places of worship to give thanks to the Lord. What do I see in this? What the hon. gentleman does not see, and that so far from Joe Stalin having a tremendous deciding influence in the counsels of the great, we have had it. We have turned them to Christianity. My hon. friend made great play, much better play than the other two hon. members who attacked me, on this question of coloured labour. He was much more effective. I do not say this to cause a rift in the lute. It is my appreciation of my hon. friend’s talent. He gave us a philosophical outline of the biological grouping of South Africa. First of all, he says there is a coloured section of the community who are increasing rapidly. Then he says there are Jewish money controllers. I wonder if the Jews are the only people who control money in South Africa, or control credit in South Africa. I seem to remember something about a certain big insurance company.

No.

No? What a big mistake I made.

Ask the Receiver of Revenue at Graaff-Reinet.

And every country attorney has a finger in the financial pie, not excepting Swellendam; and when they are denouncing the exploitation of the poor in this country, I wonder their ears do not burn.

It is wonderful to find you supporting the capitalists; it is a new rôle.

Then there is the hon. member’s third group, the English-speaking; he did give us a fourth. Which was the fourth?

Did not your interpreter tell you—the Afrikaans-speaking.

The hon. member says that the English-speaking people are trying to get political power; what are you trying to do; what is my hon. friend the member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan)—who is looking so interestingly at me—trying to do? He has one saving grace ….

You are a sight te see.

He has artistic perception—and that is all. It gives me tremendous pleasure to hear the almost unanimous expression from that side of the House against the exploitation of the worker. I shall hold them to their expressions. In the near future I hope to be able to quote Hansard to them in the hope, the fervent hope, that they will implement their theories of this afternoon.

You need not be afraid.

I am afraid; I am very much afraid that it is merely an expression of opinion of the first water—theoretical Christians, theoretical opponents of the exploitation of the underdog and practical exploiters to the very full. [Interruptions.] I believe I have replied to most of the points and ….

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, is the hon. the Minister entitled to make such a statement? He knows of course that it is untrue.

It is not a point of order.

On a point of order, if I understood the hon. Minister correctly, he said that the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren), was an exploiter of the poor. That is certainly not parliamentary.

Did the hon. the Minister say that?

No, I did not mention the hon. member for Swellendam. I said the whole lot of them.

If I understood aright, Mr. Speaker, you asked the hon. the Minister whether he said the hon. member for Swellendam was an exploiter of the poor, and if he had replied in the affirmative you would have called him to order. If the hon. member is not entitled to use that expression towards one member, is he in order in applying it to a number of members collectively?

It has been ruled by a previous Speaker that it is not in order to use offensive words against a political party which reflect upon members of the House belonging to that party.

In deference to your ruling, Sir, I withdraw the remark.

Representing as I do a mining constituency, I feel I would be failing in my duty if I did not express my disappointment at the fact that the Minister of Mines has not come forward with the promised new phthisis legislation. The Minister told us last session that he intended introducing legislation that would amend and consolidate the phthisis law. But here we are in the fourth week of the session, and nothing has been put forward. I feel very perturbed; I feel, indeed, that advantage is being taken of the loyalty of a large body of workers who have stood by their employers throughout a critical period, men who have rendered great service to South Africa by keeping the home fires burning while their comrades have been fighting for liberty. The majority of those workers are standing four square behind the war effort. I fully realise that the Minister has undertaken a great task, but considering that the reports of the Miner Phthisis Commission have been in his possession since 1943, I fail to see why those men should be kept unnecessarily in suspense. We must remember that those men are living in daily fear of becoming victims of a deadly occupational disease, and that they are anxious to know what provision will be made for them and their dependants. I therefore cannot find words strong enough to express my disappointment that this legislation has not yet been presented to the House, and I trust that the Minister will take steps to introduce the necessary legislation as soon as possible, so as to relieve the minds of those men, and to maintain that spirit of co-operation between the employer and the employee which is so much desired. But I really want to touch on another matter which is of vital importance to the employees on the Witwatersrand gold mines, and that is the question of a pension scheme. Some eight or ten years ago the Chamber of Mines submitted two schemes for a provident fund to its employees. Unfortunately the better of the two schemes was rejected. The “A” scheme put forward by the Chamber of Mines was a scheme financed by the employers only. The “B” scheme put forward called for contributions from both employer and employee. But as I said, unfortunately at that time the employees rejected the “B” scheme, with the result that the scheme that is in operation today is the scheme that is financed by the employers only. The position has changed very much indeed since then. A large section of the employees—as a matter of fact the majority of them, in my opinion—would today welcome the “B” scheme. They would welcome the chance of contributing an equal share so as to increase the benefits, but they also feel that as the country benefits to a very large extent from the gold mines, that the Government should also be called upon to contribute an equal share. In other words, they want a scheme whereunder the Government, the employers and the employees will each contribute a third and so treble the benefits. I quite appreciate that more and more demands are being made upon the Government for assistance and for State services. I also appreciate that the country’s resources are not unlimited. But I do feel that this matter should be very carefully considered. Then the other matter I wish to refer to is that mine-compound managers should be given more authority over the natives in their charge. At present we find that compound managers have no jurisdiction over the natives housed in their compound, once they are off duty and outside the compound grounds. What is the result? The natives attend meetings of a subversive character. They come under the influence of the wrong type of person—

Communists.

I do not advocate that the natives should be prohibited from attending all meetings, but I feel that compound managers should be given full power of guardianship, that they should decide what is in the interests of the natives. We all would like to see the native develop, and so become a greater asset to the country, but we also feel that he should develop on the lines of his own culture, and that he should not be subject to a doctrine which may be foreign to his own traditions. I trust that this matter will receive careful consideration.

I am glad that the hon. Minister of Agriculture is present, because I want to put a few questions to him, and I hope that he will answer them on a suitable occasion later on. I am very sorry that he took part in the debate at such an early stage, because we would have liked his answer to be furnished after hon. members on this side had put their points in connection with agriculture. I want to say a few words in connection with the control of agricultural products. I personlly, and hon. members on this side of the House, are in favour of control. We believe in a system of orderly marketing, and that is one of the reasons why we supported the Marketing Act. We believe that orderly marketing can only exist under an efficient system of control. The control schemes that have been instituted by the Minister and by the Government have not been established under the Marketing Act, but mainly under emergency regulations, and they were not created to protect the farmers, but to offset the rise in the price of agricultural products. Consequently the control schemes were not commenced for the sake of the farmers but for the sake of the consumers. But the farmers were content with the decision to restrict prices during the war. They are, however, only content with that if the prospect exists of a permanent system of control which will be opposed to the fluctuations of falling and rising prices. In other words, the farmer seeks social security, and he can only make his subsistence safe if we in South Africa develop a system by which there will be a sound and healthy system of an economic level of prices for agricultural products. Seeing that the farmer was thus willing to make a sacrifice during this period of war and to agree to control schemes which prevented him gaining the topmost prices that could be gained in war time—he is willing to accept a control system, but then he asks, and that is my question to the Minister—in how far is the Government willing to see to it in the future that the farmer will be assured of an economic price for his products? Just as he was willing to permit steps to be taken against what the Americans call “ceiling prices”, the highest prices, in the same way he will in the future object to sub-economic prices. Consequently we want to know what the policy of the Government is going to be, whether the measures that the Government have taken in connection with control are war measures, or can we expect that these measures will be reserved in the future to eliminate fluctuations and speculations in connection with the prices of products. In connection with the matter, we should like to have a reply from the Minister. We know what other countries have done, Canada, the United States and England. They adopted legislation, and guaranteed bottom prices to the producers, “floor prices”. The farmers of South Africa who have made the sacrifice of denying themselves the higher prices that they could obtain in war time ask the Minister and the Government to give them guaranteed bottom prices for agricultural products in future. That is the security for which the farmers are seeking, and without which they will not be happy and contented; and they will not be satisfied until they have received an answer to this question. When we talk about bottom prices and social security for the farmers, we maintain that we can only obtain this under a system of control, and when we come to control we say that the farmers are afraid today, and reasonably so, that control is not assured in the hands of this Government. Today the farmer is afraid of two things; he is afraid of control measures that this Government regards as merely temporary measures. The farmer has reason to be afraid. It was the Prime Minister himself who recently at a party congress at Bloemfontein stated that control must disappear. He actually inveigled against control measures, and now the farmers are restless and they want to have an assurante from the Government that the Prime Minister went too far there, and that the Government will not move in that direction at present. The farmers of South Africa do not want temporary control. We accept control as the only system under which we can have orderly marketing and social security, because without a system of orderly control you cannot guarantee economic prices for products. Further, we are afraid that the system of control as it is applied today—under the present Minister of Agriculture—will fall into disfavour as a result of the disadvantages that are suffered both by producers and consumers, and as a result of the trouble that the public in general experience under the control as it is applied and carried out by the Minister. Consequently there is today already, I fear, a strong feeling against control schemes, and on that account the farmers are uneasy. I want to say a few words now regarding why I think that control measures such as those applied by the present Minister have been a failure. In the first place control as applied by him has been a failure because he has adopted it so half-heartedly, and furthermore whenever he takes measures to apply control they are half measures; and thirdly because the measures as applied by him were too expensive and everyone consequently felt that control was not advantageous but detrimental to the producer as well as to the consumer. That the Minister has been half-hearted in connection with control is generally admitted. Whenever he has been asked to make promises in connection with any control scheme, as for instance last year in connection with the meat scheme, and when he has been asked to say whether he intends to draw up a permanent meat scheme, the Minister has been hesitating. The Minister shakes his head, but he has accepted control in a hesitating way, and he has said—

Thus when he was asked whether we would have a permanent scheme his answer was evasive. But if this side of the House has succeeded in bringing the Minister so far that he is willing to introduce a permanent scheme we are satisfied. We shall then have been successful. Now I want to ask the Minister not to be hesitating, not to be half-hearted when he recommends any control scheme, because the enemies of control—and there are many of them; there is the speculator and others who are against control—as soon as they observe that the Minister is half-hearted do everything in their power to torpedo his schemes, and consequently I want to ask the Minister not to be half-hearted in the future. We want to tell him that we shall support him when he produces a proper system of control. Another reason why this Minister has not made a success of control is that the measures he applied have been half measures. Control must be complete and not partial if you want to make a success of it. In South Africa we have had enough experience of that. The first steps that we took in South Africa to regularise marketing assumed the form of co-operation, and you will remember how at the commencement when we had voluntary co-operation, there was always difficulty in marketing products on co-operative lines. As a result of that difficulty that we experienced compulsory co-operation was introduced. That went better, but even compulsory co-operation was not a success while it remained of a partial nature. It was only by making compulsory co-operation of general application that it became a success. It is the same with any scheme of control, because control is only supplementary to co-operative marketing, and accordingly I ask the Minister not to take half measures in connection with control. He must endeavour to make his control complete and not partial. What the Minister is trying to do is this. He wants his system of control to function alongside the existing system. He must know that any system of control, any new system of marketing is an encroachment on the economic laws that have prevailed before the scheme has come into operation, and if you want to make a success of the scheme that you have instituted then you must create comprehensive machinery. If you have two systems alongside each other then you make a failure of the business. You cannot sew the old garment on to the new, because then you will not have a sound material. The Minister must not imagine that he can create a control system and leave the old system undamaged. He must make his control as complete as possible. The old conception of marketing has now passed, and we now want to have orderly marketing and efficient marketing, and this must be under strong control. The Minister has given us the idea that he wants control without having the product that he wants to control under his control, and now I want to tell him that the only way to get complete control, is as far as possible to get physical control of the products that you want to control, and that is in my opinion where the Minister went wrong. You cannot have successful control unless you have, as far as possible, physical control over the products you want to control. We have already said that the Minister has attempted to exercise control without trying to make that control complete.

Do you want me to take physical control of all the slaughter stock in the country?

The Minister must create machinery to get that physical control as much as possible, and I shall tell the Minister in a minute how he can get that physical control. Another objection that I take to the Minister’s steps is that his control measures are too expensive. The object of control apart from orderly marketing must be to reduce the costs of distribution, and the Minister has not succeeded in reducing the costs per unit. On the contrary, just because he is trying to make two systems function alongside of each other, because he wants to sew a new cloth on to an old one the scheme is too expensive. He has not reduced the unit cost of distribution; he wants to let the old system continue, but at the same time he wants the new system to be in vogue. Recenly he stated in answer to questions that were put to him that under the control regulations that were introduced no fewer han 2,000 officials have been appointed, and those 2,000 officials drew altogether about £600,000 a year in salaries. This expenditure is supplementary and is not in substitution of something else. Distribution has become more expensive and not cheaper. The Miister wants to have two systems alongside each other, and consequently distribution has become so expensive that both the producer and the consumer Suffer thereby. Now I want to tell him what in my view is the ideal system of control and when I do this I hope that the Minister will pay attention to what I have to say. I believe that if you want to have efficient control in South Africa you will only get that if it occurs on the foundation of co-operative enterprise.

Hear, hear.

We were too inclined to think that control would have to come to replace co-operation, and as soon as you do that you get confusion, because just as the Minister has rightly said you will not, through the control scheme, obtain adequate physical control over the products that you want to control. It is only when you get co-operatives over the whole country to undertake control, co-operatives that have central organisation, who can function as agents of the control boards, that you can think of making a success of control in South Africa. The best proof of that is the success that was achieved with the two most successful co-operatives in the country, the tobacco and wine co-operatives. That was because the control of tobacco and wine was carried out on the basis of co-operation; that is why it was so successful. Take tobacco control, for instance. There we have various branches of co-operatives which are affiliated in a central organisation, and furthermore, there is a Tobacco Control Board. This control board uses the co-operatives as agents for the marketing of tobacco. There is an example for the Minister to follow. As soon as you depart from that you get into difficulties, or otherwise you have to take drastic measures in order as far as possible to have physical control on your own account. How this should be done is naturally a difficult question. But through co-operation the best control can, in my opinion, be exercised, because the co-operatives make possible that physical cotrol which is so necessary for successful and efficient marketing. The other matter to which the Minister should give attention if he wants to make a success of control is to see that there are adequate storage facilities for the products. You cannot have efficient control unless you have the greatest measure of physical control, and that in turn is only possible if you have adequate storage facilities, and it is through co-operatives that those facilities can best be provided. Give them facilities to set up stores and cooling chambers for certain industries. And when you have enough storage accommodation and cooling chambers you will be in a position to make a success of control schemes. Instead of the Minister seeing that the control organisation or the co-operatives that work in conjunction with them have these facilities, one notices that other interests have these facilities.

The I.C.S.

And those interests are very active today. They are collecting these facilities into a smaller and smaller circle. Does the Minister know perhaps of a certain big cold storage business that is buying up all the cooling chambers? That sort of thing should not happen under a proper system of control. Those facilites should be provided by the Government, through its organisations, or its agents that are going to undertake the control for it. But because that system exists whereunder other interests in the country have that storage space and those cooling chambers, it follows that the producer, the farmer, is handed over to the tender mercies of those interests, and it is on that account that the Minister’s meat scheme has proved such a hopeless failure. Those interests are today so powerful and have such an opportunity to control things and to exercise their influence, that the farmer’s interests are damaged and the Minister’s position is by no means an enviable one. I think the time has arrived when the Minister must give attention to this matter, and if he wants effective control he must see to it that that proper control will come through the co-operatives and that controlling bodies will have the necessary warehousing and cold storage facilities. Then I want to make a request to the Minister to put his control schemes in order now. He should not wait until after the termination of the war. Now is the time to put his control schemes in order, because in the future we shall again experience periods when there will be surpluses, when there will not be a sufficient demand for products that today can be easily marketed. Times of surpluses will recur, and unless the Minister gets his control schemes into proper working order in good time, it will have the result that there will again be tremendous dislocation in the agricultural industry in the future, and accordingly I again ask the Minister to put his control schemes in order and provide the necessary machinery that will ensure economic prices for the farmer in the future in respect of his products. I do not agree with the Minister’s present policy in connection, for instance, with meat control. The Minister is looking round to see whether the meat problem cannot be solved by reducing consumption. I agree with what the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) said the other day and the figures provided by the Minister’s own department confirm it, namely, that there really should not be any necessity for a shortage of meat in the country. There may have been considerable slaughtering of certain sorts of stock. I think, for instance, that quite a quantity of Persians have been slaughtered. But I believe the stock of merinos and more particularly the stock of cattle, has not been reduced. On the contrary, we have the figures showing that it has increased. Accordingly, there ought to be no shortage of meat, and I think therefore that the Minister has inflicted heavy damage on the stock farmer, the meat producer, by instituting meatless days and taking similar measures. There is another course open to him, and that is to make it payable to the farmer to send his meat to market. Make it payable to the farmer to take his meat to the market, and then you will get meat. The farmer is not encouraged to send meat to market, and consequently there is a shortage. The hon. member for Albert-Colesberg (Mr. Boltman) stated the other day that the meat prices, as fixed today having regard to grading determining the price, have been so regulated that the farmer must suffer damage. If the Minister revises those prices there will be an improvement, and especially if he reduces the cost of the distribution of meat. He will then be in a position to be able to pay more to the farmer for his meat. This is one big objection that we have against his meat scheme, and which is also proof that the machinery that he has created to put the meat scheme into operation is not sound machinery. While the consumer is not paying less for meat, the producer is receiving somewhat less. Something is bound to go wrong when that is the case, and the figures confirm that that is the case.

The figures show that the consumer is really paying less.

That may possibly be the case here and there, but on the whole the consumer does not pay less today. The Minister should not quote small percentages and then say that this shows that the consumer pays less. He may perhaps on various grades pay .001d. less, but on the whole the consumer does not pay less for the meat than he did in years past. The difference is not worth mentioning. But presuming the consumer does pay less today then I ask him, does not the farmer receive less, and appreciably less for his meat than he received in past years. What has happened to the difference?

He still receives 70 per cent. more than before the war.

That does not matter. There is no trader in the country; there is no one in the country who does not today earn more at his profession or calling than he did before the war.

And the farmer pays 100 per cent. more for everything that he buys.

The Minister does not take that into account. The costs of production have substantially increased, but if the Minister takes up that standpoint that the farmer must be content with less, let him say clearly that this is his attitude. Does he wish that the farmer should be content with less? And yet he says that the farmer does not get less. He repeated that. The farmer is willing to supply the meat, but he claims that the increased costs of production should be taken into account. If the Minister wants to provide the consumer with meat at a lower price the farmer is not unwilling to make his contribution, but those contributions should not be out of all proportion to the contributions that are made by other sections of the community. If the Minister can show that the consumer receives what the farmer loses there would be something to say for his attitude, but this is not the case; the consumer pays today just as much. What has become of the margin? The difference has gone into the pocket of certain interests; this is partly to be ascribed to the expensvie machinery that the Minister has created. We know that the influence of those interests is very strong, and accordingly we ask the Minister not to allow those interests to overwhelm him. Let him listen to the producer and to the consumer. Give them an efficient scheme, the machinery of which will not be so expensive, and which can set up orderly marketing in the interests of the producer and the consumer.

After the Hon. Leader of the Opposition yesterday represented the Russian nation as a dragon—a danger to our civilisation—which will dominate continental Europe, I feel obliged to take hon. members back to the position reigning in Russia 25 or 30 years ago. History teaches us that at that time 80 per cent. of the Russian nation lived in the greatest povery and misery. We know that at that time millions of people died annually in Russia through hunger, while at the same time others waxed rich. But the position has completely changed since Lenin and his successor, Stalin, took over.

When were you in Russia?

It is not necessary to visit Russia in order to know what the position was there 30 years ago. Militarily and economically Russia was previously a weakling; any minor power could attack Russia and partially overrun her. But after the present system came into existence things changed there. The present war showed us that from a herd of sheep the Russian nation changed to a power which in our time can take its place as one of the greatest and ablest nations in our civilisation. Germany, with the greatest war machine known to history, tried for two years to destroy that nation. Thanks to the present system applying in Russia the nation there was so well-trained that they could hold back that war machine, and so doing they saved our lives. While the present Russian government was giving the people their due—their birthright—equal chances for development and existence, the exact opposite was happening in the democratic world, the laissez faire policy. There terrible poverty and great wealth remained in existence side by side in the democratic countries and also in ours. I should just like to stress that if we on our side had done as much for the less privileged classes as the Russians have done in the last 30 years for their people we would have sung to another tune today. But I do not intend dealing with international matters at too great length. That is the work of greater men. I only want to say, as a reasonable man, that we must not begrudge a nation of 200,000,000 what we are seeking for ourselves. I now want to confine myself to the neglect of the surface of mother earth in South Africa, and also to the neglect and exploitation of the less privileged people of our nation. First I want to speak about mother earth. What I am going to say here is common knowledge, it may be argued by hon. members, but this common knowledge of ours evidently has not brought us any further than just to the threshold of the solution of our problems. The new conception people have today of national values brought us to a rebuilding, a new world order, an ideal for which the soldier fights and for which he gives his life. But we want to build anew; it is our duty to start in the right place.

With mother earth.

In our country we are almost always talking of industrialisation and of expansion of industries. It has almost become a war cry. Wherever one comes one hears about it, but we forget so easily that in the first instance the people must be fed, and those of us who are willing to admit the truth cannot deny that during the last 20 or 30 years there has been starvation in South Africa and poverty. As the result of a weak agricultural policy and a weak economical system in the country South Africa has been allowed to deteriorate to something approximating conditions in the Tennessee. Valley in America before it was converted into the agricultural paradise it is today. We do not need Americans to help us here, but we can be reasonable enough to accept American advice. Recent history has shown that while our secondary industries have been put on to war production and almost all the people in the country are employed at good wages, there is still a great shortage of food. I want to make bold and say that that shortage has always been there, save that people did not stand in queues, and the only reason why they did not stand in queues was because they did not work and had no money in their pockets with which to buy food. Statistics show that of the protective foodstuffs we only have the following quantities: As regards bread we have only 50 per cent. of our requirements; milk 32 per cent.; cheese 12 per cent.; butter 35 per cent.; meat, fish and eggs 42 per cent. of what we require. It is only fruit, mealie meal and foodstuffs like mealie meal of which we have enough. It is accordingly essential that we should initiate an agricultural policy equal to our industrial development. In any case we must have food before we can do anything else. An earnest appeal is being made from all parts of the country to the Government that it should prevent the neglect of the productive value of our soil. In the past the Government subsidised the farmers. In my opinion that contributed very little to make good to the consumer the damage that had been caused to him. One may say that due to soil erosion the food of the nation has been washed into the sea, and this problem must be tackled on a national scale and it must be prevented.

May I remind the hon. member of the motion of the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mr. Abrahamson) which is on the Order Paper and in which that subject is dealt with? The hon. member cannot now discuss that matter.

Allow me then to say only this, that instead of £3,000,000 being spent in 11 years to restore the fertility of our soil, we should rather spend that amount, or more, each year. There is something else of great importance which I wish to mention here, namely that our present system of Government, the system we have had since Union, permits that—if I may call it that—capitalists in the city and also on the platteland are being enabled to safeguard themselves economically by buying farm properties just in order to get a safe investment for their surplus money, to evade taxes, and in many cases in order to receive a double income. All this is detrimental to the poor, section of the farming population who in actual fact need those farm properties. During this war it has been proved that people who have no idea at all of the productive value of a farm were allowed to buy farms at prices two and three times in excess of the productive value thereof, purely in order to invest their money; and this was to the detriment of the smaller farmers who devoted their lives and struggled hard in order to be able to buy a bit of ground for themselves, when the opportunity arose, in order to be able to make a living. I say that it is quite contrary to the national interests to permit absentee farmers or people who have no necessity to make a living on a farm, to buy farms in this manner. It only causes unnecessary inflation which affects everybody and it keeps in the background the man who ought to get a chance to make a living on the soil. It makes him an enemy of the moneyed man, which is an unfortunate state of affairs. The Department of Agriculture reports that there are approximately 104,000 farms in South Africa. I do not think I am wrong in saying that those 104,000 farms belong to 60,000 or 70,000 owners. Accordingly I wish to suggest that the Government should evolve a scheme to prevent anybody who does not intend farming himself from buying a farm, and that a tax will be put into operation which will make it very difficult for a man who buys a farm at prices over and above the productive value, who does not himself use the farm economically, to retain such a farm.

Make a suggestion and we will support it.

I can make such a suggestion. I find that our economic life to a large extent depends on our food. Everything is derived from the soil. The value of the properties on which food is produced has been chased up so high and so unnecessarily by capitalists who already have too much money that the cost of living has been unnecessarily raised. I wish to suggest that the Government should take it upon itself to have a revaluation of farm properties and to fix the value of farm properties in relation to their production value; and it must be forbidden that people who need money to buy farms or to improve them should borrow money from sources not connected with the Land Bank. It should be obligatory that only the Land Bank can give bonds on farm properties, because it is only the Land Bank administration which really knows what the economic value of a farm is. Finally, Mr. Speaker, I cannot neglect to say that annually there are 400,000 children at school, and of these 400,000 children only 10,000 become apprentices. The large majority, with the exception of the small number who go to high schools and universities, grow up undeveloped and uneducated and they remain a burden on the State. It cannot be denied that when the masses remain suppressed and when they are given no reasonable and equal chances to make a good living, they feel very unhappy and consequently they are inclined continually to criticise the Government of the day. Then also there is at the same time the activities of the political exploiter. The people are swayed this way and that, they are misled and they are used for the purposes of the political agent. In order to prevent that I want the Government to found large training centres all over the country and when children leave school at Standard V or Standard VI, they must be taken to those centres and educated further in order to prepare them for a productive life. In this country we cannot afford, while we have the two races and while both are inclined to blame each other, that the masses should be undeveloped. We should see to it that the youth of South Africa is educated and trained. We cannot afford to leave them in the hands of their parents only or in the hands of the elder generation who in many cases are undeveloped and incapable. That sounds a little undemocratic and dictatorial, but in order to do good one must sometimes be firm, and in my opinion the time has arrived that the Government should step in and take control of youths from the time they leave school. In conclusion I wish to say that in order to save our people socially and economically and to give them a new world about which we all think and speak so much, it will be very unfortunate, and perhaps fatal, if the Government should fall back, or feel inclined to fall back, on private initiative alone. This country has known private initiative ever since it frst existed, and I am sorry to have to say that while some of us but very few, prospered economically while we were dependent on private initiative, the great majority of the people lived in want. The Government may well permit private initiative to remain in existence, but some of the industries brought into existence should be of a national character. The Government is in the same position as the father of the family. He is responsible for his family, and not his neighbour. So we find that private initiative, which in all cases concentrates on personal gain, is not responsible for the economic existence of the whole nation. That is more than we can expect. But the State must do so. It is a duty entrusted to the Government.

I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister of Agriculture the position of the farmers and the butchers on the platteland as a result of his policy of commandeering stock. I want to explain to him that in many of the districts in the platteland tremendous losses have been suffered by the small farmers as well as by the big farmers and they are still going to suffer greater losses if the Minister continues to commandeer stock. It is no use the Minister saying that he does not commandeer from the farmers because if this commandeering continues, it means that the farmers will keep their stock away from the auction sales and the butchers will not buy. We will then have this position on the platteland that the meat position will become just as dislocated as in the big cities. When the Minister introduced the meat scheme, I was not opposed to the scheme as such, but we were against the execution of this scheme and we indicated that it would mean a great loss to the farmer. Nevertheless the consumer has to pay just as much or more than he paid for meat in the past. When the Minister introduced this scheme, he proclaimed 9 areas as controlled areas where there would be grading and where the meat would be sold according to grade and weight. He also stated that in view of the fact that those 9 areas were taking practically 75 per cent. or 80 per cent. of the meat of the country, the price obtaining in those areas would gradually become applicable to the platteland as well. He also stated that he did not have enough graders to make the system applicable to the platteland as well, and he said it was hoped that the scheme in the big cities would determine the price on the platteland. He added that the business on the platteland, the auction sales and the butcher shops, would continue as in the past, and that no change would be introduced. When I speak of auction sales and stock sales on the platteland, I refer to institutions which in many cases were introduced by the farmers themselves. I mention Bedford, Graaff Reinet, Aberdeen, Cradock and Middelburg where the farmers’ organisations have almost entire charge of the auction sales. They hire an auctioneer to hold the auction sales. If the Government continues with this system of commandeering, it stands to reason that those farmers are going to suffer damage. The other day I read a report in the newspaper—I do not know whether he was correctly reported—that Dr. Schutte, who is the Liaison official of the Farmers’ Associations, had stated that the auction sales and the auctioneers had been the greatest enemies of the farmers in the past. I want to deny that definitely. Where you have a public auction, you have open competition, which is the fairest. There is no speculation. The goods are openly auctioned and everyone can hear how much is being bid. In some cases it is the institution of the farmers themselves on the platteland, institutions which have existed for 30 years or more. Dr. Schutte himself was in Australia, and he must know that the position there is that either the Government or the local bodies have the cold storage facilities in their hands. They do not concern themselves about the auctions, but they are the owners of the cold storages. But in this country the Government is more concerned about the platteland auction sales, and it leaves the cold storages in the hands of a few capitalistic firms who are allowed to do as they please. They can practically dictate to us. We now find that the firm which owns the cold storages have bought out one wholesale butcher after another; and that cannot produce good results. It must result in damage to the farmer. It has already been proved that the meat scheme has been an absolute failure in the big cities. I need only recall what the hon. member for Kingwilliamstown (Mr. C. M. Warren) said the ohter day. A butcher in a controlled area bought 150 sheep at a platteland auction. He brought it to the controlled area and lost £61 on it when the controller took the sheep over from him. He applied and got the carcases back, and he made £126 on it. It is not a member of the Opposition who said that but one of the Minister’s own supporters, and he had all the documents with him to prove that statement. What would have been the position of the farmer if he had sent his sheep to the controller? He would have got £61 less for the 150 sheep, but the consumers would have paid £126 more than the farmer got for it. That clearly shows that there is something radically wrong. Even the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) admits it, and I say that if the Minister and his Government cannot rectify it, he should give another Government an opportunity of doing it.

This Government will rectify it.

There is dissatisfaction. Take another case, the prices which have been fixed for the various types of stock, for example. The farmer can get the super price for Merino sheep but not for Afrikaner and Persian sheep. But judging by the taste of the housewives, it seems that they prefer a nice leg of a Persian sheep or of an Afrikaner sheep to a Merino. Nevertheless Merino can fetch a higher price in a controlled area. The result is that the Afrikaner sheep and the Persian sheep which are sent to the controller, necessarily fetch a lower price per weight in comparison with the price on the platteland. It is not only members on this side who say that there is something radically wrong. Members on the other side also say it, and when we go about on the platteland, we hear from supporters of the Government that there is something radically wrong with control, as it is carried out today. I say that we are not opposed to the control system but to the manner in which it is carried out. Take the position in connection with wheat. There must be a redical fault somewhere. No one put it to us more clearly than the previous member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson). He pointed out to the Government that there must be something wrong, because the price of shares in milling companies had increased enormously, in some cases by 300 per cent. Is it any wonder, when we see what happens? I can show letters to the Minister to prove that a person in my district received a permit to have 300 bags of wheat milled, but he also received instructions to send it to the milling company in Port Elizabeth. That is the way in which control is carried out. Take the control of fruit. It is not necessary for us on this side to talk about it. Supporters of the Government on the other side and in the country have said enough to show that there is something wrong, and if the Government is powerless to solve the problem, it should make room for another Government which can do it. The same applies to meat. The hon. member for Rustenburg says he admits that there is something wrong, but he seeks an excuse in the black market. Does the Minister want to tell me, if he really wants to exterminate the black market, that he cannot do so? Let him punish those people severely. If a man makes a profit of £1,000 on the black market it is of no avail imposing a fine of £25. Impose a fine of £2,000 or imprison him, end see whether there will then be a black market. But the Government is afraid to prosecute those people, because it is the supporters and friends of the Government who make themselves a party to the black market.

Not always.

No, this Government is too weak and too frightened to take action against its friends. I just want to mention a further example to show how these things are carried out. In one of the towns in my constituency the controller granted the necessary quota of sheep to the butchers. It was less than previously, but that is not my point at the moment. He refused, however, to grant a quota in respect of cattle for that town. The town council had to write one letter after another to persuade the controller to allow these people to slaughter a few head of cattle per month. I must say that subsequently he agreed, but this goes to show what type of man is appointed to do these things.

It is the Meat Board.

Let it be the Meat Board. Every board which the Government appoints, makes blunders of this description. I cannot understand how persons who ought to be responsible and who ought to know that type of thing can tell a town that thé slaughtering of cattle is prohibited; and yet that was the position in which one of the towns in my constituency was placed. Later we succeeded in rectifying it, but this shows the dissatisfaction which is created when such regulations are promulgated. To say the least of it, it is a sign of incompetence. As a result of it, these schemes become unpopular and we have this position that the people have to complain continually. Take the price fixation on the platteland. The price fixed by the controller was, I think, 2d. per lb. more than we ever paid for meat on the platteland.

Those are ceiling prices.

But what was the result, ceiling prices or no ceiling prices? The price of meat was immediately increased by 2d. per lb. Do you know what they told the people? Perhaps it was unwittingly, but when the people protested they said that the prices had been published in the Government Gazette and that they had to charge that price. It was then brought to their notice that it was only laid down that they could not charge more than that. But just imagine; ceiling prices are fixed, which are 2d. more than meat ever cost. Subsequently when the correct position was explained to them, i.e. that they need not necessarily charge the ceiling prices, they reduced the prices and today we are again paying the old prices and the butchers are quite satisfied. But that goes to show the incompetence of the controllers who arrange these things. Let us take something else. The price of kidneys on the platteland was fixed at 4d. per kidney. The price of legs and hindquarters is so much higher than the price of shoulders that the people wanted only the shoulder; they did not want to buy the legs and hindquarters. That is due to the incompetence of the board which has to carry out these things, and then the Government fails to solve these problems. There is such confusion that one does not know where one stands, and those who are loudest in their com plaints are supporters of the Government. A large section of their supporters are those people who for years have been sending their slaughter sheep to Port Elizabeth, Cape Town and Johannesburg. They now send their stock to the auction sales. When the price was increased slightly they again sent their stock to the large cities. I want to make a plea to the Minister in regard to the commandeering of stock. In my opinion the small farmers suffer a great deal as a result of commandeering. I want to mention the case of an auction sale which was held in December in one of the towns in my constituency. 4,579 head of stock were sold; 730 head were bought by the farmers; 3,840 were bought by 30 butchers, or an average of 130 per butcher. But 14 of the butchers had quotas of 300 or more. The Minister said in reply to questions that he was only commandeering the stock in excess of the quota, and that we need not therefore be perturbed. The Minister has the right to prosecute any person who slaughters more than the quota. It can easily be ascertained at the abattoirs how many head are slaughtered. Fourteen of the butchers had a quota of 300 or more. In other words, in order to get their full quota, they had to get 4,200 head of stock. Nine butchers had a quota of 200, which means 1,800 head of stock; seven had a quota of 150 and therefore required 1,050 head of stock. The 30 butchers, in order to make up their quota, had to get a little more than 7,000 head, which they did not get. And in cases of that nature stock was commandeered. I mention this merely to show how the people suffer as a result of commandeering. The butcher does not get the quota, and then some of his stock is still commandeered after he has bought it. Why are these people made to suffer this loss? If it is stated in advance that it is proposed to commandeer, one can still understand it, but the stock is commandeered after the sale. One hundred and sixty of the farmers who brought stock, sent an average of 25 to 53 sheep to the auction kraals. It is difficult for these people to send their stock to controlled areas. They have to get the necessary permit, and if they want to send stock to Port Elizabeth, they may be instructed to send it to Johannesburg or Cape Town. These people are not accustomed to write every day. They are farmers and they are not used to writing continually. They sent from 25 to 53 sheep to the market. Five farmers sent about 100 head of stock; 2 brought 150, and 3 brought in the neighbourhood of 200 to the place where they had been accustomed for years to dispose of their stock. They were not big farmers, but people who farm on a small scale, on limited land, but at the same time they want the best market for their stock. And then the Minister sends out someone to commandeer. The butchers are wronged, but an even greater injustice is done to the farmers who send their stock to be marketed. I shall be glad to hear from the Minister that he will not carry on with the system of commandeering. Let him rectify those things which are wrong. Why commandeer stock and then advance the argument that the butchers use more than their quota, while that is not the case. It is the easiest thing in the world for the Minister to ascertain what the various people slaughter, and to prosecute those who took more than their quota. After all, there are regulations to which they are subject. Why should other people suffer if one or two make a mistake? Punish the right person, not the innocent people who suffer enormous damage in this way. When I speak of auction sales on the platteland I have in mind the report of the Meat Commission which says that it recommends the fixation of prices and sale by dead weight in the large centres, but that auction sales should continue on the platteland in order to provide the local butchers with slaughter stock, and in order to enable the farmers to obtain breeding stock and trek oxen.

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 16th February.