Mr. Speaker, I wish to say a few words in connection with the action of the Government over the explosion in Pretoria. I think the attitude the Government has adopted in regard to the persons who were physically injured by the explosion, is, in the circumstances, quite a fair one, but I want to express my disappointment about the action of the Government on the dismissal of the people affected. There were 600 European employees and 1,000 natives, and immediately after the explosion these people were paid a month’s wages and given notice. This is the most serious disaster we have had inside the Union since the war commenced, and the Government has given a very ungenerous example in dealing with the victims. The other day the Minister of Economic Development was present at the opening of a factory in Cape Town which had been burnt down, and he praised the owners of the factory, at the re-opening ceremony, because during rebuilding they paid their employees their wages every Friday, and I draw a comparison between that and the action of the Government in dismissing these employees whom they had used during the five years of war, on a payment of one month’s wages. I do not think the action of the employees has been unfair in requesting that they should be paid £8 a month from the Government until employment can be found. It will only affect about 200 persons, and I ask the Government to do something to meet this reasonable request. I think the policy of the Government as declared in the newspapers that it would do everything in its power to secure employment for these people is perfectly right, and it is only a small step further to say that during the next three or four months we will continue to pay you a portion of your wages so that you won’t be thrown on the streets. Then there is another question, and that is in regard to the control of prices in Pretoria. There has been a wage determination in Pretoria which places the wages of the unskilled workers at 6s. 9d. a day. One industry had in consequence been obliged to incur an additional annual expenditure of £30,000, and they went to the Price Controller and asked whether they could be allowed to increase the price of their commodity, building materials, to the public, to cover this additional cost. That request was refused. But on wages of employees of the coal distributors being increased, involving an extra expenditure of £400 a month, their representatives went to the Controller and asked whether they could increase the price of coal to consumers, and he complied readily and increased it by £1,000 a month. That is the type of thing which has made the country disgusted with price control and I hope that as soon as the opportunity arises, the system of price control will disappear and the old system of competition will be reverted to. An article has recently been publised in the “South African Journal of Economics” by Prof. Herbert Frankel, in which there appears a comparison of the national income of South Africa before the war and 1943. A table shows that the greatest source of national income in the Union now is not the gold mining industry, which is estimated to produce £92,000,000 of the national income, but the manufacturing industry which during 1942-’43 produced £106,000,000, and in addition to that there was the payment in cash and kind to the Defence Force of £58,000,000 of the national income. Unless provision is made for the maintenance of our industries at that figure and to replace the £58,000,000 paid in cash and kind to the Defence Force, we are bound to have a very serious decrease in the national income, and although we are glad to see that there is no additional taxation in the Budget, I was disappointed that no indication was given as to how these deficiencies were to be made up.

The hon. member who has just spoken criticised the action of the Government in connection with the discharge of male and female workers at the Pretoria Mint where the accident took place, and he stated that the Government had not acted reasonably. I cannot see what else the Government could have done. This matter has a much bigger scope than it appears to have. It is not only a question of the workers who are directly concerned at the Mint and the tragedy which took place there, but the workers in that factory were connected with the assembling of parts manufactured by ammunition factories. We have many other factories which are involved in the disaster: there are thousands, five thousand or six thousand, people who are affected, and all the Government did was to say that it was going to give these people a month’s salary, but we are going to institute investigations to see what can be done with them later. It is not only the five hundred or six hundred people in Pretoria, but five thousand or six thousand spread over the whole country. We immediately made investigations with a view to seeing what other provision could be made for those who are now out of employment.

Does the Government accept responsibility?

Of course, but the Government cannot definitely say in advance what measure of responsibility it will assume. That is a matter for investigation, since such large numbers of workers are involved. The Government is desirous of giving the best treatment to those who have rendered service to the country in the years which lie behind us, but it is a matter which requires serious consideration; it cannot be disposed of lightly. For that reason investigations are being made so that the decision which is arrived at can be applied to everyone who is concerned on the Rand, and not only to those who were employed at the Mint in Pretoria. I should like to say a few words today particularly in regard to the matter which the Leader of the Opposition raised, namely, the colour question, and I want to confine myself to that question and not to deal with other points because our time is limited, and this is a difficult and important matter. It will also afford me an opportunity of adding a few words in regard to matters of policy which the hon. member discussed. There is no difference of opinion in this House in regard to the importance or seriousness of the matter. We are all fully aware of the importance of the matter, but I differ from the hon. member where he takes such a pessimistic view of the future. In my opinion, although the matter is a serious and difficult one, the position is not such that we can regard the future of South Africa as being in the balance. We have overcome great difficulties and solved great problems, and although this is the greatest of all our problems, I do not think we need be afraid of the problem as far as the coloured question is concerned.

Is this not a case of the ostrich hiding his head in the sand?

I do not think so; that is not the history of the Cape. I should like us to discuss this matter seriously but to bear in mind certain things, and the first is to keep party politics out of this matter. The colour question in South Africa has its politic aspect, but in the last resort and fundamentally it is the most serious social problem of South Africa. It affects the whole structure of our community, and it is a matter which we must discuss from the broad point of view and not merely from the point of view of party politics. There is a tendency to do that. We know that attempts have been made to do it. Elections have been contested on the black danger. No progress will be made along those lines. As long as the question of colour is a football in party politics, no progress will be made, and what I am about to say will be entirely outside the sphere of party politics. I want to deal with this matter on its merits. It is too serious to drag party politics into it. I also want to say that we must keep the fear motive out of this matter. As soon as we become afraid, if we become frightened and act in panic, we are lost. I see no reason, looking at this matter calmly and objectively, why we should be afraid or why we should perhaps be intimidated to take a course which we shall regret at a later date. I am not pessimistic in regard to this matter. I take it up seriously, but I do not seé any reason why we should view the future with despair. Let me say why I say that and why that is my fundamental attitude. There are certain things in regard to which we in South Africa are all agreed, all parties, all sections, except those who are completely out of their minds, and that is that it is our firm policy and resolution to maintain the European civilisation in South Africa, to maintain it and to perpetuate it in every possible way. That is fundamental; that is the foundation on which our society in South Africa rests. For three hundred years we have been on the road—not only from today—on the road of keeping the race pure, of avoiding a hybrid nation, of obviating unnecessary intermixing between coloureds and Europeans. It is along that road that we have reached the standpoint we adopt today. It is something of which we can be proud. South Africa has done something, has contributed something in its history which is of world importance. It strikes one all the more when one bears in mind what happened in other countries. We know what happened to the Dutch settlement in Ceylon, to the Dutch settlement in the West Indies; we know what happened in Africa to other settlements which were established here by other nations, settlements which have nothing to show today of the European civilisation of which we laid the foundation in this country. I feel therefore that we have done something of which we cannot only be proud, but which we want to maintain in the future. We are all determined in this country to maintain that. We started on a small scale and the growth of the population from outside has not been big. Today we have a population of 2,250,000 which is playing a rôle in the world, which is a shining light on the continent of Africa, which is of the greatest value and importance. Since we have done that for three hundred years already, I see no reason why we need fear that a sudden big change will come about, that the final curtain will come down and that we will come to an end. On the contrary, the position is improving. You see, the colour question is a serious one. When one looks at the position in South Africa, one notices that the colour question is linked up with the past, when our people did not pay such careful attention to this matter, when they were not as sensitive about race purity as we are today. The colour question is confined largely to the old Cape; where the position in earlier years was different to the present position and in those days the people did not look at this matter in the same light. But what happened later? Since that time three States have been established in South Africa. During the past hundred years or more three new States have been established, and there is no colour question in those States as we have it here. That is indicative of the fact that feelings have become intensified. There is a stronger feeling in connection with the colour question in South Africa which has prevented the occurrence in the new states of what happened in the old Cape. We are keeping our European race pure and neither in the Transvaal nor in the Free State nor in Natal have we got the problem with which we are faced here as a result of laxity and as a result of the action which was taken in the past. The whole tendency, therefore, is in the direction of the maintenance of the European civilisation, to keep our race pure. As long as that is the foundation on which we stand and act, I am not afraid that we shall not be able to solve the other questions of policy which will arise from our racial problems. I say that because I do not want the attitude, which is almost one of despair, which was adopted by the Leader of the Opposition to take root in South Africa, because it introduces a spirit of pessimism amongst the people which, in my opinion, is not justified. The European population has every reason to be proud of its achievements, of the position it has attained; the manner in which the race has been kept pure. We want to continue to maintain that, whatever the future policy of the country may be. When we come to a discussion of the policy which lies ahead, the practical steps which are to be taken, it calls for a slight analysis of the position. The Hon. Leader of the Opposition spoke in general terms in regard to the coloured question. But when we analyse the position, we find that we have the coloured question in the Cape, the Indian question in Natal, and throughout the whole South Africa we have the native question. The same policy is not suited in every respect to all three sub-sections of the coloured question. I want to go into the three aspects of the coloured question as briefly as possible in ordér to see what is possible practically and what we can do, and what course can be adopted, as we on this side of the House see it. The colour question in the Cape is the inheritance of an old policy. It has been passed on from the days when there was not such a strong feeling as there is today, from the days when white and black, or let me rather say white and brown, lived together. No dividing line was drawn between them, either by the church or the State. That is the position which existed in the old Cape and of which we still have this inheritance in the form of the colour question, as we call it. It is a position which has been built up over a long period; it took centuries, and we cannot solve it in one day or even in one generation. We cannot in one day and in one generation rectify the whole position and place it on a sound footing.

That is the result of the British regime.

It will take time for our nation to outgrow that inheritance.

What would be the correct position?

I am coming to it if the hon. member will give me an opportunity. The segregation policy of the late Gen. Hertzog did not contemplate the inclusion of the coloured populatiion of the Cape. The segregation policy, as framed by Gen. Hertzog, as investigated by Parliament, and as accepted later, was not intended to apply to the coloured population. It was to have applied to the natives only, and the segregation policy, as laid down nine years ago, did not affect the political rights or the economic position of the coloured population in the Cape. There was never a colour bar, nor is there a colour bar in the Cape today. The coloured population in the Cape, therefore, has always been treated on a different basis as compared with the other coloured races in the country. Up to yesterday, even according to the plans of the old Nationalist Party, and under the policy of Gen. Hertzog, it was never the intention to apply the segregation policy to them, and today they are still in that separate position. I want to say this as far as the coloured population is concerned that we have a great and particular responsibility towards them, a greater responsibility than we have towards the other sections of the nonEuropean population. To me it is clear that we ought to deal very carefully with this position which has come into existence over a period of years and which has taken firm root, that we must deal carefully with old inherited rights which these people value very much. We must be very careful in interfering with that position, and where it can be avoided, we must avoid it. In my opinion the coloured population during the past fifty years, as far as my recollection goes, has progressed in a manner which is really astounding. There are certain members amongst them who have been left behind. There is the liquor question and other matters which retard their development and undermine their position. But to me it is one of the most gratifying signs to see how the Cape coloured people have progressed and improved their lot, how they have paved their way through the world. One cannot go about in the province, in the big cities and in the country, without being favourably impressed by the progress which they have made. When one knows where they stood fifty years ago, as I can remember them when I was still a young man, and one sees where they stand today, one cannot help feeling that these are people whom one would not like to push aside and oppress. Give them every chance. We have allowed them to attain the position which they occupy today; let us be careful not to undermine that position.

But does it matter whether there is separation or not?

The crux of the question is the mixed residential areas, and on that point the position has been completely changed. That is one of the sound developments which has come about with the advent of time, and in that connection public opinion changes surprisingly soon. Take any small town, or even the cities of the Cape Province. We notice that the position has improved a great deal in comparison with the position in the past. Take a university town like Stellenbosch. I remember that in my young days Europeans and non-Europeans lived together in many parts of the town. Take a street like Dorp Street. The one house was occupied by Europeans, the next house by coloureds, and so on. That was the position in the best parts of the town. What is the position there today? Stellenbosch is building new suburbs; new suburbs have come into existence and those new suburbs are occupied by coloured persons only or Europeans only. Europeans and coloureds do not live together. In the new parts we have the principle of separate residential areas, without any legislation or compulsion in that connection. Public opinion has altered the position and brought about this great improvement. In my opinion the correct course to follow is not to force matters unnecessarily. We must not take steps which will do more harm than good, but we must arrange matters in such a way by means of our housing schemes that the sorting out of the population, where Europeans and non-Europeans still live together, will be accomplished in a natural way. We have legislation in connection with slums. We are spending millions of pounds, and we are still going to spend more millions, with a view to improving the position. Townships and residential areas are being established at the expense of the State, and there the sorting out takes place, because the plans are framed in such a way that the population is sifted, and within a generation or two we shall have made good progress along those lines. Once that process of sorting out has been in operation for one or two generations, we shall have gone a long way in solving this problem without having used any compulsion, without having given offence, and without having taken away anyone’s rights. In that way we can rectify the whole position.

Is that not a policy of despair?

No, that is the policy which we on this side of the House advocate, to allow such a sifting or sorting out process to continue amongst the people, by applying the Slums Act and by erecting housing schemes, and in that way to rectify the position without causing unnecessary harm or quarrelling.

That will take 300 years.

No, things move rapidly. It may have taken three hundred years for the old condition to be built up, but with the surprising changes which are taking place and with the forces which are now at work, it will go quickly if we adopt this policy, without interfering with existing rights and without using compulsion. In that way we shall accomplish what we want to accomplish and very little harm will be done. That is our policy with reference to the coloured question of the Cape Province. I now pass to the Indian question in Natal. That is quite a different matter. I do not want to discuss the Indian question in Natal in detail today.

You have not touched on the question of the franchise.

Yes, I have; it falls under the segregation policy. Gen. Hertzog was prepared to go further and to apply that policy in the North as well.

Must we always adhere to that policy?

Our policy is not to alter the franchise in any way. That is quite clear. As far as the Indian question is concerned, I do not want to discuss the position in detail. It is a very big question and it has many aspects which are not relevant here. But I want to discuss the question as it affects society quite apart from the high politics involved in the matter. What is the difficulty in Natal? The burning problem in Natal, the crux of the problem there is that just as in the case of the Cape, Indians and Europeans live together and are thrown together in the same areas. That position arose, specially in Durban, which is the biggest centre, because sperate areas or territories were never set aside for the Indians to live in. In Durban we have a population of something like 200,000, very nearly 100,000 Europeans and 100,000 Indians, and to a large extent they are still living in the same residential areas in which they have lived in the past two generations. The Indians advance that as the reason for the existing state of affairs. They say they have never been given any land on their own by the local authorities, where they could build separate residential areas for themselves. No provision was made for them to have separate areas. And that is true. We know that there was very great laxity on the part of the European authorities with the result that today, not in the same way as in the Cape but in a different way, we have practically reached the same state of affairs there as we have here, namely, the intermixing of Indians and Europeans. That is the crux of the matter. I am convinced, after the discussions which I have had with both sides in connection with this matter, that if we can rectify that position and if we can give sufficient land for housing to the poor classes of the Indians, just as in the case of coloured persons in the Cape, and if we can set aside areas for them where the decent and privileged Indians can erect their own homes, we shall have solved the whole Indian question to a large extent.

In Natal you have the Pegging Act in connection with the Indians; if the position is the same as it is in the Cape, why have we not got a Pegging Act here?

I do not regard it as necessary to have a Pegging Act in connection with the coloured people in the Cape.

Why not?

It is simply unnecessary. This is a matter which we have inherited from the past, and we must deal with it leniently and patiently.

Why then is it being done in Natal?

In Natal there was a serious danger which had to be dealt with locally. The Act was introduced there in order to give us an interval to find a solution arid we are still busy with that solution, under which it will be possible to sort out the Indian population and the European population in Durban. The possibility is there. During the past twelve months I thought we had come near a solution of the problem, but difficulties arose and legislation was passed, by the Provincial Council which was on lines rather different to those contemplated. That legislation ultimately came before the Government and on the advice of the law advisers, who stated that this legislation was ultra vires, we had the position that the three provincial ordinances which were passed last year, could not be confirmed by the Government because the law advisers felt that they were ultra vires, and their advice seemed to be sound. We are therefore in this position that we have to solve this question in Durban and elsewhere in Natal in a manner which will apparently be open to doubt in a court of law if we want to do it on the strength of those three provincial ordinances. The Government now proposes to bring about the necessary amendments to the Housing Acts during this Session, so that what the Provincial Councils found it impossible to do can now be done by the Government by introducing legislation in this House to grant powers for the expropriation of property a step which is necessary in order to get areas for housing schemes, where the policy which I mentioned here can be applied. What could not be done by the Provincial Council we shall now do by means of Parliamentary legislation, in regard to which there can be no doubt. I feel that it will be possible to tackle the question along those lines and possibly to find a solution. It is difficult because in recent times emotions have been aroused to such an extent as a result of the dissension which existed there, that it is very much more difficult to handle this question than it is to solve the coloured question in the Cape. I think it will be possible to pass the necessary legislation which, through the Union Parliament, will grant the necessary powers of expropriation and with which we shall then get the necessary areas for the housing of Indians and other sections in Durban.

To what extent do the Natal ordinances differ from the Pretoria Agreement?

I shall not go into those things now. It covers a large number of points which will take too long to discuss now, and in any event this decision was taken on the advice of the law advisers. This legislation cannot be approved because it is ultra vires, and the legislation which, in our opinion could have been passed by the Provincial Council, will now have to be passed by this Parliament, and we shall still have it done during this Session. In that way I think it will be possible to solve the residential areas question for Europeans and Indians in Natal. They will then have the same powers in Natal as in other parts of the country to set aside residential areas where the various sections of the population can live. There is no doubt that if that is done, there will be a sifting process. The Indians will go to the areas set aside for them; the Europeans would not want to go to those areas but will live in their own areas. In that way there will be a natural and reasonable solution of the problem, a solution which we could not find otherwise.

Without compulsion?

Does that also apply to business stands?

No, it only deals with the question of residential areas. I regard that as the root of the matter. It is the question of mixed residential areas, of intermixing which gives rise to all the unpleasantness and friction which exist today. If the various sections can once live apart, if we can set aside places for the Indians where they can live in their own area and develop in their own area, a great deal of the friction which exists at the present time will automatically disappear. I now pass to the third section of the colour question, namely the natives. This question leads to great difficulties and has given us more trouble in the past than the others. It is not a question of residential areas only. It has been the practice from olden days that Europeans and natives do not live in the same residential area. That system has always existed but here we were faced with another and a greater difficulty in the policy which we had to frame for the country. We know in what circumstances the Segregation Act of Gen. Hertzog was passed nine years ago, namely that more land had to be bought for the natives and granted to them. They had to get more land in addition to the land which they already had in the reserves. The idea was that the natives were to develop along their own lines in their own territorities, in a manner suited to their traditions and their past. For that purpose it was necessary to buy more land to be added to the reserves. Greater areas of land were given to the natives and a separate political system was established for them under which they would have their own franchise and, to a certain extent, control of their own affairs. That is a very much more extensive policy than the policy we had with reference to the coloured persons in the Cape and the Indians in Natal. That legislation was passed nine years ago and many people thought that that would lead to a solution of the native problem. Those Acts were passed in 1936 and many people felt that the native question in South Africa would be solved along those lines. But the native problem is not a static question; it is something which changes rapidly from day to day, and although we thought nine years ago that we had done a good thing and that we had chosen a firm policy for the future which would probably solve the native question, were were very soon disillusioned. We have now got to the position where the Hon. Leader of the Opposition is re-opening the whole question and pointing out a position which, in his opinion, is no less dangerous than it was nine years ago. Although the Acts which were passed at that time dealt with certain aspects of the native question, it did not deal with other aspects, and during the past nine years those aspects have assumed serious proportions. The position in the country has changed tremendously and that position has had its reaction on the native question. This country has more and more become an industrial country and is still more and more becoming an industrial country industrialisation in this country during the past ten or twenty years has gone ahead at an astounding rate. We no longer have the old position in South Africa where the natives lived in their reserves and then went out to work in the mines, to work in the cities and also on the farms. Along with the development of industries and with the industrialisation of the country which had a devastating affect on the conditions which existed up to that time, there has been a national migration in the country. We have seen that in the case of the Europeans. Europeans are leaving the platteland on a great scale. Young people go to the cities where they believe they will be able to make a better living in industries. The natives are doing the same on a tremendous scale, on a scale which we did not witness nine or ten years ago. That has created a totally new position in the conutry, and that is the position with which we have to contend today. It has been unavoidable. You see, our country is becoming an industrial country. Industries are arising on a great scale. It has taken place on an even greater scale during the war. As a result of all these activities there has been an expansion of opportunities of employment and the wages which are being paid represent an attraction to the native population as well as the European population, with the result that larger numbers of natives are drawn to the cities. That is a natural development. It will continue to take place on an increasing scale. The more the country is industrialised, the more it becomes an industrial country, the greater will be the influx of white and black from all parts of the country to those industries. That is unavoidable. The Planning Council told us in its first report that not only was that going to happen, but that it was a good thing. They stated that unless South Africa emloyed all its human and natural resources it was not going to achieve its destiny and attain that level of developmént which we all contemplate. We shall need all our powers in South Africa to accomplish the task which is ahead of us in connection with our industrial expansion. I am convinced, when people speak of employment and say that there will not be sufficient work for our peole, that the position will be the reverse and that we will find it difficult to get the necessary work done. White and black, everyone will be needed, and we shall not have enough. The war has naturally led to a great measure of development. Not only has the enlistment of natives in the armed forces absorbed large numbers of them, but a greater number has flocked to industries which have come into existence in connection with the war. Here in the Cape Peninsula and everywhere in South Africa, the industries require large labour forces. Great industries have developed and they need labour. The natives can get higher wages and better conditions in the industries and they feel that they can make a better living if they come to the industries.

But there are three times as many as we need.

That is the problem with which we have to contend in this country in the new state of affairs for which no one is responsible. That state of affairs, which leads to a richer and bigger South Africa, also brings these difficulties in its wake. It brings about an unheaval in the social and economic spheres, such as that which is going on at the present moment. We must look at these new problems of South Africa—and there is a whole series of them—and decide what is the best thing to do to arrange matters in such a way that every section of our national activities will get the labour it requires. We must see that the industries get the labour they need, without reaching a position which becomes intolerable. The problem is a fairly big one. Take the platteland. You see, to a large extent the natives have been the farm labourers in South Africa. In the Western Province coloured persons have mostly been employed, but in the rest of South Africa natives have been employed. They are now going to the cities and industries where they get better pay and which are more attractive to them in every way. It will be realised that if this development continues to take place at the present rate, it might easily become a tragedy for agriculture.

It is already a tragedy.

No, it is not a tragedy yet. No, my hon. friend is going too fast. But there is no doubt, as I see the matter, that the upheaval which is taking place, the national migration which is taking place, if it continues at this rate, will place agriculture in a very difficult position, and that it may lead to a tragedy as far as agriculture is concerned. That is one of the things which we must face. I can say that this matter is receiving the Government’s attention. I may say that in the past few months the Government has been discussing the question with the agricultural unions and various bodies to see what can be done. Two remedies are suggested, but my own opinion is that there is not sufficient co-operation amongst our farming community to tackle this question on the lines it was tackled by the mines. The mines were in the same position and are still in a very difficult position today, but they were strong enough to establish an Organisation which could cope with the question of the recruitment of labour and the distribution of labour. The farmers are not in a position to do that. They are struggling; there is not sufficient co-operation.

They are too poor.

No, it is not a question of their being too poor. It is a question of prdper co-operation. My hon. friend knows how difficult it is to get the farms on the platteland to co-operate in any respect and that is one of the most difficult, one of the most thorny questions to be tackled, and it is clear to me that the Government will have to intervene, that the Government will have to do what it did in the industrial sphere, namely, to assist in the establishment of industries which could not otherwise be established. The Government will have to take steps to come to the assistance of the farmers by seeing whether the Government cannot help to create an organisation for the recruitment of farm labour and the division of farm labour.

What steps do you propose to take?

These are matters which are now being discussed with the unions. Take the national migration to which I referred a moment ago. That does not only apply to the Union, but to other parts as well. South Africa is the magnet of attraction to the whole southern Africa. The natives come here from all territories, from Nyasaland, from Rhodesia, from Angola; South Africa is the magnet.

The facilities are there. The borders are open.

There is an idea overseas that we treat our natives badly and that we do not do justice to the black, man, but that statement is refuted by the fact that we are the magnet.

They come here to draw pensions.

They come here in order to get employment and better wages than they get in their own territories. There it is difficult for the Government to intervene, not so much in the case of our internal labour forces, which are difficult to control, but owing to the influx to this country; there the Government probably has a chance to regulate the labour, to direct it in channels which will bring it to the farmer, and I think it will be possible for us along those lines to come to the assistance of large sections of our farming population in South Africa. Thousands and tens of thousands of natives come from the north to the Transvaal, young people who cannot be employed on the mines, but who can be used on the farms, where they will be much better off, and in my opinion, if an organisation existed on those lines, the difficulty with which the farmers have to contend today could be solved to a great extent.

Will those measures still be introduced this Session?

No, these are not measures. I think they are administrative matters in regard to which the Government is now consulting with the various unions. I do not think any legislation is required. It is a question of administration. The Government has fairly extensive powers.

Poor South Africa.

I have discussed the farming aspect, but now we come to the cities to which the influx is taking place and where the services of these people are either necessary or not necessary for industries or employment in the cities. And here even greater problems arise than on the farms where this labour is required. One can take the Peninsula as an example and compare the figures of natives who came here before the war years with those who are coming here today, and one finds that those figures are alarming. The result is that the local authorities are at their wits’ end; they do not know what to do with the tremendous accumulation. The natives, when they come here, do not know where to find employment. They remain idle and there is a looseness, a slackness in the whole system which must be tackled now. I merely mention the Peninsula as an example. It happens everywhere. In Johannesburg and everywhere else we have the same position that as a result of this influx, this uncalled for, uncontrolled influx of natives from all parts, internally and externally, a problem is created which is beyond the power and control of the local authorities. They do not know what to do. I want to mention the case of Langa which was discussed here. Our plan to establish depôts at Langa, where we will deal with the question, has been criticised in this debate. You see, the whole idea of the Government is to tackle this problem. When the native comes to the Peninsula to seek employment, which is now happening on a colossal scale, we want him to go to a definite place, to a definite organisation, to be sent to a definite organisation, to be dealt with there, to be under control so that if there is no work for him or if he cannot get employment, he can be sent back. Today it is impossible …

Why do you not prevent them from coming when they have no employment?

That is difficult. My hon. friend will realise that it is difficult to prevent a man from coming to the Cape to look for work. It is an impracticable measure. We would have to do it throughout the whole country and we would have to call into being administrative machinery for that purpose, which is not possible. It is very much better to create the bottle-neck here. The native comes here to look for employment in a big centre, and here we can get hold of him. Here he comes under the control of the administration and if employment cannot be found for him, or if he cannot obtain employment, we have control of him and he can be sent back to the place from which he came.

Whý not establish a depôt or a labour bureau in the native territory itself?

*The PRIME MINISTER, You see, there are so many native territories, and these people do not only come from the native territories but from the farms, from all parts. The only place where you can get hold of them is at the bottle-neck.

They come by train.

Before you reach the “neck” the “bottle” is broken.

It is difficult to ask a person who buys a railway ticket in Victoria West, for example: “Have you got employment?” He replies: “No, but I am going to look for work in the Cape.” Well, you cannot reply to that. Why should the man, because he has a black skin not have the same opportunities as anyone else to come and look for employment? The only place where it is practical to apply such a measure is here. We know what employment is offering is here. If he cannot get employment here, we can send him back.

At State expense?

It is going to entail expense, undoubtedly, but that is the cheapest method. It is better than to have depôts throughout the whole country and to create a system which will require tremendously extensive administrative machinery. Here we can concentrate it and the idea is to concentrate it as such places where it can be done most cheaply. With regard to the natives who are here, they should fall under our housing scheme, and those housing schemes are being worked out and will be carried out, and we hope that in the course of time we shall be able to see that there is proper housing for the natives who come here and who are required for work in the industries, who are required for the development of the country in certain specified places, so that they will not be idle and get up to mischief.

Will they be given title to the land on which the housing scheme is built?

No, it is just a question of residence; it is only a question of residential areas. That will have to be done everywhere, in Durban, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. Provision will have to be made everywhere on a very large scale, because it will not only be in respect of people who are required for labour at the present time; I assume it will also be in respect of people who will help to develop the country industrially. They must be given a chance and they will be given a chance, but it is entirely beyond the Government’s power. Our whole policy is to see that we have the necessary financial means so that housing plans can be evolved for all classes and so that we shall have a decent controlled society instead of a state of confusion.

Will it be compulsory for them to live apart?

Naturally. The man will have to live where he is told to live.

If the redundant people are sent away, what will prevent them from returning?

Perhaps the hon. member can assist with plans. It is a difficult question. It is a difficult question which faces South Africa. It is a question which demands investigation, and in respect of which we have to help one another. I do not regard it as a party or political question. It is a big social question which goes to the root of our whole economy in South Africa, and we shall have to give a great deal of attention to it. It may be that it will take us years to find the right road, but I say let us seek the right road, let us tackle these things. We cannot allow these things merely to develop as they are doing now, thereby bringing about a position which will later become a scourge to South Africa. The problem in the big cities is becoming very difficult. There is the young native who has to be educated; there are the vagrants; there are those who fall into the hands of people who mislead them—because there are dangerous people amongst them—and I want to sound this note of warning today. It is difficult to get hold of these people, because we have to act in terms of the law. We prosecute, but we have not always got the right evidence, and even where there is evidence which, in the opinion of the police, is edequate, the magistrate still has his own opinion in regard to the matter, and it is very difficult to get hold of these people, but there is no doubt that there are numbers of persons, some of them Europeans—the majority are natives—who spread a doctrine—call it Communism, call it what you like; I do not know what type of doctrine it is…

Let us call it Communism.

Call it National Socialism; call it Fascism. These doctrines find their way to this country from overseas, doctrines which have a destructive influence not only on the European population—and not so much on the European population— but particularly on the ignorant native people who are not equal to it. We shall have to be on the alert, and if things go on at this rate, the Government will have to take steps. We have a law in terms of which we can say to the man: “You are dangerous here; you are dangerous in Johannesburg; we shall have to put you at …

At Robben Island.

… at Robben Island.

Or Swellendam.

Swellendam is a good place; it will provide company for my hon. friend.

Why not Standerton?

No, Standerton gives us no trouble. I say this as a warning to the public that it is impossible to let these things go on in this way. The doctrines are being preached which are dangerous. It may start among the Europeans. It starts amongst the workers in the factories; it starts in the atmosphere of the cities, but very soon it switches over to the natives and the result is that they learn the wrong lesson. They learn the wrong lesson better and much more easily than the good lesson; and one notices conditions arising which are a source of danger and against which we must guard. We must not allow a licentious, chaotic condition to develop in South Africa, nor can we allow it with the native population we have in this country. I say that as a note of warning which will have to be acted on.

You must not offend Russia.

My hon. friend says I must not offend Russia. He says it jocularly, but I have warned him in the past and I want to warn him again; he must not make jokes about matters of this kind.

But you yourself made your explosive speech.

This is a question which we shall have to treat in all seriousness. I am perturbed; I do not despair as the Hon. Leader of the Opposition does, but I am perturbed about the position of South Africa. We must not forget that we are a small community, a small European community. We are in the minority in this country and as far as Africa is concerned, we are a very small minority, and the position of South Africa on close examination is not a sound firm position. It is a position in connection with which we must be on our guard.

You started by saying that you were not perturbed.

No, I am not unperturbed, but I do not despair. We shall always have to keep the position of South Africa in mind. We must retain the friendship of the world outside. We must have friends in the world. South Africa is one of the most vlunerable points in the world and the war has shown us how easily our position may become endangered, and whatever the future world organisation may be, I am in favour of our acting very cautiously and keeping an eye on South Africa, because South Africa is one of the most vulnerable points of the European civilisation in the world today. Our numbers are small. We must be cautious. I do not know whether the time is not arriving when we shall have to take into review our ideas in regard to the question of immigration. We must strengthen the European nation of South Africa. The whole world is on the march; South Africa is also on the march.

We have not got enough work for our own people; why should we import people?

We shall have to strengthen our European foundation in South Africa. Fortunately we are one of the countries with the greatest birth-rate, but I do not know whether it will remain so, and in any event our numbers are so small that we shall have to keep our eyes open for dangers which may arise in the future. We shall have to keep our eyes open for conditions which may cost us the friendship of other countries. I am in favour of our cooperating on a friendly basis with other countries overseas and making the European population as strong as possible. I say that with no ill-feeling towards the natives or towards any other section of the community. I stand for peace and friendship and cooperation. I am all in favour of a good spirit. I do not think we shall ever make a success of South Africa if there is a feeling of enmity or strong friction amongst the various sections of our European population and the coloured persons. South Africa will find her future, the great future for which she is destined only on a basis of hearty co-operation and of human co-operation in South Africa amongst all colours. For that reason I am in favour of dealing with this question with which we are faced on a basis which will not shock the feelings of people outside, a basis which will not shock public opinion in this country or overseas, which will not give rise to a feeling of injustice in the mind of the coloured person or the native. I am in favour of acting humanly in every way, on a Christian basis; of upholding the ethical conceptions of our nation, and I should like to see that we make our way through the world in a manner which will lead to success and which will bring about hearty co-operation in this country. There is no reason for despair. There is no reason for concern about the future, as long as we do our duty and do justice towards all sections of our community and do our best to solve practical questions in a practical and resaonable manner.

Laissez faire.

I am sorry I detained the House so long, but I thought it was necessary to explain these few points of our practical policy, in reply to what was said by the Hon. Leader of the Opposition.

The Prime Minister concluded his speech as he began, and though lie said everything he said nothing. At the commencement of his speech he said he had absolutely no anxiety and he rounded it off by by stating that he was very anxious. At the outset he was not in the least concerned over the whole affair; but in the end he was very concerned over it, and the sum total of the Prime Minister’s speech is this, the old and well-known policy of “let things slide!” He also announced here that the policy of the present Government amounts finally to this, that there is no policy. Let things just take their course. But he also went so far as to place the result of that clearly before the country, and it is that that “let things slide” policy of his on every occasion comes to this, that when he wants to tackle the business it is already too late and he is unable to take measures. I want to give an example of the policy of allowing things to slide. On every occasion when the matter has been discussed in this House the Minister has said one of two things. He is allowing things to develop of their own accord, or alternatively he says: “You are too hasty with the matters you are proposing”. That is what he has done right through. I will mention an instance. When the Women’s Franchise Bill was before the House in 1928, when on this side of the House it was very strongly held that the vote should not be given inter alia to native women, he said: “You are too hasty”. He came here and made accusations in his speech to conceal his errors, that the late Gen. Hertzog amongst others was at that time in favour of the vote for coloured women, but at that time he himself was in favour of the vote for native women. I put it to him, is that still his view? The hon. member for Pretoria (Sunnyside) (Mr. Pocock) yesterday stated in this House that they were too “broadminded”, and apparently they are still too “broadminded”. But as the Prime Minister himself brought this matter up may I refresh his memory. I am quoting now from his speech in Hansard of 1928 (Vol. 10, Column 1660). At that time there was an amendment proposed by the then member for Graaff-Reinet (Mr. I. P. van Heerden) and in that amendment he proposed that the word “European” should be inserted. This is what the Prime Minister stated—

But when this side of the House said at that time: “Do not give those native women the vote”, he replied that was being too hasty and he advocated the vote for native women. Who was right at that time, this side of the House or that side? The Prime Minister made a very nice appeal for us to keep this question out of politics, and now I want to put the test to him. He has the Pegging Act in Natal. He is absolutely agreeable to apply it in Natal because the Indians have not the vote there. But in the Cape he is not prepared to apply it, because here the coloureds have the vote. What now of his appeal to keep this matter out of politics? Right throughout he is protecting the vote that goes to his side. I want to put the question to the Prime Minister: “If we now apply the test that we should keep this question outside the arena of party politics, if we should come with a proposition from this side of the House on matters affecting this question, will he permit members on this side of the House to vote as they wish to and to vote as they feel? I desire to put this to him in order to test his sincerity. If we, as we have done in the past, propose from this side of the House that the coloured person should be placed on a separate voters’ roll, will he permit his people on the other side of the House, to vote as they want to and as they feel? I ask the Prime Minister to answer how on this; he will not, he dare not; he wants to make use of the coloured vote for his purposes. I want to put another question to him. The Prime Minister has stated here it is the task of South Africa to keep our white blood pure for the future— but let the matter take its own course. I want to ask him this: When the commission of enquiry in connection with mixed marriages recommended that a stop should be put to mixed marriages by legislation, what was his standpoint? What is his standpoint now? Is he prepared to say that he will carry out that recommendation of the commission, and that he will make an end of the mixed marriages that are causing a mongrel race in South Africa. It is a test of his sincerity. He dare not do it. I want to return now to the whole question, and I would just say this, that this is the angle from which we should tackle this question. South Africa’s greatest weal or South Africa’s deepest woe hangs together with the way in which this question will be tackled in the immediate future and solved, and if the position is serious and it has to be tackled and it has to be solved, then do it now. This problem is a growing problem. I put this candid question to hon. members on the other side of the House. If you compare the present state of the relationship between European and non-European with the position a little while ago, has the position become worse of has it become better? And right throughout the country there comes cries from Natal, from the Free State, from the Transvaal and from the Cape: “You must now put an end to this, you must stop this penetration that is occurring, otherwise difficulties are going to arise.” The Prime Minister said the position has improved. There are only one of two possible courses for a solution. There is no middle way. The question we have to ask is just this. Should there be separation or should there not be separation? This is the whole question and if we do not solve that problem, if we do not effect that separation the result will be friction, and that absence of separation will occasion collisions as it has occasioned collisions in the past and as it is causing collisions today. Now I should like to submit a few general propositions. The one is that of late there has taken place an unprecedented penetration by non-Europeans as against Europeans. Neither the Prime Minister nor anyone else on that side of the House will succeed by nice smooth phrases in convincing the general public that an unprecedented penetration has not occurred. The Government on those benches are quite impotent. The agitation is coming from the side of the non-Europeans, and the Ministers are being overwhelmed. The Government is being overwhelmed and it gives in, and that yielding is imposing more and more financial burdens on the shoulders of the European population. The administrative costs and everything that is expended from the Treasury of the European taxpayer is day by day mounting higher at a tremendous rate, and the white man has to foot the bill. My last proposition is this, that this state of affairs —that we observe unfolding in South Africa today is alarming, as the Prime Minister at the conclusion of his speech, himself admitted. He is also uneasy now. That state of affairs is to be ascribed to the unprecedented penetration that is occurring in South Africa. Now I want to apply a few tests. I want to apply the test of the penetration of non-Europeans in the sphere of Europeans in South Africa, and in this connection I wish to cite a few examples. In recent times non-Europeans have penetrated into our manufacturing industries to an extent never previously experienced. We have sounded warnings against that year after year, and in defiance of the warnings the position has not improved but has deteriorated. Last year we uttered a warning, but our warning was flouted. The hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans) heard what we had to say. He did not believe it and he went to see for himself and make enquiries. What was his opinion and what was his finding, as he himself described it, after he paid a visit to the factories on the Rand? There are 3,500 factories on the Rand, and he visited a number of them. This was his finding—

Then he gives his summing up. The whole affair is a revolting mix-up.

What is your policy?

The hon. member for Losberg continues—

Factory No. 3. Here there are only a few white women.

What does the hon. member for Losberg say—

Then the hon. member for Losberg says in that article that he would like to speak on the matter in Parliament, and he concludes his testimony—

That is the position that is developing in our manufacturing industries, and the Prime Minister has never said a word about it. There must be separation.

How are you going to get it?

That is the position that the hon. member for Losberg has described, one that is evolving, and I want to say at once what is the cause of all the difficulties. A congress of the Garment Workers’ Union was held in Johannesburg on the 23rd August, 1942.

A national conference.

Yes, a conference of the Garment Workers’ Union, and in the journal “The Garment Worker” of September, 1942 a report of the conference is published, and the resolutions were given. It was stated that 20,000 people were represented at that conference. The opening address was given by Mr. A. A. Moore, who inter alia said— [Retranslation]

When we talk about colour differences it is prejudice; he went on—

Absolute equality, also in the social sphere. Then the famous Mr. Solly Sacks expressed his attitude. He said that the trade union should be strengthened, and if it was to be made strong enough that could only be done if they all stood together irrespective of race. Then there should be no division on race lines. There are 13,000 Europeans and 7,000 non-Europeans and they must stand together to fight the social enemy. What is being done by the Government to put a stop to this propaganda? No, they are depending on the votes of these people. The following statement was made by a certain person—

All in the one—

This is equality to which he refers, no distinction, they have to eat together, they must be together. Then Miss K. Viljoen said—

Then Miss F. Johns said—

Equality. In the same congress a native, a certain Bakakeni, said—

Are these not reasons to feel disturbed over the position in our country? What Europeans with self-respect, what women with self-respect can move about on Cape Town station today? As a result of natives crowding on the station one can hardly draw breath properly, and they jostle you at the trains. The other day I was alongside a train leaving for the Free State. It was in a part that was always meant for Europeans, but on that day so many natives were flocking there that you could hardly move. Why is not a stop put to these conditions? Why should this penetration into the European parts not be ended? Of course, the Minister of Transport says that he is not a reformer. He does not want to do anything. It goes on like that. Every Afrikaner should feel worried over the future. If measures are not taken it must end in bloody collisions. Collisions have already taken place. I want now to turn to the infiltration in the big towns, in the urban areas. Last year and the preceding year we gave a warning saying that the tremendous influx of natives to the urban areas should be stopped. What was the answer of the Minister of Native Affairs? He then accused us of indulging in mischevious speeches. He paid no heed to the warnings we gave. Last year there we 60,000 natives in the Cape Peninsula. This year the number is already 80,000, that is 20,000 more. Why was not our first warning heeded, why was the total allowed to rise to 80,000? If it rose in one year from 60,000 to 80,000 it may the following year rise to 100,000 or more. What measures are being taken by the Prime Minister to put an end to this position? We make appeals to the Prime Minister and the Government, but no notice is taken of them. On the contrary, the Prime Minister in his speech adopted an attitude which will have the effect of encouraging the influx of natives into the towns. They will be attracted to the towns, because as the Prime Minister hinted, facilities will be created for them. We clearly understood from him that the State will be responsible to take money that comes from the European taxpayers to create facilities for the natives who are already here and for those who are still coming. In the last few months various deputations of natives have interviewed the Government and they have made certain demands. They demanded that there should be a peramanent native population in the towns for whom the Europeans should care. What was the attitude and the answer of the Government? The Prime Minister said yes, they are prepared, let them come in, and when they are here we shall give the natives the privileges that they want. A deputation came, I have the data in my possession, to the Minister of Native Affairs, a deputation of natives. They asked that the Minister should see to it that money is spent for combating soil erosion in the native areas. The Minister gave the deputation a hearing and said that this would be done. I have before me the “Veldtrust” of January, 1945, in which there is an annoncement from the Secretary for Native Affairs, Mr. Smit; in which it is notified that the Government has a comprehensive scheme for the combating of soil erosion in the native areas, and it was calculated that it would cost £10,000,000 in a period of ten to twelve years. This is a promise that was given, that in the native reserves the sum of £10,000,000 would be spent for combating soil erosion.

And why not?

Why should the white man pay everything for the natives. Only the natives get the advantage of it. That is my standpoint. The expenditure that the Europeans have to incur mounts every day. I wish to remind the House and the country that when the matter of the purchase of land for natives was discussed it was stated that we should vote £10,000,000, and that we would then be able to keep the natives in their areas. What is happening now? The £10,000,000 is available for the purchase of land. Now they come along and they ask for another £10,000,000 for combating soil erosion. And does that keep the natives there? No, they stream in as quickly as the Orange River flows, from the native areas into the European areas. There was a Joint committee that approached the Government in connection with the influx of natives into Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula, and it was asserted that about 26,000 natives were needed in the Cape Peninsula and that employment could be found for them. There are 80,000 here now, more than 80,000, and the Minister simply shrugs his shoulders and says he is powerless to do anything. Why did he not listen in good time to the warnings of this side of the House? If you talk to the Minister of Native Affairs on the subject he will tell you that in the Cape Province he has not the pass system to enable him to exercise control. He cannot prevent a native joining the train at Herschel, and travelling to the Cape. But he has the pass system in the Transvaal. Why does he not apply that to the natives who are flocking to Johannesburg? The influx to Johannesburg is almost as bad as to the Cape Peninsula. The Government puts its hands up. They are powerless to do anything. I am not surprised that the Prime Minister himself has announced, bearing in mind the huge sums that are spent for services on natives just as Mr. Heaton Nicholls has announced in London, that South Africa is now the magnet for the adjoining British colonies as far as labour is concerned. Through the centuries the Afrikaner has always been accused of oppressing the nonEuropeans. That was given as the explanation for bloody collisions in our history. What are the facts? Here we have British colonies situated around South Africa and today it has to be acknowledged with shame by those colonies and by England that nowhere in the colonies are the non-Europeans and the natives so well treated as in South Africa. South Africa is the magnet that draws them. I want to make an earnest protest against the growing financial burdens that are imposed on the Europeans in order to extend the services for non-Europeans, especially in connection with natives. I have previously stated that the Minister of Finance, because he has the reins in his hands, has expended large sums and has furnished services to non-Europeans with a lavish hand. I only want to give a few examples. From 1926 to 1938 the increase that occurred in the expenditure on education in respect of the natives was 40 per cent. From 1939, since the Minister of Finance assumed control, the proportion that is taken for education from the Native Trust Fund has increased to three-fifths then to four-sixths and five-sixths, and finally to six-sixths in 1943. In the meanwhile the native right through the country is contributing to the revenue on the same old scale. During all this period their contributions have not increased.

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

When business was suspended I was pointing out that the services that are extended to our native population are steadily expanding, and that it is the white man who has to foot the bill. I want to put this question frankly to the hon. the Minister of Finance, whether he will deny that especially in the last year the amounts that have been expended for services on behalf of natives, for their education and their devolpment have been doubled and in some instances more than doubled. I shall mention Just a few figures in support of that. In the year 1937-’38 the sum of £564,000 was voted for native education. In the year 1943-’44 there was voted under the same head “Native Education” the sum of £1,104,000. It has been almost doubled. The Minister of Finance has told hon. members that the Européan with his civilisation and his higher culture must pay in order to assist the native to develop. But the European has always to pay while the native is receiving more and more services, and we say that the time has arrived when the native should be taught that he too should contribute towards those services. I applied for figures from the Department of Native Affairs, and according to those figures it appears that during the year 1938-’39 there was paid to the Native Trust an amount of £3,155,000. Of that amount the sum of £2,000,000 was intended for the purchase of land for the natives. If we deduct that it means that in the year 1938-’39 an amount of £1,1550,000 was voted for native education and development. In 1943-’44 no money was voted for land purchase, but nevertheless there was paid to the Native Trust an amount of £2,264,000. This is also almost a doubling of the amount on that part of the Vote. This morning I listened very attentively to the speech of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister. This morning the action he took was on a par with what has actually been done by the Party on the benches opposite, and by others during the past few years, namely, the holding out to the natives of a prospect of better things still to come. Extravagant promises have been made to them and these provide the stimulation for that tremendous agitation which is in progress amongst that section of the population. The services are being increased more and more and the white man has to pay for them. I want to direct attention to a similar promise that was made to the natives by the predecessor of the present Minister of Native Affairs. In 1941 the previous Minister of Native Affairs gave this promise to the urban natives; he said—

That is the prospect held out to the urban natives. Should we be surprised then, that immediately after that there should have been an uncontrolled and unparalleled influx of natives to the urban areas, an influx which got altogether out of hand and which represented a tremendous transference of population. I say that the time has arrived for the Minister of Finance to put an end to this sort of policy of granting more and more services to the natives, and to make them understand if they desire those services they must be prepared to make larger contributions to the Treasury of the country. I have already mentioned a few figures. Some £10,000,000 in addition were devoted to soil erosion and the natives will derive the benefit from this. There is also a larger education subsidy of which they gain the benefit and for which the white man must pay. There is a subsidy for native wages in the mines to the amount of £1,800,000, and the white man is paying for that. There is an influx to the urban areas with the result that new housing schemes and new locations are required; facilities of all descriptions have to be granted. The white man pays for that and the native derives the benefit. There has been an extension of health services and the white man must also put his hand in his pocket for that. The day has come when we should teach the native that if he desires those services he must make his contribution towards payment of them. At this point I should like to put another blunt question to the Minister of Finance. There is a recommendation in the report of the National Health Services Commission that if better health services could be provided to the native population the native population should also contribute their share of the cost. Is the Government in agreement with that, or is that one of the reasons why the Government rejected that report. I should like to close with this statement, that we have here to deal with a problem that we must solve and that we must look at fearlessly between the eyes. And I would end on this note, that the fact that the native today does not enjoy the franchise that he previously had and that he has not that part in the white man’s policy that he previously had, is exclusively due to the action of the old Nationalist Party and to the policy of separation that that party has consistently expounded. There is a great deal said at present on the other side of the House about a policy of separation as far as residential areas are concerned. This morning the Prime Minister also made reference to that, and I maintain that it is thanks to the conduct of the old Nationalist Party in years gone by, because that party continuously advocated separate residential areas. Public opinion is today being formed and the pubic are becoming conscious of the dangers that threaten in connection with this matter, and the fact that they today realise that this mixing must not occur and that there should be an absolute policy of separation in the country, is also to be ascribed to the realistic conduct and policy of the Nationalist Party which has been consistently followed by it throughout these years. I maintain that the fact that we have reached that stage is due to the policy of the Nationalist Party and its conduct in this House and outside. I was very interested this morning in certain statements that were made by the Prime Minister. Here in this House we have carried on one debate after the other, and from this side of the House we have pointed out in all seriousness that there is a growing communistic propaganda in the country, and we have indicated the dangers of this communistic propaganda which has specially selected as its target the non-European section of the community. I say that one member after the other on this side of the House has in the last few years pointed to those dangers, and what was the answer that we received from the other side? It has been that they do not see these dangers; that there is no such thing and that we were merely talking rubbish. The Prime Minister himself said that we saw a “gogga”, but what do we see now; this morning the Prime Minister also strained his vision. He has come here and told us at the end of his speech: “Now I am uneasy, something is coming.” Now he says that something is coming. He will not give that thing a name. I say that the fact that the Prime Minister also now sees that there is something coming is to be attributed to the action of the Nationalist Party. The Hon. the Leader of the Opposition in all earnestness put a question when he discussed this serious problem—where are we making for in the future? He put the question in all seriousness to the Prime Minister and to the people outside. In what direction are we developing today in South Africa and what are we going to do? The answer that we receive from the other side is the answer that we have been receiving all these years, that we must give matters a chance to take their own course. And should dangers loom up the Prime Minister will come to us and say: “There comes a thing.” When that time comes it may be too late to solve the problem and to repair the harm that will have been done. I will conclude by saying that if in 50 years or 100 years’ time a future generation will say in the words of the poet that the flag of the white man is still waving over our fields there will be only one party that posterity will thank for that, and that is the Nationalist Party, which has consistently stood for the policy of absolute separation between European and non-European. We are continuing along that course on this side of the House, and we can only make an appeal to members on the other side to walk with us along that road.

Mr. Speaker, in the present food crisis one would have expected the policy of the Government to have been one which did not jeopardise the interests of the public, or expose the public to the danger that is to be portended from the existence of food monopolies. But, Sir, the position for which the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Economic Development are jointly responsible, is one in which the public of this country have been exposed to the increasing danger that arises with the strengthening hold the meat monopoly has got in this country. The Minister of Agriculture embarks upon a meat scheme which has aroused the whole of the population of the Union against the foodstuff policy sought to be introduced. The Minister’s record as a non-supplier of meat is too well known to need any comment from me, but I am certainly entitled to point out the growing danger to which his policy is exposing the Union in his blind support of a meat monopoly which is strengthening its hold upon the public in every large town in the Union. His replies to recent questions have shown that in Cape Town out of 352 butcher shops 123 are under the control of the meat monopoly, which also holds 21 shops in the Johannesburg controlled area, 16 in Pretoria, nine in Durban, six in Maritzburg, six in Port Elizabeth, two in Bloemfontein and three in the East London controlled areas. In the meat scheme ten branches of the Imperial Cold Storage were used as agents, 201 as distributors and eight as cold storages for meat. That would include all the controlled areas except Kimberley. And I am advised that the manufacture of margarine is to be entrusted to the same company. That shows how for all practical purposes we are committed to this monopoly. I want now to deal with the attitude of the Minister of Economic Development, who is even more blameworthy. He has been asked repeatedly to indicate in this House what financial support is being given to the Imperial Cold Storage by the Industrial Development Corporation, a body which stands in close relationship with the Minister’s Department, being under the chairmanship of Dr. H. J. van der Bijl, and the managing directorship of Dr. Van Eck. I propose to refer to the kind of answer we are receiving in this matter from the Minister of Economic Development. I asked him what amount of capital had been voted by Parliament for the Corporation and he informed me that the amount of the capital was £2,001,000. When I wanted to know the names of the several industrial undertakings in which the Corporation has taken shares since its inception his reply was to say that—

Has anybody ever known the attitude of any Minister to be so, I will not say impertinent, but so out of place in this House? This House votes certain moneys and when this House or any member of this House demands to know how this money has been expended, he is told it is not customary. “Not customary” is the purest nonsense. We are entitled to know, and we shall know before we are very much older. As a matter of fact, this is simply treating with contempt the position in which hon. members stand in relation to this House, and if the Minister does not know his place better than to give an answer so unfitting in character, it is time he sat down to study it. The position is the Minister is obliged to give us the information. His reference to what the chairman said is quite interesting. I had read every word of the chairman’s speech even before the Minister referred to it. But it is the absence of the essential details to which we are entitled that compels me to ask for those details, and I shall ask for those details, and if necessary I shall invoke the aid of this House in calling on the Cabinet to produce these details in order to give proper emphasis to the attitude of the Minister who knows his duties in this House no better than to reply as he has done. The Minister on the 23rd February, when asked wether shares had been taken by the Corporation in the I.C.S. replied in the negative. The answer was succeeded by a sense of mistake on the part of the Minister and he certainly had the courtesy to come before us and admit his error. He said that he had made a mistake in stating that no shares had been taken. Shares had been taken, and he had a year ago informed the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) of that fact; but on that occasion he neglected to say how many shares had been taken, and he has not said so today.

Ninety-six thousand.

I accept the figure of 96,000 from the hon. member who is responsible for the interjection because he has made a study of this matter and is likely to be well informed. The attitude of the chairman of the Industrial Corporation is in line with that of the Minister of Economic Development. They seem to vie with each other in enshrouding in mystery the operations of a body that was constituted by Parliament to carry out part of the industrial policy of this country, and each one treats with contempt the wish of Parliament to know what is being done. The only disclosure that has been made is such as to fill Parliament with a want of confidence in regard to what is being done. The idea that during a food crisis we should be taking shares in a meat monopoly, that we should be enabling the owners of those shares to boost them up on the grounds that the Industrial Development Corporation has underwritten their share issue and taken 96,000 shares in the concern, is entirely foreign to the objects which Parliament had in view when they approved of the Industrial Corporation Act. I maintain that we have a right to know in every particular what sum of money has been invested by the Industrial Development Corporation in any concern whatsoever to which it has accorded its support. I want to deal with the attitude of Dr. van der Bijl, not only in regard to the Industrial Corporation but in regard to other matters which relate to the Treasury. His contempt for Treasury control is proverbial. You do not need to read very far in the Auditor-General’s report to come across indications of that contempt. In the current report we have a typical case—

A claim amounting to £7,000 in respect of interest was made provisionally. It amounted to this, that this Corporation that was building a plant on behalf of the Government was not demanding progress payment, as it should have done; it was deferring these demands because it was relying upon the understanding that it was to receive 5 per cent. interest, so the longer these demands could be deferred the bigger the amount would be, and in a surprisingly short time they claimed £7,000. The Treasury intervened and enabled a reduction to be made, as a matter of grace, down to 3½ per cent. instead of 5 per cent. interest. But when the Treasury enquired further into the matter to find out whether there was an oral agreement there was not such a thing as an oral agreement. The building of this plant went on without any agreement whatsoever; the Director of War Supplies—relied on his position of preference on both sides of the counter for being able to get his own terms, and exhibited his well-known contempt of Treasury control. I hope that the Minister while busy with his orthodox duties in this House—and nobody does them more efficiently—will realise the position, that the Treasury is being held up to contempt by the Director of War Supplies. Repeated instances have occurred in which this sort of thing has happened. A good deal of time elapses before information reaches the committees concerned, but it is high time that there was an overhaul of all these skeletons in the cupboard, and that they should be made known to the bodies appointed by Parliament to deal with subjects of that kind. There is the question too of the attitude of the Government towards trade in this country. I must confess myself frankly disappointed with the statement recently made by the Minister of Economic Development in relation to the subject of control. We had all received with satisfaction the statement of the Prime Minister that control would pass with the war, but the extent to which the statement is modified by the subsequent statement of the Minister of Economic Development is likely to lead us nowhere. Nobody excepting those who during the present time are leaning upon the situation that exists now for the increased profit they are able to make through the fact that there is a war on, derive any benefit from the Minister’s declaration. There is no doubt that in the country at large a return to import conditions is the hope of everybody. You may take a straw ballot or a census, you may consult as many persons as you can contact within 24 hours, or you can get into touch with almost every centre that matters, and you will find that what is missed most in this country is the absence of good British material which normally reaches this country by the import trade. You may go to Johannesburg, which I suppose is the busiest shopping centre, and there you will find a preponderance of feeling in favour of British goods. You have favouritism towards Germany and German trade by certain Ministers which I very much deplore. You have one Minister after the other replying in regard to various aspects of trade. Mainly the purpose of German representatives in this country is to keep the position of German firms warm even by the make-believe method of having a fresh Union company formed for the period of the war, but their hope is that as soon as the war is over the so-called Union firm will hand over the place that has been kept for their German firm and that their products will recapture the trade that they would have lost. The attitude of the Minister of Finance has profoundly disappointed those who have believed that in regard to Germany his attitude was solidly against re-establishing in this country German trade and German influence. There was a time not very long ago when our then Prime Minister even went so far as to threaten various town councils, or to write admonitory letters to them because they had refused to grant contracts to firms of German origin. We have not far to go to that once we allow German trade to be re-established in the strength it possessed at that time. I entirely disagree with those who say, as the Minister of Finance said on a public occasion not very long ago, “We must show brotherliness to the Germans.” I regard that as a heresy against thosë who have laid down their lives for us in the war. I do not wish to call into question the Minister’s right to say what he likes on a Sunday afternoon. With every respect to the Minister and for his convictions, which are genuine, I say that to treat this question of German trade, or the future of Germany in South Africa in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, is not practical politics. We cannot do it. And if we set out to do that we are going to be cruelly misunderstood. We have no right at this stage, with people who have lost their kith and kin as they have done, to think about showing brotherliness to the Germans, and I am 100 per cent. against that. I consider that the attitude of Ministers on several occasions has shown altogether too much in favour of the Germans. There was a case not long ago in which a German firm under liquidation, and under the control of the Custodian of Enemy Property, was being allowed to draw upon goods that were in short supply in this country, and being allowed to compete against firms who, as far as the Union is concerned, we should like to retain and patronise. But the German firm that was supposed to be liqudated and to be under the Custodian of Enemy Property was given a new lease of life by being allowed to draw in competition with other firms, things that were in short supply. I deprecate that entirely. I deprecate that these people are allowed to register patents in the certain hope that they will be allowed to collect from the persons who make use of those patents, and at the end of the war be allowed to step into the place they have been keeping warm for the German firm. You have only to realise what the American Government said to us not very long ago. There was a case in which that was happening in this country. We granted an import permit to one of these German firms, and the American Government sent a communication—through Mr. Close, I believe, or whatever channel was the usual one—stating that the Department of External Affairs in America had asked—

1. (1) Why were internees Ashenberg and Werner released?
2. (2) Are they out on parole and under police supervision?
3. (3) Have arrangements been made for their dismissal?
4. (4) What arrangements are being made to close this firm at the end of hostilities?

That is a policy most of us can understand. It is not the shilly-shally policy the Minister of Economic Development is responsible for at the present moment. This attitude of showing favour to German firms, of allowing German firms to undergo a sort of metamorphosis and pretend they are Union firms deceives no one. The truth is these people are ready as soon as the war ends to step in and become entitled to trade as German firms on a level with those who have borne their full share of the war effort. I think the policy of this Government must be completely changed to one that will reassure the public. Then there is the question of the treatment of our own firms which are much respected in this country. I have always imagined that proprietary companies were serving a useful purpose. That Act introduced some years ago under which a proprietary company could be registered and its affairs conducted, has conduced to the orderly management of firms which enjoy the respect of the people they have dealt with for many years. But the present rate of taxation is very burdensome to shareholders of proprietary companies. I have seen the Minister, but I can understand that at this juncture it is impossible for him to go into every detail laid before him. However, I merely want to show how heavily some of these companies are taxed. Here is a man who is a minority shareholder in a proprietary company. He says—

Then in 1943 he pays by way of normal tax, super tax and provincial tax £17,057 and in addition he has to pay for personal savings levy £1,961, making a total of £19,018 10s. 11d. Then he adds—

Did he take advantage of the amendment of the law made in 1943?

I understand not. There was some difficulty, possibly, with other shareholders. I am not in a position to state the reason. I am aware that the Minister did make provision, applying to later years, under which this man could have availed himself of a return of some of the tax paid, from the funds of his own company.

That still leaves him without an income.

It means using up some of the amount to his credit in the proprietary company. It is the sort of thing referred to by the natives as cutting off the dog’s tail to feed him with it. I want to deal with the unsatisfactory appointment that was made by the Minister of Economic Development in choosing as his chief economic adviser one who had declared himself as almost as completely anti-British as he possibly could be—Prof. Schumann. Prof. Schumann stated at one stage, quite publicly, that he hoped that the time was not far distant when we would have in this country two Afrikaners to one Englishman. Of course, what he really meant to say was that he hoped the time would come when there would be two Afrikaners to no Englishmen. He was merely withholding the whole truth. We have in the person of this prominent official a man who has been most extreme. I am not going to read out what he said at various times. I certainly think that the Minister made a very unfortunate choice. He can scarcely expect people to rejoice at an appointment of that kind, and I must say that most of the Minister’s work will be greatly blemished by his having as his right-hand man, as his chief economic adviser, one whose view is so warped as this gentleman’s. It is bad enough for us to have a Haarhoff turning off every English-speaking news commentator in the Broadcasting Corporation. We do not want to have a Schumann lurking around endeavouring to put obstacles in the way of legitimate British trade in this country. It is trade we are proud to have because it gives us a square deal. We do not want to set up a sort of star chamber under the Minister of Economic Development to put obstacles in the way of the Englishmen who are still in this country and who wish to give us a square deal.

You are not an Englishman but a South African.

The railway budget that the hon. the Minister of Transport introduced this year is one of the most remarkable that he has ever introduced. We are accustomed to the Minister coming and telling us every year that he has registered another record — one after the other. But this year he has made a really remarkable record. Railway expenditure runs to the colossal figure of £61,060,000. That is a record in the history of our railways. Expenditure has never previously reached so high a level. The Minister has truly created a record. He would have had a big deficit, but in October last year he increased the tariffs and certain charges, with the result that instead of a deficit he expects a surplus of £19,000. What is remarkable is this, that the Minister does not make provision in his estimates for all the various railway funds that have to be built up by the Railway Administration. He has only made supplementary provision for two of those funds. The one is a pension fund for which he has made available an amount of £487,487, and then he has placed the amount of £500,000 to the credit of the betterment fund. This is the policy of the Railways, to strengthen its renewals fund from revenue so as to be in a position to buy rolling stock and other plant when the old material has become obsolete. It is remarkable that both the Minister and the General Manager have pointed out that a great deal of our rolling stock is now in an extremely deplorable condition. The General Manager has drawn attention to the fact that there are twenty locomotives still running that should have been placed on the scrap heap. A locomotive costs quite a few thousand pounds. The Minister of Transport made the following remarkable statement in the course of his budget speech —(Col. 2687)

That is the statement made by the Minister of Transport. The number of passenger coaches has not declined considerably and many of them are so old that it is not economical to run them. Though this is the position, we find now that the Minister of Transport in his estimates of revenue has to make provision for the replacement of that material, but we find that he has not put an extra penny to the credit of the railway renewals fund. I am aware why the Minister has omitted to do this. He cannot do it because if he allots a large amount to the renewals fund he will show a deficit instead of a surplus. But my complaint against the Minister of Transport is that during these years of prosperity and of large revenue, provision has not been made for these various funds. I know that it is being asserted that he has seen to that properly. I have before me the balance sheets for the four years previous to the war and for the four years after the outbreak of war. We can examine all these accounts and we will find that despite the fact that the Railways have in a great measure set themselves out to break records in respect of goods traffic and passenger traffic, while the traffic has increased twofold and threefold the percentage of the contributions made to these various funds has not kept pace with wastage. Take the renewals fund for which provision is made by the Railway Administration. An amount is set aside annually from revenue for those funds in respect of material. During the four years preceding the war the amount contributed was £17,800,000. Over the four years after the outbreak of war an amount of £18,000,000 was contributed — a difference of only £200,000, while the Minister of Transport and the General Manager both lay stress on the fact that railway traffic has in many instances increased twofold and even threefold. It is obvious that consequently there is a greater percentage of wear and tear on the Railways and there should accordingly be a greater contribution made to these funds for the replacement of material. Then we have the remarkable fact that in this year when a record has been set up, as the Minister has stated, there has really not been an extra penny provided for those funds. I might refer to the various other funds, but I have not the time to go into them now. I only want to add this, that before the war the Railway Administration tried to reduce the capital on the branch lines every year. The present Minister has not allocated a single penny. No provision is being made for the reduction of railway capital, with the result that the total of railway capital becomes larger every year and consequently the burden of debt is also larger. The result of that is that when we are overtaken by a period of depression it will be extremely difficult for the Railway Administration to cut down its expenditure. All that really can be cut down are salaries and wages, because the railways will be burdened with such a great sum for interest. In the past the Railway Administration came to the decision to effect a reduction in the capital for branch lines, and every year a few thousand pounds were set aside for that. We find that the present Minister has stopped that. The funds have been raised to £1,950,000 and there it has stood, because the Minister has abolished contributions. We have this in relation to all these various funds, and my criticism is that the Minister of Transport has not strengthened these funds as he ought to have done, with the result that the funds do not keep pace with wear and tear on the railways, and if the railways sustain a setback after the war the Minister will inevitably be faced with the position that he will again have to cut down. The Minister had an excellent opportunity this year to strengthen those funds and to build them up. When the Minister replies to this debate he should inform us what the position is in respect of these funds. I want to specifically mention the renewals fund and the repairs fund, because this relates to the replacement of rolling stock. I maintain that the contributions to these funds have not kept pace with the greater volume of traffic and with the wear and tear on the railways, nor with the contributions of previous years. In that connection I would like to say this. The Minister of Transport has stated in this House that the railway workshops cannot handle all the repair work. We know that repair work has to be given out to the mines on contract, under the system of cost-plus, which works out more expensively. Nevertheless we know that the Minister is making brake-blocks in his railway workshops for Kenya. He is using our workshops to do other things while they are not fully employed for the essentials connected with our railway traffic, mainly for the maintenance of our rolling stock, with the result that the Minister himself has to complain that our passenger coaches are in a deplorable condition. While that is the position we find that the railway workshops are used for making trays and barrows and similar sort of work instead of them being used for maintaining the efficiency of the rolling stock on our own railways. This is the difficulty that we have with the Minister of Transport. I had imagined that in this Budget the Minister would have given us a review of his intentions in connection with the electrification of the railways. After the war there will be competition with the railways, motor transport and air transport. That competition will be very keen, and the Minister will only succeed in retaining passenger traffic if he sees to it that the railways are made comfortable and efficient for passengers. I should like to hear from the Minister what the position is in connection with the electrification of the railways. I understand that electrification from Durban to Bethlehem and from Cape Town to Touws River has been approved. I should like to know from the Minister when he intends to commence the work and whether he has further plans in connection with the electrification of the main line from Cape Town to Durban and from Cape Town to Johannesburg. This will, of course, reduce the number of hours taken on these journeys very considerably, and it will make the service more efficient. I should be glad to know whether the engineers of the department have already made an estimate of what it will cost, whether a decision has been taken to proceed with that work and when it will be tackled. Now I should like to come back to certain matters that specially affect Bloemfontein. In 1934 the late Mr. Charlie Malan appointed the Granet Commission to make an enquiry into the railway workshops in South Africa. That report levelled criticism on the number of hours occupied in connection with repairs to trucks, passenger coaches and other rolling stock.’ The commission pointed out that the hours so occupied were out of all proportion to what they ought to be. They described the workshops as unsuitable and suggested that the work should be more highly centralised. There should be a central workshop that could carry out the work for the railways in a more efficient manner. Now the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) has repeatedly informed the House that he was responsible for the central railway workshops having been erected at Bloemfontein. He has intimated to the House that it was on his representations that the decision was taken to build those workshops at Bloemfontein.

You did nothing in connection with it.

The hon. member now says that I had no share in it. I should like to allude to the facts of the position. The first fact is that he was still member for Bloemfontein when that resolution was dropped and when the Railway Administration decided not to build it at Bloemfontein. What really happened is this. I put the position to Mr. Havenga. He was at that time Acting Minister of Railways; and I should like to present the facts to the House now. The Granet Commission recommended that the workshops should be built at Bloemfontein because there was an extensive area availbale outside the town. There was an adequate area for improvements and additions. The commission further pointed out that some of the existing workshops could be extended and improved to be adapted as a central workshop. The Granet Commission recommended Bloemfontein. But what happened then? Mr. Havenga, as Acting Minister of Railways, and Mr. Wilcox, member of the Railway Board, decided that the workshops should be built at Bloemfontein in accordance with the report of the Granet Commission. Then Mr. Charlie Malan came back, and he gave me this information about the further progress of the matter. Opposition was forthcoming against the erection of the central workshops at Bloemfontein. The general manager of railways, Mr. Moore, was opposed to the idea. And while the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) was still the member for Bloemfontein, the Railway Board decided not to build the workshops at Bloemfontein. Now the hon. member tells the House that he is the person who was responsible for the decision to build the workshops at Bloemfontein. From that one knows what value should be attached to the statements of the hon. member.

They kicked me out; I lost my constituency and I could do nothing more about it.

It is very curious that Bloemfontein should have kicked out the hon. member if he had served the interest of Bloemfontein so faithfully. I am afraid that the same fate will overtake him in the Hospital constituency. I should like now to put this question to the Minister. After the Railway Board decided not to build the central workshops at Bloemfontein, the Town Council of Bloemfontein made representations to the Minister and to the Railway Board. A promise was then made to Bloemfontein, and if the Minister will examine his records he will see that the promise made to Bloemfontein was that the other railway workshops should be extended. The municipality of Bloemfontein then bought land near the existing workshops and gave it to the administration for nothing. What is more, the municipality of Bloemfontein bought land and divided it up for the construction of houses for railway officials. While many other municipalities declined to build houses for railway officials the municipality of Bloemfontein did that. Consequently I feel very deeply disappointed that the Minister of Transport told Kimberley the other day that the extensions at Kimberley would be larger than the extensions of Bloemfontein. When he replies to this debate I should like to have from him a clear statement about that promise that was given at that time by the late Mr. Charlie Malan to Bloemfontein, and that he should tell us whether he is going to honour that promise. I hope that he will make a clear statement, because I feel that Bloemfontein of late has been treated very shabbily and has not got its rightful share. I do not need to repeat all that Bloemfontein has done to promote the extension of the workshops, and I want to ask the Minister not to allow his prejudice against Bloemfontein to operate because Bloemfontein and the whole of the Free State is overwhelmingly Nationalist, but that he should allow right and justice to prevail in regard to Bloemfontein.

What does the Minister of Justice say?

I hope that the Minister of Justice, who is not here at present, will help in connection with that.

I shall always help you.

The Minister in October of last year gave certain increases, shorter working hours to certain officials, better pension benefits, improved sick leave and so forth. He maintains that he brought about these improvements, that his side of the House welcomed it, although there was criticism from this side of the House and from the press that supports this side of the House. The impression that the Minister gave in his Budget speech was that the Nationalist Party and its press was really against this increase. I want to point out that in the past year after year we have consistently on this side of the House advocated increased wages for the railwaymen, particularly for the lower paid men on the railways. It is on record that we have pleaded for that year after year, and the Minister has eventually paid heed to our representations to a certain extent. The Minister ought to have put the matter in that way, and that would have been just, that he did this as a result of the representations that we directed to him. Today, however, I want to plead for a class of railwaymen who, in my opinion, is treated in a very unfair way. We have also brought the attention of the Administration to this class of railwayman year after year. I am referring to the foremen on the railways, who at some places are treated like slaves. We have them at small stations in the Karoo, remote from everything, and those people must work twelve hours a day year in and year out. They have perhaps to remain the whole night on duty, and during the day it is so warm that they cannot sleep. They become nervous wrecks. We have frequently made an appeal to the Minister to meet these people. He appointed a Departmental Committee to go into the question of hours of duty. This committee produced a report that was accepted by the Minister, and we now find that 358 of these foremen still have a working week of 60 hours. The Minister of Labour takes the standpoint that hours of duty should be reduced from 48 to 44 hours a week, and even to 40 hours. What moral right has the Minister of Transport to allow these 358 officials who have given faithful service over a number of years, to work twelve hours a day? They work from 6 o’clock in the morning till 6 o’clock in the evening. I have seen some of thsese men, and they appear to be completely exhausted owing to the unprecedented hours that they have to work and the conditions in, which they have to work, because they cannot get a proper amount of sleep. I want to point out to the Minister that these officials have to signal the trains through at night, and it is expected of them that they should have their wits about them at every hour of the night. They are responsible for the safety of thousands of passengers. They have to send the trains off on the right lines and ensure that there are no collisions. If they make the slightest mistake the Railway Administration reprimands them and they are punished more severely that any other official. Railway police are sent by motor car to do espionage work and to see whether these people are not asleep. They are, so to say, shadowed, and it is required of them that they should remain awake throughout the night. Those men get 12s. 8d. a day. It does not redound to the credit of the Railway Administration to treat their officials in that way. It will be a blot on the good name of the Railway Administration if it permits these people to be overworked and to have to work so many hours a day. These people had every right to draw up a petition which was signed by foremen throughout the country. But what do we find now? That petition was intercepted by the administration and an attempt was made to suppress the legitimate representations of those people. I want to ask the Minister of Railways to be a little more human and to think about the position of those men on the railways and to have some sympathy with them. They have to be at places remote from civilisation and amenities while they are doing their work, and then they are treated in this way. Is it really impossible for the Railway Administration to see that justice is done to these 358 foremen; would it cost so many thousands of pounds? We find that senior officials have their salaries increased in a short time from £1,000 to £2,000 and £3,000. But the ordinary officials, the less privileged men in the service, do not receive the consideration that they deserve. I want to make an appeal to the Minister to show some sympathy towards these people. Do not, just because they are helpless, decline to do anything for them. Do not oblige them to work in this way and trample on them because they cannot complain. Let justice prevail in respect of this section of our railway officials.

In the short time at my disposal, I can only briefly touch on a few matters. In the first place I want to thank the Hon. Prime Minister for the lucid enunciation of this party’s colour policy. In spite of the speech of the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) after the Prime Minister’s responsible and clear exposition this morning, I wish to give the Prime Minister the assurance that every right-thinking person of the community, or shall I say everyone who has the interests of the two sections of the population of this country at heart, will support this policy, and will assist him to carry it out along those lines. We must admit that if we have not the co-operation of everyone, then it is very difficult to give effect to that policy. But we have the right to expect co-operation from everyone who means it well towards our country and nation in general. I want to give the hon. member for Boshof the assurance that nothing in this country has contributed more to the undermining of understanding and creation of unrest between the European and non-European, than this sort of speech which he made this morning. It is from speeches such as this that people like Sachs and others derive their material when they attempt to agitate and cause insurrection amongst the coloured races. It is from that that they get their material with which to continue the agitation. The coloured community, as well as any other portion of the community, has certain rights in this country.

We do not want to deprive them of their rights.

In this enlightened century in which we live, we can only expect that every section of the community will insist on expansion of its rights and its utmost development. Why then should we come along with a policy such as that propounded by the other side, to merely with a stroke of the pen and legislation, as it were, take those people by the scruff of the neck and tell them that they must live here or there?

That is exactly what you decided to do in Natal.

That is the policy of our Opposition friends.

That is your policy in Natal.

That is a policy which has hopelessly failed up to the present.

But, it has never yet been applied.

It is a policy which will never in the future attain that goal which they desire to attain.

When was it applied?

It was not applied.

And then you say it was a failure.

That is a policy which was announced by that side. It is an irresponsible policy. They know that they do not have the responsibility, and therefore they make such speeches as we have now had from the hon. member for Boshof. They retard the policy of the Prime Minister …

What policy?

They are afraid that it will be carried out successfully, and then their material for argument will run out.

It is your policy.

A policy of despair.

There is a very important matter I want to mention, but unfortunately the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister is not here, but I trust that the Minister of Finance will listen to it.

Let the whole Cabinet come along.

I am very desirous that the Government should exert pressure on the Provincial Administration to carry out that recommendation of the Planning Council for compulsory coloured education, and I desire that the Government should not only exert pressure—we know that the Provincial Councils will say that they have not got the finances—but the matter is of such great importance and it is a matter with which a start should be made as soon as possible, if not immediately, that it is the duty of this Government to supply the Provincial Council with sufficient funds for compulsory education of the coloureds.

Where must the funds come from?

I just want to say a few words in regard to the submissions made by the different sides of the House in connection with the constitution of the control boards. The hon. member for Smith-field (Mr. Fouché) and the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) submit a case for the institution of production boards instead of control boards, as they are constituted presently under the Marketing Act. I would like to point out to the House that that is a submission on that part of the House which will never be subscribed to by organised agriculture. This is a submission which the hon. member for Cradock and the hon. member for Smithfield have taken over from the Chamber of Commerce.

That is nonsense.

That is what they have been pleading for and that is what they want. Lately the hon. member for Cradock has got into the habit, when he makes a speech to say that the Minister of Agriculture has sold the interests of the farmers to the Chamber of Commerce.

Hear, hear.

Yes, that is what the hon. member for Cradock said.

He is correct.

If you accept that plea of theirs for the constitution of the boards, then it would appear to me that the boot in on the other foot. It appears to me that they have sold the farmers to the Chamber of Commerce, and they have been sold to the Chamber of Commerce, because they are urging the same thing as the Chamber of Commerce. I would just like to draw the attention of the Minister of Agriculture to this one matter. We, as a wine industry, have the right to more extended research than we have today. In regard to veterinary services, we have a research institution at Onderstepoort which has been a complete success, and which is of much importance to the country. In regard to the fruit industry we have a research institute at Drakenstein which is equally successful, but we have no such thing in relation to the wine industry. The Minister of Finance has himself said that that is one of the best sources of revenue the country has, and that he will look after the wine industry. Therefore I submit that the wine industry is entitled to have such a research institution, a research institution, on the same lines as the fruit industry and stock breeding. We are thankful for the services we already enjoy in that connection. Unfortuately I have not the time at my disposal to go into details, but the fact remains that, in such an important industry, it is necessary to have a research institution. I trust that the Minister of Agriculture will institute the necessary investigation and take heed of this request and that the Minister of Finance will accordingly give him the necessary finance therefor.

I think it is fitting that the House should spend some of the time of this Budget debate on a consideration of the future of the Native population, first of all, because we have come to the stage when we realise that budgeting is not simply the limited field of balancing costs of administration against the capacity of the people to pay, but that it is a public instrument for the development of national wealth and because in that regard, so far as this country is concerned, the development of the native population is of the most vital importance. I think it is also fitting that this issue should have been raised by the Leaders of this House. I suppose I need not say that I do not include in that category the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) whose extremely unpleasant and ungenerous attack today on the proposals to rehabilitate the native population, has surely been one of the lower lights of this debate, or of any debate of this Session. We hear a good deal in this House of the “stirring up” of the native people. I suggest Sir, that if we are looking for the sort of thing that will induce in the native people a sense of frustration and despair it is exactly the sort of speech that the hon. member made today. But I do not propose to spend any of my limited time on the details of his speech. I am more concerned with the broad issues which have been raised in the course of this debate. As I say, I feel it was fitting that these issues should have been raised by the Leaders of this House. I am only sorry that in the issue we have not achieved as much clarity in regard to the direction of this development as I hoped we might get. It is true that we have come, I suppose, no longer to expect any lead from the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) the Leader of the Opposition. There was a time when I thought the hon. member for Piketberg was beginning to see the realities of the situation and that he was prepared to tackle them with a sense of responsibility and an anxiety to give a lead in this matter which might be expected from the prospective or possible alternative Leader of the country, but he has not fulfilled that promise. I feel that the discourse that he made in this House the other day was even more vague than any we have so far heard from him in this regard. It leaves us with little to say. It leaves us only with what has been an obvious established necessity, an obvious established fact, that any effective leadership in this regard must be sought from the Government side and admittedly we have other grounds besides the failure of the hon. member for Piketberg in this regard, for looking to the Government for a lead, and a strong and definite lead in this regard. It was with a great deal of encouragement that I heard the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister today tell the House that it was a circumstance which must be generally accepted that conditions have changed so extensively in South Africa that we must be prepared to review the whole of our native policy and bring it into line with those developments. I had hoped, however, that that would lead the Rt. Hon. he Prime Minister on to some more definite statements in this regard, which we have been hoping for for some time. I was, infact, disappointed, both in regard to the Prime Minister’s specific proposals in respect of some of the major issues that have been concerning this House, and in regard to the general issue of policy as between the major economic interests this country. I cannot help feeling that the Prime Minister’s suggestion that the problem of the native farm labour shortage might be met on the pattern of the organisation of the mining industry offers very little hope either for the people themselves or for agriculture. I was, as a matter of fact, a little surprised at that suggestion. I should imagine that there would be no one who would be more opposed to the copying of that pattern by the farmer than the mining industry itself, which has already faced considerable difficulties in maintaining the level of its native labour force, even with an extended field of recruitment right up into Central Africa. But apart altogether from the probable attitude of the mining industry to this matter, I feel myself that it is a solution with very little prospect of satisfactory fulfilment. The Prime Minister told the House that South Africa is a magnet for the native populations of the whole of Africa. That has undoubtedly been the case in this last generation when the standard of living of the native population in South Africa has attracted increasing numbers of Africans from other parts of Africa whose demands have been rising and whose local opportunities have not been keeping pace. But I venture to suggest that one of the worst things that European development of Africa has done to the African people has been to set the whole African population in a state of flux. And that disastrous effect has at last begun to impress itself upon those who are responsible for the future of this African continent. Our Belgian and Portuguese neighbours are both busy building up their local resources to keep their populations at home, while I fancy that there is a strong movement in British circles to counter the instability of the native population of their territories, which is having the same disastrous effect on the family life of their people and on the agricultural conditions of their people as it is having on our people in South Africa, and I venture to suggest that the possibilities of drawing labour resources from the rest of Africa are going to be progressively less in the future and not more. Therefore I should have felt myself that the line of advice to the farmer—and I submit that with all deference to the Prime Minister’s opinion— I suggest that there might have been more hope along the line of encouraging the farmer to make more effective and more efficient use of the labour supply that is available to him and continue to be available to him, rather than to depend on the possibility of tapping wider sources of supply. I was a little disappointed also at the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister’s proposals in regard to the urban situation. That is a situation that concerns us very deeply, and we feel strongly, as we have put it to this House, that the policy of trying to control the population of particular urban areas by a system of depôts in those urban areas, and a nebulous policy of repatriating those natives who cannot get employment in the area, is solving none of our problems of the movement of our industrial population, as it is solving none of the problems of our urban areas. We feel in addition that any extension of a policy whereby we try to redirect the population after it has moved under economic pressure to centres of employment and fails to get employment would be extremely expensive and probably impossible in the long run. We would ask whether it is the intention of the Government if it proposes to extend this policy, instead of following our suggestion that the movement of the whole native population should be integrated with our general economic life and controlled in terms of economic demand and the need of the people to work if the Government does propose to extend this system of depôts— whether it proposes to pay the cost of repatriation for the large numbers of natives who drift down to these areas under the stress of economic circumstances and who are then forced to return when they cannot get employment. We can see no possibility of the scheme working any other way but it will certainly be very costly indeed. On the general issue we had hoped, and we are still hoping, that the Government will give us a statement in terms supporting the contention which we have made time and again that in order to increase the standard of living and the demand of our native population, our policy should be the stabilisation of our native population. We had hoped that the Government would commit itself to a statement in that regard, both in the interest of the native population itself and in the interest of developing industry in this country. That development is a matter of crucial interest. The question of the development of secondary industry is a matter of crucial interest which is being forced steadily to the front by our problem of post-war emploment. That development cannot take place, as I see it, without the stabilisation of the native population, the increasing efficiency of the native population and increasing demand on the part of the native population, which will come from that increased efficiency and greater stability. And I submit that without that development we cannot face our employment problem for the period after the war. But the only direct statement that we have had on this issue was late in the course of this debate by the hon. Minister of Mines. He alone has taken a definite stand in this regard, a positive stand in this regard. He repeats this year what he stated last year, namely, that he sees in the growth of secondary industries a grave danger to the position and the possibilities of the mining industry, and he warns us that if we do encourage the development of secondary industries, we must face a change in the balance of our economic system, which he believes will be to our detriment. He reminds us, for instance, that we are an importing country and that we have to pay for our imports largely by the export of our gold, because that is practically all we havé to export, and that if we limit our gold development, we shall similarly have to curtail our imports and thereby reduce the standard of living in this country, and he suggests that this will be the result not only of the policy of the development of secondary industries, under which there will be a new competitor in the field of native labour, but that that will result from the policy we have advocated in this House of relating the standard of wages of the native level on the mines to something like a living wage for a family. The Minister of Mines has no doubt that the sound line for this country is to maintain the position of the mining industry, which he claims can only be done by practically giving it a monopoly of our labour resources and of our cheap labour resources. In that regard I hope sincerely that the statement of the Minister of Mines is not the statement of this Government and my grounds for hoping that are all related simply and solely to the problem of providing that employment which we need to provide for our people after the war. The hon. Minister of Mines told us that we could not get social security unless we maintained and extended the level of the mining industry. I want to say that we cannot have social security if we continue to base our economy on a monoculture in this country, that we cannot have social security if we put all our eggs in the mining basket, and if we do not build up the rest of our economic plan. I take my stand in this regard on the fact that the mining industry has not, in fact, been able to provide the employment in this country which this country has needed in the past and which is the essential foundation of social security. Between 1912 and 1930, as the Rural Industries Commission pointed out, the level of employment in the mining industry—I am talking now of European employment—the level of European employment in the mining industry remained practically static at 25,000. Over the same period the employment in secondary industry increased from 40,000 in 1916-T7 to 140,000 in 1936-’37, and that commission pointed out that if it had not ben for the development of secondary industry in that period, “if it had not been for this development in urban areas, a sort of unemployment problem would have resulted.” Since 1930 the mining industry has, of course, had a considerable expansion and it has taken up a certain amount of the labour demanding employment over this period, but the figures quoted by the Van Eck Commission in respect of the field of employment for the youths of this country seeking employment in the period 1926-’36, are themselves a reflection of just how inadequate a source of employment this has been and is for a country with a population growing as ours is growing In that period the manufacturing industry gave employment to 49,000 of the youths who attained working age. In the same period the mining industry found employment for 13,500. Here then is one of the points on which I think we are entitled to criticise the attitude of the Minister of Finance as the foundation of a long-term policy for this country, that the mining industry will not be able to supply our needs of employment and the need of employment is our basic need in this country. Now I feel this other circumstance has to be put against the arguments of the Minister of Mines, that he is apparently basing his assumption of the continuance and expansion of the mining industry on the further assumption that the sources of labour supply which have been available in the past, are still going to be available and can be expanded. As I have said, that is very unlikely to be true; I think it is an established fact that the mining industry has not developed at a rate at which it would have liked to develop in the last two or three years, very largely because the supplies of native labour were not available, that is not available on the old terms on which they had secured this labour. In all the circumstances, I feel that the direction of the Minister of Mines in this matter is an unsound direction, that we cannot afford to be entirely dependent on a wasting industry like the mining industry. We could never afford that, but we cannot afford now, even with the improved prospects of the continuance of the mining industry, to base our economy solely on the continued existence of the mining industry. But I think the hon. Minister of Mines had never appreciated our argument in this regard. I think he has exaggerated the implications of our criticism of the policy of the mines in regard to its labour. We have never visualised a sudden and complete change in the whole set-up of the mining industry, nor have we ever suggested that the mining industry should at once be pushed aside into a secondary position in this country. That would be a completely unintelligent proposition. What we have asked for is that the mining industry should not be maintained on a progressively lower level of cheap labour in order to enable it to work lower and lower grades of ore. We have felt that it was a much sounder policy to raise the grade of the ore, even if it means some shortening of the life of the mines so long as it was balanced by the increasing demand of native wages, which would bring into the industrial life of the country that demand on which alone it can expand its secondary industries. The policy is a comprehensive policy in which we press for a balancing of our economic interests, a curtailmënt of our complete dependence on the mining industry and a building up of our secondary industries to provide that field of employment which even now the mining industry cannot provide, and to give us that possibility of a foundaiton when the mining industry itself possibly fails. I had hoped that we might have had some direction in this regard, and I think not only we but the commercial and industrial interests of the country have the right to expect some sort of statement in regard to the attitude of the Government on this question. I cannot see how anyone can possibly plan any wide range of development so long as the intention of the Government in regard to the standard of living of the native population is not declared. I cannot see how anyone can possibly plan any wide range of development of industries in this country on the basis of the sort of budget that the Mine Natives’ Wage Commission laid down as the basis of its recommendation for an increase in the pay of the native. The limits of that budget will be soon reached, and if that is the sort of level which the bulk of our native population is going to continue to enjoy, then I say that the prospects of further industrialisation in this country are extremely poor. We have not had that detailed statement of policy. Perhaps the forces that are operating against an explicit statement are too great, but I had hoped that at least we would have some indication that the Government does appreciate the implications of the situation and is prepared to take progressive steps towards a rise in the standard of living of the native population. But that would have necessitated some planning and many changes in our practice. For instance an amendment of the Wage Act is, I think very long overdue, to enable the Department of Labour (a) to evaluate more clearly this question of the balancing of the capacity of industry to pay and the necessity of the employee to live. At the present time that is an issue which is extremely confused in terms of an Act which makes it possible for us not only to set up but to continue and to protect industries that do not pay a living wage and never will pay a living wage to their employees. I submit that that Act should be amended to enable us to clarify this issue as it should be clarified as well as to speed up the machinery of that Act. The wage levels that now operate in our rural areas have long needed the operation of the Wage Act machinery but it will be a long time before they can get it under the conditions on which the Wage Board is now forced to work. In the meantime our industrial market must suffer from the lack of effective demand. I had also hoped to see a statement on the question of the transport position of the native population. I was hoping that the Minister of Transport would make some statement to the House on the issues that were raised in the report of the Bus Commission which investigated the transport position on the Reef and in the Vereeniging and Pretoria areas. There, I think, major issues of policy have been raised, including the question of the siting of industral areas in relation to the labour population. That commission’s finding was that the economic position of the native population is such at the present time that the people cannot afford to pay any transport costs at all. But transport charges represent one of the main drains on their limited resources, as a result of the policy dictated by this House that these people shall live in separate areas, and as a result of the contingent circumstance that native townships have been set down without any relation to the labour field in which these people must give their services. So that is an important issue which I think should be dealt with in the policy of the Government. We should know whether there is to be any plan for the localisation of our industry in relation to our labour supplies, or whether we are to go on with the costly system of building úp transport services that cannot pay on this basis and which drain those resources of the people which should be going into effective demand in other directions.

The Minister of Economic Development in reply to a question gave some very interesting figures regarding the percentages of rise in the cost of living. Though the figures hardly come into this question it is significant to note that those commodities which come under price control have definitely not gone up as much as those commodities which do not fall under any control. We find, for instance, that the rise in the price of fish has been 13 per cent., beef 33 per cent., mutton 34 per cent., butter 24 per cent., cheese 19 per cent. Those are all commodities that come under some control and definitely keep the cost of living down. But the figure quoted as the percentage increase on the price of vegetables is 114 per cent. That is significant as vegetables are the only primary produce that is not controlled. There the increase is very considerable, and yet no attempt has been made to bring this commodity under some control, and to complete the circuit I suggest that early steps should be taken to bring vegetables under price control. The committee I had the honour to preside over wanted to bring that about, but the matter has now been referred to the Distributive Costs Commission, and I do hope they will not continue to display a slow motion picture, as they have done so far, but get on with the job. We must appreciate that prices all round today on particular foodstuffs have reached a very high level, and consumers are called upon to make very big sacrifices. So far the producers only have had the benefit of those increased prices, and I want to submit to the Ministers present here that the time has arrived to peg all prices of commodities. They are high enough. The prices should either be pegged at the present level or lower. In regard to those primary products which owing to adverse circumstances will not bring an economic return to the producer, special provision can be made in the way of a subsidy to meet their position. I am not referring only to the pegging of prices of primary produce, but of secondary products as well. The prices in our secondary products whether of clothing, of medicines or other things are surely high enough. They have reached a peak at which the industry, as such, will have great difficulty in retaining their domestic market later on when they have to compete against all comers.

There has not been an increase in the income of secondary industry during the war.

That does not enter into the question. Take Canada. Canada at the outset of the war pegged all prices. Their cost of living today has not gone up more than 20 per cent. on the average including their secondary production. That puts them in a position today to compete with the whole of the world, and we find today that Canada’s secondary products coming into this country stand at a price far below those of any other exporting country. The pegging of prices in this country is long overdue. It is not too late, but not only will the secondary producers suffer, but even primary producers will have an uphill battle directly we return to normal conditions. When I speak of the pegging of prices of primary products, we must bear in mind that the pegging of the price of land has also a great influence on that question. Here I want to appeal to the farming community that unless, they agree to the pegging of the prices of essential foodstuffs they will reap the whirlwind. I include land which has an influence on the cost of production. Unless they agree to this pegging they will reap the whirlwind as soon as there is peace. I recommend the pegging of prices as the only solution for the future of our farming industry and for the future of our secondary industries as well. It may be already too late. In my scheme I naturally have in mind that the minimum price shall be guaranteed to the primary producer, while the consumer has to be protected by way of a maximum price. I want to say this, there is no country in the world where the foodstuffs of the people has been the political football to the extent which it has been in this country. When once the farmers and the Government have agreed to the pegging of these prices at today’s level, possibly lower, no speculation should be permitted in the people’s food. That time has passed. The conditions that have prevailed in the control and merchandising of the people’s food should not be tolerated any longer. More particularly do I appeal to the Government to look upon the position that has arisen in connection with food as a war against need and want and undernourishment. The time has come to stop those things; this can only be done by action, and by quick action too. There is no shortage of food in this country. We have a fair supply, though recently we had to import some condensed milk. In connection with that importation of condensed milk, I submit to the Minister that that milk we have imported should be sold to our consumers at the same price as the locally manufactured milk, and if necessary there should be a subsidy to bring that price down from 1s. to 8d. — the price of the South African condensed milk, and it should come out of that pool that the Food Controller has created for himself. That subsidy need not come from the Treasury but from the pool, and it would equalise the price of local and imported condensed milk. Otherwise the black market will be active, for it is difficult to distinguish between the imported and the locally produced milk, and the local milk will be sold at the higher price. I also say that the price of meat should be pegged, and that any surplus that the Food Controller has in hand out of his distribution of meat — and it must be considerable — should go not only to the producers but to the benefit of the consumers. In conclusion I wish once more to appeal to the Minister that resolute action should be taken in connection with this war against need, poverty and starvation.

During this debate we have heard much criticism of the various controls. Indeed, I wonder whether any control in the country has not come under very carping criticism during the debate. When I hear these underground rumblings and these complaints against all these controls I feel rather happy about it. I feel it is a true mainfestation of the South African spirit; and that the blood of our forefathers runs in the veins of our people today. None of us like control. What happened as far as our forefathers are concerned? Control caused the Great Trek.

Study your history.

Definitely it caused the Great Trek. That is why I say that possibly this criticism is a good thing. With the various ministries appointing all these diffirent controllers, those of us who are dissatisfied with control might migrate after the war to some uninhabited part of Africa, if there were any, and history might then have to record the Great Trek of 1945. But there is no such territory and we have to stay and fight it out here. I want to ally myself with those opposing controls. I do not level an accusation, as has been done across the floor of the House, that there may have been grave corruption. My grievance with the controls is this that they are being administered by junior officials who are irritating the public.

And there is corruption.

There may be corruption, but I am not prepared to make that statement across the floor of the House. Possibly some corruption is going on, but the great trouble is that junior officials are administering these boards in a way that is irritating the public generally. May I mention two cases which occurred to me. One is the case of a man who wanted to buy a bottle of benzine for cleaning purposes.

Did he want to clean up the control?

He had to get a permit, which cost him 1s. 3d., so the bottle of benzine cost him 2s. 3d., which is perfectly ridiculous. The other case was that of a person who after queuing up for a long time got a permit for two doors. When he asked for the locks he was told he would have to go into another queue. He did so, and the official eventually told him that he could not get locks for the doors. I know that at the time there were plenty of locks in the country. That man’s time was wasted and he had to put up with all that inconvenience, whereas he could have been told straight away when he went for the permits for the doors, “There are the locks”. Why should he have to join another queue for them, and get another permit. I suggest as far as building control is concerned, as it has become so unpopular in the eyes of the general public, it has suffered so much in the way of loss of confidence that the sooner this control is abolished the better. As to what should take their place, in my humble way I want so suggest that in the place of the present Building Control Board ….

There is no board.

I should have said building control; in place of the building control there should be a building planning committee. The public do not like the designation building control; the name reeks throughout the country. So I suggest we should form a building planning committee which would consist of representatives of the Public Works Department of the Central Government, as well as representatives of the public works departments of the provincial councils, representatives of the municipalities, of the health boards, and possibly also of the Master Builders Association. The function of this committee would be, in the first place, to call for a census of all building construction which will be necessary for the next ten years; and for a statement on what the municipalities will need and what the needs of the Government and provincial councils are. Their duty will be to take a census of the number of building employees we have. That is where our trouble is, labour. That is what is going to hold up our building construction in the future. I know and every member in this House knows, that a lot of building material is frozen. If this committee was formed it could give priority to building construction. The most urgent cases would be tackled first. Then working on the census taken of the building workers in this country, the committee would allocate the work to contractors with the necessary staff. Today some contractors have large staffs on their hands, others have not staffs large enough to cope with their work. The contractor with the large staff may have very few orders because of the permit system in connection with building. These result is that a considerable percentage of building trade workers are idle. The contractor with a surplus staff dare not get rid of the men because he always feels that possibly another contract is looming up. If the work was allocated by this committee every contractor would be kept busy. A statement was made recently by a prominent trades unionist, I think it was ex-Senator Briggs, who said that if the Government would assure the building workers employment for the next ten years, they would allow certain concessions in connection with employees, meaning they would possibly allow augmentation of that labour force over its present strength. That is a golden opportunity, in my opinion, for the Government to go to the trade unions and say: “There you are, we will guarantee you work for the next ten years; now in return give us more employees to use on that construction work.”

In the short time at my disposal there are only one or two points I want to touch on. The Minister of Transport introduced his Budget today With an anticipated surplus of £19,000. I think that of all the people who during this war suffered from war sickness, of all the people who lived under the delusion that the war would never end, the Minister of Transport was the first that recovered from the sickness or awakened from his sleep. He had a very unpleasant time of it last year when he found that his deficit amounted to £607,000 for the first six months; and he then was compelled to make plans to wipe out the deficit which was piling up. But before I come to that it will possibly be of interest to the House for me to state what happened towards the end of the Budget debate last year. The Minister in his Budget speech last year stated that he anticipated a deficit of £486,000, and everyone in this House of course wondered how the Minister would cover that deficit. He himself did not know. At the end of his Budget speech he said—

The Minister himself did not know, but he himself still nursed some hope, because he said—

He estimated for a deficit, but thought that the Goddess of Fortune might again be favourable to him and give him a chance, but unfortunately the first six months showed that the time of surpluses was past and that a period of deficits had begun. The Minister of Transport was the first to wake up out of his war stupor. He stated further—

When the deficits appeared the Minister began to think of the rebates that he had given to the Defence Department, and he stated that they would perhaps have to be taken under review. But he made another important pronouncement—

Even in March of last year the Minister said he would wait to see what should be done about the deficit, but he hoped that possibly there would be a revision of the rebates that he had given as a result of the war, and then he added the assurance that he had a tariff reserve fund which would help him in time of need not to increase passenger fares and goods tariffs—the time had not yet arrived. But already in October the Minister imposed a 10 per cent. increase, a 10 per cent. tax on the users of the railway. He had to eat his own words and try to hide it. The sum of £400,000 was necessary for the increase of allowances to the railway staff, but he at the same time availed himself of the opportunity to cover the £600,000 deficit in respect of the first six months, and to cover himself for the future. The Minister is a man who will never admit that he has made a mistake. But while in the past he has adopted an attitude of knowing everything, while he has tried to belittle members, I must say that he is now beginning to change. I have read his Budget speech through carefully, and his reply to the Part Appropriation debate, and the Minister is now listening to the argument and he is replying to the agruments. I welcome the improvement. It is a sign tat he has wakened up and is beginning to see the facts clearly. Last year we pointed out in this House that the expenditure was mounting and that he did not see how he was going to stop it, and we pointed out while revenue was really mounting expenditure was increasing even more. We asked the Minister how he would be able in future to balance the Budget if expenditure was not reduced, and if income did not increase. I have always taken up the attitude that so long as the war is in progress revenue will be greater, and I had mainly in mind the passenger traffic. At present there is in the first place the large traffic in connection with the Defence Force, which makes for large revenue, but my main point has been that as a result of the scarcity of petrol and cars many people are compelled to make use of the trains; but that time will pass. Now it is interesting to note how the Minister himself is in accord with that attitude. The Minister understood me wrongly and thought that I only presented one proposition. He thought my argument was that I was only concerned about the defence traffic. But the fact is that I was worried about that and I am still worried today that when the war is past and as soon as things become normal, the passenger traffic will fall away and the revenue will be decreased. The Minister agrees with me fully. I would just like to read out what he said on the 13th March—

And listen to this—

On this point I am in full accord with the Minister. Passenger traffic is abnormally high on account of the war. Today I want to say this, that I do not believe the Minister’s difficulties are at an end. The Minister realises now what is going to happen in his case, and that accounts for his changed attitude. Now one may ask what does the Minister visualise and what means does he hope to use to maintain his revenue at a high level? We have seen that the Minister in his Budget last year stated, and again in this year’s Budget, that he hopes to maintain the revenue of the railways at a high level as a result of the anticipated industrial expansion in the country. I want to tell the Minister that I fully agree with him that this is the only manner in which the revenue of the railways can be held at the same level, namely, that industrial expansion should occur in the country and provide more traffic for the railways. But then at the same time I should like to put this question to the Minister. Did he listen to what the Minister of Economic Development stated here? That Minister rose to address the House, and we imagined that he was going to utter an important declaration over the future policy of the Government in connection with industrial development, but what did he tell us? He immediately told us that this was only the policy of the Government for a moment and not for the future. In connection with the policy, they had not arrived at any decision. The Government has not a long-term policy. The Government must still wait because the Board of Trade and Industries has not yet produced its report. I want to remind the Minister that there was a Planning Council which outlined what the Government’s policy ought to be, but if the Minister hopes to maintain the high level of railway revenue, if with that in mind he is hoping for industrial expansion, I can merely tell him that he will be disappointed, just as I and others will be. Things will turn out as they have turned out in connection with health schemes and housing schemes. The same sort of thing will occur with industrial expansion. The Planning Council produced its first, second and third reports; it was then referred to the trade group, and to the three Ministers, and then again to the Board of Trade and Industries. Accordingly I do not think that the Minister of Transport has the right to depend on the level of railway revenue being maintained as a result of industrial expansion in the country. My time is very limited and I should like shortly to refer to just one other item. The Minister has mentioned that we always have a bone to pick with him in connection with the workshops. This will, of course remain a difference between us, but we cannot understand how the Minister can set about things in this way. There are no trucks and there are not sufficient passenger coaches, and the Minister is giving contracts out to outside workshops for making the trucks. The same happens in regard to passenger coaches. Where this is the case we cannot understand how thé Minister can use the workshops to make small articles for war cavalcades and such like affairs. But now we find that the Minister in his Budget speech, stated this in connection with the railway workshops—

Typhus is a very dangerous disease, and I am glad that the Government is concerning itself about these people. But if the railways are in this position, why do these people come to the railway workshops for 300 deverminising boilers. Then we come to No. 2, and the Minister of Transport is quite proud of it—

The railway workshops have to do this work for the British Protectorate, and that is not all—

Good heavens, other countries place orders with the Minister and the Minister then complains that the workshops are not in a position to keep our rolling stock in order. We simply cannot realise that. Why must the Minister make deverminising boilers and brake-blocks for other countries, while his own position is so critical that he himself complains that the workshops have too much railway work to cope with. The men are overworked in maintaining our trucks and our passenger coaches in good order and then they are employed to execute contracts for other countries. I come to my last point, because my time is up. I am very concerned over the Minister’s views in connection with the non-Europeans on the railways. On the 31st March, 1940, there were 18,801 European railway workers in the employ of the railways. The last figures that the Minister gave us were to the end of March of last year. Then there were 18,129 European railway workers in service. The number of European railway workers has been reduced during this period, when so much more work is being done on the railways. The Minister is allowing nonEuropeans to take over the positions of Europeans.

I cannot get the Europeans for the work.

How can the Minister give such an answer? Do you know what he is doing in my own town? One Monday morning five of these casual labourers came and told me that they had got notice that they did not need to come any more. Then the Minister tells us that he cannot get them. He can get them all right, but he does not want them. I sent him telegrams and letters, and later I went so far as to ask him what his policy was. He stated that there were three other people who took their places. But what makes him say that he cannot get the people? Those people are walking around without food. I have not time to dwell on this any longer, and the Minister’s clerk can tell him what the position is. At the same time we find that on the 31st March, 1940, no fewer than 53,599 non-Europeans were in the service of the railways. Do you know what the number is now? Sixty-one thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven. How can the Minister now tell us: “I cannot get them.” The Minister can get European labourers, but he engaged the non-European labourers, which means that he is taking those labourers from the farms, and the people who really can say “I cannot get them” are the farmers. I have half a minute left, and I should like to mention one matter very briefly. The Minister issued a circular to the railways last year—I mention this in reference to what was mentioned in this House in connection with the Minister’s statement that things would have to take their own course regarding the non-Europeans that mix with Europeans travelling on the trains—that nonEuropean officers should not in future travel in the section of the trains that is reserved for non-Europeans. They should travel in the section of the train in which Europeans travel, and they have to get their meals in the European’s dining saloons, and that at the same time when Europeans were having their meals. Now hon. members on the opposite benches will tell me that this is so but that it does not happen in practice. On the 23rd September I saw with my own eyes on the train between Rosmead and Port Elizabeth that there were four Chinese sitting at the same table with Europeans, and three European stewards—two Afrikaansspeaking girls and one English-speaking— were serving them. I do not know under what conditions they came in there. I maintain that it is a pernicious policy that is being followed by the Minister, that white, yellow and black should travel together in the same train and eat in the same dining saloon. It does not only lead to a policy of equality. If the white people and the Chinese sit together in the same saloon and eat and they are served in this way, then it is no longer a policy of equality, but in that way the non-Europeans are made the superiors of the white men, and it is the Minister of Transport who will have to answer for it.

Mr. Speaker, this debate, until this afternoon, has been conspicuous by the absense of any criticism of the Railway Administration until the member for Bloemfontein (District) (Mr. Haywood) spoke a little while ago, I am afraid the hon. member does not understand the railway accounting system. He complained that the Minister had not made provision out of surplus for the Renewals Fund but if the hon. member would study the accounting system he would discover that Renewal Funds are not replenished out of monies from surplus, but are provided for out of depreciation allowances. He then offered criticism that in one of the lower grades the men were working up to twelve hours a day. Well, the hon. member surely knows that just recently, in October last year, the Administration accepted 100 per cent. the recommendations of a commission, on which representatives of all the staff associations were, in connection with working hours and rates of pay. It is true that we do find in certain outlying stations that the men are compelled to work long hours, but that is necessitated by the fact that the station is so small that it does not warrant a double staff being employed there, and for that reason you do find men having to work for that length of time. The hon. member mentioned the wage of 12s. a day, but there are additional benefits to that amount and he will find that the man’s pay amounts to approximately 16s. 7d. However, my time is extremely limited, and I will not be able to deal further with the criticisms offered by the hon. member and the hon. member for. Albert-Colesberg (Mr. Boltman), but I am sure I am right in saying that this House agrees with the country as a whole when it feels pride in the administration of our railways especially during the war period when it was almost entirely cut off from overseas supplies, and in spite of that it was able to fulfil ail the requirements of the Defence Department, and at the same time answer all the transport demands of the Union. The Minister of Transport, in his Budget Speech, announced that he anticipated a surplus on this year’s financial working of approximately £67,000, and when we take into account the fact that our country is the only one in the world not to have increased its rates and fares, except for the 10 per cent. surcharge levied in October, and in addition to that last year extended benefits to the railway staff by way of increased rates of pay and working hours to the tune of approximately £4,600,000, and further to that we had benefits awarded to the old railway pensioners of £101,000 and over and above that we find that the cost of living allowances and additional war allowance awarded to the staff last year, based on the 28 per cent. basis, amounted to no less than £6,500,000—taking all that into account, and appreciating that the Minister, in spite of this additional expenditure can announce an anticipated surplus of £67,000, is not only a tribute to the financial soundness of the Railways and a credit to the Minister, but also a tribute to the administration and staff. With the limited time at my disposal I would like to deal with one matter which I feel is of importance and which I would like to bring to the attention of the hon. Minister. That is in connection with our new Cape Town graying dock,—a dock incidentally which still remains unnamed— and in view of the foresight of the Minister I hope we will shortly have the pleasure of witnessing the opening of the “Sturrock dock”. I think that will be most appropriate. This, Sir is a dock just on the point of completion at a cost of approximately £3½million. It is the biggest graving dock in the world and will be ready to receive its first ship in a month or two. I had the pleasure and opportunity a few weeks ago of visiting it, and I was impressed with the enormity of the work, and the way in which the work had been carried out ahead of schedule, but the question is, Sir, what is to happen to that graving dock after the urgent need for it has disappeared? We have been told that the need for acceleration in getting that dock ready was brought about because of the grave needs in the war against Japan, and what is going to happen to it after that is over, and we say this, when we bear in mind the fate of the Durban graving dock. In pre-war days the Durban dock showed a loss of £80,000 per year. In this country we have over 3,000 ship repair artisans, railwaymen, all highly skilled and trained to do the work, and I think every step should be taken to ensure that after the war these excellent artisans of ours Will be kept in full employment. I say this, because just a few days ago we were advised through the Press that a representative of the Union Castle Company, I think in the person of Sir Vernon Thompson, at any rate a representative of the Union Castle Company had arrived in this country to negotiate with our Government in regard to shipping contracts for the post-war périod. That being so, I would like to impress upon the hon. Minister the need and urgency of having a definite stipulation, not only in the Union Castle Contract, but in any shipping contract, that is entered into between this country and any overseas shipping company that there should be a definite stipulation embodied in all contracts guaranteeing that a percentage of ship repairs should be effected in this country. If that is done, not only will our excellent ship repair artisans be fully employed but we can in the hear future expect the number to be increased. This does not only apply to the Cape Town graving dock, but also to the excellent new graving dock at East London and the graving dock at Durban. In addition to the stipulation as to shipping repairs, the question of supplies should be borne in mind. We know that in pre-war days, on the Union Castle Lines, a very small amount of Union products were ever found. On the Union Castle boats you had the Canadian apple, Argentine beef, New Zealand mutton, Dutch cheese, French wine, and German beer, but very little of the products of this country. All these things can be supplied by us, and I feel it is just as well to bear this in mind at this stage when contracts are to be entered into, that at any rate a percentage of our products, including our excellent wines, should be drawn from the Union. In addition to that I would like to see a number of these ships registered in our ports. The advantages of that are doubtlessly obvious to members of this Hon. House. Lastly, in regard to shipping contracts, I would like to see the stipulation made that a percentage of the crews should be Union nationals. In this war young South Africans have taken to the sea like ducks to water. They have done excellently and many of them have become officers. I feel it is in our interests that this stipulation should be made in all contracts, that a percentage of the crews on these ships should be drawn from the Union. I regret that my time has elapsed, and I am prevented from dealing with one or two other matters which I conceive to be of importance, but I will have to take another opportunity of doing so. I wish, however, to mention just one matter, which I will not enlarge upon, but I wish to draw the Minister’s attention to it, and it is in connection with the South-West African Administration. We in the Union have assumed responsibility as far as the railways there are concerned and for any loss incurred. The loss incurred is our responsibility. We have very willingly accepted that, and the loss to date amounts to approximately £5,672,000. That is a responsibility which we accept and we are prepared to shoulder, but I find that there are certain agreements entered into between the South African Railways and the Administration of South-West Africa in regard to certain guaranteed works. The one is the Gammans-Gobabis line and the other is the working of the Walvis Bay Harbour. The agreement entered into between South-West Africa and the railways is to the effect that the loss will be borne by South-West Africa, provided the loss does not exceed the interest on the capital outlay. The loss has always exceeded that, I may say, but in 1937, when South-West Africa was going through a somewhat lean time, and their finances were not too buoyant, as a measure of relief, the South African Railways suspended temporarily the payment of that loss. That suspension has operated until today and I feel that in view of the fact that South-West Africa is in a fairly sound financial position and their finances are fairly buoyant, the time has arrived for the users of the South African Railways to recover that amount. Up to the 31st March last year the guaranteed amount in respect of these two works was £285,818, and it seems unfair that the users of the South African Railways in the Union should bear this burden. The time has arrived for the amount to be recovered, or, at any rate, in part.

I feel I would be failing in my duty if I did not make some reference to the recent explosion in Pretoria West, which is my constituency. Notwithstanding what the Prime Minister mentioned this morning, it is up to the Government to supplement their statement. These employees, who if not found employment within a month, should be given the assurance that they will not be without some income. Sir, in America, when similiar explosions have taken place, the Government has seen to it that they were in receipt of some remeuneration up to as long as six months. Sir, I quite appreciate the position, having to find employment for so many individuals, but if it is not possible for the Government to place these men and women in employment within the next month, then I feel, even if it costs the country a quarter of a million pounds, they should not want, particularly those individuals, 34 men and women who escaped death. I had the unfortunate experience of seeing some of them since I was on the spot a quarter of an hour after the explosion took place; I was blown out of bed. I feel that these individuals who escaped death should be treated the same as a returned soldier from the front line. When soldiers return they are placed in a dispersal depot and receive ordinary military pay until found employment. I appreciate the Government’s attitude in appointing a committee but I feel, if they cannot be found employment, the first duty of the Government to those who were on duty and survived death, should be to see that they do not want. It has been stated that even the unfortunate injured who are in hospital, and—admittedly will receive compensation—have it on their minds according to a public announcement that they too will be out of employment. The only official information we have seen in the press, viz that these individuals will receive a month’s pay and must report at the Labour Bureau. A number of them have come to me and asked whether, having done a good job of work to help the war effort, it was right that they should have to line up at a Labour Bureau and be offered work washing floors in the General Post Office or Union Buildings. I appeal to the Government to see these people get compensation speedily. I would also like to express the view of practically every citizen in Pretoria in appealing that, in view of the disaster, the magazine, if it is to be rebuilt, should be built outside the city of Pretoria. In the vicinity of the present site we have the mental hospital, the prison, and the prison staff quarters as well as the railway workshops, defence headquarters, Iscor and the power station. I feel that if any member of this House, or any member of the Cabinet had seen what I saw of the mental hospital patients, there would be no question about shifting the magazine away from the centre of Pretoria, and particularly away from the public institutions. I would also like to take this opportunity of appealing to the Minister of Finance to favourably consider compensating civilians who have had their properties damaged. In Pretoria West and near the railway station, and along the street leading from Pretoria station, most of the windows were blown out and quite a number of walls cracked, and I trust the Government will extend sympathetic and generous treatment to those who have sustained damage. I would also like to say a few words about railway affairs. During the debate on the last Budget, when I made my maiden speech, I appealed to the Minister of Railways to do his best in regard to the conditions of railwaymen. I predicted that if he acquiesced in my wishes he would earn the blessing of every railwayman. I want to take this opportunity of paying the Minister of Transport a tribute. He has done for the railwaymen what none of his predecessors ever did in improving conditions of service of railwaymen; and the Minister of Transport will always be kindly remembered by the railwaymen, notwithstanding the criticism from the other side of the House. I feel that I can speak with intimate knowledge and experience of railwaymen since I worked in the railways for over 30 years and helped the men as a staff representative, in trying to improve their conditions of service. I say without fear of contradiction that as a result of the improved conditions introduced by the Minister of Transport last year, the railwaymen—and I am looking back over a period of 30 years—have never experienced more ideal conditions. I wish on behalf of railwaymen to thank the Minister of Transport most sincerely. We have heard from the opposite benches that railwaymen are working long hours and that they are getting a small pay. If we cast our minds back four or five years we will find that the railworkers could not progress beyond 8s. 3d. a day, As a result of the grading introduced by the Minister of Transport they can now go to a maximum of 11s. 6d. a day. A railworker never knew, when off sick, what it was to get full pay; today he gets full pay when off duty on sick leave. That applies to most other grades. I would also like to question the statement made by the hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) (Mr. Haywood). I read that he said in this House just recently that promotion to the Afrikaner in the South African Railways is dead. I challenge the statement, because the facts and figures prove that during the last few years ….

I gave the facts. Why don’t you reply to them?

Where are your facts?

I will give the hon. member these facts, Mr. Speaker, that practically every key position in the South African Railways, with the exception of a few of the higher positions, are held by individuals who are Afrikaners, and good luck to them.

Name them.

I can name dozens, but I am not going to burden the House with lists of names. I am prepared to prove my statement, that most of the key positions in the South African Railways are held by Afrikaners.

Thanks to D. H. C. du Plessis.

Those are the indisputable facts.

That is quite right.

I can say this, that when one takes into account the actual length of service of these individuals, they have made meteoric progress.

Nonsense.

It is all very well to chip in with “nonsense”, but his statement is nonsensical because they, the Opposition cannot prove it by chapter and verse. All I can say is that they may have one or two isolated cases, but some people forget they must crawl before they walk, and some individuals who have run to members of the Opposition imagine they should all be general managers, forgetting that during the last five years they have received promotion equivalent to an additional £300 or £400 per annum. But they expect £2,000 per annum. Having praised the Minister of Transport for the response to my appeal for improved conditions for railwaymen, I want to refer to the unsatisfactory position of many aspects of promotion. Admitted that the question of promotion in any big service is most difficult. I asked the Minister last Session to favourably consider the question of appointing inspectors to act as liaison officers between the staff and the Railway Service Commission. I understand that the matter is under consideration but no definite decision has been taken. I can assure the Minister that if he tries out such an experiment it will give great satisfaction to the staff. I would also like to appeal to the Minister on behalf of re-employed pensioners on the Railways. Quite a number of these pensioners were brought back on account of their long and ripe experience before they went on pension. I do feel that bearing in mind that they have been brought back on account of their railway experience, they should receive sick pay when off duty through illness. I would like to ask the Minister to give this matter sympathetic consideration. I believe the Administration is not too keen on doing this, because the pensioners are treated on the same basis as all other casual employees in the Railway service, but I would ask the Minister to treat re-emploved pensioners in a different way to that in which the Administration treats casuals, because as I have already said these men’ were brought back on account of their experience in railway matters. In conclusion, I want to appeal to the Minister not to regard Pretoria as a dorp but as a city. For many years now passengers desiring to go to the coast invariably find only one saloon attached to the passenger train from Pretoria. It is the experience, no doubt, of many members of this House, and it is the experience of many thousands of passengers who are resident in Pretoria that if they wished to go to a coastal centre or any other centre some distance away, they have to change at Germiston or Johannesburg. That has been my experience on numerous occasions. So I do feel, bearing in mind the present limited train accommodation, Pretoria should not be penalised more than any other city. With Pretoria’s population of over 100,000 we are justified in asking the Minister to have complete main line trains running from Pretoria and that Pretoria should not be regarded as just a “rib” to Johannesburg. Finally, I want to ask the Minister to favourably consider attaching a suburban coach to the Durban train. We find people queuing up and the Administration telling them there is a shortage of train accommodation. The public is prepared to put up with a suburban coach on the Durban train. A suburban coach can accommodate 83 passengers, whereas a first class main line saloon occommodates only 26. I tested the feeling of the public, and they would prefer accommodation on a suburban coach to go to Durban rather than have to queue up for horns, and then possibly not get to the coast at all. If the public is willing, the Minister should agree to the experiment, and I ask him to give the matter favouraole consideration. It must be remembered that using a suburban coach in this way would release three first class main line saloons for the long distances.

In connection with the Additional Railway Estimates I mentioned a few points in connection with the building of new railway lines, but the Minister did not reply. Now I want to avail myself of the opportunity to put a few pertinent questions that I hope he will reply to. In the first place, bearing in mind that South Africa is still a young country, I should like to know what the policy of the Department is in connection with the construction of new railway lines. What is the policy of the Government in that connection? My second question is whether the Minister intends to build a railway between Mafeking and Lichtenburg, and the other section between Klerksdorp and Coligny? Those are connections which we are anxious to have, and I shall be glad to know whether the Minister can remove any doubts on the point. Furthermore, as it is being stated that the railway workers have never been so well off in the past as they are today, I take it that increases have occurred in respect of salaries and wages, but there are still a great many railway workers that do not earn even 10s. per day, and I think the time has arrived when no white person in the service of the State should receive less than 10s. a day in wages. I am talking about European persons. Especially in the times through which we are passing, it cannot be expected that a person can make ends meet on less. You cannot keep body and soul together on less than 10s. a day. Then I showed the Minister a letter containing certain complaints that milk cans and fowl crates and similar things are handled very roughly on the railways. I have myself seen how milk cans are thrown off railway coaches. I should like to have the assurance of the Minister that he will see to it that those articles are handled more carefully. Another point that I should like to bring to his notice is in connection with the mixed travelling of coloureds and Europeans. On our railways it has been brought to my notice that coloured people travel in the same compartments as Europeans and also use the same wash basins that have to be used by Europeans. Those are things that we cannot tolerate. It is impossible to tolerate that Europeans and non-Europeans should travel in the same compartment and use the same wash basins. I do not want to expatiate over these things because our time is limited, but I hope that the Minister will reply to them.

Under Standing Order No. 64 a member is allowed to speak on a normal debate 40 minutes. Today I have 15 minutes which has been agreed to by the South African Labour Party, and somewhat reluctantly accepted by me. Fifteen minutes to deal with a Budget of £117,000,000 in all its ramifications and implications can be described perhaps as a farce. Perhaps the hon. Minister would prefer the word “tragedy”. But if I had no time to say anything else, I would like to repeat a suggestion I have made before in this House, that the Budget debate should not be an arrangement between Whips, or limited to four days, but it should be continued for fourteen days if necessary, and time should be allowed for a conscientious and complete discussion of the nation’s affairs, even if it resulted in this House remaining in Session ten months in the year. I feel that very sincerely, and I put it forward for the second time. The other day the Minister of Mines gave us his opinion, and his assurance, that the gold industry dominated this country; that it had done so in the past, it is doing so in the present, and will be doing so in the future, whether we like it or not. He made a playful suggestion at that stage that he would not mind entering into partnership with the agricultural industry of this country. I wish to say plainly in my view it is much more important to dig potatoes out of the earth than to delve for gold, and that mealies are a much more vital crop than diamonds. We shall be forced to realise presently, if things go on as now, that it is possible to have bags of gold, bags of money, and still to die of starvation. I fear very much one of the possibilities of the approaching peace is world-wide famine, and I should like to see this Government devoting millions to nationally planned food production. I should like to see millions of pounds devoted to the harnessing and controlling of the torrents that fall on our mountains, so that the rain may be conserved and be used to fructify the land. I think it is time somebody sees in this House that the primary industry of South Africa, as I believe it is the primary industry of any country in the end, is not any sort of mining. My colleague, the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) had a wordy set-to with the Minister of Economic Development. I disagree with the hon. member for Krugersdorp to some extent. He said the Government had no economic policy. I think they have one of a sort, although the Minister did not make it very plain as he rambled on; I was reminded of a city man who went for a holiday into the country. He changed his habits there for the sake of relaxation and rehabilitation, so he went to church. The sermon was inordinately long. The townsman bore it for quite a time, and then unable to bear it any longer, went out to rest a while under the shade of the trees that were round about. He came back after a quarter of an hour and the sermon was still proceeding, and he said to the verger: “Isn’t he finished?” “Yes,” the verger said, “he finished long ago, but he won’t leave off.” That was precisely the impression I got of the Minister’s reply to the hon. member for Krugersdorp on the Government’s economic policy. His speech went meandering on like Tennyson’s brook, except there were no fishes in it. I should like to summarise the matter by giving a working man’s opinion as to what the Government’s economic policy is. This is from a man in Durban—

That is the feeling of a very large number of workers in this country, and I think it will be good in every way if the Government takes notice of that feeling. I have a letter here dated 5th March from Durban on the subject of fish—

This letter is signed by the President of the United Helping Hand Society. The people at Durban feel it strongly that though they have a great need for food the Government is not using the powers it possesses to supply the food. Under the Fisheries Development Act we passed last year a great deal could be done in two ways. One is to put the necessary food in the form of fish on empty plates. The second is to raise the money that is needed for the rehabilitation of distressed fishermen by the thousands, and of distressed fishing localities. It is years since I recommended to the Minister that if the facts some of us placed before him were doubted, the Government should put the matter to the test, and at very small expense, the purchase of one boat, undertake an experiment; they could put a skipper and crew aboard the boat and send them out to fish, and the Government would thus get their own data and see for themselves what profit is made in fishing, and what the possibilities are in regard to the amount of food that can be got by the exertions of ten fishermen. I want to put a definite example before this House. The figures were supplied by a friend of mine, who skippered a craft outside Walvis Bay for the present snoek season. Let us say that the boat was worth £5,000. That is more than she cost to build. I will show the result as it affects the owner, the crew, and the public. First of all, 10 per cent. is taken for depreciation of the boat, that is £500; 10 per cent. is taken as interest on the capital, that is £500; 25 per cent. is taken for the upkeep of the boat, that is £1,250—£2,250 in all. The average catch of this boat, and she is quite normal, over a period of five months was 15,000 snoek a month. Here the owners come in again; apart from what I have already told the House, the owners take one-third of the total catch; i.e. 5,000 snoek per month go to the owners of the boat. A very low price today for snoek is 3s. each. It might run up to 4s. 6d. But taking it at 3s. per snoek that is another £750 per month, or in the five months £3,750. That means for the owners a nice sum of £6,000 on one boat, and there are still 10,000 of the snoek left per month. Of course the fishermen come in there. In respect of these two-thirds of the catch, the crew receives at the rate of 6d. per fish, not 6d. per man, but 6d. for the crew of ten. Three-fifths of a penny is what the individual fisherman gets for a snoek weighing nine or ten or eleven pounds. All he can make at this 6d. per snoek rate works out at £25 per month for each member of the crew. That is not a very great deal, is it? There are other expenses; I have yet to tell you that the flecker, the man who cuts and cleans the fish, gets 7d. per snoek, i.e. the crew, cleaners and catchers, take 1s. 1d. worth of each 3s. snoek that is still left. These number 10,000, thus roughly £500 a month go for wages, leaving £1,000 for somebody. The pay of a good skipper, at the present moment, runs into £40 a month; the wage of the engineer £16 per month. He is not a marine engineer but he does the job. Then they allow 2s. 6d. per man per day for food, which works out at barely £40 per month. That is £96 in all out of the £1,000 per month; and when the mate is paid the balance is approximately £900. Five months of that is a further £4,500. It comes to this, that on one boat worth £5,000, in five months a profit of £8,000 to £10,000 accrues to the owners. That is what I have asked the Minister over and over again to do, and I ask him once more today. Will he get just one boat; will he engage just one competent-skipper and one hardworking crew; will he send out his boat and see what they can do with it? I urge him very strongly to do it, because in that way he will get, and get’ quickly, additional food for the people, and some of the money that so far apparently he has not been able to get from any source to make good the dreadful conditions under which the fishermen are still living. It is not merely I who ask him whether he will buy a boat and put it to the test, but thousands of people are behind me in putting this request.

The hon. member for Hottentots-Holland (Mr. Carinus) has made a touching appeal to the Government to be so good as to introduce compulsory education for coloured children, but he has not said who will pay for that compulsory education. I presume he intends that we should have to pay for it. He nods his head, he says yes.

I stated that the Government should pay for it.

That means the European part of the population must now be obliged to compel coloured children to go to school, and on top of that they will have to pay for it. I would like to have it made quite clear so that we may know where we stand. The hon. member for Pretoria West (Mr. Hopf) made a few allegations here that I cannot so readily let pass. I am sorry that he is not in the House at the moment. I should like to hear what he has to say on the point. Amongst other things he stated that most of the key positions on the railways were filled by Afrikaans-speaking officials. I want to say absolutely clearly: There are people with Afrikaans surnames holding certain posts in the railways, but that is the only Afrikaans about them, that is their names. Apart from that there is nothing Afrikaans in their make-up. But in any case the General Manager himself answers them in his report of last year, in which he admits that 80 per cent. of the senior officials are English-speaking. What better proof can you have that favouritism is going on in connection with the appointment and promotion of officials? 80 per cent. of the senior officials are English-speaking. What an admission, what self-accusation, what a crushing self-condemnation. It is not necessary to refute that; he accuses himself and finds himself guilty. That is the case and if the hon. member wants further particulars I can give him the particulars regarding a number of watertight departments in the railways in which all the officials are English-speaking. I shall not follow the bad example set by the Minister to mention the names of officials on the floor of the House. I shall take as an example the chief accountant’s department; give me the name of a single senior Afrikaner official in the whole of that department. Stand up and mention his name.

What department?

The chief accountant’s department. Take the office of the local accountant. The General Manager of the railways is English-speaking; the assistant general managers are English-speaking; the chief staff superintendent is English-speaking. Those are the four principal posts on the railways.

Do they hold these posts on account of their ability?

I can mention several other departments; take the traffic department. The head of it the assistant general manager is English-speaking, and then you come to an Afrikaans-speaking man who last year was passed over in favour of someone else, and then you get the next four senior officials; they are all English-speaking. Here in Cape Town an English-speaking system manager is acting, here in Cape Town where the population is preponderantly Afrikaans-speaking, and there is a unilingual English-speaking superintendent. I do not wish to dilate on this matter. I merely wish briefly to refute those allegations. The subject I wish to enlarge upon is the policy of the present Government in connection with the expansion of railway and bus services. We stand on the threshold of a very important period of economic competition and there can be no effective safeguarding of South Africa in the economic sphere if we have not the means of distribution well organised, and our principal means of distribution in South Africa are our transportation services, our railway, our road motor services, shipping and air services. A considerable time has been devoted to air services and I do not want to dwell on that point. I should like to devote my attention more particularly to expansion in connection with the railways and bus services. For nearly 20 years now we have had this position. For nine years we had a Nationalist Party Government which extended the railways by 1,500 miles. For the following 11 years we have had the present administration and it has only extended our railway system by one-tenth of that distance. The Minister has repeatedly said it is the policy of this Government not to consider any new lines unless it is on the basis of these lines being guaranteed to pay. If we had assumed that attitude at the outset we would have had no railways in the country. The country made its investment in railways in order to ensure that the country would secure a benefit from that in the form of development. For most of the time the railway is the pioneer of development in an area, but some areas have developed to such an extent that the Railway Administration will be compelled to hold out the prospect of extensions. The traffic on some branch lines has increased so much that the Administration will be obliged to take into consideration the lengthening of them and linking them up with main lines. I shall be grateful if the hon. the Minister will make a statement on this subject so that the country may know where it stands. May I just say that this side of the House supports a policy of reasonable extension of our railway system, on the lines we carried it into effect when on a pervious occasion we were in power.

When were you in power?

Then there is another very important aspect, namely extension by way of road motor services. We have at present 17,000 road motor services and I understand that the Railway Administration contemplate certain extensions, but if there is one section where we should like the Minister to take the lead for exceptionally rapid extension, immediately after the war or as soon as possible, perhaps before then, it is road motor services, and we would like him to proceed with the extension of the system; the quicker it is done the better it will be for the country. We have in mind that the producing section of the people are being hindered and impeded in the marketing of their produce owing to their not having the means of transport. A great deal of cream falls into a condition of second grade and third grade because there are not the means of transport to bring it to the market in time. Other perishable foodstuffs remain on the farms because the farmers have not got the necessary means of transport. In our estimation one of the most necessary things for the railways to take into consideration is the quick and adequate extension of the road motor services as soon as circumstances make it in any way possible. In that connection numbers of vehicles are now being released by the military authorities and we want to make an appeal to the Minister that the maximum use should be made of these vehicles to provide the public with ample means of transport. There is another important aspect of the matter that I should like to touch on but time does not permit me to do so. There is only one point that I want to touch on before I resume my seat and that is in reference to post-war development funds. The Minister announced extension plans involving £30,000,000 more or less; a very small proportion of that has been allotted to the Free State. Virtually the whole amount goes to constituencies represented by hon. members who are seated on the other side of the House. We do not wish to say that it is intentional but at the same time we want to direct his attention to the fact that the railways exist for the whole of the people and the whole of the country and it makes no iota of difference what our political convictions may be, we feel that when it comes to development thorough consideration should be given to the needs of the whole country. We would like to request that the case of Bloemfontein should enjoy thorough and careful attention and that Bloemfontein’s claim, its entirely legitimate claim, for consideration and to a more liberal grant of funds for development in the great post-war scheme should not be overlooked.

I will only be able to touch on a few points in my share of the limited time that is available to this side of the House. I congratulate the hon. Minister of Railways and the hon. Minister of Finance on the Budgets. I would like to remind the Minister of Railways that many of his officials and staff still work under unhygienic conditions in regard to light and space and this militates against efficiency. The public opinion is that the Minister of Finance’s Budget is not sensational. If we think back to 1939 when our revenue was under £50,000,000, I think that we must conclude that a Budget showing a revenue of over £123,000,000 within five years is sensational. I think it is illogical for people to say they admire and worship our Prime Minister and then sabotage his Government in their efforts to cope with shortages and distribution problems. If all interested bodies as regards meat will only co-operate I have no doubt that the working man would have a fair deal. One thing we do realise today is that our natives have never been able to buy the meat they required, and we also know that we in this country have better and more meat available to us than our soldiers on active service in Italy. We appreciated hearing our Prime Minister’s policy with regard to our obligations to our Indian, coloured and native population. I also appreciated his statement that we would have a shortage of labour after the war and there would be room for immigrants in this country. I do not think that immigration will definitely solve the misgivings of the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) as regards the maintenance of white civilisation in this country. I am sorry the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) is not here. But he did raise criticism because he was not selected to represent the wool farmers at the conference overseas.

He was selected.

No member in this House has done more to divide the wool farmer in this country, than the hon. member for Cradock. I would also like to remind him that his continual plea of the poverty of the farming community has lowered their self esteem and prestige in this country.

You are becoming a vindictive person.

I want to compliment the Minister of Finance on this memorandum regarding the benefits under social security.

Do not put it on too thickly.

I would like to ask the Minister of Finance when it will be possible for him to declare the maximum assistance of families under the Children’s Act. You will remember that the maximum used to be £9. It is now proposed to fix it at £12. I would also like to know when the increased means test for old-age pensions, blind pensions and invalidity pensions will be brought into operation and I want to make a plea to the Minister as regards cost of living allowances to our old civil service pensioners. There are difficulties but we must remember that these men built up our civil service at a very much lower rate of pay than the civil servants receive today. Moreover, they are on a lower pension but they have to live under the present conditions on those pensions. I also feel that our widows in this country are neglected, firstly the widows of civil servants. The civil servants contribute 1 per cent. of their salaries to a Widows’ Pension Fund, to which the Government makes no contribution. I feel that the Government should contribute to that fund on the £ for £ basis. Time and again we are confronted with the position that the widows of civil servants have to live on a mere pittance. We owe it to these widows. They have done their share in the service of this country. As regards the widows of soldiers, the widow of a soldier can receive a maximum pension of £300 per annum, whereas the widow who is dependant on her son who is a soldier, can only receive a maximum pension of £120. I think that is irregular. In many cases the sons of widows have contributed to the upkeep of the family to the same degree as their husbands would have done and will continue to do so. I think that ways and means will be sought to remove this anomaly. I want to make a few remarks about the E.P.D., the excess profits duty tax. I do not like this tax, it has encouraged evasion and it has restricted production in this country. It militates against private enterprise and individual enterprise and this country is being made by individual enterprise. We are curtailing it by this tax today. I briefly want to say that this tax would serve the same purpose if it was regarded as a loan, free of interest to the Government for five or six years, and on repayment it could then again be calculated as liable for normal income and super tax. That will enable an individual today to spread his income over a number of years. It would create stability. It would encourage initiative and enterprise. I appreciate the Minister’s remarks as regards industrial development in this country and the figures that he quoted to this House. But I feel that if these figures were investigated you would find that individual development which can afford to take greater risk, which we need in this country—and the only way you can take risks legitimately is with your own money, and I do feel that this curtailment of individual initiative, is not in the best interest of the country and I can definitely state that it has curtailed the production of meat and maize which are our major products in agriculture in this country. Then as regards our soldiers we have had misgivings expressed about the treatment they will receive after the war. We on this side of the House know that if any soldiers in the world are going to be treated well, our soldiers are. But I would like to make this appeal to the Government that after the war our soldiers should be encouraged to join the civil service, to come and help to put our Government in order. We know our Government are often administered by people who are not with us in our war policy, and I feel that soldiers joining the civil service should have their period of war service added for pension and salary purposes. I think that is the least we can offer them, and there is no doubt that we will encourage our best men to join the civil service. We know that even in the police we have lost some of our best men fighting up north. We have lost those men for good. They cannot come back. We want as many of those young men back as possible to help the Minister.

I am afraid I am not one of those members who is prepared to indulge in a backscratching contest as far as the Ministers are concerned. I am sorry the hon. Minister of Agriculture is not here. My time is very limited indeed. More particularly I would like to take him to task again in connection with his meat scheme which is causing so much trouble throughout the country. I am pleased to see the Minister of Lands in his place this evening, because something is taking place almost nightly in Cape Town, and I feel that we Durban members might have something to say in connection with a problem which is causing Cape Town grave concern. I refer to the continual outbreaks of fire on Table Mountain. The municipality and provincial council have evidently not been able to deal with the matter, and perhaps it is possible for the Minister of Lands to come to their assistance and to prevent these beautiful mountains from being blotted out by fire. This is a matter which also concerns us more directly because about two weeks ago we had a very serious fire in Adderley Street, at Darters. One never knows, a similar event may take place even in this House. Some people may say that it will be all to the good. I am not prepared to subscribe to that view, in view of the members we have on these benches. For the members of the United Party and of the Opposition it may be quite different. I would like to suggest that the fire which took place at Darters could easily have been stopped. I feel that when we are told that the fire brigade of Cape Town could not get the hoses connected up in time, there is something seriously wrong. We were led to believe that our C.P.S. could be relied on during the war. What would have happened if the fire had taken place here? The whole place would have been reduced to ashes. When the fire broke out at Darters, for about a quarter of an hour there was simply no water coming through the hoses; I am not blaming the Cape Town fire brigade; I am not blaming the local authority, but I am assured that it is the usual thing when a fire takes place in Cape Town for the whole place to be gutted or the fire just manages to burn itself out. I mention this because I think it is a matter which should receive some attention from the Government. It is a very serious matter indeed. There are a number of Government buildings surrounding this area, and one can imagine the danger in which those buildings are placed. It is a matter that will affect the Minister of Finance. A building of £40,000 is completely gone and all further revenue from that business will be lost to the Minister of Finance and I am sure he will regret it as much as we do to see on old-established place burnt down through lack of supply of water. I am perfectly sure that the fire could have been subdued in ten minutes if there had been sufficient water coming through the hoses. Although this is a local matter, I think it is one which should be investigated. It is a matter that may have very serious consequences with regard to Government buildings situated in this area. We were very pleased to hear from the hon. Minister that the controllers who have been causing so much trouble in South Africa will not be kept on longer than is necessary. I feel sure that these controllers and control boards are not carrying out the work for which they were intended. It is a pity that immediately a control board is brought into being, regulations are framed under the Act, which I am perfectly certain the House never contemplated at the time. I feel perfectly certain that there is no control board in existence today that is not abusing its powers every day. If I had the time at my disposal I think I could convince the House that that is the case. I want to ask the Minister whether it is not possible to have some sort of enquiry instituted into the activities of the control boards. So far « as controllers are concerned, even the price controllers, they do not really exist, and it is common talk in Johannesburg that there is no such thing as price control. I think it is time the Minister went into that aspect of the matter. I say the reason is that, like in so many other Government departments, the staff are not being paid adequately. Where you have men getting something like 12s. 6d. a day, you are not going to get the right type of man to carry out such a great and important duty. Well, Sir, in regard to the Minister’s meat scheme, this House has had very little opportunity of discussing this scheme, as it is now operated, but it is suggested that there is going to be a further meat scheme, and I would like the assurance from the Minister that when this scheme is brought into being, it will be submitted to Parliament. Parliament will then be able to have some say in the new scheme that is contemplated by the control board. Under the Marketing Act, when it was passed in this House, it was not contemplated_that all sorts of schemes could be brought into being under that Marketing Act. There has been a great deal of agitation and I hope the Minister will be able to assure the House that before another scheme is produced, an oportunity will be given to the House to discuss it. We have had in Durban and Cape Town, and right throughout the country a terrific shortage of meat ever since the meat scheme came into being. I received a telegram from a firm in Durban which says—

That gives you some idea as to how this scheme is working, that the Food Control Department sent out their buyers—they are buying cattle and railing them to markets and other firms who have been in the industry a lifetime are not being allowed, and farmers are not being allowed, to send their cattle to markets through the auctioneers, through the Control Board having sent buyers out and paying exorbitant prices and sending them to markets, which, for the time being, are overstocked. I have never known of any single town or village in South Africa that has had an over supply of meat which it could not consume. When there is a little extra supply, the Department comes along and says “we are going to cut it down 5 per cent.” It was 80 per cent. and 75 per cent., and is now 65 per cent., and will probably come down to 60 per cent., and then they will turn round and say “the markets are getting their full supply”. When they are supplied with 100 per cent. for three months, they will not have sufficient supplies that are required for their stock. My time has expired and I cannot go into this, but before the Government embarks on another scheme, I say that they should give us an opportunity of discussing it.

I should like to invite the Minister’s attention to a matter which has reference to the railway officials who contribute to the sick fund in the Free State. I mention this matter because it is my view, and I am confident that the Minister will share that view, that definite injustice is being done to the officials in the Free State who contribute to the sick fund. It appears that the senior officials who control the railway’s sick fund in the Free State have laid down a harmful policy in that Province, a policy under which the officials and the members of their families who may be sent to the hospital, have to go to certain specified hospitals, and this has a detrimental effect more particularly in the case of the lower-paid officials. We know that the railway officials contribute to the sick fund and in return for that they receive free medical treatment and also free hospital services, but what is happening now in the Free State? This is what we have. When a railway official has to undergo an operation he previously could go to the nearest hospital, be admitted there and undergo the operation there. That policy has now been altered by that executive committee of the railway sick fund, and at present the position in the Free State is that the railway official who in the opinion of the railway doctor should undergo an operation in hospital, may not undergo that operation in the local hospital. He has to go to Bloemfontein and have the operation done there. The policy is that such a railway official may only be operated on in the local hospital in an emergency. The local hospital and local doctor are good enough to deal with a serious operation if it is regarded as an emergency case. But in the ordinary cases where it is decided that such a person should undergo an operation he is not entitled to go to the local hospital; he has to go to Bloemfontein, and the reason that is given for that is that they wish to ensure that such officials receive good medical attention. Now I want to ask the Minister whether it is only in Bloemfontein that there are good doctors and surgeons who are able to carry out operations. I should like to mention instances where the people have got into difficulties and have been placed in a wrong position. There are the examples of Harrismith, Bethlehem and Kroonstad, all centres that have well-equipped hospitals. Bethlehem and Kroonstad are large railway centres where hundreds of railway official are housed, and from time to time they require hospital services involving an operation, and although locally there are excellent doctors and also well-equipped hospitals, the policy is that those people cannot be attended to locally but have to go specially to Bloemfontein. I want to ask the Minister whether it has struck him how that policy affects the low paid railway official. Take, for example, the case of a man in Bethlehem or Harrismith who is 200 miles or more away from Bloemfontein. Suppose the man’s wife has to undergo an operation. As a rule a man would like to accompany his wife if she has to leave for another place to undergo a serious operation. In the first place that low-paid official loses his wage. Then he has additional costs because he has to pay board in an hotel or boarding-house at Bloemfontein. He may have four children who may have to be attended to in poor and difficult surroundings in the town where he resides. He loses his wage; he incurs additional expense for himself and his children, and also for himself for a few days before and after the operation at Bloemfontein. I want to ask the Minister whether he does not agree with me that this is an unfair policy that is being carried out in the Free State in respect of these officials? Why cannot the Minister put his foot down and give instructions to the sick fund board that those things should not happen in the future. The fact is, and the Minister should pay heed to this, that these people are making misuse of their influential position in the sick fund. They are highly-paid officials in the big towns in the Free State, and, with a view to obtaining the services of specialists, they have so arranged the policy that operations should be carried out in Bloemfontein. They are doing this for their own glorification, and at the expense of the lower-paid officials on the railways. In a case of this sort the less-privileged have to pay twice for the services. They have to pay their contributions to the sick fund and when misfortune occurs necessitating that they or one of their family should have to go to Bloemfontein for an operation they have to suffer the inconvenience, the loss and the additional expense involved. That is not right. I know the Minister is a fair man with humanitarian feelings and he cannot allow that such a thing should continue. We have able doctors in those towns which are railway centres, such as Bethlehem and Kroonstad. If those people see that a person needs the services of a specialist they will not deliberately operate on such a person in the local hospital. They have shown in the past that in such a case they send those persons to a specialist in Bloemfontein. We know that in the case of trivial operations a person is sent a distance of 250 miles, while the local doctor could have carried them out himself in the well-equipped hospitals that are available. It is not right. It does not affect the bigwigs drawing large salaries in the towns. I am pleading here specially for the lowly paid workers who have to obtain their hospital services in these difficult circumstances when they have to be operated on. It is for them I am appealing. It is not merely that an injustice is being done them, but at the same time an injustice is being inflicted on the hospitals which have been established in the Free State with great effort and trouble, and which are ready there, well-equioped hospitals with the medical staff. These services, good services are available, as we can prove, but the people are not allowed to make use of them. They are, however, passed over, and these people are made to suffer because they are sent to Bloemfontein. I have been instructed to bring this matter specially to the attention of the Minister, and I trust that seeing I have made out a justifiable case in the interests of that section of the railway officials he will in all fairness see that the Board of Control of the Sick Fund in the Free State does not arbitrarily lay down a policy with a view to glorifying themselves, and that is in the interests of highly-paid officials, but that they should lay down a policy that will also meet the lower-paid men. I trust that the Minister will see to it that right and justice is done to these people.

Mr. Speaker, if I may, I would like to come back to the subject of mining. We have been reminded in the debate on the Budget that there is a certain amount of risk attached to producing gold from the ground, and the Minister has told us, and just recently a member of the House has told us, that we cannot expect that money can be risked unless it was money that belonged to a private individual. I think they have failed to see that if it is a question of risk and possible loss, which is a grave matter in the issue, it does not matter who risks the money and loses it; the effect on the community must be the same. If an individual or a group risks a considerable amount of money in a venture and that venture fails, the result is disaster just the same as if the community had risked the money and the venture had failed. We are cheered indeed by the news that in the case of mining, a definite attempt is going to be made by the Government, which represents the community to enquire seriously into the possibility of getting out all the gold that can be obtained in the country, and from a communal point of view that obviously reduces the risk of investing money considerably. But if we are merely going to put the ability of the community to provide the means for research at the disposal of private people who are said to take a risk, then we are falling down, surely, in our duty to the community. That must be agreed, Mr. Speaker, and I have no wish, in asking the House to agree to this, to indulge in the pastime of baiting the mining industry. I have been glad with thousands of other people to earn a living in the gold mines, and I realise that within the meaning of things as we have them today, the gold mines have played their part just as any other section of private enterprise has done in building up the kind of system we have. But, Mr. Speaker, we must remember this, the gold mining industry has not only given me a living of a kind, and thousands of others like me, but it has also distributed an at least equal amount of money in profits which has been paid to people who are supposed to have risked their money. I think that it can be demonstrated in the case of gold mining in this country that there has been no real risk at all, and if our system of finance did not allow that people could buy shares at greatly enhanced prices, I am sure the gold mining industry would not be in the parlous state in which it is alleged by some to be, because it is trying to bring profits up to a level which is calculated to satisfy people who have bought shares at ridiculously high prices. It is a fact in regard to the spending power of the people employed in the gold mines that for the year 1941, than which unfortunately we have no later figures, the total spending power of the whole of the people employed on gold mining, including the management at the top down to the native at the bottom, was the princely amount of 4.7s. per day. We do not despise the half loaf when we cannot get the whole one, but the fact remains that South Africa cannot become a prosperous and progressive country when its chief industry, or so-called chief industry, can only pay over all its personnel an average of 4.7s. per day. You know, Mr. Speaker, and we all know what that represents as spending power. If all the people of South Africa were only able to spend 4.7s. per day, we would all be on the economic level of the native who earns the least amount in any industry. So something will have to be done to bring up that average pay per day in every industry. The much-maligned coal industry in Britain, and rightly much-maligned at one time, has never been guilty of paying such a low average wage as that. Certainly, today it is paying a higher rate and I want to appeal to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Mines that they should not only consider research in order to find the total amount of gold we can get and can sell, but they should come together and find some way in which the community finds the money, so that private individuals need not talk about risking money. Then in exploiting all the resources of South Africa, including gold, we shall find the money at the minimum risk because we are finding things which will benefit South Africa. I am asking that the raising of money shall not be left to people who are prepared to gamble, as people have done in the hope of getting a big return; but on the basis of the needs of South Africa, we do suggest a radical step forward to help bring about what we on these benches hope will be achieved one day

I should greatly desire to make an appeal to the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the fine rains that have now fallen in the Free State the farmers are in need of seed-wheat, and it seems as if the Minister of Agriculture does not see his way clear to assist the farmers with seedwheat which in their opinion would be useful to them. The fact remains, however, that famine is on our doorstep, and it is the duty of the Government to see to it that seedwheat is made available and that the farmers should obtain an adequate supply for sowing. It may appear to the Minister that a person who possesses a farm should be in a position to buy his own seed-wheat. But I can give the Minister an assurance that the farmers sowed their seed-wheat last year, and if the Minister of Agriculture does not grant them a loan—to the farmers who are in a better financial position—for the purpose of buying seed-wheat, I fear that they will not sow a quarter of the wheat that they would otherwise have sown. There is already a danger that there will be a shortfall of 1,780,000 bags of wheat this year. Why should that wheat be imported? if the Minister of Agriculture will only encourage the farmers by means of seed-wheat so that they can sow abundantly this year—in view of good rains having fallen—that difficulty can be overcome and we shall be able to make good the shortage. The farmers are not asking for charity or to get the wheat for nothing. We know that a loan of £55 was granted to the smaller farmers, and if all the farmers can get that loan for the purchase of seed-wheat, even though financially they are better off, I can give the Minister the assurance that a great deal of wheat will be sown. The Government will not lose money by it, because these people are landowners and financially they are not badly off. They will be able to repay the loans and also the interest on them. The State will then have the benefit by the bridging of the deficit that is at our door. We know that the mealie crop has been a hopeless failure, and there will be a big shortfall. Now we are asking the Government instead of importing maize and wheat or before he imports maize and wheat, he should first assist the farmers to produce it themselves and thus avoid the shortage. It has been stated that the farmers got a good price for their wheat in the previous season. We should, however, not forget that as far as regards the Free State the wheat crop was an absolute failure. Take it that the farmer got on an average £1 10s. a bag for his wheat. Bearing in mind the fact that the previous year he had no crop at all this brings the average price down to 15s. a bag, because he must make good the loss in the year that he had no crop. So a wheat farmer has not had the least benefit from the high prices. Even though those prices stand the Free State farmers will first have to recoup themselves for the losses incurred in the previous year. In addition to that we must remember that they have also had two failures of the maize crop. In the circumstances they will perhaps now only sow five bags where they would have sown fifty if they were helped with seed-wheat. I want to make an appeal to the Minister of Agriculture to give the matter further consideration. Help anyone who wants to sow by granting this loan. They will pay it back, and what can the State lose? Encourage the farmers to sow. Beautiful rains have fallen, and in the manner I have suggested that shortage can be bridged. Another matter that I should like to bring up is the price that is paid for butterfat and cheesemilk. It has been pointed out that the costs of production of cheesemilk was 1s. to 1s. 1d. last year. Next year we are not going to be in any way better off because the early crops have been destroyed by insects with the result that it will be September or October before we have fresh fodder for our milch cows. The farmers have built up their herds at great expense. They have introduced good blood and erected modern cowsheds. I do not believe that the Minister will approve of all this trouble and expense having been incurred in vain or that the industry should now go under. I recommend that the winter price of milk should be 3d. higher than the winter price last year. The Minister must pay heed to that. The public must have the cheese and butter. I have not met anyone yet who is not prepared to pay 3d. more a lb. if they can only get the cheese and butter. The dairy farmers have themselves by means of a levy built up a fund of some £2 millions so that they will not be a burden on the Government. In view of the fact that we have had these abnormal conditions of drought, etc., for two successive years, with the result that the farmers produced at a loss I want to make an appeal to the Minister to make an exception this year and to oblige the farmers. We do not ask for this as a permanent price but merely to bridge this difficulty. The margarine will not solve the difficulty. It will undermine the dairying industry still more. We must not allow margarine eventually to bring about the ruin of the dairy industry. I hope that the Minister is going to be very careful, because if the sequel is going to be that the dairy farmers will change over to another sort of farming, if they sell their milch cows and allow their establishments to be destroyed, they will not easily be able to find the funds to resume that sort of farming. There has already been a tremendous decline in the production anti we must prevent the dairy industry being ruined.

When the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition dealt with the future of European civilisation, he laid stress on the political tendencies of the non-European population. In this respect the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister gave an outline of policy, and I do not intend to dwell on that matter, except to express the hope that the method of approach to the colour question should be based fundamentally on the solution provided by the Natal Provincial Council. The series of ordinances as passed by the council are, of course, ostensibly to deal with the relations between Europeans on the one hand and the Indians on the other, but they include the native population too; and we believe these ordinances generally should be accepted by the Government, and the policy they embrace should be carried out throughout the Union of South Africa. Of course, they do not include certain aspects of the matter that will have to be taken up by the Government. But the Government is waiting for the interim report by Mr. Justice Broome, chairman of the commission, and I trust when this report comes forward the Government will bear in mind that we must not only provide for the separation into residential areas, but also provide machinery calculated to give effect to the cultural side of our non-European races. With that introduction my reason for joining in the debate is that the protagonists of the future of a white civilisation in this country, and also of the question of mass immigration, seem, to my mind, to overlook one very important fact, and that is that European civilisation in South Africa cannot be maintained without a substantial increase in the birth-rate. Many members of this House, to my way of thinking, by their silence show a great indifference to one of the most vital problems of the country. The hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) made no reference to the decline of the brith-rate of Europeans compared to natives and other non-European races in this country. What are the facts? If we take as an example a cross section of the state of affairs that exists in Durban, it has been found by a survey undertaken by the Natal University College into some 25,661 families, that the facts are as follows: First, one-third of these Durban families are childiess. The rest, numbering some 18,000 have only one child, or to be put it statistically, 1.26 children per family unit. In view of this great revelation, it is not surprising that based upon what has happened during the last ten years and the fact that the Indian population was slightly smaller than the European population, if we find that in perhaps 50 years’ time the Indian population of Durban alone will be just over 500,000 and the European population just under 300,000. When we realise that we will appreciate the terrific increase that has taken place amongst the natives in the last few years. The native population has increased from 5,000,000 to 8,000,000. Remembering too that the hon. the Minister of Native Affairs did say in Another Place that the increase amongst the natives has been at a very great rate, I think the statistics cannot be disputed and must in themselves show clearly that South Africa’s European birth rate is in a dangerous position. Admittedly our European birth-rate compares favourably with that of other countries, but our problem is different from theirs, in’ that not only have we to maintain our population figures, but in addition we have to maintain our white population figures. What is even more important is that we must maintain the highest pitch of efficiency in regard to our white population, because in this country there can be no hope for the European or his family if he allows himself te fall below a certain standard of skill or education. What is the solution? The hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate) has recommended the repatriation of Indians based on subsidies. The hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) (Mr. Acutt) has referred to mass immigration. Let me remind the hon. member for Musgrave that the Prime Minister of England has indicated clearly that the young people of England are required in that country to build up its economic structure, and what is more if there are emigrants from that country, other countries, such as Australia and New Zealand will be waiting on the doorstep to welcome them. Whatever the vicissitudes of the future immigration policy of this country, we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that the best citizens the country can find is from its own virile stock.

Hear, hear!

I think if we accept that we need not be alarmed at these figures that have been given. [Interruption.] This is not a time for joking, it is a very serious matter. But let us examine the position in one city alone in South Africa. We have 8,000 families who are childless and 18,000 families with only 1.26 children per family unit; that shows what a serious position is facing the country. In discussing the future of our white civilisation in this country on the basis of an increased birth-rate, I should like to mention two facts. The first is I am not unmindful of the sorrow that must befall many couples in this country who owing to circumstances over which they have no control cannot have children. The second point is that unfortunately the lower one goes down the economic scale the larger the families, arid the tragedy is the average individual is inclined to sneer at large families. But the children of the lower income group, provided they are given proper education and feeding and hospital services, should be as big an asset as the children of people in the higher income group. Unfortunately by our neglect we have turned these people into poor whites. The fault is entirely ours. The main fault is the blind selfishness of individuals in the upper and middle income groups. These people have families in inverse ratio to their incomes, and I say again if we take Durban’s birth-rate to represent a cross-section of this country we will realise it is obviously a suicidal rate for the population, and nothing else.

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. 102 (2), and the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 15th March.