Arising out of the Minister’s reply, will he endeavour to obtain this information? Surely the Minister of Economic Development can find out how many factories there are belonging to Mr. Schlesinger.

I take over the amendment of the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) and I should like to discuss it. I am surprised that the hon. member in charge of the Bill has not indicated that she is prepared to accent that amendment, for it is an amendment which gives a meaning to this clause. It contains the wording made in the Roman Dutch legal terminology.

I am prepared to accept that amendment.

Well, then I shall proceed to discuss my own amendment. What I cannot understand is that a lawyer sitting on the other side of the House is not aware of the background of our common law. She should know that our common law in regard to marriages is completely different from that of England and here she comes along with a proposal to obscure the whole meaning of our marital law. At this stage I want to appeal to her once more. She believes that this is an urgent matter but it is not so terribly urgent. She is trying to pilot a Bill through this House in which our juridical background is not taken into account. She mentioned here that the women’s associations are supporting her. In the meantime I have been in touch with women’s associations. I explained this Bill to them and as far as the women’s organisations of the Cape are concerned they consider that this is a Bill which should not be passed by this House in such a rash way; that there are dangers attached to the Bill; and what is more that the Bill may be a danger to the wife. The hon. member ought to accept my amendment because this amendment safeguards the marital law as it was in the past. Only when the two parties separata, a difference arises. The wife can then go to court to obtain relief. By this measure the hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) is, however, loosening the family ties in our society. She should know that the foundations of society are based on a healthy family life. She is now trying to pass legislation here which is based on exceptional cases and for that reason I want her to reconsider this amendment of mine and if she does so she will in all probability accept it. Today the marital law only applies when proceedings are taken against a third party. In the household the man and the wife have equal rights. Only when proceedings are taken against a third party does the marital law come into the picture. The hon. member for Jeppes has been trying for years to make the women believe that they are in an inferior position.

And that is so.

If she really knew the background of the law she would not say that. At a later stage Ï shall read to her what a famous jurist had to say about that; and why is the hon. member afraid to refer this matter to the Government for enquiry by a competent commission?

I am not afraid of that.

We are dealing here with the family life of the people and we cannot allow the hon. member to try to change in an irresponsible manner our entire personal law in regard to marriages. Approximately 900 copies of this Bill have been printed; how many people are informed about the Bill; how many of the women the hon. member for Jeppes talked to, have read this Bill? It is the National Council of Women backing her up.

No. All the Women’s Associations.

That may be the case as far as the Vrouefederasie van Transvaal is concerned. I have, however, been in touch with the A.C.V.V. and they did not understand the Bill in that way. The hon. member now presents only one aspect of the matter, namely that the wife is supposed to occupy an inferior position and that she has not equal rights with the husband. That is not the case. This clause reads—

Then I add my amendment: “Or if the parties are not living together because of reasons which in the opinion of the court are well founded.” On a previous occasion I told the hon. member what the experience has been in other countries where judges can act as arbitrators between the two parties who are still living together. The other point the hon. member made was that the children should be considered in the first place.

What about the Calitz case?

That only concerns a minor aspect of this whole question. In that case the mother left, and what is more, my amendment makes provision for the Calitz case. The man and wife lived in separation. According to my amendment if she does not live together with her husband she is entitled to go to court and ask the court for relief. If the hon. member is really so much concerned about the Calitz case she will accept my amendment. But, as the clause reads now it means that when there is a minor quarrel in the family and the couple still live together, the mother will now obtain the right to break up the family, as it were, by going to court. Circumstances may arise—the husband may be a drunkard or there may be differences of religion—which result in the couple separating and living in separation. In that case, according to my amendment the wife can definitely go to court to obtain relief. The hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Stratford) said that the whole essence of the Bill is to put the interest of the child first. He knows quite well that the tendency of the law today is to put the interest of the child first. We can, however, not put the interest of the child first above the interest of the family and for that reason I ask the hon. member for Jeppes to accept my amendment. [Time limit.]

I have listened with close interest to what the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) has just said. I listened really in the hope that he might have some new argument to produce to this House, one that he had not used on the last occasion the Bill was discussed. I listened with the closest attention, and I have not been able to find any single point which he has not made half-a-dozen times on the previous occasion, both he and the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart); and in those circumstances I must add that I do not propose to answer them again because I am convinced the purpose of the hon. member for Gordonia is not to amend the Bill but to wreck it. I do not propose to answer for the third or fourth time points that have already been made ad nauseam.

After the pert reply given by the hon. member I want to tell her that I did not expect such a reply from her. I asked her to tell me in which respect my amendment does not cover the Calitz case. This is a legal point and I want to say that she is not able to reply to it. I did not attack her personally, but instead of replying to that point she now makes a personal attack and the outrageous charge that I am trying to wreck the Bill. In my capacity as a member of Parliament I am not here to wreck Bills but to improve them. The second reading of the Bill has been agreed to and it is my duty as a member to make the Bill as sound as possible. I repeat that she is not able to tell me in which respect my amendment does not cover the Calitz case. If she persists in that attitude she will find it very difficult to have this Bill passed. It is no use being impertinent and suggesting motives. I ask her to explain in what respect my amendment does not cover the Calitz case.

I have done so twice already.

No, the hon. member did not do so and since she did not do so and apparently is unable to do so it is my duty to quote what other persons, who know more about this matter than she does had to say about the Bill. I want to read something here from an article by Professor Pont dealing with this Bill. I wonder whether she read that article?

No.

She did not read it. She has a bee in her bonnet in regard to the inferior position of the wife. She does not mention the legal aspect and she has simply been instigated by certain women to introduce this Bill. I should like to read out what Professor Pont said and I want the hon. member for Jeppes to listen and to refute his arguments. In his article he writes— [ Translation ]

The Minister of Lands who knows nothing about legal matters is at the moment distracting the attention of the hon. member. As far as the rules of the House allow me to do so I shall quote from what Professor Pont has to say about this matter, for he is a very well-known jurist. Since the hon. member for Jeppes did not listen I shall read again from the beginning—

On a point of order is the hon. member permitted to read again what he has already read to the House?

Has the hon. member read this passage before?

Yes, I did read it out but while I was reading it the hon. member was engaged in a serious conversation with the Minister of Lands. For that reason I read it out again. Quite likely she did not understand it and did not want to listen because it was in Afrikaans.

On a point of order, is the hon. member in order in making aspersions of the nature he is making?

What aspersions?

The hon. member is saying that I have not understood what he is saying, or what Prof. Pont has written.

You are proving it now.

He has read this to the House on a previous occasion, and on a point of order I should like your ruling whether the hon. member is permitted to read again the article he has already read.

The hon. member may proceed.

What I want to read out now I have not read before. If the hon. member should not be able to understand what I read in Afrikaans I shall translate it for her into English afterwards. It goes on—

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, the hon. member is again reading what he has read before.

The hon. member must leave that to the discretion of the Chair. The hon. member has not read this passage before.

I have tried time and again to explain the Bill and to get the hon. member as far as to realise what some of the clauses in this Bill imply. I should like to refer further to the remarks of Professor Pont in this article—

I am speaking as a layman and not as a lawyer. This clause, however, is definitely going to endanger the good relations existing between spouses. They may have a minor dispute but nobody dreams of going to court to settle it. The amendment proposed by the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) implies that when the two parties are living in separation they shall have the right to come to court, but as long as they live together the wife will not have the right to bring a dispute concerning the family before the court.

May I point out to the hon. member that that argument has been repeated ad nauseam.

But I did not yet take part in the debate.

Yes, but other hon. members have used that argument already.

Anyhow, I think the amendment is a just one and it should be accepted.

Professor Pont raises a very important point here and I hope that the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Stratford) will take notice of that legal principle. I do not hope that he allowed himself to be led to support this Bill by influences other than the sole consideration of legal principles. Professor Pont comes to the following conclusion—[Translation.]

We are dealing here with the introduction of legislation concerning exceptional cases and are thereby losing sight of the normal cases. If hon. members can satisfy me in regard to these points I shall be satisfied but if not I shall have to fight this Bill. I repeat once more that the hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) owes me a reply in how far my amendment does not cover the Calitz case.

I shall give the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) the satisfaction of bringing me to my feet and occupying the time of the House for another few minutes. He used the argument in connection with this clause that one should, in framing legislation, be careful not to deal with extraordinary cases, because if one does that one is apt so to change the law that it is unsuited to deal with the ordinary cases. That is the argument. I quite agree. It is clear that one should not bring in legislation with the sole aim of dealing with cases which seldom arise like the Calitz case; if you do so you may upset a condition of the law which is quite satisfactory. As I see it, this Bill does nothing of the kind, and all the arguments of the learned members opposite proceed from a wrong supposition as to what it does. He attacks the hon. member for Jeppes on the ground of her ignorance of the law, but his own argument proceeds from a wrong supposition and I would recommend him to study the Bill more carefully himself. However that may be, let me deal with the argument. Let me say at once it is an argument which should be met. Although it was met the last time the clause was considered, I am going to do it again. The main objection to this clause—and I hope the hon. member will correct me if I misinterpreted him in any way—the main objection is that if the mother of a child is able to come to the court and complain, or raise the Question of her child’s upbringing or education in any way, at a time when she and her husband are living together— that is a time when they are not separated or divorced—you will have no end of litigation and you will put the court in the impossible position of having to decide upon the interests of the child without having any background as to the rights of the parents to consider. You will open the door to every type of litigation between spouses, otherwise happily married, and it will tend to wreck the household. If the effect of the Bill was to do that, I would agree, but what is overlooked, and persistently overlooked, by the hon. member every time he has spoken on the clause, is that the clause does not take away the rights of the father in regard to the education and upbringing of the children. That is a most important point. It is perfectly clear to me that if a mother, in the circumstances such as we have supposed, comes to the court, and (to return to the argument used by the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) and others), claims that the child ought to go to a particular school, or ought to be brought up in a particular religion, contrary to the wishes of the father, the court will in effect say: “What are the wishes of the father, have you shown any reason why I should override them?” The father’s superior rights still remain under the Bill and the court will be in the position that unless the mother can show that the father, by his conduct, has shown an indifference to the child’s welfare, the court will be obliged as a matter of practice even if this Bill comes into existence, to take the rights of the father into consideration. The only change this Bill will bring about is this, whereas in previous cases the court has been hampered by having to give undue consideration to the interests of the father, under this Bill the interests of the child come first. But the whole of this argument falls away if the hon. member will keep in mind that the rights of the father are not interfered with The situation he envisages cannot arise under this Bill, that two people, happily married, can come to court and squabble about the schooling or religion of the children. The court will not listen and will take up the attitude that “you must show me that the father, whose rights take precedence, has by his conduct proved that he has no interest in or is indifferent to the welfare of the child.” If only the hon. members opposite can abandon the outlook on the Bill that it is an attempt to overthrow the rights of the father; I feel if they were sincere about this Bill, they would realise that the changes are trifling. It is more a setting to rights of a trifling weakness which appeared in the Calitz case, where the court found itself hampered because it had to give first consideration, or undue consideration, to the rights of the father.

With all due deference to the hon. member who has just spoken, I just want to say that he apparently does not realise what the essence of this amendment is. Why do we find the words “whether or not” in this Bill? He knows the conditions under which parties can come to the court. I maintain that he also did not explain to the House that my amendment covers the Calitz case and he is now introducing a new factor here. We are not concerned more about the husband’s rights than about the wife’s rights. We are not concerned about that, but we are concerned about the family life of the people and the hon. member was as silent as the grave about those words “whether or not”. I maintain that the difficulty lies here. They can now go to court about any matter. I know that the court will protect the father’s rights just as much as those of the mother, but we on this side of the House want to prevent the possibility being created that the family life of the people will be undermined. I know that the rights of the husband are not being taken away but I want to ask the hon. member to read these articles properly once more. It seems to me that he did not read them properly for he did not refer to our objections. I bow to his greater knowledge; I bow to his larger experience but I maintain that this Bill is not such a trifling matter as he thinks, and if it is so trifling why does he associate himself with the Bill. I did not expect that from him. He knows what the tendency in our courts is in regard to the interpretation of the interests of the children. He knows that during the past few years the tendency has been to give the interests of the children first preference. He is now trying to convince us that the interests of the husband are not being interfered with. I agree with him but that was never the argument from this side of the House. The main argument from this side is that this Bill if it becomes law will create the possibility of making the family life of our people unpleasant and to that the hon. member did not reply.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Swart put and agreed to

Question put: That the words “whether or not” in lines 31 and 32, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the Clause.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—65.

Abbott, C. B. M.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, J. C.

Bosman L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Burnside, D. C.

Christopher R. M.

Cilliers, H. J.

Clark, C. W.

Corman, J. M.

Davis, A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Eksteen, H. O.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman B.

Gluckman H.

Gray, T. P.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Henny, G. E. J.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hopf, F.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Latimer, A.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Maré, F. J.

Miles-Cadman. C. F.

Morris, J. W. H.

Payne, A. C.

Pocock, P. V.

Prinsloo, W. B. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Russell, J. H.

Shearer, O. L.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Steyn, C. F.

Steyn, G. P.

Stratford, J. R. F.

Sullivan, J. R.

Sutter, G. J.

Tighy, S. J.

Ueckermann, K.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Visser, H. J.

Wanless, A. T.

Warren, C. M.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: W. B. Humphreys and J. F. T. Naudé.

Noes—30.

Bekker, G. F. H.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bremer K.

Brink, W. D.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Erasmus, F. C.

Erasmus, H. S.

Fouché, J. J.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Haywood, J. J.

Kémp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Le Roux, J. N.

Louw E. H.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Malan, D. F.

Mentz, F. E.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Potgieter, J. E.

Sauer, P. O.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Strauss, E. R.

Vosloo, L. J.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Tellers: J. H. Conradie and T. E. Dönges.

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment proposed by Mr. J. H. Conradie dropped.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 3,

I move—

To add the following new proviso at the end of the Clause: “: Provided that no such court shall give such judgment or make such order until the Master has submitted to it a report containing all the information which is relevant to the case and which in his opinion will be of assistance, together with his views thereon.”; and an amendment in the Afrikaans version which did not occur in the English version.

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 4,

I hope that the hon. member will also agree to my amendment to Clause 4. I move—

Yes, I will agree to it.

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 5,

Clause 5 has a very interesting history. I hope the hon. member will now ask the hon. Minister of Justice to amend the Administration of Estates Act in this connection. It is a stipulation of the Administration of Estates Act

I am prepared to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) on Clause 5. I might add I would have liked one or two verbal alterations, but I am prepared to accept the amendment as it stands.

I also move the amendment printed in the name of the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart). I move—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 6,

On the motion of Mr. J. H. Conradie, an amendment was made in the Afrikaans version which did not occur in the English version.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Agreed to.

On Clause 7,

On the motion of Mr. J. H. Conradie, an amendment was made in the Afrikaans version which did not occur in the English version.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

In the Title,

On the motion of Mr. J. H. Conradie, amendments were made in the Afrikaans version which did not occur in the English version.

Title, as amended, put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill with amendments and specially amendments to the Title.

I move—

I object.

Amendments to be considered on 23rd March.

Mr. Speaker, may I express my regret, Sir, that the hon. the Minister of Native Affairs is unable to be present today owing to his indisposition. I am sure we all hope that he will be fit and well again soon, and back in this House at an early date. I regret his absence for another reason, because I wanted to point out to him that the claim which he has made on behalf of the Department of Native Affairs that the man appointed by the Government is the descendant of one who had been appointed as chief of the whole Ximba tribe in the Umgeni Division, Pietermaritzburg, is absolutely unsupported by the authority he himself gave in this House. He said that his authority rested in the Archives of Natal. The short history of the Ximba tribes from which he quoted gives as authority for the appointment in question magistrate’s letters R. 323/1861. I have received a telegram from Pietermaritzburg stating that the archivist has issued a certificate to my representative there—which is being posted to me—to the effect that the file No. R. 323/1861 contains only one single paper and that that paper makes no reference to the appointment of Mahlanya as chief of the Ximba tribe. The whole case put forward by the Minister rests upon that authority, and that authority is not forthcoming. I will read the telegram; it says—

The Minister took an extraordinary course. He declined to lay on the Table of the House the history from which he quoted; I am in possession of a facsimile of that history, which is held by the solicitors for the section of the natives who have petitioned this House, and through the courtesy of the present Secretary for Native Affairs, Mr. Mears, I am assured that the file quoted by me is the file which is referred to as the authority for the appointment of Mahlanya. That being so, the Minister is in this position, he has declared in this House that my statements are not supported by the archives. The file stated to be in the Natal Archives, upon which he has relied, is proved not to refer to this question of this appointment at all, and in fact does not exist. There is another point of considerable importance. The Minister has sought to make this alleged appointment of Mahlanya as chief of the whole of the Ximba tribe in the Umgeni Division as the starting point of a story that Mabhoyi, father of Mahlanya was the “patriarch” of the Ximba tribe. I have heard of some ridiculous things in my time on the subject of native custom and native usage, but I have never yet heard of a “patriarch” of a tribe being entitled to be regarded as the progenitor of the chief. The hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) was much more discreet. He constantly referred in his speech to Mabhoyi as a chief. I pointed out Mabhoyi was a commoner and proved that he had died before his sons earned chieftainship on their merits. He said: “Exactly.” That destroys the whole case for the Government from another point of view. The Government have tried to elevate this commoner, admitted to be such by the hon. member for Tembuland, on account of his having been said to be the “patriarch” of the tribe. There is no such thing as “patriarch of the tribe” under native usage, and if there was he has no status or standing recognised by any law. The main fact is this, that the claim that Mahlanya, the eldest son of Mabhoyi, the commoner, was entitled to be regarded as senior over all his brothers and entitled on that account to claim succession to the chieftainship awarded to his brother even though he is a collateral relative, is simply the height of absurdity. All obtainable evidence upon the law of succession relating to chiefs among the Bantu people in South Africa is a contradiction of that claim, and the archive record destroys the fictitious claim that Mahlanya was the chief of the whole of the Ximba tribe. The Minister was careful to tell me that the Natal archives proved that on the 5th June, 1874, the appointment was made of Mahlanya to go to the Estcourt district and be allotted portion of the location formerly allowed to the Hlubi tribe. I noted that, but also noted that reference was made there to Mahlanya as “the petty chief Mahlanya,” of the Ximba tribe. There have been three chiefs in this tribe appointed to separate areas; neither of the other two Mqundane or Mdepa has been referred to as a petty chief in any official document. But it is for the Minister to tell us in one breath that this man Mahlanya was chief of all the Ximba in the Umgeni Division, and in the next breath to quote from the archives in inverted commas that he was “the petty chief,” of the Ximba tribe which accorded much more closely to his real position in relation to his brothers. He was given the smallest area of the three chiefs and actually his service in the Native Affairs Department, which I have learned something of, was very insignificant compared with that of his two brothers. I accept the Minister’s own disclosure that this man was “a petty chief”, and in that capacity he was assigned a certain portion of the Hlubi location in the Estcourt district. There is, in addition, the claim made by the Minister that a certain document—which he finally read in this House—goes to show that the Mdepa people of the Ximba tribe in the Camperdown district, accepted the appointment of Bhekamatye as chief and that they concurred entirely in the Government’s action. The Minister seems again to have ignored anything like consistency in this fictitious claim, because in the very document from which he purports to quote the “Short History of the Ximba Tribes,” there appears this extraordinary statement in an addendum by the compiler of the document. This document which the Minister refused to lay on the Table on the ground that it was prepared for him, and therefore I suppose not to be viewed by any member of this House, though as I have already said a facsimile of this document is in the hands of solicitors representing the men who have petitioned Parliament, this document shows this extraordinary admission on the part of the compiler. He says “that the Mdepa Ximbas—those are the people who have petitioned this House—

References to “the way the whole thing had been carried out in face of their protest,” …. and the “real significance of the move” give some insight into this historians mind. This is appended to the “History of the Ximba Tribes” which guides the Minister in what he says in this House, but he withheld that section of it, which is a clear declaration that the only time these people were ever consulted they protested vigorously; and therefore the wrong statement which we were obliged to listen to from the lips of the Minister about wha† Mr. Campbell said, is largely valueless, because as a matter of fact this admission, recorded in the history which the Minister claims to be so sacrosanct that nobody but himself may see it, discloses that the only time the tribe was ever consulted they vigorously protested, and that was before any oppointment was made. There is an attempt on the part of the department to try and make us believe when the appointment was made no sort of dissent was expressed, and at a subsequent stage the majority of the tribe— I think it was said in this House—had acquiesced. I want to give a very plain denial to the claim that the majority of the tribe has ever expressed any acquiescence in the Government’s extraordinary decision. The only time when evidence was taken as to the past history of these people was when a board of enquiry had been appointed by the Chief Native Commissioner, Natal, to investigate this matter, and when the evidence was given before that board there were some statements made by the supporters of the Government nominee, which we have got to bear in mind. The nephew of the former chief Bhekamatye said in evidence— he had been chief of the Mahlanya section— and gave the following evidence on oath—

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

Mr. Speaker, when the midday interval took place, Sir, I was in the course of dealing with the grounds given by the Minister of Native Affairs for the appointment which is being discussed, and, Sir, I want at this stage to read a statement from two prominent men who are certainly entitled to be heard in regard to the interpretation of native law and usage in this country. Since I spoke on this question about a fortnight ago. I have received a memorial addressed to this House, with a request that it be attached to the petition presented by the Ximba tribe, which reads in these terms—

That is signed by Dr. Dube, who is a member of the Representative Council and Chairman of the Native Congress. He is editor and proprietor of the Zulu newspaper “Hanga lase Natal”. It is also signed by Pika Zulu Ka Siteku, one of the few surviving grandsons of the former King Mpande. These two men will be acknowledged to be versed in the folklore and customs and usages of the Zulus, to an extent probably without parallel in South Africa. On the one hand you have Dr. Dube, a life student of all extant literature on the lives and customs of his people, and on the other Pika Zulu, the member of the Zulu Royal Family, who is without peer as a repository of the laws and customs and traditions of his people. These men represent in one way or another by far the greater majority of the natives in Natal. Having said that, I wish to turn for a moment to examine the case of the Minister very briefly. The Minister has not quoted one opinion that is worth a moment’s consideration in support of his claim that the chief Mahlanya was entitled to succeed to the chieftainship belonging to the direct male heir of Mdepa, his brother. There is no law that supports that doctrine, and every authority contradicts its existence. The overwhelming weight of evidence eliminates the idea that there ever was any such custom or law. The earliest codification of the law of inheritance in South Africa in 1869 was quoted by Sir Theophilus Shepstone before the Government Commission on Native Laws and Customs in 1881. He quoted a regulation framed under Law 1 of 1869, which applied to all natives under native law. This regulation states—

If we apply that language to the present case it becomes clear that when Mabhoyi, a commoner died, his estate, consisting of what he died possessed of, became the inheritance of his eldest son Mahlanya. But the three chieftainships subsequently awarded to his sons for merit, were not a part of his estate; and the succession to those is governed by the words “This is not so with the Chiefs, however”—and the subsequent paragraph of the same regulation—

When this regulation was before the commission Sir J. D. Barry asked a question about chieftainship succession which has an intimate bearing upon the present case—

The petitioners to this House make it clear they have lived on their present site from time immemorial; their ancestors were the original inhabitants of that site; they were there before Chaka invaded the country, and after his invasion they began to come back under European rule. Sir Theophilus Shepstone re-established them, recognising them as a tribe, and the appointment of Mqundane or Kaptein Jantje as the first chief in that area is on record. This is proved by documents emanating from the archives which can also be established, by native evidence that when he was appointed by Sir Theophilus Shepstone it was in recognition of his services both to the Voortrekker Government and to the succeeding Administration. When some little friction arose between (Jantje) Mqundane and his brother, Mdepa, it was enquired into in 1884 by Mr. Henrique Shepstone, then Secretary for Native Affairs, who was the son of Sir Theophilus Shepstone. I quote from his letter in the archives dated 14th October, 1884—

It should be noted that the Secretary for Native Affairs says nothing in his report from which it can be inferred that Mahlanya or any of his people ever lived in this native area in the Camperdown district. It is quite clear, however, that Jantje alias Mqundane was, as I have already stated, the first chief to be appointed over this location. This is confirmed by the evidence of chief Mciteki (one of Mahlanya’s men) who declared before the Board of Enquiry: “I have no members of my people residing in the location in this district” (Camperdown). The effort of the Minister of Native Affairs to prove that Mahlanya was chief over the Camperdown district, thus entirely lacks confirmation either from Mahlanya’s side nr Mdepa’s. Moreover, the present heir to Jantje alias Mqundane now living in Zululand has placed on record his opinion that Mzwangedwa is the lawful chief to the chieftainship of the Ximba tribe in the Camperdown district I have pointed out that the Minister is without a single supporter whose knowledge of native law is worth consideration capable of defending what he has done on the grounds of native law. He has mentioned the Native Affairs Commission. The Native Affairs Commission, from its present Chairman downwards, is entirely lacking in authorities who know anything about native laws, with the exception of the hon. member for Tembuland who, as a legal practitioner in Umtata, would certainly have quite a considerable knowledge of the ordinary laws of succession applying to the natives. I do not for a moment subscribe to his view that Mabhoyi, a commoner, was entitled to be regarded as hereditary leader of the tribe. I explained to the hon. member, he might have not understood what I said, that Mabhoyi was a commoner and thus under native law his eldest son could not claim the chieftainship belonging to the male heir of Mdepa unless all male heirs in the direct line were exhausted. Mabhoyi’s estate that he passed on to his eldest son was what he died possessed of. But we are being asked to assent to a farcical doctrine that because the Minister and one of his advisers say that Mabhoyi was a “patriarch” of the tribe, he was the leader of the clan, therefore his eldest son was entitled to inherit! They overlook the fact that that only applies to a commoner’s own estate. His claim as a collateral relative to inherit Mdepa’s chieftainship as long as there are male heirs in the direct line would be laughed out of court. That seems to be a conclusion which the hon. Minister is absolutely unwilling to assent to. The Minister has produced a statement by the former Native Commissioner in Camperdown, Mr. Campbell, in which he seeks to prove that on a certain occasion the natives who are petitioners before this House today assented to what the Government have done. He furnishes no proof of that. The names of five persons are mentioned in that document. As regards the others, they might have been anybody, court loungers or anyone else, they were not proved, any of them, to have been supporters of the Mdepa section, with the exception of Charlie Mlaba, a son of Mdepa, against whom a great point is made because he was at that time assisting the Government’s wishes to have their nominee, Bhekamatshe, installed as a new chief in that area. One would imagine they would appreciate the extent to which he received the nominee of the Government and housed him in his own kraal. What is the position today? The chief chosen by the Government does not live in the native area. As a matter of fact, it would be very unwise for him to do so, because the state of feeling between the two sections may at any time lead to disturbances and bloodshed, as stated by the board appointed to examine the position.

Who appointed him?

He was appointed because of misguided advice the Minister received from officials around him. There is in regard to this matter the position that a great deal of abuse has been showered on one particular man, Charlie Mlaba, who was prominent in assisting the Government to have an unpopular man established in that area. That is thrown up today as though he had brought Bhekamatshe into Mdepa’s area, though it is on record in the Minister’s own statement when this particular native, Charlie Mlaba, was consulted he and all others were opposed to the appointment. So that the slender reed upon which the Minister leans breaks when you come to realise the facts of the situation. What was the main reason that motivated the natives to appeal to Parliament? It was this. I should think for the (first time in the history of the natives the Acting Chief Commissioner, Natal, the spokesman of the Government, threatened that he would bring in troops to destroy them. These were the words that he used as proved by the journalist who took them down in shorthand—

Those are the words of the spokesman of the. Minister, and we are asked by the hon. member for Tembuland to believe that this sort of conduct should not be rebuked. Actually, if it is common elsewhere, it is the first I have heard of it, and before this incident occurred I can claim to have told the Chief Native Commissioner: “The day has gone by when you can shoot up natives because they disagree with you”. As far as I am concerned, I deprecate the use of language of that kind under any circumstances. I think it gains nothing for authority, to make use of threats you cannot carry out, and I ask any member of this House if he and his family were threatened by any representative of the Government with a similar fate, what would he do? He would take the earliest opportunity of drawing the attention of this House to such an extravagant and unwarranted threat. Those are the circumstances that have brought the natives here, that have brought the petitioners to Parliament, and I am one of those who say I disagree entirely with the view that you do natives an ill-service if you facilitate their coming to the very fountain of justice to appeal for redress. I consider it my duty to do that, and it is not the first occasion I have asked the natives to state their case with consideration and restraint to the proper authorities with a view to obtaining redress. The mishandling of any succession dispute affecting a tribe is a serious matter. The native feeling about such matters is most acute. I can remember in the course of my considerable experience in native administration a case in the Transvaal in which a native chief was deposed and his brother appointed in his stead. The deposed chief for the time being was removed to another district some distance away. When he returned he spoke about wreaking vengeance on his brother, and he hired a European, who went out with cyanide and brandy to the native stad and the brother of the ruling chief was poisoned. That man paid the extreme penalty.

Was he a white man?

Yes, and he was hanged for it. But the Minister goes on gaily today pointing to the various officials who surround him and praising them and: striving vainly to show that the Government is right when it is irretrievably wrong. I am sorry the Minister is away, because I should have liked to have brought home to him the danger of the attitude he has taken up. He wishes to propagate throughout the Union the doctrine that the Government can do no wrong, that they can ride roughshod over native law, and there is no redress, and no room even for remonstrance. Because that is the attitude very largely of the authorities who have come here to persuade the House they are right. Who is the spokesman of this doctrine? The very man who has threatened these natives with destriction. He said if there was any more faction fighting and destruction of life and property he would order the troops in “and wipe out the lot of you”. Two judges have declared the section favoured by the Government caused the faction fighting. We are here in our several capacities to argue that that is wrong or it is right. The Minister finds himself on the side of those who persuaded him it was right. Who is his chief adviser? Who put the words into his mouth and provided the so-called history of this native tribe? The very man who uttered these threats, these unwise threats, this unguarded language to the natives who were there. Col. Märtin, Acting Chief Native Commissioner of Natal. There are two very salient facts he overlooked. In regard to faction fighting, two judges who tried the men accused in connection with these faction fights successively said it was not the petitioners who were to blame but the Government nominee and his party who were to blame in both instances. After hearing 128 witnesses against the 70 accused persons, Judge Brökensha said—

That is a devastating comment when Government officials and police have worked for a year to convince the Native High Court that these people were guilty. The other judge deplored the chief’s appointment and pointed out how unfortunate it was. He said he had nothing to do with the appointment; he was merely mentioning that appointments of this nature on the whole were very undesirable, and any departure from the proper line of succession was a mistake. If you consider them as a judicial commission the findings of the two judges were an indictment against the procedure which had been adopted against the accused persons. Let me speak of the last trial. The 70 men were accused of public violence. What did it consist of? You cannot have public violence without having someone to fight with. Who did they fight with? One section only was charged with public violence, the other side was not even charged. The judge gave his verdict; not one of those accused was found guilty and he discharged every one of them. The Minister has said that only one-third of the natives of the tribe support the heir Mzwangedwa. He suppresses the fact that after an ex parte statement of misleading character from the Native Commissioner, Camperdown, as to the numbers of adherents on either side I wrote to the Secretary for Native Affairs that the numbers should be verified officially by a census, but they shirked such a test. When Col. Martin uttered his threat to the petitioners: “If there is any more faction fighting and destruction of life and property I will order the troops to come in and wipe out the lot of you”, he ignored the fact they had not caused the fighting, that it was the other side, who had actually killed men before the petitioners retaliated. It is advisable that these things should be known to this House. I am not going to press this matter to a vote of the House, because I feel that the Government will, if they are guided by the wisdom of the Prime Minister, realise we cannot go on maintaining a decision of this kind which has been so badly founded. It is not a decision that will hold water. It is an entirely wrong and improper decision, and as I say, in the minds of people who are themselves natives, who are identified with the upliftment of the natives, such as Dr. Dube—a man who has grown old in the service of the native people—the decision causes profound uneasiness. He is the chairman of his congress, a prominent and distinguished member of the Native Representative Council, and he is supported by a man who, though not educated except in Zulu, knows native law and custom as few men have ever done. I propose to leave the matter there. I consider a griévous wrong has been done in this case. I have noticed a leading article in a local newspaper today in regard to the Native Affairs Commission. I wish the public of this country knew the absence of knowledge, the absence of necessary advisory capacity that paralyses the activities of that commission. In all the years I have known it, it is very seldom we have had a member of the calibre of Mr. Heaton Nicholls. The Minister became almost hysterical about the fine body of men in his Department. Who denies that they are a fine body of men? But many of them are not fitted for the very intricate duties they have to do and will never fit themselves for native administration. You cannot, in my opinion, have confidence in a chief administrative officer in the Native Affairs Department unless he is fully conversant with the very essentials of native administration and native law and custom, and is able as chairman to advise the Native Affairs Commission of what should be done. I commend the motion to the Government in the hope that they will see that justice is done, and that everything is done to avoid any further disturbances being caused in connection with these people.

Motion put and negatived.

When the debate was interrupted, I was busy drawing the attention of the Minister of Agriculture to the necessity of keeping an eye not only on the precipitous and mountainous regions, where soil erosion is taking place on such a huge scale, but of looking a little further, and that is why I support the amendment of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) that an amount of £1,000,000 should be made available. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to our grain districts where soil erosion is caused not mainly by washaways, but by the exhaustion of our fertile land. If one goes to these parts, one sees lands which have been cultivated for years, exhausted to such an extent that they can no longer withstand the vagaries of the elements. One finds that cultivated lands have sunk two to three feet in comparison with the surface of the earth. They are drained of their fertility and blown away. The Government must preserve that land for us. The Government must encourage the farmers to go in for crop rotation. For years we had the agricultural schools and extension officers who went around among the farmers and enlightened and encouraged them to go in for crop rotation and to enrich the soil with the necessary fertilisers and so to preserve the fertility of their soil. But what happened? After the outbreak of the war these services were discontinued. The farmer is in the position that he can no longer produce to the extent he ought to. He cannot leave a portion of his lands idle for a year, and he cannot apply the necessary methods for preserving his ground. He accordingly adopts the policy of a cash crop and a cash basis. I want to suggest to the Minister of Agriculture that the necessary money should be made available for an adequate system whereby the farmer is encouraged to keep a look-out and see that the ground is not open to the dangers of exhaustion or of being blown away by the wind, and so on. Much has been said in this House of post-war reconstruction, social security and the like. In my opinion, all these are based on one important matter, namely, the fertility of our land—the production of the land. It really looks as if the Minister of Finance is the only person in this House who is not convinced of that. Members on this side and members on the other side are unanimous that the most important question in South Africa is the preservation of the soil. The Minister of Finance is the only one who is not convinced of this. He has the key to the money-chest and he makes available a trifling amount of a few hundred thousand pounds for this great national question, which will cost millions if we want to preserve our soil and develop and improve it in order to restore it to its former condition. I doubt whether we will be able to accomplish this. I think that we have exhausted it to such an extent that we will never restore it in this generation. But nevertheless, it does not alter the fact that it is the duty of the Government and of the Minister of Finance to make available the necessary funds now in order to proceed with reconstruction work. I concerned myself more particularly with those parts where grain farming is carried on on a large scale, and I want to suggest to the Minister of Agriculture that he institutes a scheme to assist the farmers. I do not say that he should shower favours on the farmers. The farmers do not want that, and the Government is not so fond of the farmers as to shower favours on them. However, the farmers need artificial fertiliser, bonemeal, potash and such commodities in order to restore the fertility of their soil, and they are commodities which are very expensive. On the other hand there is the problem of erosion, and the farmers must be encouraged in both respects to preserve the fertility of their soil. Enable the farmers to practise crop rotation every year on a portion of their ground so that the soil can be restored and can again be improved with the help of artifical fertilising mixtures. At the moment we are practising a system of over-cropping, a cash harvest policy. Every bag of produce is exchanged for money. The policy must be to restore the ground to its original fertility. It must be made possible for the farmers to do this so that they have one goal in view, namely, the preservation of our soil.

I welcome an opportunit of being able to say a few words on the motion before the House, and I want first to deal with the question I raised on another Vote, and was not allowed to do so. That was to the effect that the South African Railways were having, in many areas, a concentration of waters from big catchment areas by putting these waters through the culverts under their railways, and there is no distribution of the water after that. The area I represent is a grassy undulating area where no erosion exists except where this water comes through the culverts. This can be seen from the East London area to the Stormberg area, where they are making great dongas in their path down to the sea. We feel the railways might make some little contribution to stop that erosion by distributing that water so that it does not get into channels or otherwise to divert it out of the channels it has made. Added to that they also have what is known as the cattle creeps. Every footpath or road leads up to this, and the water takes these courses and so you have the serious erosion which would not otherwise take place. Proof of that is in evidence in every part of the country where soil erosion does not exist, and where you have water diverted through these culverts you have great dongas where the water has been diverted to one channel. May I come to another side of the question. It is not long ago we raised the hue and cry about over-stocking. Over-stocking was the only evil. We are prepared to admit that that has taken place to the deriment of the country itself. But is was not long after that that the war broke out and we had definitely a diminishing of our breeding stock. Much of that particular stock was sold for slaughter purposes, but no sooner was that done, and we were making a valuable contribution towards stopping erosion, than we had the hue and cry, “Don’t deplete your breeding stock”. So it does seem rather strange that when the people did decrease their stock, you had this challenge from every department in this country, “Don’t deplete your breeding stock”. I still maintain that we can do with a lot less stock but better stock if we want to tackle the question of soil erosion as it is affecting us. There is just one little feature I want to deal with on that point, and that is how can we carry out a complete System of soil erosion in this country, when you have increased costs placed on the producers from time to time? We know the farmers have had to mine their lands on the same basis as the gold mines have had to do on the Reef. It is because of that instability that I want to deal with it at a later stage, but I first want to deal with the increase placed on the producers. The first is the increased cost of railage to the producer. It means that if he has to bear that he has to mine his land to a greater extent than before; you have to get that from the land because it is impossible to put that increased cost on to the consumer. Another item I would like to refer to in respect of this soil erosion is this, and it takes us back to a picture that was shown to the members of Parliament a little time ago, where the goat was shown to be the chief offender in that it tramped out so much land. We have the introduction of a scheme to rid the country of the goat. The first thing was that these goats were to be sold at 5d. a lb. I ask you, how you expect to get rid of them at 5d. a lb. when their flesh is quite palatable, and we have our present meat scheme, and may I suggest that if there is a revision of this price, and you offer a premium for every goat sent to the market, that might reduce the number of goats and possibly also reduce your meat shortage. Mr. Speaker, recently the Minister of Railways announced that he had acquired a large number of motor vehicles from War Supplies. I make the suggestion that the hon. Minister of Agriculture should take advantage of that immediately these vehicles become available to get some of the vehicles made available to his Department for tackling the question of soil erosion. It is well-known that the contractors who are contracting for the erection of large dams at very reasonable prices are doing yeoman service, and are making a big contribution towards the stopping of erosion. We do not want these vehicles for nothing, and we are prepared to pay for them at the same rate as we are paying the contractors. The work is being done very expeditiously, and may I tell you where it takes two weeks to make a dam with one of these implements, it takes nearly a year with the ordinary scoop and oxen. I do not want to keep the House longer, but I want to say that while we have this instability, instability of the price of the land, instability of costs of the producer products, and the instability of the price to the consumer, we will have to continue to mine that land for the purpose of keeping the people going who are actually mining it, the large vested interests.

When this motion was originally brought before the House, the hon. member who proposed the motion asked that, as this was a national matter, we should consider it from the point of view of a national disaster which had overtaken South Africa. It is in that light that I have interpreted the motion and I thought that as a motion of this nature had been moved, it would be discussed in this House in the interests of the country in general. I hought that the Government would give every attention to this matter and take it up in that spirit. But what happened? When the Minister concerned had to reply to the motion the only way out he could find was to look for a target at which to shoot. He thought of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) and immediately made a target of him. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad was told that he as Minister of Agriculture had had the opportunity for so many years of doing something and that he had failed to do anything. When we are concerned with a national matter of this nature, it is not our duty to rebuke one another for this and that which has been done or this and that which has not been done. It is a national question which must be tackled by the country; we must tackle it to ensure that the ground which, we have inherited from our ancestors is passed on to those who come after us in as good a condition as possible. But what is the Government doing? Notwithstanding the fact that the necessity for the preservation of our soil has been repeatedly harped upon, nothing has been done. Previously there was a scheme, and also a subsidy scheme, but the most physically unfit people the Government could find were used to build those dams. For many years I myself served on such a committee and I surveyed hundreds of dams. I often asked myself if it really represented an asset to the country to build dams under a scheme like that and to employ people to do the work who could scarcely carry their own weight along. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad has now proposed that the Government should make available immediately, an amount of £1 million per year to combat this evil. What is the Minister of Agriculture doing? He shrugs his shoulders and delivers a violent attack. Now is the time to do that work. Social upliftment and what not have been discussed here. But the time is ripe for us to give attention to this matter, and it behoves us not to hurl reproaches at one another. It rather behoves us to ensure that this immense national problem is solved and that we do everything in our power to preserve our inheritance for our descendants. The Provincial Administrations make roads, the Government supports the National Road Board, and the greatest cause of soil erosion in those parts is the diversion furrows off those roads. There was a big court case. The poor farmer always suffers as a result and he is defeated. It is the duty of the Government, despite the fact that a war is being waged, or whatever else may be in progress, to take immediate action against this evil so that we can build up the soil and prevent further erosion. If things go on like this much longer, then I fear the result will be that our soil will become very unfertile. We must try to put as many minerals and other matters as possible back into the ground in order to allow the earth to retain its strength, so that we can produce the necessary crops and also leave our ground to our descendants in such a condition that they will be able to produce for themselves.

With this motion before the House we have to deal with one of the most serious and one of the most important, as it is one of the greatest problems that has ever stared us in the face in this country. I am glad that the country has awakened to the seriousness of the matter. I feel that it is very regrettable that we should have first become alive to the seriousness of the matter at such a late stage.

Better late than never.

I agree with my hon. friend, but nevertheless it is a pity that it took us so long to stir. You and I are just as responsible as anyone else. I maintain it is regrettable we have allowed our soil to deteriorate to such a degree of unproductivity before we woke up to the seriousness of this outstanding national problem we are discussing today. As a practical farmer of the Western Province I make bold on this Occasion to repeat what I have said in previous debates in this House, namely, that our production in these areas, largely in the parts that have been intensively worked, such as the grain districts, has retrogressed in the last 20 years by about 40 per cent. per acre. When we bear in mind that we have retrogressed at the rate of two per cent. a year in relation to the yield per acre, it immediately becomes clear what tremendous and important factors are involved in this problem. Nor can I for a moment think this is only the position in the Western Province districts, which are only cultivated intensively for the growing of corn. I accept that while this is the position here the same holds good undoubtedly in respect of the rest of the country where the soil is intensively cultivated. I have heard nothing yet as to what the position is in reference to maize growers or of the farmers growing other types of grain where intensive farming is carried on. But I assume that the same position applies in the rest of the country; and if we accept this we will see that we cannot shut our eyes to the seriousness and the importance of the whole problem, unless we are agreeable to seeing a further deterioration of this asset in the shape of our soil that has been entrusted to us, which we have received as a heritage, and which we should bequeath to our children and our grandchildren as their heritage. We dare not allow any further deterioration. We shall be compelled to increase the price of wheat this year, and we shall be compelled to increase the price of wheat this year not only on account of the fact there is an increase in the cost of production but on account of the fact that the yield is continuously declining. When we listen to speeches in this House and when we note how farmers are repeatedly asking that the prices of our necessary food products should be made higher and higher in the country, we can only come to one conclusion, and that is the conviction that it is not to be ascribed to any other factor so much as to the deterioration in the productivity of our soil. The fact is we compare so unfavourably with other agricultural countries that the price of our products are today out of all proportion with the prices at which those products can be produced in other agricultural Countries. Some will maintain that we can import these products just as easily as producing them here. There are people who assume that and make that contention. But when assertions of that nature are made in an irresponsible manner, account must be taken of the fact that when agriculture is allowed to sink to such a level we are actively undermining the economic structure of the country, if not destroying it. The whole economic structure of the country is of such a pattern that agriculture must not only be maintained but it must be improved in comparison with what it has been in the past, and if we allow that economic structure on which it is based to be dislocated, we shall not be doing this country any service, but on the contrary a tremendous disservice. Regarded from that angle, Mr. Speaker, it proves to us it is the duty of all agriculturists and all people who have a love for our soil to proceed from the standpoint that we must make a joint effort, put our shoulders to the wheel and use our brains to try to improve the country’s agricultural position, in the interests of the present generation as well as in the interests of the country itself. I assert ours is a poor agricultural country; our soil is poor and the fertility of the soil, even taken at its best, is low in comparison with that of other countries; and we have allowed that fertility gradually and continuously to be exhausted, so that it has already fallen to so low a level that during the last ten years we have seen the red light. We have already passed that danger signal. We have not taken any notice of the red light; we have not observed it and have proceeded on our way quite undisturbed. I am glad we have been in a position to rouse the agricultural industry in this respect by pointing to the farmers how serious the position is. By means of intensive propaganda and organisations which have been established to deal with the matter, we have brought to the notice of our agriculturists the necessity of adopting other schemes and methods that are calculated to maintain the fertility of the soil in a better way than we have done up to this stage. But we shall not succeed, and we shall not have the necessary success unless there is intervention on the part of the Government in an effective manner. It must take action in the direction of better research and official information, especially amongst the ignorant and unenlightened section of the community. We are following a system of overcropping, and to stimulate the system we are now following we have better prices for products, which obviously is accompanied by our making every effort to do all in our power to increase production. There is a shortage of food; an appeal has gone out from the Government to us to do everything possible to remedy the food shortage. We have listened to that, and while conferring a service on the country we have received better prices for the products. But that all means at the same time that our practice of robbing the soil will definitely have detrimental results for us in the future. There is a shortage of fertiliser and other plant foods, and this all makes for exhausting the soil. Our soil is in this way continuously being exhausted. It is being done for the greater production of food and better prices, but in this way we are destroying our capital—the soil. I want to point out to the Government another aspect of this matter, and that is this, on account of the system of overcropping which today is actively exhausting our soil without our having the necessary foods available in the form of fertilisers etc., to put back into the soil, we are at the same time’ providing the necessary products, and when we have a fortunate year and produce a decent crop, war taxes have to be paid on it. It is not real profit that is yielded. It is not additional profit that is being made, but money that is being taken out of capital sources in the earth from which those products must be grown. I want to submit for the earnest consideration of the Government the creation of a fund, a trust fund that will serve for the restoration of that soil after the war. What I mean is this, that a system should be evolved under which a procedure can be followed and out of the extra profits that are being made today a certain proportion would be held back for the creation of a fund to enable us to put back in the land the usual fertilisers and other plant foods, such as humus, by which anyone who is interested in the restoration of the soil will be compensated to a certain degree—the same system that is followed in connection with dry land lucerne, a system that will encourage the farmers to restore the productivity of their soil after the war, when the necessary foods will again be available. This shortage of the necessary plant foods is having a deleterious effect on the soil of our country today. Our older people are to a large extent very conservative. We know that when a system has gone on for generations it becomes second nature to our people to continue from generation to generation with the system, nor are we able to establish new methods or to carry through a new system in the course of a few years. We are too conservative; we are too orthodox. We will not readily adapt ourselves to a new system. Because we are conscious of the fact that it is difficult to convince the older people to follow other methods and to make them understand that a custom is old-fashioned and obsolete I want to ask the Minister to take into serious consideration not to rely on our older people, but to begin with our schools. If it is necessary to show films to members of Parliament on soil erosion and the washing away of soil and the impoverishing of the soil in order to enable them to understand and in order to explain to them the need for soil conservation, and for restoring the productivity of the soil, then it is much more necessary that it should be done for our school children and young people so that a love for the soil should be engendered in them from their earliest years by means of films. I want to go so far as to say that the Minister can easily—where it is not possible to show films in the towns and villages—send films through the country for the benefit of children in the rural schools to plant a love for the soil in them and to teach them from the earliest days to have a love for the soil and to appreciate it. We can also make much progress in our schools by furnishing them with the necessary reading matter. Bearing in mind the seriousness of the position, I want to make a suggestion that certain hours should be set aside for school children during which they will not be able to get any other reading matter but this at the school libraries. If you do this for a fortnight or a month in the course of the year the child will grasp the necessity for soil conservation, and he will learn the essential value of the soil. Unless we are prepared to resort to such drastic measures, unless we are prepared to train our rising generation for the fight that lies ahead of them in the country, we must be prepared to see the position simply going the one way without our being able to combat it effectively. What I should like is that we should engrave on the minds of the children the necessity of showing the desired interest in soil conservation and the restoration of the productivity of the soil. We must teach the children to be proud of the soil of their fathers and their forefathers. We have taken measures in connection with the restoration of our lands, and dam making which has been of considerable assistance in this connection has served a dual purpose by giving our people work— many who had no work at the time—and at the same time it has conferred a splendid and excellent service on the country, and provided an asset for the country—at least that was the first start we made in connection with water conservation and also to prevent erosion proceeding unhindered. I want to come back here to dry land lucerne, and I want to ask the Minister to do everything in his power through the medium of his officials to encourage this dry land lucerne as much as possible. If necessary he should go further than he is going today in order to subsidise the scheme to make lucerne more attractive. While lucerne is playing a foremost rôle in the enrichment of the soil in the western parts, I want to suggest that other methods may be followed in other parts of the country where lucerne may not answer as well. There you may perhaps put in some other sort of leguminous crops which will cause the same fertilisation of the land as lucerne does in western areas. You will remember that I put certain questions with a view to eliciting the need for making more use of that scheme and pointing out the defects from which the scheme is suffering through not enough use being made of it, though it has been placed at their disposal on a profitable basis. That dry land lucerne basis is capable of effecting a revolutionary change in the Western Province. For the last seven or eight years I have been actively concerned with it, and I consequently speak from experience; I have not time now to go into the difficulties, but as one who has had practical experience, as one who has practised it for the last seven or eight years, I have observed an absolute transformation in respect of the restoration of the soil by means of this Government subsidised scheme. Not only have we restored the structure of the soil by the growth of lucerne, but when we sow we reap a double crop. Insead of cultivating the ground three times and only getting one crop, under this system you can work the ground three times and get three crops. Then I should like to point out that in these parts our tractive power is being continuously replaced by lorries and tractors. Where in the past our tractive power was represented by cattle those cattle are gradually disappearing. They are being replaced by lorries, by tractors and by other labour saving machinery and implements, and in this manner we are hard at it impoverishing the soil in another way. All the fertility that we obtained from the animals, all the fertiliser that we received from them for the soil is absent today. Instead we are every year exporting millions of pounds for the necessary fuel, oil and parts of machinery that are necessary to enable us to produce with the new power. That is all very well so long as the prices of products remain on a high level, but what will happen when the prices again decline? Then I would like to say that it is not necessary for members to point out we should go in for contour ploughing. It may be necessary to tell this to farmers in other parts of the country, but it is quite unnecessary here in the Western Province. We ourselves make furrows to lead off the water above our crops, above the cultivated lands in order to catch the water and lead it off, in this way preventing erosion. But when you get excessive rains the soil is washed away down the slopes. Unless the structure of the soil is absolutely restored you can do pretty well what you like but you will have destructive erosion in a single day or night. Last September we had disastrous erosion of this sort, and it tore my heart to see the valuable soil being washed away, soil it will take generations to restore. This sort of thing can only be prevented when the structure of the soil is restored to its original state, before the soil has been subjected to erosion to a greater degree. I do not want to detain the House longer. There are other members who will of course want to speak on this matter. One could talk on this subject for hours, but I wished to impress on my fellow farmers the necessity for the making of compost, of fertilisers. You can make it of almost anything. You can make it of straw and of little bushes and grass. By doing this and obtaining kraal manure and stable manure you will restore the soil to its former fertility. It is of course not necessary to talk about veld fires, which is another factor that contributes a great deal to the destruction of our soil. There are people who do not believe it is possible to farm with success in the western areas, unless the veld is burnt, and I will proceed from the assumption that it is certainly necessary to burn the grass systematically in certain instances. But the destructive fires that we have seen in the Western Province especially during recent months, the devastation we have witnessed in the Western Province is really heartbreaking. I wish that a preventive means could be discovered to obviate these destructive powers. We dare not allow this great national question to get entirely out of hand, and I fear it is almost out of hand now and it is our solemn duty to take immediate action and to try to prevent South Africa burning out its veld and allowing its productive soil to be washed away, as is being done today. To succeed in that drastic measures are urgently necessary. It is no use trifling with this national matter. We should act energetically and if it is necessary to act energetically in order to arrest these processes, it does not help matters to indulge in recriminations or to hold post mortems—to “fiddle while Rome is burning”. If everyone does his duty we shall be able to save the position before it becomes hopeless.

Dr. Bennett wrote an article recently in the “Huisgenoot” in which he calculated that nearly 50 per cent. of the fat of the land has been washed away. I do not think that he is exaggerating when we see the serious position in which South Africa finds itself on account of soil erosion. One and other member has suggested this and that remedy as to how we should tackle the matter. As one who farms with small stock, who is acquainted with parts of the country where small stock is farmed, I would suggest—and I am speaking from experience—that there is practically no single method of combating soil erosion which is better than jackal-proof fencing. Jackal-proof fencing is absolutely imperative to avoid soil erosion; You can dam up furrows but when your cattle have to be driven to the kraal, to the farm-yards, they again trample out footpaths down which the water runs. If you examine the report of the Drought Commission of 1924, you will find that according to their calculations, the kraal system for your cattle results in a loss of millions of pounds to the State owing to the erosion of the soil caused by the trampling of footpaths by animals, and whereas if the State goes ahead and grants a large subsidy for soil erosion purposes, the State would benefit just as much, if not more, by subsidising fencing works. Coupled with this there should be more water facilities. The State should step in and where owners are unable to provide sufficient water for their animals, where ground is trampled down, the State should step in and ensure that sufficient water is laid on to the ground and in that way avoid soil erosion. I want to make a very earnest appeal to the hon. Minister of Agriculture to view this question of soil erosion as a national problem, for it is a very serious matter, and not to place £300,000 on the estimates, but a million pounds or more in order to tackle the combating of soil erosion with every means at our disposal. I repeat that there is no better means than jackal-proof fencing, and the State should include this in the subsidy for its soil erosion plans. We are not asking for help for farmers who fenced their lands before the war. These people are immune as far as soil erosion is concerned, but we plead for people who under present circumstances are unable to obtain fencing material and who find it too expensive, and we appeal to the Government to combine a fencing scheme with this subsidy, for it will be the salvation of the small stock districts.

I think the House is indebted to the hon. member who introduced this motion on soil erosion, because it has given members of the House an opportunity to discuss the matter and to press upon the Minister the feelings not only of themselves but of the people in this country who want action. The hon. member who introduced this motion spoke of the Drakens-berg scheme, and he pointed out that in an area of some 30,000 square miles, there were only three trained officials and gangs of natives with wheelbarrows, picks and shovels. Well, if we are going to attempt to deal with soil erosion in this country on those lines, if we live for a 1,000 years we would not catch up. The hon. Minister, in reply to the hon. member, showed a very good grasp of the situation and it seemed to me that he realised what was necessary and what should be done. The only thing that was lacking was immediate action. The Minister also went on to talk of some of their difficulties. He instanced the necessity of getting up-to-date machinery, bulldozers and that type of plant which is essential for dealing with soil erosion in a manner that it should be dealt with, and he told us that it was impossible to get plant of that nature at the present time. He also told us that there was a shortage of trained men to carry out this work, and he said that even if £1,000,000 was voted for the purpose this year, they could not spend it. I agree with him there. He could not spend it for the simple reason that we have neither the necessary plant nor have we got the trained personnel which is necessary to carry out work of that nature. I want to remind the Minister that I spoke on this matter last Session and I pointed out to him then that he should take steps immediately to train discharged soldiers who were accustomed to the soil and the land, and that they would be the most suitable persons for this purpose. As far as I know, some twelve months have elapsed and we are still talking about making provision for their training. He told us that a course of six months would be sufficient to provide some of these men with the knowledge that is essential to them to deal with soil erosion. We could easily have had quite a number of trained men by this time if the Minister had acted upon my suggestion of taking the opportunity to get suitable discharged soldiers. That would undoubtedly have given him some of the trained men who are so essential before we can ever start to spend money in a sensible manner on schemes of this description. I also told the Minister that I thought he ought to be able to get some of that plant from the Defence Department. I am very positive that they are not making use of all the plant which they found necessary in the earlier stages of the campaign in other parts of the African continent, and I myself feel that if the necessary steps had been taken and the urgency of the matter explained to the Defence Department, at least some of the suitable plant could have been obtained to press on with this urgent work, and I still suggest to the hon. Minister that he should see if there is net some of this suitable plant to be obtained from that source. Then the Minister spoke of the fact that the public consciousness has been aroused to the necessity of comprehensive measures being taken to deal with this great evil that is menacing this land of ours, and he paid a tribute to the National Veld Trust for the good work they had done in educating the public in this manner. I agree with him. They have done excellent work, but I want to take the hon. Minister a little bit further. He did not pay a tribute to Mr. Van Rensburg, the man of all others in this country who has been responsible for educating public opinion. That man, as Dr. Hugh Bennett said, has done work which is worth millions to this country and he has not received the recognition to which the work he has done has entitled him. Mr. Van Rensburg, in my opinion, should not be running round showing films; he should be given control of a large area to combat this danger which threatens our country. I remember that when a film or films were shown in Cape Town some weeks ago in the City Hall, there was a crowd which the press estimated at 1,600 people. I do not know how many there were, but I do know that every portion of the hall was packed with people, and they unanimously accepted a resolution proposed by me, demanding immediate action from the Government in dealing with the dangers of soil-erosion and the protection of our water sheds. The hon. Minister in his remarks told us that the House will be asked to vote a sum of £375,000 to deal with this question. Well, personally I do not think that there is any danger that the House will not pass the amount asked for. I am very positive that if the Minister asked for a very much larger amount, and if the House felt that he could spend it in the manner it should be spent, hon. members would readily agree to the vote. Moreover, I am very positive that as far as the large urban centres are concerned, they would willingly vote any amount of money which is asked for if it is to be handled on a comprehensive skilfully planned scheme which would eradicate this danger from our country. As I have said before, I am fully conscious that the hon. Minister is alive to what is required. I am conscious that the Minister knows exactly what should be done, but I am not too sure in my own mind whether he or the other members of the Government, whose sanction is to be obtained are alive to’ the feeling that exists in this country today with regard to the necessity for immediate action. The Minister indicated that this was to be a post-war scheme in the very broadest sense of the word, because it is going to take many, many years before we have obtained control of this danger. But the people in this country are crying out today for immediate action, and it is no good the Government or any member of this House telling the people in this country that we have not got the money, because the people are convinced that as we can find money for the war, we can find sufficient money for this scheme to be initiated in the proper manner. And as I said before, the two great things in initiating this scheme are trained personnel and the right type of plant to handle it in a large way. If we could only get down to it and make a start in that manner, the people in this country are going to feel that the Government is grappling with at least one of its problems, and I want to urge upon the Minister with the utmost earnestness that I can command to take immediate steps to get trained men capable of directing operations of this nature.

We are doing it; we have reopened the agricultural colleges in order to get returned soldiers to take the course.

How many has the hon. Minister obtained?

We would like to get more, perhaps my hon. friend can induce more people to take the course.

Being a townsman I unfortunately do not come into contact to any great extent with the type of man whom I feel is most suitable for a position of this kind. I feel that it is the man who is accustomed to farming operations and work of that description who would be trained most easily and who would have the most ability to direct operations of that sort, with a proper course of training. The Minister has indicated that the department is prepared to train a number of men. He has not told the House how many they can take or how many they propose to take as a start to deal with this matter, but I feel sure that there are a number of men returning who, if the job is worth having, will apply for it with both hands. But it is no good offering men who are going to control and direct soil conservation something in the nature of 10s. a day. Offer them a salary which is commensurate with the value of their work, and I am quite sure that the Minister will be able to obtain the necessary men of training to carry on the work. I feel we should impress upon the Minister the urgency of something being done now.

I would like to draw the attention of the Minister to the position in the north-eastern parts of the Free State, which has greatly deteriorated. In earlier years soil erosion was not as apparent in these parts of the Free State as it has become in the last few years. As a result of the war position and the high price obtaining for wheat, people in those parts who previously did not sow very much wheat, have increased their output, and have sown on sloping ground which is very poor. As a result the soil has become exhausted very quickly. In the Cape Province a subsidy is paid on lucerne seed, which the farmers buy and sow for grazing purposes. Is it not possible for the Minister to take a similar measure in those parts of the Free State where the soil has become so impoverished? The soil has been blown away and in other parts is so laden with sorrel that it is no longer cultivated. Will the Minister not appoint experts to determine what sort of vegetation we can grow there which will be suitable for the grazing of sheep and cows, and which will also improve the soil? I went to the department and made enquiries in connection with lucerne, but, they informed me that the subsidy scheme did not apply to the Free State, for they are of opinion that it is not desirable there. For that reason I shall be glad if the Minister of Agriculture will have the soil there studied and analysed to determine what grasses can be cultivated to combat soil erosion and to restore the soil. The position is that the lands are small, there is over-grazing, and when the lands are ploughed, then the camps as well as the lands, are also used for grazing, with the result that the soil blows away. Another big cause of soil erosion is that we are unable to obtain fencing material. We shall be glad if permits for those districts, which have already been requisitioned for, will be granted as soon as possible in order to fence the land in. Sheep farming has almost come to a dead end. The farmers in the Colony have fenced so as to keep the jackals out and they have fled to the mountains, and there are no more sheep. The farmers sold their sheep and started to sow instead, and it was a mistake, and that is the reason why our district has deteriorated so. I just want to bring this matter to the attention of the Minister, and I trust that he will assist the farmers at Bethlehem and in the Free State in general by making available the one or other type of grass-seed, just as the farmers in the Cape Province are provided with lucerne seed.

When we speak of preserving our soil, we are dealing with a very serious matter, and if we want to promote the preservation of soil we must view it and tackle it as a national matter, and therefore I maintain that £1,000,000 or £100,000 is a mere trifle—millions and millions will have to be spent. But if we want to tackle the matter and want to know how to go about things, then I think a commencement should be made with the land owners who are responsible for the ground. Sometimes there are private farmers who are also responsible for the terrible destruction of mother earth. I have many instances which I could quote—one could talk about them for hours—but I would like to associate myself with those who are insisting that more officials should be available on the platteland to furnish information. In my vicinity there are many people who buy land and then they do not know what to do with it. They begin to plough when the soil is not suitable for sowing; it results in failure, furrows are formed and the soil is washed away, and then they blame the water. If we begin to blame the water, we are going to experience difficulties. Where are the officials to furnish information as to where to plough and where not to plough? There must be officials on the platteland. It does not help, however, to confine these matters to the Minister of Agriculture. All the departments must cooperate. There is another factor. Take the natives. The kaffir is one of the greatest parasites on earth. What does he do? The vegetation which can combat soil erosion is uprooted on a large scale. The kaffir goes into the veld and where he sees a small tree, he chops it down. Sometimes he needs a small piece of wood, but he chops a tree bare, and tomorrow or the day after, he will set the wood alight. An astonishing amount of destruction takes place in this manner and if we want to promote the preservation of soil, we must put a stop to that. As far as the settlers are concerned, if the Minister does not assist them with crop rotation, the settlements will at a later stage run dry. Advice must be given. Today circulars are pouring into the settlements. Most of them are poor people. They have to some extent weathered the storm unenlightened as it were and now they are inundated with circulars to the effect that they must practice crop rotation. The soil is already brak and exhausted, and now crop rotation is advocated. If we want to tackle the question there, we must do so in another way. Much has been said here about national roads which are also held responsible for soil erosion. I am not in agreement there. Fortunately or unfortunately, I am one of those people who live in a vicinity where National Roads have cooperated very well with the farmers, and where such co-operation exists soil erosion can be combated to a large extent. Farmers in my vicinity approached the builders of the roads and the latter were very helpful and have assisted in combating soil erosion. One of the members said that we should make use of returned soldiers. I do not know whether they will be capable, but I want to tell the Minister that the sooner he appoints experts on the platteland to furnish information, the better. The people do not know what to do; they do not know what to plant. There is no encouragement given them. There is the difficulty of obtaining artifical fertiliser. They do not know how to make compost. Many farmers do not know how to make a start in that connection.

At 4.10 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1945, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 23rd March.

The House thereupon proceeded to the consideration of Government business.

I should like to move—

I am sorry, but I am not able to accept that. The hon. member will have to state under what item he is proposing the reduction.

In connection with the salary of the Chairman of Committees.

I am sorry, but the hon. member must take into consideration that that is tantamount to a reflection upon the conduct of the Chairman of Committees.

Then I move—

May I point out to the hon. member that it is not necessary to move an amendment. He can discuss the Vote without moving an amendment.

I am not satisfied with doing that. I am merely moving the amendment with a view to protecting a fundamental right of Parliament, namely, that Parliament has the control over expenditure in reference to any Vote, irrespective of what the Vote is. That is a fundamental right of Parliament, and for that reason I am moving it. I should like to say clearly that I am not doing this to express misgiving on the manner in which the domestic arrangements of Parliament are regulated.

Will the hon. member then state on which item he moves a reduction.

The item “Miscellaneous” where an amount of £300 is asked. Yesterday doubt was raised on the right of Parliament to exercise control over money that is asked for here, and because this is a fundamental right we feel it is a matter we cannot simply leave as it is. The entire Parliamentary system has been built up on the right this House has gradually gained to control expenses. This House is entitled to vote money if it is satisfied, but it has also the right to decline to vote money if it is not satisfied; and if it is not satisfied to say why it is not satisfied. It is in order to protect that right I am moving my motion today. We know that under the rights and privileges of Parliament, as contained in the Act of 1911, Section 31, Appendix C, the control of money voted by Parliament for the facilities of the House rests with Mr. Speaker. We know he is under no obligation to present accounts. We know that. We know also it is the duty of this House to assis† Mr. Speaker in maintaining the dignity of the House, and it is not possible for this House to bring into question the discretion of Mr. Speaker in his guidance of the House. Nor do we want to do that. We know this can only happen by way of a substantive motion. But the moment State money is asked, the moment we have to vote money, the principle of our whole Parliamentary system is involved and we have the right to say whether we shall give the money, yes or no, and to say whether we are satisfied with the manner in which the money has been applied in the past. That is the reason for my motion. No official in the country, however highly placed he may be, stands above the control of Parliament. Not a single penny that can be expended by any official, be he the highest official in the country, does not fall under our control. Parliament can call him to account, no one is excluded, and we demand the right today to do this. If you take this away you cut from under Parliament the basis of Parliamentary control in our country. At the same time we are aware that a committee has been appointed by this House for internal arrangements. I have taken the trouble to look through May, and May states emphatically which matters may be discussed and which may not. On page 278 of May it is clearly stated that a matter that is before a court of the country for judgment may not be discussed, not even by way of motion. Certain things are mentioned that the House may not discuss; but then he goes further and says that even when this House appoints a select committee and certain matters are referred to it, that does not deprive the House of the right to discuss these things, even the things that have been referred to a select committee. No committee has greater authority. It derives its authority fróm this House, the authority it possesses is obtained from this House, and it cannot have greater authority. When it functions in conformity with a resolution of this House which has the power to discuss all domestic matters of the House. Parliament possesses to a high degree jurisdiction over the Committee on Internal Arrangements as well, because that committee derives its powers from this House. They emanate from this House. We feel that we have to safeguard that principle. There is not a penny of state money over which this House has not control, and I must honestly say that I think it would be a good thing if this House devoted a day every year to discuss domestic matters. One day in the Session is not too much. Every day we come into touch with those small matters with which members of the Internal Arrangements Committee and with which Mr. Speaker himself have to deal every day. We have the experience that points of friction do exist of which they are perhaps not conscious, It is important that the House should be afforded the opportunity to discuss these matters every year. Let me mention just two points. Quite recently we had a big fire in Cape Town and valuable articles were destroyed. We have a valuable collection of books in the Parliamentary library, a very valuable collection of Africana. Provision is made here for a librarian. He looks after certain books. We know we have valuable books that have been bequeathed to Parliament. Are we satisfied that this valuable collection of books is adequately safeguarded against fire? Is it not our duty to bring the matter to the notice of the Internal Arrangements Committee? If we see further that every year there is such a change of messengers that not only is great inconvenience occasioned to members of Parliament but that we also fall under suspicion on the part of their constituents because we can supposedly never be found in the building, is it not necessary to point this out? Is that not in the interests of all. I am not moving this motion to express distrust in the Internal Arrangements Committee over the manner in which it deals with matters, but this impinges on a fundamental right, a right on which the authority of Parliament rests. Parliament is paramount, and there is nothing superior to Parliament. So long as we assemble here we are paramount. We may move a reduction in respect of any vote in the estimates. No vote on the estimates is excluded. May states that emphatically. We claim the right to exercise control over the allocation and application of State money, to refuse to vote money if we are dissatisfied and to state why we refuse to vote this money. For these reasons I am moving this motion

What has the Chairman to do with it?

The hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) is raising a post-mortem on matters dealt with yesterday and which aroused the feeling of the House. In that respect one should give credit to the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) (Mr. Tighy) and the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) for raising an issue which our hon. friends opposite, when they had the opportunity, never raised. We never had any practical opportunity of raising matters such as were dealt with yesterday. That was the fault of all sections. Yesterday for the first time the matter became so urgent there was a discussion in which all sections of the House seemed to be agreed some practical measure should be evolved whereby the rights of this House in respect of discussing increased wages, especially of the lower paid staff, should be safeguarded. As a result of that discussion the Right Hon. the Prime Minister, who is a great parliamentarian, who is susceptible to the rights and feelings of Parliament, immediately gave an undertaking to bring the matter before the Standing Orders Committee in order to devise some machinery by which a situation such as existed yesterday shall not arise again, and this House will have to have some method by which it can control the vote. That has been decided on. The Prime Minister has given that undertaking. I think my hon. friends opposite are 30 or 40 years too late. The Union Parliament has been sitting since 1910 and yesterday, for the first time, this issue was brought to a head. The hon. member should have raised the matter yesterday. The Prime Minister has done a great service to parliamentary government and parliamentary control by arriving at a solution and giving us an undertaking with which we are satisfied. Why raise the matter again? The Prime Minister will bring the matter before the Standing Orders Committee, machinery will be devised, and before Parliament rises —possibly on the supplementary estimates— we will have the opportunity to rectify the difficulties with which we were faced yesterday.

I think what the hon. member who has just resumed his seat has stated justifies me in amplifying the hint that I dropped yesterday and that the. Right Hon. the Prime Minister accented, and at the same time to mention a need that can be satisfied by adopting that course. The Prime Minister stated he would pass this matter on to the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders because it has a bearing on the procedure of Parliament, and along those lines the procedure would be set right. This is all very well as far as it goes, but another matter came to light during the discussions yesterday and today, namely that there are certain matters that the House would like to discuss, and if we simply accept this vote before the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders have deliberated on the point, and it later produces a procedure that will make it possible to discuss these matters, then It will be too late as far as concerns this Session. No provision is made on the supplementary estimates for the Assembly vote, and there will thus be no opportunity of discussing the matter. I think it is logical to allow the Assembly Vote to stand over until the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders has had an opportunity to go into these matters and to advise Parliament how a full opportunity can be created to bring these matters under discussion in the Assembly. I should therefore like to move—

I may not have fully understood what was said by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth), but I think I got the gist of it and it appears to me to be a wider issue still than that presented by the hon. member across the way. The point seems to me to be still up in the air for the reason that this matter might be referred to the Standing Orders Committee without any definite and satisfactory arrangement being made, and we will be left where we were before. I understood the hon. member for George to make this point, and if he did not, I now make it for him, that we in this House do not merely desire the opportunity to talk about things, but we want to establish control over the matters and amounts mentioned in this vote. Now, Sir, I want further to support the issue raised by the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) with regard to Hansard; and first of all I wish to pay the tribute of my Party to the very excellent work performed by the Editor and his staff. It does appear to me to be work which is most conscientiously and accurately performed, and the last thing I wish is that I should be thought to be criticising the Editor or his able assistants; but I still do not think Hansard, as Hansard, is as good as it could be, or should be. I very often hear from the one side of the House, or the other, remarks which appear to be reflecting adversely on the speeches made by hon. members. I do not share that opinion. I am sure that most of the speeches not only ….

I regret the hon. member cannot discuss “Hansard” now; he can only discuss the motion of the hon. member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) that further consideration of the vote stand over.

Is that so, Sir?

The hon. member knows that there is a rule that the committee must confine itself to a dilatory motion until it is disposed of.

I would like to support that. I know the phrase used by the Rules is “dilatory motion,” but I do not like that phrase. I do not consider this as a dilatory motion. It is a motion which brings into first-class relief the position of Parliament as Parliament. It is not true, as the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) remarked, that this is the first time this issue has been brought forward. I have brought forward this issue in the past in connection with other matters, and I believe it is a criticism of the Government, and a severe criticism of the Government, that this position of the House has been brought to its notice and nothing whatsoever has been done. One gets the impression, and I hope I am not transgressing the rules of the House by saying it, but one gets the impression that we are gradually getting into the grip of an autocracy in Parliament itself. I will even go so far as to say we are being strangled on occasions by precedent. Precedent has become, on occasions, more important than the work we are called upon to do. I would be the last to decry the importance of rules of procedure in Parliamént, but what might have been a good procedure 10 or 15 years ago, is not necessarily the best procedure to fit in with the work we have to do in this revolutionary age. That applies more so to Parliament, which is the most important body, than to any other sphere of national activity. Now it does not seem to me to be at all difficult to devise a procedure that we in this House take charge of our own affairs. The fact of the matter is, whether it is admitted or not, that the Speaker of this House is responsible for Parliament. He is Chairman of the Internal Arrangements Committee, which at least on the surface, is given the job of running Parliament. But in regard to this question of the wages paid to certain staff of the House, the position is that these wages are laid down by the Internal Arrangements Committee and the Speaker is chairman of that committee.

No, it is laid down by Mr. Speaker.

I was on the committee myself, and I remember discussing certain pensions. It is a committee which very rarely meets.

We tried to raise the matter, and we were told that we were out of order.

I accept the statement of the hon. member, but that makes it even worse. Mr. Chairman, let me say quite frankly that for a responsible Parliament, the wages laid down are rather shocking. Whatever the position is, if the Speaker is the sole person who lays these things down, it is quite wrong from the start. If that is the position, surely we are entitled to ask Mr. Speaker, when we are dealing with a vote like this, to come and take his seat in the House and be responsible for the criticism we are levelling in regard to this matter. We know that Parliament can only be run by placing the greatest possible confidence in the Speaker, but when he is called upon to undertake a very heavy responsibility of laying down wages, without consulting the committee, if he is called upon to bear that responsibility, then he should also be called upon to bear the criticism of the members of this House, and not only that, he should be prepared to assume responsibility in his seat in the House, in so far as we can make suggestions for the better running of the House, and a great many can be made. That is not something that has never been done before. I remember an occasion when the Speaker of the Western Australian Parliament called his Deputy Speaker into the chair, and took his seat in the House and attacked bitterly a certain Bill before the House. So we must not necessarily always keep to the tradition of Westminster only, which is called the Mother of Parliaments. Although our Parliamentary practice is to a large extent drawn from the Mother of Parliaments, the House of Commons, we must not stick to it too rigidly. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will not press his amendment to the vote, but I feel the position might be much better met if the hon. member moved that the matter stand down until someone in charge has reconsidered the question of the wages. It appears that the Speaker is the only person who can do that. I am not at all enamoured of the Prime Minister’s solution, because this matter has been raised so often and so forcefully— and I remember once having nearly been ordered out of the House—and nothing has been accomplished. I am not satisfied that the Standing Orders Committee is the best committee to deal with it. This is a matter which affects the whole of the House and surely it will be possible to appoint a representative select committee to go into the question. The Standing Orders Committee will not have much time to deal with it, and if I know anything about it, it will probably get a report influenced very heavily by the prejudice which seems to hang over the position, and in the long run we will not come to a satisfactory solution, and somebody in the House must be responsible for the running of this Assembly. As far as I can see, the only person who can be made responsible, is Mr. Speaker, and it seems to me that the solution lies along the lines of the Speaker taking his seat in the House and giving the Internal Arrangements Committee the right to run the House of Assembly. Ostensibly that is the position now on paper, but it is not the position in fact. As far as I know, the Internal Arrangements Committee has had no meeting this Session, so it appears that the matter is entirely in the hands of the Speaker. I say, on the grounds of sound Parliamentary procedure, that such a position should not be allowed to continue.

I hope the Leader of the Opposition will not press his motion. The whole matter has been debated and the Prime Minister has given us his opinion on the only remedy available under the present state of affairs. Nothing will be gained by allowing the Vote to stand over, although logically there may be something in it, when it is remembered that this House is not entitled to move anything involving the expenditure of money. You can discuss it and even under the new procedure suggested, that rule will still apply, that anything involving the expenditure of money requires the recommendation of the Governor-General. You will never be able to move anything to increase the salaries of the staff. It will be out of order. Therefore, in these circumstances, what you do want is that someone should be responsible for reply, and that anything that is done in regard to salaries should be subject to the vote of the House. Under the suggestion of the Prime Minister you will get that; you cannot get it under the existing procedure. The rule was laid down, not by the present Speaker, but by the previous Speaker, and to alter that you must get a new rule incorporated in our Standing Orders. We have discussed the matter at length, and even if the report comes back from the Standing Orders Committee and they suggested a procedure, it would still be left at that. They may suggest that the Internal Arrangements Committee would have full power to deal with the salaries of the officials.

But how will we deal with the matter in the House?

On the report of the Internal Arrangements Committee.

Who will reply?

It seems to me that the man to be responsible in these circumstances would be the Speaker.

How can we deal with the Speaker when he is out of the House? Whom do we talk to?

These are all small things which can be settled. It is no good discussing them here. That is one of the things for which we have the Standing Rules and Orders Committee. It could be put under a Minister, but I do not want to anticipate what the Standing Rules and Orders Committee is going to suggest. But it will be dealt with in an effective way to see that the House has an opportunity. This is one of the oldest rules of Parliament on matters of finance, that the only effective hold Parliament has over the Government is that they cannot get money until grievances have been redressed. No money without redress of grievances.

That is what we are fighting for.

As far as that is concerned the fight has been won, and the Prime Minister has told us that he agrees with the principle, but it cannot be met under the present ruling. So he is going to the Committee to frame a new order. If there is any other suggestion, let the hon. member make his suggestion.

It can be done by Select Committee.

That is another way, by special Select Committee. But we must not forget that this particular Committee is a very powerful committee, and I do not know why members suggest doubt about this Committee. Rule 13 says this—

Now, it has the air of a committee not appointed by the House, but appointed by the Speaker, and in a contentious matter of this nature it is the best way: a committee selected by the Speaker, irrespective of parties and of those best able to help him. Surely that is the best committee to refer it to. At any rate, I do not know if the hon. members have another way. I think the way suggested by the Prime Minister will be the quickest and will give the earliest relief. This matter has been going on for years, but it has never been moved in this substantive way before, and now the Prime Minister has suggested a most rapid and quick way. Let us adopt that way, and if by any chance we do not get the relief we are asking for, we have many opportunities of raising the matter again. Let us allow the Vote to go through and await the report of the investigation of the Standing Orders Committee, and I am sure they will find a solution.

I rise to support the motion of the Hon. Leader of the Opposition. I do not think it right to detain the House any longer on this vote. If we accept the motion of the Hon. Leader of the Opposition I think we shall all be satisfied. The vote will then be postponed, and it will simply mean that it will be held over until the Prime Minister has had an opportunity to meet the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders and to find a solution. How do we know with what statement the Prime Minister will appear before us? We do not know what the decision of that Committee will be. Ten to one it will be that the position should remain as it is now. Accordingly, I think that the hint that we should first see what the Prime Minister arranges with the relevant committee is the best; then we can deal with the vote again and allow it to go through. As far as I am concerned I feel very worried over the matters that have been disclosed here. To me as a new member it was all rather shocking, and that is a second reason why I support the motion of the Hon. Leader of the Opposition. We are here to safeguard the democratic rights of the people, and that signifies also the democratic rights of every individual. But now it appears there is a small group of European messengers who are not being properly treated, and we who are ostensibly protecting the democratic rights of the people are apparently allowing a great measure of bureaucracy to prevail in this connection. In those circumstances I feel rather hurt. I believe, as a matter of fact, that when this vote comes under discussion there should be a responsible Minister who can reply on it and accept the responsibility in connection with what is occurring in respect of these messengers. It is stated that we should consult this Standing Committee. Now the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander) states that Committee does not fix the wages but Mr. Speaker does so. What will the position be now? We number 150 members, and must we go one by one to Mr. Speaker’s office? That is of course quite illogical, and we cannot set about things in that way. I want to see the rights of the less privileged section, namely the messengers, properly looked after. The native on the street can run with his grievances to the native representatives who can bring them up on the Floor of this House, and we can take important decisions in that connection. That applies also to the coloured people and other sections in the country. Why should that right be taken away from this small group of messengers? I have taken this to heart, and I think the Prime Minister should first meet the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders, arrange these matters, and then communicate to us what the position is. The Leader of the Opposition told the Prime Minister yesterday that this should be done, and I think it ought to be done before we proceed any further with the discussion of this vote.

May I make an appeal to the Prime Minister to accept this amendment that has been proposed by the Hon. Leader of the Opposition. Since yesterday we have been quibbling over this matter of the messengers, over whom we have no authority. The Prime Minister yesterday agreed to a suggestion of the Hon. Leader of the Opposition to lay the matter before the Internal Arrangements Committee and to enquire what solution could be found. All that the Leader of the Opposition is now doing is to take the matter a step further. The messengers’ wages are being voted and we shall not again have an opportunity to talk about it. Accordingly we ask that this vote should stand over until the Committee reports. No one will be prejudiced by that. The members of Parliament will receive their salaries; the officials will be paid then salaries, because an advance has already been granted on the estimates to an amount of £45,000,000. Why cannot this vote stand over? It will do no one any harm. It will in no way curtail the powers of this House. All we ask is that the matter should be properly arranged. Let us discuss the matter now and put it in proper order. I think if the Prime Minister meets us it will assist to expedite the business of the House. During the present Session there have been numbers of hitches and we cherish the hope that in connection with the handling of these estimates more will be done towards meeting the Opposition. If the matter now goes to the Committee we may perhaps be able to say something next year. That is not what we want. We want the Committee to bring out its report, and that there should be a responsible Minister so that this vote can be properly discussed and proposals made in that connection by this House. It is peculiar that though Parliament is supreme, it has no say in its own arrangements. If the Prime Minister wishes to expedite the work of the House, let him meet us on this. We are not obdurate, but it appears to me that if anything comes from this side of the House it is suspected that we wish deliberately to hold up business. We do not want to do that. This will not be the first time a vote has been held over. It has been done in many cases when a Minister was unable to be present. Then it has been discussed on a later occasion. That could also happen in this case. I ask the Right Hon. the Prime Minister in heaven’s name why cannot he meet us? Why is he so obstinate in not budging on this matter and in refusing to comply with the request of the Opposition? We should like to help him to expedite the work.

Motion put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—32:

Bekker, G. F. H.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Dönges T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Erasmus, H. S.

Fouché, J. J.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Haywood J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Louw E. H.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Malan, D. F.

Mentz, F. E.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Potgieter, J. E.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Vosloo, L. J.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

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

Noes—78:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Barlow, A. G.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowker, T. B.

Butters, W. R.

Carinus, J. G.

Christopher, R. M.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Connan, J. M.

Conradie, J. M.

De Kock, P. H.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Eksteen, H. O.

Fawcett, R. M.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Gray, T. P.

Hare W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henny, G. E. J.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hopf, F.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Maré, F. J.

Morris, J. W. H.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payn, A. O. B.

Payne, A. C.

Pieterse, E. P.

Pocock, P. V.

Prinsloo, W. B. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Russell, J. H.

Shearer, O. L.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steyn, C. F.

Stratford, J. R. F.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sutter, G. J.

Tighy, S. J.

Lothill, H. A.

UeCkermann, K.

Van der Merwe, H.

Visser, H. J.

Wanless, A. T.

Waring, F. W.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Wolmarans, J. B.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

Motion accordingly negatived.

I should just like to say that I do not intend to carry my amendment to a vote. Yesterday a doubt was voiced on the right of criticism by this House and the control by Parliament of money that is voted. Even the Prime Minister yesterday spoke as if this House is powerless.

No, the House is not powerless, but I said that the debate was leading nowhere.

We welcome the remedy which has been decided on, but we want to place it above all doubt that we have the right in connection with Vote 3 as in connection with any other vote. We have the right to exercise criticism, but as the principle has now been safeguarded I am satisfied.

With leave of the Committee, the amendment proposed by Mr. Werth was withdrawn.

In compliance with paragraph 271 of the Standing Orders the staff of this House really fall under the Clerk of the House, who acts on the instructions of Mr. Speaker. I should like to put a question in reference to “Salaries, Wages and Allowances.” I do not wish to discuss the details, but a commission has been appointed to make an investigation in connection with the public service, the wages, salaries and allowances in the public service. We have here a small group of people who stand outside, who do not fall under the Public Commission. My question is, what provision is made, if any, to meet those members of the staff in the same circumstances. Will the recommendations of the Public Service Commission also be made applicable to the staff of this House?

Yes, it will be applicable.

Under B. “Allowances to members”, I should like to discuss the facilities for members of Parliament, especially as regards lodgings in Cape Town. It is very inconvenient for members from the northern districts when they come here to find that it is virtually impossible to get lodgings. That also applies to officials. Cannot provision be made on behalf of Parliament for certain hotels or flats to be made available for the convenience of members of Parliament. In the case of an hotel you have usually to book accommodation long beforehand, and many people do not like hotels and when they come here they are obliged to take rooms which are not suitable. I want to ask whether the Government can do anything for the comfort of members of Parliament in this respect. Is it not possible to make available certain buildings or flats so that members may stay there? If such places are not taken up by members they can be rented to the public. The same remark applies to officials. I should like to know what the Prime Minister thinks of this.

This is a difficult matter in itself. In any circumstances it would be a difficult matter, but during the present period it is exceptionally difficult. We have come through these difficulties during the last four years, and we all believe that we are now at the end of the fix we are in in regard to the shortage of housing and lodgings and that the present difficulty will soon pass. Consequently I doubt whether this is the time to take special measures, if special measures are necessary, and to commandeer hotels for members of Parliament. I do not think we can do that. The publicity committee that functions here states they are prepared to take all necessary measures in advance if they are given due notice. There was, for instance, a shortage of houses for our officials who came from Pretoria, but it appears there was also a certain measure of negligence on the part of our officials, because the publicity committee state that if they had been given notice they would have been able to make the necessary provision, and in fact they themselves requested that notice should be given them. That was not done. So I think that it is necessary at this stage to take an emergency measure of this sort.

In what way do you expect early relief in regard to accommodation?

It will take a hundred years to build sufficient houses.

The prosecution of the war has had a big effect on Cape Town owing to hundreds and thousands of people being here as a result of the war. When the war is over they will leave.

Where will they go?

They will go away. They will no longer be in Cape Town. Take, for instance, coastal defence, the naval staff.

Are they not in barracks?

The officer class are to a large extent in hotels etc. An abnormal position has been created by the war, and that position would be alleviated if the war were to end tomorrow. Many people would go away and there would, of course, be an easing of the position. I should just like to say in reply to the appeal of the hon. member that I do not believe that it is necessary to take emergency measures now. If before the Parliamentary Session next year there still exists a condition of emergency, we can go into the matter. But my own feeling is that by that time it will all have passed over.

Once again I do not know to whom I have to address what I wish to say. I am going to speak through you, Sir. I complain that down here we hear nothing of the debates. The hon. leaders keep the thing so confidential that we cannot hear them. The Press reports are so weak today—they say there is a shortage of newsprint—that we simply do not know what is going on in Parliament. I ask you, Sir, is there any method whereby the voices of members can be thrown down this way? Some members come down here to Parliament and return without having heard the words of wisdom spoken by the leaders. I ask, through you, that we should adopt the New Zealand principle of having loudspeakers in the House, and attaching the House to the broadcasting system of the Union.

That will finish Parliament.

Parliament is going downhill for one reason; it is bounded by the walls of this room. There is not a single member but knows that what I say is correct. The Press reporting is so poor— I do not know what the reason is and I do not care—but the speeches are so mauled about that the public do not know what is going on in this House. They have to rely on Hansard, and every member only gets six copies. In the British House of Commons they have adopted the principle of handing over Hansard to the newspapermen, and every day there is a Hansard issued at the price of 1d., all properly edited and gone through, and the same thing might be done here. People believe that Parliament is getting worse and worse every year; they are getting tired of it and regarding it with contempt. The only reason is, the debates are not getting to the people. How many people can sit in the galleries and hear the debates? How many people can read Hansard? I can assure the Prime Minister if we were attached to the broadcasting system our hon. friends on the other side would never be returned to Parliament again. That is what happened in New Zealand. As soon as they linked up with the broadcasting system a considerable number of actors like the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) fell by the wayside. There is a new device called the facsimile radio, and it will soon be in South Africa. When it is in South Africa and attached to the broadcasting system, our constituents will be able not only to hear everything that is said in the House but they will be able to see everything. We must keep up with these new inventions.

They will have the pleasure of seeing you making your withdrawals every time.

I cannot hear the hon. member. I know that if his constituency hears his speeches here or sees his antics he will never get back. I brought this up last year, and it has been brought up in Another Place by an hon. Senator. I suggest some members of the committee take up the points I have mentioned and have the matter investigated, especially as to what is done in New Zealand, and see whether we cannot get our speeches sent throughout South Africa. The Press are not helping us. The Press certainly never played the game with the Labour Party.

They do not report you.

Of course they do not report me; the trouble is that the Press report you; the Press report the hon. member. If they did not report the hon. member it would be very much better for South Africa. He has caused many sore hearts and sad homes. We have to get this broadcasting, and if there is broadcasting he will never get back to Parliament. I wish to impress this upon the Prime Minister that the time has come for a change to be made in the House; we would like to hear what is being said down there, and we would like to have broadcasted what is said in this House.

May I support what has been stated by the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Brink). He has made an appeal to the Prime Minister to try to make special provision for members of this House and for officials who have to be here for the parliamentary Session. At the moment the position is very difficult. The Prime Minister says that the position will improve, but the fact is that unfortunately it is always difficult to find accommodation in Cape Town once the parliamentary Session starts. The month of January, when Parliament meets, is the season in Cape Town and one cannot obtain accommodation. At the moment the position is so serious that members are living as far away as Bellville and Stellenbosch. You are no longer able to bring your family down with you, which is an undesirable position. I am afraid that things will not improve for years on account of the shortage of houses, and the fact always remains that January is a busy time in Cape Town. I have also in mind the officials who have to be here. Will it not be possible to appoint an official, perhaps a member of the parliamentary staff, who will be instructed to assist members to find accommodation? When Parliament commences members could then notify this official, who would try to find what they require. Members have now often to come down especially to the Cape to obtain accommodation. Then I should like to say something in connection with the observations that have been made from the crossbenches that they cannot hear what has been said. One feels that there is really something to be said for that. I have often sat there and listened, and you really cannot hear a word that is said. For a time we had loud-speakers, a number of years ago, and they answered fairly well. They may not have been entirely efficient; but to a certain degree they were efficient. Sometimes they were rather loud, but those things gradually improved and though it was not a 100 per cent. success at that time, there may since then have been so many improvements in that connection that they might now prove satisfactory, You can easily regulate it. One person can sit at the switch board and the sound can be carried to various parts of the building. At that time there were only loudspeakers on the front benches, but if we make the system more general it would perhaps be satisfactory. I think it would be a good thing to enquire during the recess of the various firms who have these things, whether they can meet our requirements and to invite them to make propositions. There is another point in connection with members that I should bring up. Various members have approached me as Whip, and I think it is such a small thing that members should be met in connection with it. It applies to both sides of the House. Members of this House have the right to free travelling facilities on the railways. They make use of their railway pass because they have to travel in the public interest, but particularly as a result of the shortage of petrol and tyres many members have to make use of railway buses, where unfortunately they are not able to use their pass. That seems to be wrong. If a member has to make use of a railway bus in his constituency in the interests of his constituents, if perhaps he has to alight at the station and then go home by bus, or if he has to use a bus to go round in the district, he should have the right to make use of the railway bus. This is such a small matter that I hope the Prime Minister will give it his consideration, and that it will be possible for members to be granted that facility. If provision does not exist for that I hope that provision will be made.

I have a great deal of sympathy for the points which have been raised by the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) in regard to the projection of speeches through the radio. But until the facsimile radio apparatus is available, it seems to me important, indeed urgent, that we should do what can be done towards the popularising of Hansard.

And the speeches of members?

In your case it would help the publication greatly, but not in mine. This point I do press, notwithstanding adverse hints from many quarters; I do not consider the average standard of speaking low. I do not regard Hansard, read by the week or even by the Session, as an uninteresting book or an unimportant book, but quite otherwise; and, Sir, I think whether our speeches are poor, or very good, or as good as may be, we are entitled to have them presented as a better job of printing work than they are at present. It is a most unappetising thing to read slabs of small type of from 2,000 to 5,000 words in one paragraph. I submit to you, Sir, that most of us who are members here divide our discourses into stages—the first point, the second point, ’n andere saak, and so on. It could very easily be arranged, it seems to me, that Hansard was roughly paragraphed according to our headings. That would make it easier to read. I want it to be read because I attach value to Hansard for the reasons which have been mentioned by the hon. member for Hospital. I wish it could be read. If it is to be read, it must not only be made more attractive in form as a printed publication, but it must be made accessible in price to the people. At present the price is prohibitive to the majority of people. I just wish to reinforce the suggestion of the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) that no matter what the loss may be for the time being to the country in money, Hansard should be made available to the general public at 3d. a copy. I believe that it would do the country good. The country pays a big price for Hansard, and it gets practically no return for it. It might as well pay a little more and get some real benefit. Before I sit down may I remind you of the point that was made with regard to the free distribution of Hansard to schools, that the children of South Africa shall be given a knowledge of what goes on in this House and a sympathy for the many difficulties of the country that we deal with in this place and if possible—I think it is possible— a higher respect for what is after all a democratic Parliament; that would be all to the good. In my youth in England there was no such opportunity available, but I understand that public opinion there is now pressing for fuller information. I believe that in many ways we can profit from the example of England, and I press that point as hard as I can do, that Hansard shall be sent to all schools in this country at no cost to the teaching staff or teethe parents of the children under instruction.

I should like to support the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) in regard to the acoustics of the House. I must say that I believe Ministers are to a great extent the losers owing to members leaving the House because they cannot hear what Ministers say.

Is that why they leave the House?

I want to say frankly that I think the Minister will get a better hearing if we can hear something from the back benches. I think we would learn a great deal from Ministers if we could hear them, but it is tragic to sit here and to try to hear what Ministers are saying. I should like to support the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) and the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Brink). I think the question of accommodation in the Cape is anything but satisfactory to members of Parliament. The ordinary member of Parliament who brings his wife and two children here cannot obtain board and lodging for less than £60 a month. Provided you get proper attention you are thankful to have it at that price. But I must honestly say that the treatment one gets in hotels and boarding houses here is lamentable. I must honestly say that I have never come across such a sorry state of affairs in any place in South Africa in regard to plates, knives and forks and cups and saucers as here in Cape Town. I have made a point of having meals at various places, and I can honestly say that not at a single place have I received proper attention. I make an earnest appeal to the Minister to do something to ameliorate the position for members who come to Cape Town during the Session. We should like to reside at a decent place with our wives and children. We would not mind if it cost us a couple of months’ salary, but then we should expect at least decent treatment in the boarding house or hotel where we put up.

I should like to bring to the notice of the House the question of facilities for members inside the House. I admit that during the last ten years considerable improvements have been introduced, but there is a serious shortcoming that many of us feel, and that is that so few facilities are provided to enable members to prepare their work in the House. The question was incidentally touched upon yesterday by the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) but he had not the opportunity to state those needs that are felt by many of us. This House and the general public have the right to expect of members that they should prepare themselves thoroughly before they stand up in the House to discuss affairs. With the exception of the few members who have the opportunity to sit in offices to prepare their work, the ordinary member has to go to the library or he must do his preparatory work in the writing room. I do not think it is right that it should be expected of members to do this work in the writing room, where other members are also occupied with their work. I am not prepared to make any suggestion as to the direction in which steps should be taken, but I personally feel that it is a duty imposed on me to prepare myself properly for the work that comes before the House, and that it is a duty that rests on all members, but there are not the facilities for that preparation. I do not know to whom I can address this, but someone must give attention to the matter, and I should like to entrust it to you, Mr. Chairman, to explore the proper channels and to ensure that facilities are provided for those who wish to do good work in this House.

I hesitate to raise this question that I propose to raise now because it is somewhat of a personal nature, but may I say I am fortunate in that it will not apply to me so much, and that is why I am fully justified in raising this question this afternoon. It is for a long time that I have realised as a member of this House, that to be a member of Parliament, it is a complete, full-time job, and I say without any hesitation whatever that the salary paid to members of Parliament is totally inadequate, not only for the work they do, but for the expense that is attached to their work.

I am sorry I cannot allow the hon. member to propose an increase to the vote.

Is the hon. member entitled to say how difficult it is for people to live in this town at present because they do not get enough money? He is not asking for more money, he is telling the House and the country how difficult it is for members of Parliament to live here.

As I understood the hon. member he was advocating an increase of allowances to members.

No, he said how difficult it was for members to come out on their allowances.

I do not want to perform an egg-dance on the question of rules and procedure.

I do not see the hon. Minister of Finance here, but the hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood) has mentioned a matter that you have ruled out of order, though I think there is really another aspect of the matter that affects hon. members. We are paid at the rate of £700 a year. That is regarded as an allowance. For income tax purposes you must return that £700 and you are not allowed to make any deduction. I have a large and widespread constituency which I must cover once a year. It costs me a large amount to do that. I am not the only member who finds himself in this position. This applies to most members, especially to those who represent the platteland. We feel that the expenditure connected with the position of members of Parliament runs in many cases to more than the income, or in many cases it is only half of what you receive. I want to ask the Prime Minister to take the matter up with the Minister of Finance so that the right can be given to members of Parliament to deduct the allowance or a part of it from our income tax, as being expenditure connected with the position we hold. The allowance one receives is £700 and one’s expenditure is £200, £300 or £400. Why cannot that be deducted? It is stated it is an allowance, but you have to give up your personal time, and I think that the Prime Minister will be conferring a service on all members of the House if he tells us that he will try to move the Minister of Finance to introduce legislation or to take administrative action to enable us to set off our expenses as against our income tax.

I am sorry that the rules of the House do not allow the hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood) to carry on. I do not want to suggest any increase in the amount of the Vote, but I feel that I surely will be in order if I tried to impress upon the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister just what difficulties members of Parliament in Cape Town are labouring under today. Possibly the Prime Minister does not know it. But in Cape Town today in any boarding house or hotel one has to pay exactly double what one paid before the war. I think we are getting to the position in this town where it is becoming impossible for some members to bring their families to Cape Town. I know of several instances where a member has found that because of the tremendous increase in the cost of living, because of the grave difficulty in finding accommodation in Cape Town, he has had to come here and stay on his own and leave his wife and children at home. That is the only way they can avoid getting into the bankruptcy court. Surely that is something the Prime Minister should take cognisance of. Probably the position next Session will be that several members may not be able to come down at all. The Prime Minister may think it is a good thing, but after all their constituents like them to come down. The position is serious indeed. Even where a member has managed to bring his family down, they have to live like paupers because of the exorbitant charges for all services in Cape Town. I spoke on these lines last year, and the Price Controller sent out inspectors the following day to look these places over. At that time the position was bad, but it is infinitely worse now. One is almost afraid to speak about the matter for fear that one may be put out. Last year, after I had raised this matter in the House, I received thousands of letters from people expressing their agreement with what I had said, and in almost every instance they were afraid to sign their names or show their addresses, for fear that the accommodation they had would be taken away if it was found that they were lodging complaints. Something will have to be done, with reference to the position of members of Parliament. We cannot continue Session after Session to face amongst other expenses this rapidly rising cost of living which is probably worse in Cape Town than anywhere else in the country. We are certainly being fleeced. I say that if the hotel proprietors and boarding house proprietors continue to act in this manner, the sooner we shift this Assembly to Pretoria the better. I said last year that when members of Parliament and the civil servants and other individuals come down for the Parliamentary Session, they are looked upon as fair game for the rapacity of these people, and as far as I can see nothing is being done about it. I would suggest to the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister— after all he is the only Minister to whom we can appeal in this connection — that he cause, for his own personal satisfaction, some kind of investigations to be made into the position of members of this House in these days when they have to come to Cape Town for the Parliamentary Session. I want to support very strongly the point made by the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) in connection with the broadcasting of Parliamentary speeches. I want to make it clear that I have no complaint whatsoever against the press. I have never found any difficulty in getting myself reported in the press. As a matter of fact from time to time I have found myself reported in the press as having said something which I never said at all. So if I have any complaint against the press at all, it is that they put words into my mouth, which I did not use. But today there is not enough room to report Parliamentary speeches extensively, and I think as an old Pressman the hon. member for Hospital does know that speeches are treated by the Press as news items.

I am not blaming the Press; it is the shortage of paper.

After all, unless a speech has some particular kind of news value, the Press will not publish it. I do not think it is the duty of the Press to give a full report of the proceedings of Parliament to the public, but I think it is the duty of this House to see that such a report is provided, and we have the machinery in these modern days through the medium of the radio, and I feel that the time has arrived when Parliamentary speeches should be broadcasted. I do not think we need go to New Zealand where the system has been in vogue for some time, but we know ourselves that there is a great deal of interest in Parliament, and the projection of speeches through the radio would be of even more interest to the general public than would a very full report in the Press, because people are interested in individual members of Parliament. I do not know why sometimes, but the fact remains that they are. People often ask me, for instance, what sort of chap the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) is or the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) and people would like to hear their actual views over the air. They would like to hear the actual discourse that takes place in the House. It is not a question of using the South African Broadcasting Corporation for the purpose of putting us over the air. If we did, we would probably find that members of Parliament would be fired every weekend because the performances are not up to the S.A.B.C. standard. But we can have installed machinery of our own. It should have nothing to do with the Broadcasting Corporation. It is a matter purely and simply for the House itself. No one need listen to the speeches unless they like to do so. But I am satisfied that many thousands of people would listen, particularly on the bigger occasions when matters of grave importance to the country are being discussed. I am satisfied that it would be a very useful service to the people of the country, and I am also satisfied that it may have a very good effect on the speeches we hear in this House.

I would like to associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. member for Ceres (Dr. Stals), namely that we should seriously consider the creation of better study facilities. The study facilities now available for members actually cast a reflection on the House. We have a wonderful library we can make use of but there is no room for studying. The time is ripe that this matter should be considered. We should not lose sight of the fact that it would to a large extent assist in considerably raising the level of the debate if proper study facilities were given to members. The fact is that much more care is taken here of our bodily welfare than of our mental development; much more care is taken of one’s stomach than of one’s head and I believe the time has come that this matter should receive consideration. I want to appeal earnestly to the Minister to give his serious consideration to this question.

In connection with Vote E I would like to receive some explanation in regard to petitions, which are governed by Standing Order No. 268. I have noticed here in the House than one can petition Parliament in order to obtain a write-off of certain debts due to the State.

What item is the hon. member discussing?

I discuss this under E, “Miscellaneous.”

No, the hon. member cannot discuss this under that item.

Where can I discuss it?

I am sorry but the hon. member cannot discuss it under this item.

I would like to have an explanation of Standing Order No. 268.

I am sorry but I cannot give the hon. member an explanation.

I would like to know when and on whose behalf I can present a petition in this House. I thought that came under “Miscellaneous Expenditure.”

The hon. member cannot discuss that matter under this item.

-But where can I discuss it?

On a point of order, is it not possible that the hon. member discusses it under the item “Clerk of the House”, because the latter deals with petitions.

I take it that this money is being used for the purchase of paper and expenditure in connection with printing arranged by the Clerk of the Papers. The Clerk of the House is the person dealing with petitions.

I am sorry but I am unable to give a ruling.

Am I not entitled to discuss the question whether the petitions I intended presenting are in order or not?

The hon. member can discuss that question with the Clerk of the House.

But if I cannot get satisfaction from the Clerk of the Papers surely I should be able to raise the matter here. My point is that the Clerk of the Papers told me that only persons who have actually rendered direct services to the State are entitled to submit petitions. In this regard I would like to refer to petitions which had been allowed here but where the persons concerned did not render direct services to the State. For that reason I feel that I am entitled to present the petitions which I intended presenting.

I am sorry but that has nothing to do with this Vote.

Being a new member I surely should be entitled to ask for an explanation of the Standing Orders.

I have already told the hon. member that I cannot give an explanation of the Standing Rules and Orders.

In that case I just would like to know whether certain petitions which I tried to present in this House are in order or not.

I have already told the hon. member that he must discuss that matter with the Clerk of the House.

Seeing that the hon. Minister of Finance is present, I would like to support the remarks made by the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) in regard to the question of deducting expenses made by a member of Parliament in the execution of his duties, and whether these should not be allowed to be deducted in one’s return of income. Many of us are representing vast constituencies. The hon. member for Gordonia is one of them; I myself am one of them. In my constituency there are five villages and the nearest to the principal town is eighty miles away, and if I want to go to Sutherland I have to travel 160 miles, and as far as possible I try to visit my constituents twice every year. That is expenditure which I incur in order to obtain this so-called allowance.

May I point out to the hon. member that that question would require legislation and that for that reason the hon. member cannot discuss it now. It falls under the Income Tax Act.

Is it not a fact that the Commissioner for Inland Revenue is given discretion in regard to certain matters which he is allowed to deduct as expenditure? This is a matter left to the discretion of the Commissioner for Inland Revenue and all I want to ask the Minister of Finance is to have a discussion with his Commissioner for Inland Revenue to apply that discretion in a case such as this. Would that require legislation?

I think so.

But the hon. Minister is not quite certain. I think that this is a question of discretion, for I have on some occasions made representations in regard to certain deductions, after which the Commissioner for Inland Revenue allowed them.

If this is a matter of discretion then the hon. member should raise it under the Vote concerned.

Since yesterday we have been discussing here the rights and privileges of members of Parliament. There is another matter which I can raise here. A member of Parliament coming from a rural area arrives here in Cape Town and wants to stay in a decent hotel. He therefore has his hotel expenditure here and at the same time has to keep his household going. At the moment, for instancé, I pay £21 per month at the hotel where I am staying. Members coming from the interior have to pay hotel expenses and at the same time have to keep their homes going, but they are not allowed to deduct that money from their taxable income. I just want to ask the Minister of Finance to treat us more leniently in connection with this matter.

I now hear that a decision has been given in the Court of Appeal concerning this point.

What was that decision?

I just want to endorse what has been said in regard to the acoustics of this room. I see the Prime Minister smiling, but I am going to make a suggestion to the Prime Minister even before I sit down. From a practical point of view, when we realise how the sound is deadened in this room, it is a wonder that the voices carry as they do, and I sometimes think that for everyone to hear what is said in this room, we ought to have voices like early morning foghorns. I think everyone is acquainted with the sound properties of this room. The suggestion I am going to make to the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister is that when he goes over to the United States, he should pay a visit to the Congress Hall in Washington, and he will see the design of that building, and he will also see the method that is adopted I when members vote in that House. The Congress Hall is built in the form of a horseshoe. He will see the great advantage enjoyed by members sitting in the Congress Hall. I want to say he should study the method of the members voting over there. I have seen it myself. They do not have to leave their chair at all. Every member sitting there has got an electric button, and the vote is taken by his merely pushing the button, and is not done in the old-fashioned way we do it. I think that is a fair suggestion to the Prime Minister because there is no doubt that our system is obsolete. There is one other matter I want to draw the attention of the House to, and that is the bell in the writing room. I was sitting there, and I know I am hard of hearing, but it is quite difficult to hear the Division Bell in the writing room. I was sitting in the far end of the room and I missed a division this morning because I could not hear the bell. I made a complaint about that some time ago, but I do not want to keep on complaining. The bell perhaps did ring in the passage, but that is not the writing room, and I want to draw the attention of the clerk responsible to it to see that the matter is remedied. My friend here next to me wants me to sit down, but I am not encroaching on the Minister’s ground. I think the acoustics here should be seen to as well.

I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether he will give consideration to the payment of cost of living allowances to members of this House. The position is that when our constitutents come to Cape Town they expect to find us in one of those super de luxe hotels. If I have to stay in a super de luxe hotel, where they expect to find me, it will cost me £132 per month.

You must drink less.

The hon. member knows that even if I drank only cold water I would still have to pay for it. That is the charge without drinks for a man, his wife and two children—£132 per month. Members are expected to stay in such places. I hope that the hon. member will give us a reply. A second point is the following. Members receive telegrams from their constituencies. Some person may want to have some information in regard to a measure before the House and every member is expected to reply by telegram. In that way he has to pay out of his own pocket for a large number of telegrams and we should like to know whether it would not be possible to allow members in such cases to send their telegrams free of charge.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 4. — “Prime Minister and Minister of External Affairs”, £488,900,

I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether he will now agree to the adjournment of the debate. I think that we are also considering his own convenience in moving it because he will definitely want to make important statements.

Yes, certainly. We are all tired.

Then I move—

Agreed to.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported progress and asked leave to sit again; House to resume in Committee on 19th March.

I move—

Mr. Speaker, this little Bill is necessary in order to make provision in the Transvaal and in the Free State for certain denominations and creeds that they can publish their banns on other days than Sundays. Some creeds hold their services on Saturday. In Natal and the Cape Province provision has been made under the Marriage Ordinance of 1939 by issue of a Proclamation by the Governor-General to enable that to be done, and the object of this Bill is to grant the same privileges to the Transvaal and the Free State. It is simply a Bill to bring matters into harmony.

I do not want to keep the House more than three or four minutes, but I have a certain amount of misgiving about this Bill. It seems to make an inroad into the purpose of the publication of banns, which is to prevent the happening of irregular marriages of any type. The means to that end is publicity. Secretiyeness is held to be dangerous in these matters.

There are no differences in the procedure.

In certain respects there are differences. The public at present has a certain amount of right to know what is going on in regard to these contracts, and if there is sufficient reason to intervene. There are already in existence two ways of avoiding publicity, by episcopal licence or by licence from a magistrate. There is an element of danger in that. The taking away of publicity by announcement, and therefore of the power of intervention, in any case, is not good in the light of my experience. At present any person can commit bigamy at any time if he puts down his £5. I have discussed this matter with a high official of the Department concerned. He said: “Well, we can always deal with a bigamist.” I suggested that you cannot always deal with the man, especially if the country is in a state of war. As Mrs. Beeton said with regard to the cooking of the hare, it is necessary first to catch the little beastie. But even if you have caught the bigamist, I fail to see how you can “unbigamise” the unfortunate woman who may be equally but innocently concerned. Now the Minister asks us to increase the hazard of the innocent party. If the Minister goes often to church he will probably discover, to his great regret, that not all the population goes there. Times are very different from what they were when the parson was the only person who could read, and therefore the only man in the parish from whom they could get the news of the day. The provision as regards publication of banns on a Sunday is not a particularly good one, bearing in mind the need for the widest possible publicity concerning impending marriages; but this Bill goes further and allows publication on weekdays. The attendance may not be big on Sundays, but it is considerably smaller on weekdays. This publication of banns on weekdays and holidays was once tried in Britain. But, Sir, it was given up as not being a good practice and since the passing of Lord Hardwicke’s Act in 1753, nearly 200 years ago, banns have had to be published in religious buildings on Sundays only. I want to make two suggestions. The Minister will probably go on with the Bill, and I have no doubt he has not consulted any church authority. If the Minister is going to allow banns to be published on other days than Sundays, I recommend that the publication of banns be limited to regular services, and services that have been duly advertised, so that the public has a chance to be present. With regard to the provision that notice can be put up in a prominent place within the building, I think that regulation should be very much more definite. I think that the notice should at least be exhibited outside the main door. These things may seem very small matters to the Minister, but I have had some experience in my life—not in my own life, but in the course of my ministerial practice — and come across instances that make me very loth to slacken the guarantees we have at present.

I think the hon. member’s arguments are rather in favour of the Bill than against it, because this Bill makes provision for publication for those churches that don’t hold services on Sundays, and in those churches it is perfectly absurd to publish the banns on Sunday. The publicity he is asking for is provided by this Bill. The anomaly is that in two provinces the provision does exist, in the Cape and another province, but not in two others, and they want the publicity to take place which the member is pleading for. The banns will be called on a day when services are held, and all know when the service takes place. This Bill is doing exactly what the hon. member is asking for. It is mere "mockery to publish banns on a Sunday in a religious place when they do not hold a service on a Sunday. Now the Minister is bringing out the Bill to have uniformity, and people who do not hold their services on Sunday will have a day on which to fix for the publication of banns. For instance, the Jews have their service on Saturday, and they could then publish their banns on a Saturday.

I just want to raise one point, and that is in regard to the idea of publication of banns. After all, what is the idea of the publication of banns? It really means that if someone wants to object, he has an opportunity of doing so. The position now is that one wants to give any person who is desirous of objecting to any such marriage taking place, an opportunity to do so. But why only have publication in this one particular church, whether it is a church or a place where Divine Service is held? I feel it is essential that all banns should be published not only in the church where they do get married, but also in the Magistrate’s Court. Then you do get due publicity, and you do give the opportunity to a person who desires to object. Take a man who is getting married in our locality where you have the Seventh Day Adventists. There may be people who want to object but do not belong to that church. Then how do they know of the publication of the banns? That is why I say I think it is necessary, in addition to this publication, that it should also be published at the Magistrate’s Court. It could be arranged quite easily, and I do not think the parties need do it. When the minister gets notice of an intended marriage, all he has to do is to send notice to the Magistrate, and say: “I have been required to give notice of this proposed marriage,” and the magistrate will also have to publish it at the Magistrate’s Office. I want to bring that to the notice of the Minister because in the committee stage I will move an amendment to that éffect.

I think the suggestion made by the hon. member opposite is very useful. Put your amendment on the Order Paper and we will see whether we cannot evolve something. In regard to the member for Durban (North) (Rev. Miles-Cadman), what he says is outside the scope of the Bill. This Bill is merely enabling the priests who hold their services on Saturdays to call the banns on Saturdays.

It does not allow any denomination to call their banns on a Saturday or a week day?

No, the Bill is quite clear. I will read it out—

1. (a) In the ordinary manner at three such public divine services preceding the marriage, held at weekly intervals in a church or other building habitually used for public worship in that area; or
2. (b) by posting them up for a period covering three successive weeks preceding the marriage, in a conspicuous place in such church or other building.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee on the Bill on the 19th March.

I move—

Mr. Speaker, for over a hundred years there have been no marriages in the Union of South Africa by proxy, but the other day in Johannesburg a marriage took place by proxy, and the question was raised as to whether that was permissible in the Union of South Africa. It was discussed as to whether the legality of that particular marriage should be contested in court, but the lady in question, by that time, was on the high seas on her way to join her husband. There was a difference of opinion and legal advice was taken, and the magistrate went into it, and he was satisfied, when the person who took the place of the bridegroom had a Power of Attorney. We cannot allow this uncertainty to continue, and instead of contesting it in the law courts, this Bill is brought in so that the legality of these marriages can no longer be in question. This Bill provides that marriages can take place by proxy, provided that there is prior consent by the Minister of the Interior, and I am going to move an amendment that so far as South-West Africa is concerned, the Administrator there takes the place of the Minister of the Interior. At first blush one is inclined to take the stand and oppose these marriages. But the Defence authorities have raised the matter, and there may be instances where it is very desirable to allow it. That is why this Bill has been drawn up in this particular manner. It also legalises the one marriage that has taken place and puts it beyond all doubt. I submit this Bill to the favourable consideration of the House.

This Bill looks very innocent on the face of it. It may be to a certain extent. But there is no doubt that under this Bill an undesirable form of marriage is introduced, and that that has not been anticipated in the slightest. One asks whether there is any necessity for the introduction of the Bill at all. What have been the marriages which have taken place by proxy in the Union? Can the Minister tell us how many there have been in the last ten or fifteen years or since Union, or even in the last 100 years?

One in the last 100 years.

There has been one in the last 100 years, and whether it has been one in 100 years or 300 years, can the Minister or anybody tell me that if one marriage by proxy has taken place since Union, there is any necessity for this Bill. It is an extremely undesirable thing. We have just passed an Act of Parliament, the second reading of a Bill to give more publicity to marriages, to give more publicity of an intended marriage. Here we are going in exactly the opposite direction. Someone might wish to marry by proxy, someone who is not in South Africa. What machinery has the Minister of the Interior got for finding out whether that person, who may be in some other part of the world, is a suitable person, and whether there is not perhaps some objection? The person concerned may be in any part of the world. It makes it practically impossible for the Minister to know what the position is in regard to one of the parties in an intended marriage. We have to bring in this Bill because there has been one such marriage. There is no necessity for this Bill and there is no demand for it.

If we are not careful, we might have thousands.

Why should we have thousands when we have only had one up to now? There was a war in 1914-’18, and the conditions were practically the same. Then there was no demand for any person to get married by proxy. We have had this war for five years now, and only one person wants to be married by proxy; now why suddenly should there be this spate of marriages by proxy? It is ridiculous. Then there are other dangers. Take your immigration laws. Certain people, not natives, come in as prohibited immigrants, but they can come into South Africa once they are married to a Union National. Take for instance the case of an Indian who marries an Indian woman who is a Union National, then he can come in, and it is not only in regard to them, but also in regard to other people who are prohibited immigrants. They will be able to come into the country once they are married to a Union National. They may be prohibited immigrants or they may never have been, here, or are perhaps here on a temporary permit. A person may be here on a temporary permit, and then goes away. Then if a marriage by proxy takes place he can come back into the Union. If a person can persuade the Minister that it is desirable that he should be married, and gets married to a Union National, he then has the right to emigrate to South Africa. There are many dangers, and seeing that there are these dangers, and seeing there has been no demand since Union, no demand before Union, and no demand in the last war and also no demand in the first five or six years of this war, why should there suddenly be now?

We have had many applications from the magistrates to know what the law is.

They can find out what the law is, and I wish to move, because there is no need for this Bill and because it is fraught with danger—

I second the amendment. I really believe that the Minister has not given proper consideration to this question. I do not know whether the Minister understands what I am saying. He has not considered this question fully, and he is now doing something which will ultimately cause him trouble. Take for instance this clause which lays down that written application must be made to the Minister, whereafter he issues a special permit. In what form should that application be made? Will it merely be a formal application or must it be accompanied by sworn declarations? How is the Minister going to know whether this is a person who will satisfy all the requirements? My great difficulty is now that I am talking—I started in Afrikaans and I have to continue in Afrikaans—and the Minister does not understand a word of what I am saying. I do not want to address somebody here who cannot understand me. We cannot go on like that. I therefore move—

Motion put and negatived.

The hon. Minister did not consider this matter.

According to the Standing Rules and Orders, an hon. member who has moved the adjournment of the debate cannot continue his speech.

On a point of order, in connection with your ruling, I would like to refer to Standing Order No. 37—

Recently a similar ruling was given here but I think that Standing Order No. 37 is very clear on this point.

The hon. member has already discussed the main question. Only in case an hon. member moves the adjournment of the debate without discussing the matter under consideration will he be entitled to continue his speech.

Mr. Speaker, what is my position? I seconded the motion for the adjournment of the debate. Am I entitled to speak again on the main question?

On a point of order, the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) did discuss the main question, but he moved the adjournment of the debate because the Minister did not understand a word of what the hon. member was saying. Consequently everything he said was totally lost; his aim was to convince the Minister and because the Minister did not understand a word of it we cannot assume the hon. member to have spoken.

Standing Order No. 37 is quite clear on that point. The hon. member did not discuss the main question and is therefore not entitled to continue his speech.

I do not want to evade your ruling but may I ask for a seconder? I ask that because during a previous debate a ruling was given that the seconder will also not be entitled to speak because he has séconded the motion. I should like to support the objection raised by the hon. member for Humansdorp. In South Africa our marital law is considered to be sacred by the Afrikaner section and the English-speaking community. We believe that a marriage is entered into after very serious consideration, or at least that it should be so entered into, and this provision is in conflict with the Christian point of view which a Christian nation should adopt. We are of the opinion that a marriage should be entered into by the parties in their own presence. As the hon. member for Humansdorp pointed out so far there has been only one case. Why should the Minister for the sake of one case come along here and change the legislation in regard to our marital law? I want to ask the hon. Minister in the interest of the people to accept the proposal made by the hon. member for Humansdorp. I believe that hon. members on the other side will also feel that the sense of justice of the people of South Africa is being violated here and I hope that the Ministér will be prepared to accept the motion. People have a serious regard for marriages and this legislation is unnecessary.

Because I fear the hon. Minister will not understand me otherwise, I shall speak in English. I am surprised that a man of the Minister’s standing, a family man, a man with a wife and family, should come to Parliament with a thing of this sort. Though these are abnormal times they will again become normal and this is by no means a progressive step. We South Africans feel that marriage is sacred and that the marriage ceremony should be carried out properly with both parties present. It is not a ceremony one can trifle with, and the Minister cannot ask us to agree to a marriage where one of the parties is only represented by a power of attorney.

Apparently they can do it now.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Minister is a lawyer, I do not know how they can do it. You told the House it was done in Holland, but you have not followed the Dutch procedure.

At 6.40 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1945, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate adjourned to be resumed on 19th March.