I move—

1. (a) the effective use of the Native areas as areas of land settlement;
2. (b) the improved productivity and standard of living of the farm labour population; and
3. (c) the stabilisation of the whole African population;

and that such revision is an essential and immediate condition of that expansion of our home market and effective development of our national resources without which industrial expansion and full employment are impossible.

I think it would be legitimate to say that the slogan of this House in the last few years has been social security. There was a tendency in the beginning to interpret the objective of this ideal of social security in terms of social insúrance schemes designed to provide protection through public channels for all those who might land on evil days to defend them from the icy blast of economic necessity “from the cradle to the grave”, in the phraseology of the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) when he first moved a motion on this subject. More recently, the wider aspects of this objective have begun to impress themselves upon the House, and the emphasis is now increasingly laid on the achievement of full employment as the essential basis of any social security. But full employment in any country presupposes a mass demand and a mass productive effort to meet that demand. In the terms of South Africa, a mass demand must mean essentially the demand of the native population. The native people are the “mass” of South Africa, and the achievement of social security in South Africa, in our submission, and increasingly in the acceptance of the thinking people of South Africa, must involve the mass demand of the native population and mass activity on the part of the native population to produce the wealth necessary to satisfy that demand. Now, Sir, our anxiety in this regard has already been declared in that, so far, no plans have been put before the country to increase the standard of living of the native population, no plans that would guarantee to release the productive resources of the native population and thereby increase the wealth of the country. Such plans would of necessity involve changes in the controls which now operate in the life of the native people. We have ourselves argued from these benches on various occasions in the past in favour of and will again this year advocate the changes in the present system of controls over the life of the urban population which we consider necessary to improve their position. We have stressed the necessity for an improved standard of living and increased productive activity on the part of Africans in the urban areas and have urged as an essential condition thereof, the stabilisation of the population and the release of its productive energies by the relaxation of the controls which now curb their opportunities in the labour market, that is colour bars both legislative and social.

What do you mean by the social colour bar?

I mean the bar that operates in the economic field by social sanction. I am not talking of social colour bars as between one group and another outside the economic field. I refer to the colour bars which in effect operate in South African industry without the legislative sanction of the so-called Colour Bar Act, the Amendment to the Mines and Works Act. Now the purpose of the motion I propose to move today is to try to focus the attention of the House on certain changes which will be needed in our present approach to the bulk of the native population which is not urban, and in the controls which now operate in the lives of this section of the people. The bulk of the native population is still rural. According to the last census, some 2,900,000 or 45 per cent. of the whole native population was still living in native areas and over 2,000,000 or 31 per cent. of the whole native population were, at that date, on farms owned or occupied by Europeans. Now, Sir, we have never held that the position of the urban natives could be revised and improved without reference to the rest of the native community. On the contrary, we have gone out of our way to insist that the urban situation cannot be dealt With in isolation, that the conditions for a rising standard of living for Africans in urban areas must be set against the background of the needs and conditions of the African population as a whole. There can, in our submission, be no effective progress for the urban African except on the basis of the progress of the whole African people. Here is our attempt to focus attention on the rural aspect of the situation, upon the changes which will be necessary in the position of the rural population if, in fact, we are to develop our whole native population on the basis of freer opportunity and a rising standard of living. Now, the controlling factor in the position of the rural natives is the Land Acts of 1913 and 1936., In these Acts, the accessibility of land to the native population was restricted to an ultimate limit of some 18 million morgen. The amount involved was determined in general outline as long ago as 1916, 1917, at the end of the last war; in 1916 actually before the end of the last war. It was laid down in terms of a native population which at that time numbered roughly some 4 million, and it was laid down on the basis of the native population which was then residing in the native areas, or on an independent basis on land outside the native areas, that is, as lease-holders or tenants. Since the passing of the 1913 Act and its corollary, the 1936 Act, two factors have operated to increase the pressure upon these areas to a degree which I shall try to show has not only brought about for the people, but in respect of the land, an increasingly difficult situation. The first of these is the natural increase of the population. The second is the growing sense of insecurity of the native population as a whole which has induced it to strive to retain or to obtain a foothold in the native areas at all costs. There, has been an increase in population in the reserves, and there has been this growing sense of insecurity on the part of the whole of the native population as a result of the direction our native policy has taken in the last 10 or 15 years. I refer particularly to the application of the Land Act of 1936 to the native population in the Cape Province which deprived the native population of this province of that capacity of being able to get an independent foothold on the land which has been their heritage for over 100 years, and which makes them dependent for a roof over their heads on service under some employer, or on an established claim on a native reserve. The 1937 amendment to the Urban Areas Act extended the sense of insecurity to the urban native population which was growing up by taking away the right to buy land in urban areas. The result has been that not only have those natives who had a claim to the native reserves clung to it, no matter what pressure has been exerted to put them out, but many who have had no claim have tried to establish a claim; and the result has been a strain upon the resources of the reserve until, on the evidence of all authorities, the reserves are hopelessly overcrowded. In a sense the Administration tn the last 10 or 15 years has itself aggravated this process of over-population. It has aggravated it I think, particularly in recent years with the quite genuine intention to serve the native people. I am not accusing them of driving the population into the native reserves. That they will never do; the pressure is already too great. And I am not accusing them of damming up the population in the reserves other than into a genuine intention, a genuine wish, to concede to an anxious native population or to as large a proportion of it as possible, some foothold in the reserves. The Department has been faced, particularly since 1936, with far greater demands on its resources, even if those resources had reached their full limit by purchase of all the land released for purchase, far greater pressure upon their resources than they could ever meet. They have done their best along one line. I will show later on that I do not think it is a sound line, that it is one of the lines of our policy which ought to be abandoned, but it is a fact that the Department of Native Affairs have striven to provide a foothold for as large a proporion of the native population as possible within the limits of the areas available to them. They have done this on the basis of the precedent set them by the Glen Grey Act of 1894. They have adopted the principle there set out and, working on that principle, of one man, one lot, they have striven to accommodate as many people as possible. But the Glen Grey Act as I have no doubt some people in this House remember, was an Act specially designed to provide a foundation only, and so limited a foundation to the rural native population that they would be forced out of the reserves to work. The whole inspiration behind the Act was the wish to force the natives out of the reserves into the labour market. I was not a Native Land Settlement Act; it was a Native Labour Act. But even the Glen Grey Act provided greater elasticity and greater possibilties for producing self-sufficing agriculturists than does its present adapted application as established by the Native Affairs Department in terms of the Native Administration Act of 1927. Under that Act, as you, Mr. Speaker, cerainly know, the Native Affairs Department has the power to control the conditions under which all lands held on quitrent title may be allocated. Under the regulations which have been framed under that Act, the old provision of the Glen Grey Act, whereby a man might have more than one holding if he could pay the required rent, has gone by the board in terms of a policy which strictly applies the principle of one man, one lot. By regulation the acquisition of more than one lot by one holder is now specifically prevented. This inevitably ties the population down to lots which vary in size from five morgen downwards. The result is inevitable. The most detailed analysis, and the most effectively documented analysis, of the effects of this policy, have been given to us recently by the Mine Natives Wages Commission which reported last year. That commission, I feel, has not been given sufficient attention by this House, and the reading of it I must strongly urge on all members of the House who are at all concerned about our native policy and the economic development of this country. That report shows the conditions of the natives in reserves as lamentable, both from the human point of view and from the agricultural point of view. Its findings establish beyond a shadow of doubt the facts of deteriorating people and deteriorating land. The report of the commission states—

What the commission found was practically a dead-level of poverty. It found that a large number of the natives domiciled in the reserves are without any land whatever beyond a mere building lot. It found that practically 50 per cent. of the natives in an area like the Transkei have no cattle at all; and they found that the territory could not produce its own food and was only supported by the able-bodied men going out to work for longer and longer periods to find cash, not to develop their holdings, but to keep themselves and their families alive. The following commentary is surely significant as showing the vicious circle which has developed out of these conditions. The commission writes—

The evidence that was laid before the Commission showed not only the disastrous effects of over-population and of the continued exodus of the male population, of which at any time 50 per cent. is out of the territory earning its living. It showed that there has been a progressive decline in the economic position of the people in the reserves. The Secretary for Native Affairs in 1903 submitted evidence to the Native Affairs Commission in his day that so far as he knew the average possession of a native was 15 to 20 head of cattle, a flock of sheep and goats, a couple of horses and a plough. That was the usual possession of the ordinary native living in the Transkei or in the Cape Colony. Against this background, the Mine Natives’ Wages Commission found that there had been a lamentable deterioration in the economic status of the Native people in that area. And the evidence upon which the Mine Natives’ Wages Commission based its conditions has been accepted by every Commission that has reported on this matter in recent years. The Miners’ Phthisis Commission which reported the year before last accepted this evidence and came to the same conclusion in regard to the conditions of the reserves and the people in them. Thus we have had steadily piling up evidence that the position of the people in native reserves is not only disastrous but is threatening the vitality of the native people themselves and menacing the labour resources of the country. But the Native Economic Commission in 1932 warned the Government that this was going to happen. That Commission was originally appointed to deal with the very issue which has been occupying so much of our attention in recent months, namely, the pressure of the natives on the urban areas, the supposedly abnormal influx of natives into the towns. As soon as it began its job, it found itself driven back upon a consideration of the position of the native in the rural areas. It found, in effect, that the roots of the problem it had been set to consider were in the native areas. It early came to the’ conclusion that the movement to the town was directly due to the conditions in the reserves. Here it found that, far from these areas being able to offer the natives a rising standard of living and to provide homes for an increasing number of people, they were steadily deteriorating in quality while the standard of living of the majority of the people in them was steadily declining. It attributed this primarily to the policy of land distribution being pursued by the administration in these areas. It said—

In the circumstances, there is little scope for differentiation of function. Every man must be a small farmer whether he has the ability or not. Moreover as he cannot concentrate on one job, he cannot become an employer of labour. There is no division of labour and everyone remains at a low level of skill in all the occupations.

It then went on to say that, if the Government wished to cling to this policy of one man, one lot, and make the land spread out over the maximum number of people, regardless of the standard of living, they must expect a continuance of the low standard of living in the reserves and a progressive deterioration of that standard. It said—

It added:

Which report is that?

That is the Native Economic Commission of 1932. The commission was most emphatic, not only that the standard of life in the reserves must remain low, if the principle of one man, one lot, was maintained, but it went on to say what I think the hon. Minister quoted to the House at the end of last Session, that if this policy was pursued for any length of time, in 20 years the Transkei must be a desert. It was most emphatic about the effects of this type of use of the land; and about the time factor in the situation. There was no question of this happening some time in the distant future. The commission said: This will happen in a measureable time if this type of use is allowed to continue. I am well aware, that, with the accumulating evidence of what has, in fact, happened since the Native Economic Commission reported and since the Government has not only continued but has extended the policy which was here condemned by the Native Economic Commission, there has been an awakening of conscience in the matter and that there is an increasing anxiety about the future. As a result of that anxiety, the Minister in this House last year and to the Native Representatives’ Council and to other interested bodies declared the intention of the Government to embark upon a long-term plan of reclamation of the areas which have already been denuded and of conservation of the remaining areas. He has declared the intention of the Government to proceed with an extensive policy of fencing and paddocking and has pointed out that the delay in the application of this policy has been due only to war-time difficulties. It is a significant fact; however, that the statement of that policy has not so far established confidence on the part of any body or any group of persons who are interested in this matter, a circumstance about which I know the hon. Minister feels very sensitive. He feels that we are not adequately grateful for the plans put forward. I want to try to explain to him why the statement of policy as it has been put forward has not established confidence in this regard, why we are still waiting for a further statement of policy. The reason is that the whole policy has been stated in terms of the cattle capacity of the areas; it has never yet been stated in human terms. We have had no statement as to whether it is the intention of the Government to go on with the system of one man, one lot, to continue to spread the land out over the maximum number of people, and if it is, what standard of living they hoped to attain. We have had no statement of policy so far on the fundamental issue which is whether these native areas are going to continue to be what they now are, the only thing they are successfully, and that is reservoirs of labour. We have had no statement as to whether it is the intention of the Government simply to follow the lines laid down by the Mine Natives’ Wage Commission, to follow their suggestion that the reserves should be built up sufficiently to give to the mine labourer, with a small increase in wages, sufficient to meet the costs of a very meagre standard of living. I think that in that regard a statement is long overdue. We want to know, the native population wants to know, and in the last resort the country wants to know whether we are going to continue with a system of migratory labour which destroys the morality of the people, undermines their physical as well as their moral health and obviously makes it impossible to build up stable agriculture on the basis of the stability of the human beings concerned in it. I can conceive that you might recognise and develop the native reserve on the basis of the work being provided and the whole show being run by the Native Trust while the men go out to work in the labour market but I cannot imagine that anybody would regard that as a reasonable fulfilment of our obligations to the people for whom these lands have been set aside. My own feeling is that the definition of policy should probably follow the lines laid down by the Native Economic Commission. I am not proposing to be dogmatic on this. I wish it to be perfectly clear that my intention this morning is not to lay down definite lines along which the Government ought to go in regard to the development of the native areas; or rather let me put it this way: I am quite satisfied, of course, about my ultimate objective, but I am not standing here this morning to try and lay down the detailed lines along which the Government ought to move towards that objective. I think the objective ought to be the building up of a contented, stable, industrious and self-respecting native population moving steadily towards full integration into the economic life of this country. But I am not in a position to say what the specific character of the organisation to be adopted in respect of our native areas should be to produce that type of population. What I am trying to do is to show that there are Obvious reasons why our present policy should be abandoned and the whole situation reconsidered. And in this regard, I think that the advice that has been offered to the Government on other occasions has been worthy of a consideration it has never received.

Do you want to abandon the Land Act; you have been skating round the subject for some time.

I shall come to that in due course. But I wish to start with this point, that I feel that the advice that has been given to the Government in the past was advice they might very well have considered with a seriousness it has never received. The advice of the Native Economic Commission on this matter was, I think, extremely important. The commission said that the only way in which the native areas then in existence could be made effective both for the nation and for the native people was by building up on the basis of an economic unit of production. Their own idea was that anyone who really wanted to be a farmer should be encouraged to be a farmer, with an upper limit, of course, to the amount of land that he could acquire under this particular scheme. In other words, they visualised the possibility of our native areas being developed as areas of land settlement in which the directing force would be the establishment of an economic unit of production and the encouragement to the man to apply all his time to working that unit. They said, in effect, exactly what the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mr. Abrahamson) said the other day when he maintained that the fragmentation of land is destructive to the land, that there is a level beyond which you cannot sub-divide the land without disaster to the land and to the people. They contended that the Glen Grey Act had established a policy of fragmentation that was steadily ruining the reserves, and that the only way in which the ruin that had already taken place might be counteracted and delayed where it was in progress, was to revise our whole approach to the subject, to sort out those people who genuinely want to be agriculturists and give them a type of farming unit on which it would be possible for them to become efficient agriculturists. I wish to make it quite clear. I am not suggesting for one moment that our native reserves should be parcelled out in larger and larger areas to anyone who wants them; that is not the principle of any land settlement scheme that I know of. Land settlement schemes have always established an upper limit to the size of the holding that any man may receive. But I submit that the size of this unit has always been fixed on an economic basis; otherwise there would be no justification for a land settlement scheme since the objectives of such a scheme is to provide the people accommodated there with a livelihood. I do not know what would be an economic unit. I fancy the commission suggested that for the Transkei it might go up to fifty acres. But at any rate, on the basis of a unit on which a man might attain a reasonable standard of living as a full-time agriculturist, the territory could begin to support a population in which some division of labour might develop. You would then get some differentiation within the community whereby the people could serve themselves in varying capacities according to their varying gifts. I believe some policy of that sort must be considered; and until it is considered, we can never establish any confidence about these proposals for the reclamation of the native areas. We have to know what the Government visualises as the futuré of the native population in these reserves. Now I know, that the moment we proceed to define our objective, as I hope we shall do, in terms of human values and our responsibility for building up our native population on the basis of a stabilised family life, we are going to be met with two difficulties. The first is the plain and direct one which, I believe, lies behind our inability to get any declaration of policy at the present time, and that is our regard for the interests of the mining industry in the native areas. This regard for the interests of the mining industry is responsible for the retention of the present condition of affairs in the native areas. The mining industry draws the bulk of its labour force from the Transkei and contiguous areas. It has built itself up upon the cheapest labour subsidised by the agricultural resources of those native areas. Mr. Gemmill of the Chamber of Mines went so far as to tell the Mine Natives’ Wages Commission that he considered that the Government was giving this land to the natives in order to subsidise the mines, and that the mining industry regarded this as right. There is, however, a growing body of opinion in this country that is beginning to question the wisdom of pursuing the present interests of the mining industry in this respect at the cost of the permanent interests of the native population. Of course that approach will meet with very strong opposition. Too many people are interested in the gold mining industry for it to be otherwise, while the wide dependence of our present economic structure on the industry fills the eye of the majority of the people to the exclusion of other considerations. I do not myself believe it would be possible now to change the whole labour pattern on the mines at the present time. I am not so idealistic as that. But I do feel that with the expanding possibilities of the mining industry, we ought to declare our policy in regard to the character of the labour that is going to be used in these extensions and that that declaration should be in favour of a stabilised labour force. Here I believe we shall find considerable support in the mining industry itself, which is one of the most hopeful features of the situation. There is good reason for believing that the mining industry is itself divided on this issue and that there is a strong group in the mining industry which is Quite prepared to develop the industry on the basis of the use of stabilised labour as more efficient than migratory labour can possibly be. Migratory labour has in fact been a hopelessly expensive and extravagant system. In the circumstances, I consider there are good reasons for the situation being explored and the Government not being completely inhibited by its fear of or interest in the mining industry in making any statements in regard to the future of the native population. The second difficulty is in one sense a greater one, because it has behind it the weight of an almost stronger political force than the mines, that is the farmers. This second difficulty will be to provide room for the natives whom it will be no longer possible to accommodate in the reserves, if they are to be built on the basis of full-time agriculture. We have been told, it is true, by various people but none of them agricultural authorities, that the native reserves can carry a much larger population than they carry today. I should be very glad to think that is true, but first of all I should like to know what standard of life is visualised when that statement is made. Secondly I should like the statement to be made by agricultural authorities who know something about the land and the type of organisation necessary to use it to better advantage. One of the weaknesses of the Minister’s own statement about the reclamation of the reserves is that it has been backed by no agroeconomic survey. But, even if the reserves, with better management, may eventually prove equal to the burden of a greater population than they carry today, as I see the situation, it will be impossible in the interim for them to maintain even their existing population if the process of reclamation and reorganisation is to be given a chance. Actually the statement that the reserves might carry a larger population than they do today is mainly made in respect of the Transkei. It certainly has not been made of the Ciskei. In fact, the opposite has explicity been stated by the Department’s own authorities in respect of that area, that is that it cannot carry even its existing population on any adequate economic basis. In the circumstances we have to find some outlet for the surplus population, and this is where I come to the point in my argument to which the Minister referred a few months ago.

You have been skating round it for some time.

No, I have not been skating round it. I think the Minister misunderstands, as he often does. The point I am coming to is this, that while I think a certain amount of the surplus population which would be turned away from the reserves if a policy of land settlement were developed, would be accommodated in the urban areas; a great number of them would not be. A great proportion of that surplus will remain a rural population and would wish to remain a rural population and some provision would have to be madé for it. This is where my argument dovetails with the farm labour situation. The farm labour population numbers nearly as many as the reserve population, and at present they are without any foothold of their own on the soil. They are entirely without any access to land in their own right, except illegally, which I shall have something to say on in a moment. Some future will have to be provided for that 2,000,000 odd of our farm labour force if it is to become a more productive force, and to increase the national income. I am not going to attempt to deal with all the difficulties of the farm labour situation. It is far too complex a situation to be deal with by anybody until we have had a great deal more scientific analysis of it. But I am going to refer to one or two of the anomalies of the position. We have on an average in this country eight farm labourers to one employer; I can find no parallel in any country, other than in plantation countries, for that proportion. That is an enormous labour force. But in spite of the size of that labour force in the farms in this country—that is casual and permanent labour—the farming community is constantly complaining of a shortage of labour on the one hand, while on the other hand, the farming labour force provides large numbers of working hours for urban employment. The same state of affairs characterises the farm labouring population as characterises the population of the reserves. The population, in its efforts to make a living alternates between agricultural and industrial employment. This is the position where the Native Service Contract Act applies, where the labour tenancy system exists. Yet in spite of all that, in spite of the, numbers employed, the production per head of our agricultural community must be one of the smallest in the world where a European standard of living prevails. It is reflected in the small contribution which agriculture makes to the whole of our national income; the estimate of 12 per cent. has been accepted by the Van Eck Commission. Thus obviously if we are going to build up any foundation for social security in South Africa on the basis of increasing wealth, we cannot afford to allow this unhealthy situation to continue. We cannot afford this mass absorption of labour in a field which produces so little return. I do not propose to attempt to postulate what the alternative should be, but I do feel that if we are to get greater efficiency in farming we shall have to reduce our labour force because we shall have to pay it better and use it more economically. This eight to one balance must drop in agriculture, as the same balance which now exists in the mining industry must drop if we are to have a healthy and economic use of our human resources in this country. This balance of the native population engaged in farming must be reduced. It must be reduced through increased efficiency, increased education ….

And more Government control.

More Government control, that will be involved.

And more hours of work.

There certainly will not be more hours of work. I hope the farmers will not run away with that idea; but what there will be for both Europeans and natives will be more efficient work, while they are at it than is the case at present. But my point is this, that in order to get this increased efficiency in the farm labouring population, you will have to educate your labour and train it as it is not educated or trained today. At the present time our farm labour population is like our native reserve population; it gets no training at all except what it can pick up haphazardly here and there, most of which it loses in the process in moving from one occupation to another. The system under which a man drifts off from the farm to the town, there becomes an industrial worker, and eventually drifts back to the country is particularly disastrous to farming. But I do not believe it is going to be possible to get any real Use out of a trained farm labour population unless that farm labour population has itself: some interest in and some stake in the land., I do not, know how you are going to manage to keep a farm labour population, at all unless it has some incentive offered it, and some hope for the realisation of its ambition. The objective surely of every worker on the land is to own a piece of land of his own, and to own a few animals of his own. That is the case in every country. In this country, it has been the obvious and declared objective of the native population; and it appears to me that it has only been possible to hold the farm labouring population at all since the passing of the Land Act in 1913 and more particularly of the Native Land and Trust Act in 1936 because of the existence of the labour tenancy system. But that system is breaking down. It is thoroughly uneconomic and the farmer himself now wants to get rid of it in favour of a regular wage-earning labour force. I venture to suggest that why the labour position has not been more acute than it has been since the passing of these Land Acts, is because the labour tenancy system has kept on the farms a large number of people who have a feeling for the land and for cattle, and who will go from there at once when they have no longer any hope of keeping cattle, which is what the abolition of the labour tenancy system will mean. The result, I am myself absolutely convinced, is that we shall never be able to build up any efficiency in this farm native population unless we do relax our land laws and make it possible for the native to hope one day to own a piece of land himself. Of course, that is the point at which the farmers will rise up and say, we will have nothing at all to do with this. The hon. member for Drakensberg says that is right. This is exactly what we anticipated. But I do not feel in this regard, any more than in the matter of the mining industry, that we should allow our policy to be dictated by any pressure group. Our responsibility is to build up the national assets of the country, and if any pressure group stands in the way that is only a challenge to our intention and our courage. Against the determination of the farmers to oppose any proposition of this kind, I wish to submit certain considerations. The ground on which the farmers will state their opposition is that they will not have “black spots” among their farms, that these become dens of thieves. Against that criticism I want to place these facts. The first is based on the findings of every enquiry into the farm labour situation that we have had— I may say none of these enquiries has been very adequate, but so far as they have given us any solid ground to go upon at all, one fact has stood out clearly, I think, and that is that the farm labour shortage is much less in the neighbourhood of native reserves than anywhere else, that farmers near the reserves have found it much easier to satisfy their labour needs than when they are some distance away. That is the general position. [Interruptions.] I can only take the evidence of the Native Economic Commission and of the Farm Labour Commission that reported to this House in 1939. Both these commissions reviewed the whole field, and that was the general impression they gained. That is an important; issue. The second point I wish to put to the House is this: That in spite of the support given by the farmers to the policy of the Land Acts with its exclusion of the native from the land outside native reserves save as a servant, this country is riddled from end to end with illegal tenancy. And the Government cannot deal with it. Under the laws of this land, the native is debarred from renting land on a cash basis outside native reserves and he cannot work on a share basis. [Interruptions.] Yet these types of tenancy prevail all over the country. I know what I am talking about. I have seen it for myself. The Government know it too, and the farmers know it. Indeed one of the main concerns of the Native Affairs Department is the extent of the illegal tenancy in the Eastern Province which extended rapidly after the 1936 Land Act, when the natives became so anxious about whether they were going to have any land at all. But the practice is general. Like everyone else, the natives will strive for a home of their own; they will move heaven and earth to get a roof over their heads in their own right. All over the country the natives are becoming tenants of the European population, many of them on a partshare basis, and the police can never cope with it and the Government cannot deal with it. Why? Because in effect this exclusion of the native population from the land is entirely uneconomical. It runs counter to the balance of people and land in this country. This is a country of huge stretches of land. The Agricultural Department has been telling us we have 104,000 farms covering 100,000,000 morgen; enormous stretches of land, which the European population cannot cultivate, and the result—and it is an inevitable and perfectly natural result—is that these lands are largely being tenanted by natives in spite of the laws against it. And in so far as this tenancy is illegal, it has two disastrous results in my opinion. One is that since it is illegal tenancy, it is a hopelessly exploitive system, exploitive of the weak. Whenever there is a risk, somebody pays for that risk, and in this case it is the native tenant who pays. He is paying through the nose for all the tenancy he can get against the law. The second evil effect is that it is a demoralising thing to have a law which is continually broken. That is a most demoralising foundation for any society. On these two grounds I think there is a strong argument for the relaxation of the Land Acts. The European population cannot use all the land at their disposal. They could not use all the land for a long time; and the sensible things is to help the native to help to develop it. I am not denying that there is a good deal in what has been said about the damage done to the land by the native tenant. It would be surprising if it were not so. In the conditions of that tenancy it is not worth the while of the tenant to do more than scratch the surface, eveh if he had the knowledge and the means to do more. And we must remember that, under a system of this kind, he has no security of tenure whatsoever. In my submission, if thé Government intends to embark on a policy of agricultural reorganisation, of the development of our natural and our human resources, the linking of these two things in the field of agriculture, as they should be linked in every field, should lead to the release of much of the land now held in bondage under our native land laws so that the native may help to develop it. And I am convinced that, working on these lines, the farmers will get a stabilised supply of labour they will not get otherwise. An agricultural labour force has to be drawn from an agricultural community. But we are steadily breaking down our agricultural community instead of building it up, and the last case of the European farmers is going to be worse than the first unless they are prepared to adjust their ideas and take a new view of the situation. They will have to shake themselves free of prejudices and face squarely the principles that have been behind the 1913 Act, which had nothing to do with social separation, but merely formed a thin disguise for a cheap labour policy. And at this point I wish to add this final consideration. The Land Act has been in operation for a generation. A whole generation has grown up under this Land Act. In the course of that time, this country has undergone, and it is still undergoing a process of industrialisation which has changed the whole relationship between employer and employee. European farmers will say to you: You know we all look after our native servants, we keep them on the land in their old age. This is the argument that is used when we point out that under the Land Act no native has the right to own land. The farmer says: What does that matter; we give them security. But there you have a completely fallacious approach to the whole situation. With the progress of industrialisation there is going to be an ever greater turnover of farm labour as of industrial labour, and the time has come for a revision of that outlook. It is all very well for the farmers to say that they offer their native labourers some security, and that they look after those who are worn out in their old age, but you cannot found a stable and progressive society on such a basis. We have to face this fact that if we are going to stabilise our native population we have to relax the laws which prevent them from having homes of their own in the country and in the towns, and accord them the ultimate right on which everybody’s independence and stability depends, the right to a home of their own. In conclusion, I ask the Government to consider these facts I have put before it this morning, and to consider the possibility of again taking into review the whole field of native policy. We are at the cross-roads now in South Africa. We are planning for a new type of future. We cannot Plan that type of future on the basis of old and outworn ideas. We need the courage to probe every foundation of our society, to find out what there is of virtue in it and what there is of rottenness in it, to root out the latter and build on the former. Now is the time to plan an advance along the lines that will lead to a widening future. If we do not do it now, it will be too late.

I second. It is with some diffidence that I am addressing the House on this very wide subject after we have listened to the very brilliant speech of my colleague who has just sat down. Nevertheless I have some experience of the questions involved, and if it should happen that in the course of the debate we appear to be tiresomely reiterating facts and arguments we have produced before, I trust the House will treat it with indulgence, realising we, as a small group in his House, cannot depend on our political power to impress our views upon the country, but we have to adopt the principle that it is not the force of the water that hollows out the stone but the continual dripping. The first sub-section of the motion in question refers to the full use of the native reserves. I have a fairly intimate knowledge of the Transkei and I feel that I can speak with some authority on the problems of that country. One has to realise in the first instance that these reserves were established a great many years ago, and so far no appreciable increase in their boundaries has taken place, and that is quite true of reserves other than the Transkei. I think, Sir, it is a factor that we should not overlook, that according to the census figures available to me the population of the Transkei has increased by 300,000 in the course of the last 30 years, but the policy in relation to land has been that the boundaries of the country have remained exactly the same. It has already been stated that the policy in the Transkei is one man, one lot, the lot consisting of an area of approximately not more than 5 morgen of ground. You will appreciate that if you have to provide for a population of 1¼ million, approximately ¼ of a million families, the question arises whether you can do it even on that basis of one man one lot. My information is that of the quarter of a million families there must be approximately one quarter or more who have no land at all. The system of agricultural provision and development of land in the Transkei has long since broken down, and it is not surprising if you do find a low level of living and certainly a low level of agriculture there. It has been said that the land is probably capable of producing a great deal more than it does, and this is a question I want to stress in this particular instance, because in relation to the reserves and the system we have followed, it is quite clear that there is ample room for comment and serious comment. Why is it that only in recent years we have discovered this terrific deterioration, and awaken to the fact that there is something wrong after the impact of the Agricultural Department had been felt for a period of 40 years; and one may well ask what is wrong with the agricultural system and those in charge of the system. My own point of view is that going through the country I saw little or no evidence of agricultural progress. There is no real progress at all. It is true that crops are now being grown in lines in some places, but they are still growing the old mealie crop on the same land every year, notwithstanding the instruction of 40 years. I think I am correct in saying that the annual mealie crop does not exceed 2 million bags, hardly 1½ bags per head of the population of that country. That in itself is a serious comment on a system which has been in force for this long period of years. I recently described it as a system—and I intend no personal reflection because I know many of the people engaged in it—looking in imagination, with no real leadership, and after 40 years virtually ineffective.

To whom are you addressing your remarks?

I am speaking about the agricultural situation in the Transkei. I am aware that the Minister has in mind a large rehabilitation scheme, but I have said before and I say again, that the present approach of that scheme is wrong because it persistenly refuses to take into account the important factor that the country itself is over-populated; in other words, that it is trodden out by human feet as much as by the cattle, and unless you approach this problem of the deterioration of the Transkei from the point of View of overpopulation, you will never solve it. I may be told that conditions have been solved in the Butterworth betterment area, but I cannot accept that statement. I will agree that, as a result of the betterment areas you are perhaps grazing more cattle and producing more milk. But you have still left unsolved the agricultural problem of providing the necessary food from the land for the country. I am still waiting for information to show me that the production of food from the land is in effect any better than before the betterment areas were brought into being.

Have you seen the schoolchildren in the betterment areas?

Yes, I have seen them, but even in the best areas with seasonable agriculture, without irrigation, they can never provide enough for the family, and no betterment area which loses sight of that fact can ever be successful. I was véry glad to see this betterment scheme and to see what is being done, but I still say that you cannot provide for a family on such a small plot with the system in force in those areas, and you cannot expect the Transkei, or any other native reserve, to provide sufficient for the native peoples in those circumstances. In relation to the Thaba ’Nchu betterment area you have an example of what can be done in native areas by better farming methods, and the Minister will probably refer me to the difference we find there, but I would remind the Minister that before that betterment scheme was put into operation, a very large area of ground was added to that reserve, and consequently the very factor I am emphasising, namely the need of expanding the land in relation to the population, has been proved by the Thaba ’Nchu betterment area. I am aware, of course, that mere increase in land, without an increased improvement in agricultural methods, will not solve the problem, and for the information of the House I would like to quote Section 193 of the Report Of the Native Economic Commission of 1932. The whole paragraph does not completely support my view, but in fairness to the Minister and the House, I propose to read the whole—

That is not necessarily my view of the situation in the Transkei, but I do say you must first of all find some means of lessening the density of the population. As a preliminary to any agricultural rehabilitation scheme, you must make a survey of the whole country as regards the arable portions and the portions which can be irrigated, and then we should start with an intensive agricultural education of the people. But you must use what is at hand and increase the production of the land. I do not know of any part of South Africa where there are more running streams than in the Transkei. A number of these streams could be used for irrigation purposes, but I have yet to see, and I hope I live long enough to see it, the initiation of any irrigation scheme in the Transkei territories. I cannot understand why that is so, unless I am given the inevitable answer that the natives are not irrigators and to give water to them would mean destroying the land.

Did you say that you want to see irrigation there?

Definitely, because it would enable the native to produce more valuable crops.

And what rivers are you talking about?

You have perennial rivers throughout the country. I cannot give you the details of irrigation projects, but you have rivers which are eminently suitable for the purpose of irrigation, but my point is that we must make a survey of the irrigation possibilities and find out which rivers can best be used, and to what extent, and what land is available. Let us estimate the areas of land which can be utilised for irrigation purposes, and to produce articles other than maize. It staggers me to think that after 40 years of agricultural education we only think in terms of maize. Why don’t we grow vegetables or other greens, or something else that we can eat? I am quite certain if these things are grown they can be used by the people and they will be used. It is merely a question of education, and if they do not eat then they can at least sell them. They will no doubt find a market for their produce. That is the line I take in regard to this motion, and in relation to the improvement of that area. The position I take up is this: In relation to this motion as a whole one is inevitably brought up against three things; namely, the native reserves, the Native Trust and Land Act and the Urban Areas Act. This involves, not a vicious circle, but a vicious triangle. It is impossible to discuss these matters of land provision and boundaries without reference to them. It has been stressed by my colleagues and myself that it was never intended that five morgen of land in the Transkei should support a family. It was fixed at the low figure to force the adult men out of the reserves into the industrial areas, and if you do that, then surely it is our duty to make proper provision for the accommodation of these men when they leave the reserves. I am not defending that policy, but when the policy is adopted, surely it is our duty to supply them with accommodation. What is the position when a native comes to an urban area? Unless, for example, he actually has work in Cape Town, he has to have a permit to seek work and he is compelled to stay at Langa or an assigned place. If he does not obtain work within three days he must leave or he is liable to prosecution. Langa is full as it is. And even in these three days what is his position. Where does he live? As the accommodation is already overfull he has to commit an offence by merely living in the country because there is no place to which he can lawfully go for accommodation. I do feel that it is a denial of democratic rights— that phrase is used frequently—to say that if you do not get work in three days you become a criminal or you must get out, no matter whether the man has money to do so or not.

What is the solution?

If the hon. member had listened to the debate, he would have known that we demand the relaxation of the terms of these Acts; and provision of accommodation for these people who are forced to leave the reserves and to come to work here.

They are not forced.

It is no use to argue that it is the free choice of the native.

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

When the business of the House was suspended I was referring to the position of the native who comes from the reserves to an urban area. I may perhaps have given the House a wrong impression of what I intended to convey. What I should have said was that when a man comes down in search of employment, unless he has had previous employment there previously, his application for a permit to seek work is not always granted. If it is refused he is given three days to get out of the area. That is the position in which a man finds himself when he seeks employment in the Peninsula. No doubt many will subscribe to the idea that this is the state of affairs that was contemplated Under our legislation, but we have a different approach to the subject. I must remind the House that with the march of science in recent years progress has been rapid and we have achieved as much in five years as previously would have taken twenty years. I submit it is equally true in relation to the industrial development of the country. We have to decide this question now, and we must know whether it is the intention of the Government to pursue a policy of industrial development. If so, and we find that the provisions of the Urban Areas Act are a hindrance, are we going to let our industrial development go by the board simply because we wish to perpetuate outworn ideas? That is the line of approach. I believe that we are going to have industrial development, and therefore we have to take our native people out of economic cold storage and make them available to the country as a whole, in order to find employment and an improved standard of living for everybody. That is a point I wish to emphasise. Does the Minister contemplate, does the Government contemplate going in for industrial development on a large scale, arid if so are they prepared to face up to the natural consequences of that plan? If they are the way is open. But unless these obstacles are definitely removed it seems that any attempt at industrial development must fail. I want briefly to refer to the position of the farm labourer. That is a very difficult question, and of course we are faced with the possibility of great opposition from at any rate some of the farming community, to any alteration being made in the provision of the Native Trust and Land Act. My own experience is that a change has come over the position, and that sooner or later we shall have to get back to the position of natives farming in European areas. That seems to me to be inevitable, and that is a feature we have to keep in mind if we are to place our farming on a rehabilitated basis and make it the backbone of the country.

So that there may be no misunderstanding, I should like to ask the hon. member whether he means that the native should be allowed to go and buy land anywhere in white areas?

That is in effect what I mean.

In other words, the hon. member means that we should do away with the Land Act?

Yes. The point is, if you are going to put farm labour on an economic basis and to get away from the ratio of eight labourers to one employer that was mentioned by my hon. friend when moving this motion, it seems to me you will have to have a permanent population that will make farming their livelihood, who will be agriculturists at all times and will make it their life-long vocation. If that is done, it seems to me you will be able to improve the standard of work you get from the labourer, and the farmer will be able to reduce the number of his labourers. It implies that he will have to pay his labourer higher wages, and he will have to enable the labourer to live on a decent economic standard. That is a fact that I wish the House to bear in mind in this particular matter. I feel that the native population, like all other populations, does not necessarily wish as a whole, to follow the same type of work. Some natives will prefer to go to the mines. Some will prefer to work as farmers; others may want to turn to other undertakings. The point to remember is that amongst the natives there are people who want to go to the mines, and there are people who want to become farm labourers, and there are people who wish to be engaged in industrial employment. It seems to me that unless we provide for that natural desire on the part of the natives, we are going to fail. I feel that we should have in this country an established peasantry who would be able to provide for themselves, others who will want to make farming labour their life-long work, who will go to the farms and stay there, just as others who wish to pursue industrial occupations will move into and stay in industrial areas. It seems to be obvious that if we are going to do these things we must make the necessary adjustments. We must make the land in the reserves able to support the native peasantry. We must create conditions on the farms which will result in the native farm labourers desiring to live there all their lives with their children, or wanting to take part in some way in our farming industry. Parallel with that the native who has a liking for industrial life will make up his mind that he has done with rural life, and on moving to the town he should find there conditions that will encourage him and strengthen him in his resolve. He should find that he can live on a decent level of comfort, that he has security that he may retire in his old age and that his children can follow in his footsteps. That seems to be the ideal. At the moment we are not attempting to do these things. We are not able to do them. I am not going particularly to deal with farm labourers. The details of their employment appear to be a subject for special enquiry.

The report of the Reconstruction Committee of Agriculture and Forestry, at the bottom of page 6, has this note—

That is one of the things we are asking for today, and that would be part of the enquiry which this motion calls on the Government to hold. Generally speaking, I myself feel that the time has come when we must let the native people know where they are. The situation which arises on the three aspects I have dealt with is this, A man who goes to farm does not know how long he is going to be allowed to stay on the farm. If he goes to work in a town, he does not know how long he will be allowed to stay in the town. So you have this situation: As the man becomes too old for farm labour he is in the position that he may be told to leave the farmland in such a case he has to go back to the reserve or where he came from. At Graaff-Reinet some years ago cases occurred where certain farm labourers became, in the opinion of their employers, too old for their work; they were considered useless, so some farmers, neglecting their responsibility in the matter, refused to allow them to stay on their farms. These labourers tried then to find shelter in the town. But the Graaff-Reinet people said: Under the Urban Areas Act you cannot come here. They were refused permission to stay in the municipal area. It is on account of happenings of that sort that the native people like to keep one foot in the reserves, sb that should the need arise they may be able at one stage or another to go back there and live with their relatives. You see the same situation arising here in relation to the towns. There is no permanent position. The native does not know what is going to happen to him next, and he has to make provision for an escape hole. He therefore goes back to the Transkei and other reserves. You find that the position has become impossible, and it is becoming more impossible every day. Instead of utilising native labour as agricultural labour, as industrial labour or in the mines, the position of the native in an urban area is so unstable that he eventually goes back to the reserves, because he finds that there is no provision and safety for him in an industrial area. So, Sir, I am supporting this particular motion and I am going to ask the Minister to deal with it as a reasoned case. We are not trying to dictate to the Minister or to the Government, but we feel that where we have put up a reasoned case, we are entitled to expect a reasoned answer from the Minister and the Government. I will regret it very much if this motion is merely swept aside by an appeal to prejudices which has become the traditional approach, but which is no answer to the case we have put up. The form of enquiry we want, is to keep away from the traditional approach to these matters. We want an enquiry inspired by the decision of the Van Eck Commission and the Social and Economic Planning Council, to the effect that the native must be integrated into the economic life of the country. If the Minister will approach the matter along that line, and if he will answer the case we have made out on that basis, we will feel satisfied that we have at least had a reply, and the country will have received some benefit from the debate we have had.

Due to lack of confidence which is so harmful, you cannot produce any scheme like the Minister did last year because there will always be no confidence in the plan. The hon. members for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) and Transkei (Mr. Hemming) have no confidence in the scheme of rehabilitation. I claim that whatever we do, this rehabilitation scheme includes the possibility of everything they put before us. I don’t say that it includes everything to the extent they desire today, but the principle is there which they would like to see come about. They say it is impossible because the area is overcrowded. The hon. member for Cape Eastern said that she never heard of any agricultural authority in the Transkei, but I claim that you can go along and find out what has been produced on different schemes. Look at the possibilities in that direction. There is the fact that the hon. member for Transkei mentioned that the area in the Transkei is well watered. It brings me to a position three years ago when a man was taken on by the Government for economic research. He was a Greek, and he told me that in Greece, after the war between Greece and Turkey they increased the agricultural population of Greece by a million farmers, and whereas they had existed on a plot of two or three morgen, they then took a morgen off here and there and gave the ground to these additional farmers and if there is any extensive area in South Africa where that could be done it is in the Transkei area. We must understand that the possibility of closer settlements in this country is very limited indeed. They have been used up. Except those under consideration there are no others. There are limits to the supply, but in the Transkei the conditions are there and yet they have been without irrigation to a large extent. It has been generally supposed, and the hon. member for Cape Eastern talked about the tremendous areas which fall under the white farmers and which are not used, and she suggests that the natives could have that. I would like to produce a map which shows how well the natives are situated. Here is a map showing you the high rainfall where the natives have their reserves all along the eastern part and including the Transkei. They have the highest rainfall area. The point is this, that when you have got these areas you think of future development. You must give due consideration to the possibility of the development of these areas. The point is this that we have the whole of Basutoland, and all these other areas with a comparatively high rainfall. I agree with the hon. member for Transkei that the possibility for irrigation does exist in the Transkei, and that irrigation should be improved, but that you can increase the population of the Transkei much higher than it is at present there is no doubt about. The hon. member says that the efficiency must be improved, and they must produce more. Now, will they agree to any restrictive measure which will force the natives to do more work? Every time something is put before the House which makes them do more, they talk of slavery.

How can you talk of efficiency when all the men are forced to go away to the mines?

Many of the people who work on these plots are not the young men who normally go away to the mines, but they are the women and children. Apparently the hon. member does not know much about the native customs. It is the woman with a child strapped on her back and the younger children and other members of the family who are helping on the land. Now, the hon. member for Cape Eastern said that the natives should enter the ordinary economic life of the Union. The situation of the Transkei is such that you cannot export anything and so it cannot possibly enter the economic markets of the country. We went through the Transkei recently, and at the agricultural schools we found that the teachers do not live at the institution, but they live apart from it, and they can get their milk and vegetables at cost price, and I asked the principal of the school whether they avail themselves of it, and he said they do, but only to a very limited extent. That shows you the difficulty. It will take another lifetime to teach these people to grow these things. The whole thing comes down to this, that in the Minister’s plan of rehabilitation you have to get these people to work the land economically, and that should be assisted by the hon. members who represent the natives. Surely they should come forward and say that the natives must be persuaded that that is to their good. I know of a time when I was not here that Parliament made a solemn contract with the natives that they would give them so much land. Do we want the Government to go back on that; do they want them to buy the ground in the white areas and give it to the natives? People outside the reserves must apparently buy outside the reserves. Now Sir, the point is this, if you protect the native in the reserve to the extent that no white man is allowed to buy ground there, is it fair to allow the native to buy land in the white areas?

But what about the Land Settlement Scheme?

I pointed out that the chances of setting up settlements is very limited. If the mémbers had any knowledge of agricultural questions it would help them 100 per cent. in the Job they are tackling. They cannot realise the obstacles which lie in their way. The hon. member for Transkei spoke about one man, one lot, and made us understand that if that was to continue, now even the standard of living was so low, it would of necessity still go lower. He said they cannot make a living, but I am sure that these very plots he is talking about will be smaller and the natives themselves will make them smaller. That is the position of the white farmers on these irrigation settlements. There are not many of them, along the Vaal River and one or two other rivers, but the water is already so taxed that you cannot establish any more schemes on them. Even if you have one or two schemes, how far would that go to solve the position of the whole population of the Transkei? It is impossible. You might have a small scheme here which would take 1,000 settlers. That is really quite a big scheme, but what opportunity have you really got for creating such a scheme? The white man gets 30 morgen on the Vaal River, and they say that the native getting six is too small. The point is, give the native more land than he is accustomed to work, it makes his inefficiency ten times worse. In the Petersburg area natives can buy as much land as they like, and there they never plough more than six morgen, and in many cases, less. I thus emphatically claim that they should not come into the market and own big farms. The white farmers have come to this conclusion and have come to it because they know that our farms cannot be less than 500 morgen; not the irrigation farms. Especially, Mr. Speaker, in the Transkei, with the high rainfall, there are many parts which have very good soil, arid I do not know why work should not be done there more intensively. I think the hon. members here representing the natives would be more able to assist if they advised the natives to follow the advice of the Native Affairs Department. If hon. members would go round the area in the Transkei and see the result of what is done by the Native Affairs Department and see whether the natives make use of the advice, they would be rendering a good service. Just see the difference of production of 40 to 30 bags to a morgen by the white farmers, whereas the native gets only two. The question comes up again about giving natives the free right to buy farms in the European areas. I say that if we allow that today under the conditions we live in, you will be doing a tremendous lot of damage. The white farmers will not stand for anything like that. Whilst realising that there is ground on which natives can settle, and you must give them a fair deal, yet there is an underlying principle that the whites should farm here and the natives somewhere else. The hon: member is suggesting that these white farmers must not buy in these native areas, and you will find that the farmers alongside native reserves are the ones who are suffering the greatest disability in the world. We have complaints from them and it becomes almost impossible for a white farmer to exist alongside a native reserve. One would think that there would be plenty of labour available to a farmer alongside a native reserve, but that is not the position at all, and I have been through them all. You cannot get the labour but you lose quite enough to supply a few families. We find that in practic it does not work to have a native own a farm and a European own a farm next to one another. Now, Mr. Speaker, there is the question of the standard of living, that it must be low. Well, from time immemorial the native has been accustomed to go out and work for a time, but the hon. member said that the money he earns is sent to keep his family alive and he has nothing over with which to improve his holding, and I would like the hon. member to produce figures and proof that they do send money home for their families, and I want to know how much money. A statement is made and a person must accept the general position, but I would like to know the percentage of natives who supply their families at home with money. My time is limited, but if the hon. member will study this map I have here, and see what favourable positions they occupy, I do not think that they will go any further into this matter.

I have listened with very great interest to the speech by the hon. member, the mover of this motion, and I agree with my hon. friend here that she has expressed her views with great restraint, as did the hon. member for the Transkei (Mr. Hemming) later. At the same time that does not get away from the quite unreal outlook of the problem which I, as the unfortunate Minister, have to face.

Why unfortunate?

Well, they think so. It is difficult to reply to the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) without having prepared myself on the motion, but she talks a long way from her motion and that does not make it very easy to reply without touching on practically every aspect of native administration. Now the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. Van der Merwe) has said that the hon. members on that side have suggested to the natives that they should have no confidence in this reclamation scheme, or in fact, in anything the Government is prepared to do. They are continuously trying to destroy confidence which the natives may have in any measures. And I feel that that is a most undesirable position. In reply to the main point here, I think I should make it Quite clear that South Africa’s land policy was laid down by Parliament in 1936 when the Native Trust and Land Act was passed by the biggest majority the House has ever had on both sides, and since that date the Government has done everything in its power to carry out the policy honestly and sincerely. Then the war came about in 1939, and if you deduct the six war years that have intervened, you will find that we have had only about four years in which to carry out the policy.

Why has this work not been carried cut in the last six years?

Is it suggested that when I have 48.8 per cent. of my second grade clerks and 33 per cent. of my total staff away on active service, serving up North, that I could possibly have done more? I cannot understand this sort of argument. They also say that we should build houses when they know that there is not a scrap of material to be got to do it with. Anyway I hope I can get on now with this speech. We have had only four years of unrestricted effort to carry out the policy, and I do not think the time has arrived for the whole question to be reviewed. I asked the hon. member whether she wanted to do away with the Land Act, and I wish I had her nimbleness in getting away from answering a direct question. She said that she was coming to it, and she skated round it for 40 minutes, and I never heard her saying anything more about it.

I said it at least three or four times that I do want to do away with it; I said it at least twice.

I am sorry I did not hear that, but I think I should say that they want the Act amended to permit natives to acquire land in white areas. Well, that goes right to the root of our whole policy which was passed by a tremendous majority by both House in 1936. I do not know whether the hon. members representing native interests fully appreciate the implications of this suggestion. Do they realise, as has been pointed out by the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. Van der Merwe) that if they are going to allow the natives to acquire land in European areas, the protection which the natives at present enjoy as against the Europeans will disappear, and there will be nothing to prevent Europeans acquiring land in native areas. It has to be remembered, too, that some of the best land in the whole of the Union is in the native arenas, and it would not be long before Europeans bought it out. We have to face this fact, and hon. members should realise that they cannot have their cake and eat it. They must realise that some of the best land, land with the highest rainfall, is held by natives in the Transkei. The hon. member has referred to the position in the border districts of the Cape, where a great deal of irregular squatting has taken place. The Native Affairs Commission recently investigated the whole position on the spot and they discussed the matter with the farmers’ organisations and with the divisional councils concerned. As a result measures are being taken to regulate the position. But it would not be wise in the interests of the European community, or indeed of the natives themselves, to seek a solution by creating more black spots in white areas. It is, however, proper in connection with remarks made in this House that I should again draw attention to the fact that a great deal has been done for the benefit of the natives under the 1936 land legislation. I should like to draw attention to the extensive programme of rehabilitation in the native areas which the Government contemplates when material and technical staff are available. I know that the hon. members over there will jeer at it and say they have no faith in it, but experts on erosion and other agricultural matters and visitors who are experts in these matters, have expressed themselves strongly that this is the only way you can save the boat. Let me say that up to the present the Government has bought over 11 million morgen of land for native settlement at a cost of just under £5,000,000, and we have also spent large sums of money in improvement schemes. It is not a small amount. The amount spent on these schemes is £2,549,000—

Is that over ten years?

I tried to explain to the hon. member that we have only had four years of unrestricted effort if we exclude the six years of war, but he will go back ten years. He has evidently been asleep during the war. I do not think the general public appreciates what is being done to carry out our side of the bargain. In spite of the fairness, and restraint and genuineness of the speeches made by the introducer of the motion and by her seconder, I do not think they will do much to convey to people outside a realisation of what is being done for the natives in this country.

They are rotten with disease.

I believe there are quite a number of other people who are rotten with disease. The natives are not the only people rotten with disease, but I do not think I ought to be blamed for that. I will in due course table a statement of the activities of my Department in this direction in the past year, and the information contained in this statement will constitute a reply to a great deal of the ill-considered and ill-advised criticisms that have been circulating not only in this country but also abroad. In what I am now going to say I do not want to refer to the hon. members who represent native interests, because I say their statements have been fair and restrained. But there appear to be many people in this country whom I might call psychological or mental masochists, people who delight in degrading, humiliating and debasing themselves in the eyes of the world. They love to mortify themselves and cover themselves with shame. The physical masochist does, after all, suffer physical pain and he only affects himself. But the mental masochist who talks about his people as slave-driving the natives and so forth, makes it difficult for those of us who want to convey to the people in our own country, and to the world, a true picture of the position. The hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) made great play with the Mine Wages Commission. I agree with her, but we are working to improve the economic conditions generally in the reserves, and we are doing that to the best of our ability. She said that I have only spoken about saving the veld in terms of cattle. I hope I am quoting the hon. member correctly. But surely if you can save the veld from erosion so that the cattle can get grass, the children are in due course going to benefit in the way of food, and particularly milk. Are we not being told continually that the whole basis of our economic structure in this country will be preserved if we can keep the soil from being ruined? I really cannot understand the argument that has been put forward. If you can increase the carrying capacity of your veld so that you can run, as we have done at Thaba ’Nchu, one head per five morgen instead of per eight morgen as was the case when we started work in that area, you will be producing more food and the children will be better off.

But you have increased your ground area.

. The population has also increased very heavily, but it is because the whole area has been declared a betterment area that that has occurred. The department, I might say, has a highly trained section of agricultural officers and engineers who are constantly employed in training the natives in the proper use of their land, also educating them in animal husbandry and in improving water supplies, and providing other important amenities for the people as a whole living in the reserves. Every effort has been made by these experts to stimulate proper production, and to improve the breed of native cattle. You only have to look at the bull camps to see how they have been improved. They are also endeavouring to establish irrigation settlements where circumstances permit. At Fort Cox native school of agriculture and at the three sister instituions in the Transkei a system of agricultural training for natives has been established where the natives are taught how to use the land, and these institutions are equal to anything that has been attempted anywhere else in Africa. I mention only one item of development. In spite of the great difficulty in obtaining boring equipment, no fewer than 112 boreholes were sunk during the past year, and 70 per cent. of them were successful, a large number of strong water supplies being obtained. In the Kuruman district two boreholes yielded 412,000 gallons per day, and they are being developed for irrigation purposes. The hon. member for Cape Eastern shakes her head, because she does not realise what a large amount of water this is for irrigation purposes. The irrigation schemes at Taungs and Olifants River compare very favourably with anything that has been done in European areas. At Taungs 8,000 morgen in the native reserve have been placed under water for native settlement under the Vaal-Hartz scheme, and up to the present approximately 2.000 morgen under irrigation have been allotted to native settlers. The native is not yet a good farmer on irrigation schemes, but he is slowly being taught. When the Natives Representative Council sat in Pretoria last year. I suggested to them that they should see for themselves what was being done, and at the last meeting of the council they expressed their appreciation. The body that went to see the scheme expressed their appreciation and astonishment. [Interruption]. I have never heard the hon. member (Mr. Molteno) express astonishment or even appreciation. I may say that it would probably take a lot to astonish him. These members of the Natives Representative. Council were astonished and Chief Jeremiah Moshesh, one of the members who visited the scheme, said: “It is a thing that is beyond description.” He was amazed at what had been done. [Interruption]. I cannot hear what the hon. lady says She is too far away for her remarks to reach me. In regard to this reclamation work in those 35 native areas which the hon. member for. Transkei (Mr. Hemming) apparently does not think very much of, and I am rather surprised but he says that the betterment areas are doing nothing to solve the problem. I ask him, has he seen the condition of the children in the native schools in the betterment areas? Has he seen the condition of the cattle? I have gone there myself, and I have asked the Children to stand up so that I could see all who had milk that morning, and 80 per cent. of them stood up. They locked very healthy children. There you see cattle chewing their cud, a thing that I understand has not been seen in the Transkei for twenty years. I ask the hon. member whether a statement such as that he has made is really worthy of him. When he knows what has been done, when erosion has been completely eliminated, when you see the grass growing, when you see a much better type of cattle, when you see the people themselves getting good food.

Let us all go to the Transkei.

I daresay it might be a better place if the hon. member went there. I might just say this, however, that the hon. member states that natives are forced to come down here to make a living. He said they are forced to come down to Cape Town.

I said they had to come here to work.

He mentioned the Cape. But I should like to ask him this, whether he is aware that there is a great shortage of labour, that there is a shortage of 80,000 native workers on the mines, that there is a shortage of labour on the farms, that there are shortages of labour all over the place?

That was not his point.

I dare say it was not his point, but that is the point. To get back to these areas I am speaking of, the hon. member for Transkei said that we have achieved practically nothing with our five-morgen plots, as a rule. In a fertile country like the Transkei five morgen of land should afford a fair subsistence for a family provided It was cultivated properly. I remember once being at Pietersburg, or it may have been Rustenburg, and I noticed a prosperous-looking native. He told me he had supplied not only his whole family with the products of his five morgen, but he had sold about £50 worth of his products over and above that. That is what I saw myself.

He was probably smuggling dagga.

No, they have not all inherited bad vices of that sort. The point is that proper cultivation was applied. Our experience is that very few natives are capable of cultivating more than five morgen. In places where the native has 30 or 40 morgen one will find little bits of the land scratched here and there and not even five morgen is properly cultivated. Apart from this, there never will be enough land available to enable every native to have more than that. The hon. member for Cape Eastern—I hope I have not heard her incorrectly—mentioned an economic unit for each native farmer of 50 acres as a minimum.

I did not say that; I said the Economic Commission had suggested that.

Anybody who knows anything about farming will know that 50 acres in some parts of the country would barely be sufficient to support two or three sheep, whereas in other parts you could put sufficient land under plough to support four or five families. Then if you had 50 acres under irrigation it might be worth from £3,000 to £6,000. It would be a totally different thing. So why talk about a unit like that? I should like to give the House a few figures in regard to reclamation work in recent years. The number of miles of contour banks is 5,500; dams built 1,700; area treated 63,715 morgen; miles of fencing erected 885; the area fenced 89,765 morgen. I could quote many other figures reflecting these developments, but I do not want to weary hon. members. I mention these figures because we are told that nothing has been done. These are the actual figures. But as they will be included in the statement I have referred to and which will be issued shortly, I shall not give further details. It is correct, however, to say that the land occupied by the natives is so overstocked that to use the words of the hon. member in the motion the “effective use of native areas as areas of land settlement” is not practicable under present conditions. I admit that. Except in a few isolated locations I am sorry to say that the natives are not willing to co-operate in reducing their stock to the carrying capacity of the land; and areas are becoming so eroded that a very serious situation has arisen. In the Ciskeian General Council, instead of the educated natives, the leaders of the people, taking a strong line and condemning overstocking on account of its bad effects on the land and recommending that the natives should reduce the amount of stock on their land, they asked us not to carry on the scheme. Perhaps I might say the same of my hon. friends over there, who have also tried to condemn the reclamation scheme, which must also be based on a limitation of stock. The Government proposes to meet the situation by means of an extensive reclamation scheme, as I announced in this House last year. Briefly, what my department has in mind is this. I might say that the first thing to be done is to have a proper survey carried out of each native area by a body of administrative officers and experts trained in soil conservation. That will be done by these very committees which we are creating now. They are really groups of highly trained technicians, competent to deal with the whole question of the reclamation of the native reserves. As I said, the first thing to do is to take a proper survey and see what the position is. They will obtain full information regarding the numbers of people, the carrying capacity of the land, crop production, irrigation possibilities and so forth and they will make recommendations for the rehabilitation of the land. They will have the responsibility for carrying out those recommendations. They will also say how best to ensure a more even distribution of allotments, and settlement in the most advantageous manner, having regard to local conditions and productive value. Side by side with these developments the purchase of the rest of the land available in released areas will be proceeded with and this will form an integral part of the Government programme of reconstruction. There is no question of slowing down the purchase of land, because we are spending so much money on reclamation. We will carry on to the best of our ability with the buying of new land. But as I pointed out, the mere purchase of land will not in itself provide a solution. An essential part of the scheme will be the limitation of stock to the carrying capacity of the veld, and controlled rotational grazing such as has been carried out successfully in native areas at Thaba ’Nchu and in the Butterworth district of the Transkei. I know that this is not popular with people, but there is no alternative if the land is to be saved. As the area set aside for native occupation is limited, it is obvious that it will not be possible to make a peasant farmer of every native in the reserves, any more than it would be possible to make every white person a farmer, because there is not the land to do it. At the present time there are large numbers of landless natives whose need will not be met, even when all land in the released areas has been bought. While the redistribution and better use of land, which we have in mind, will make it possible to provide arable allotments for a larger population, there always will be a section who will remain landless and who will have to depend on industrial employment for support. For this class the Government has in mind the establishment at convenient centres in native areas of rural villages to provide homes for natives regularly employed in industries and other services.

Are you going on with that?

Yes. These settlements will not only relieve congestion in the reserves but they will provide accommodation for large numbers of natives who are living on European-owned farms in contravention of the law, and it will generally help to stem the drift of native families to the towns. In this way it is hoped that a large number of surplus natives will find suitable homes where they will no longer be surplus, but where they will be able to build up a social life in decent comfort.

When is this going to start?

We have begun already. Certain operations are under way. Instructions have been given as a beginning to establish one of these settlements in a released area near King-williamstown, where both native reserves and European farms are badly congested; and much will depend on the success of this experiment. The conditions of occupation will provide for eventual freehold title to those who have settled and are of good character, and this concession should give to native settlers a stake in the community, in the native areas, which they have not enjoyed in the past.

Will this apply to Natal?

I have tried to make it clear that the whole question of native land settlement is being gone into. In establishing these villages we shall have to bear in mind their accessibility to places of employment, so that family life may as far as possible be preserved. Urban local authorities are also alive to the need for establishing townships under similar conditions near the towns for family natives who have become permanently urbanised.

What about transport?

I have tried to deal with every interruption, but hon. members will understand that I must get on with my speech. I might, however, say that no native village will be laid out withoút full consideration being given to transport facilities. It is an essential today. The urban local authorities are also alive to the need for establishing these townships under similar conditions in the towns. A scheme of this nature was recently approved at Johannesburg, and other municipalities are considering similar action. I might say in that particular place, in Johannesburg, there are two railway lines, and it is suggested that a loop-line be taken into this place. The possibility, of establishing industries in proximity to native areas is receiving consideration, but I am not in a position to make a statement on this aspect at the moment. The general idea is, however, that workers will have their families living in close proximity in native areas, so that they will be able, in many instances, to live in homes with their families, or at least to go home for the weekends. I should, however, point out that whilst natives have been increasingly employed in industry during the last ten or twenty years, and whilst they have made a great contribution to our industrial development, particularly in our heavy industries, the ultimate extent to which they can be employed in industry is a matter that will depend upon economic considerations rather than upon any artificial stimulus. To force the pace unduly will lead to serious repercussions, both socially and economically. It must be borne in mind that industries are not just located haphazardly, but that their location is determined by economic considerations, such as their relation to markets, the source of raw materials, the source of power and the source of labour. It must be remembered above all that the industrial structure in the Union has been very largely built up on a civilised wage basis, which cannot without serious danger, be changed overnight. The Government is, however, fully alive to the benefits which must accrue to the country in the long run if the fullest use is made of its labour resources. My colleague, the Minister of Economic Development, has directed the Board of Trade and Industries to carry out an extensive investigation into the manufacturing industries in the Union, and this board is dealing with all major aspects of future development, including the best use of our labour resources. Their report will, I understand, be published fairly shortly. The hon. member also raised the point as to whether the reserves will continue to be reservoirs of labour for the mines. The question was very carefully investigated by the Witwatersrand Mine Natives’ Wages Commission, and the recommendation contained in paragraph 211 of the committee’s report will be borne in mind in carrying out the developments to which I have referred. As a result, however, of the report, the wages of the mine labourers have already been substantially increased, and the rehabilitation of the reserves is, as I have already made clear, receiving the earnest attention of the Government. So these two points are, especially after the statement I made about reclamation, to a large extent answered. The measures which we propose must of necessity be a long-term policy, but we hope that, the development of this policy will ultimately achieve some of the objects that the hon. member, when she spoke so fluently just now, had in mind. But here is the important point. It must be borne in mind that the two primary industries, mining and agriculture, still remain the foundation on which our secondary industries are built. Wage determinations are based on the ability of the industry to pay the wages awarded. But if such awards in secondary industries are going to lead eventually to the curtailment of the manpower of the primary industries, then I consider a serious situation will arise for all concerned. Without going too deeply into the merits of the case, may I quote two paragraphs from Prof. Frankel’s paper, headed An Analysis of the Growth of the National Income of the Union in the Period of Prosperity before the War. Paragraph 19 says—

What are you trying to prove by that?

I am coming to the point later. I am talking about the primary and secondary industries. Paragraph 20 says—

That is the point which I wished to come to. Here it is clearly stated that whereas manufacuring industries import 50 per cent. of all raw materials, not including your machinery but just the raw products, its exports consist only of 2½ per cent. of the Union’s total exports. If that is correct— and here is the point I am coming to—then the manufacturing industry can only continue to import the essential raw materials which they must have if they are going to continue manufacturing and remain in business, provided the primary industries continue to export sufficient of their products to create the necessary foreign exchange to allow those industries to pay for the imported raw materials.

Bunkum.

Well well, we are all entitled to our opinion. I will try and put the case so that even a narrow mind must see it. If I, as a farmer have to buy fertilisers, plough shares, powerfuel etc. to produce my crop and the next year I eat my whole crop and sell nothing how am I to buy the essentials to grow the following crop. In other words, if the primary industries are to be deprived of their labour by secondary industries to an extent which is going to limit their production for export and therefore curtail the supply of foreign currency, then in due course the secondary industries must suffer. To put it simply and shortly, you are robbing the foundation to get material to build your top structure higher. I merely mention this in passing to draw the attention of the hon. members to the position as I see it. And, Sir, the hon. member refers in the motion in paragraphs (b) and (c) to the need for improving the condition of the farm labour population. I propose to group paragraphs (b) and (c) together because they overlap to a large extent. These questions have received the unremitting attention of my Department, at any rate since I have assumed office. I have taken a very great interest in it and I have realised the importance of the matter.

You are a good Minister.

I held a number of important conferences with farmers’ unions representing every Province, and I hope the discussions will result in a more stable and contented farm labour population. [Time extended.] I am sorry to take up so much time of the House, but it is a very important matter, and I hope the House will forgive me. It is, however, quite wrong to say that the conditions of employment on the farms are uniformly bad. That is not so. As in all other spheres of human activity there are good and there are bad employers, and much depends on the character and the circumstances of the individual. But I say that the majority of the farmers are fair and just to their workers, and it is wrong to say that they are uniformly bad. »I desire to add that the farmers as a community are very much alive to the need for improving farm labour conditions, and they are most anxious to provide satisfactory means to prevent the drift to the towns and to improve the general amentities of the labour community. It would be as well if I just gave a background of my Department’s contact with organised farmers. I first attended the Transvaal Agricultural Union’s Congress as an observer. Then, at my request, the central body, i.e. the South African Agricultural Union called a conference, representative of the whole Union, in Pretoria, and they had a long discussion and in the end I asked if they would not appoint a standing committee, representing one member from each Province, who would represent them in their dealings with my Department and myself. But I laid it down as an essential that that committee must come forward with unanimous resolutions from the parent body, that it must be entitled to speak for the parent body and have full powers to negotiate with the Government. I suggested that the committee should also constitute a permanent liaison between the Agricultural Union and my Department, because it is very essential that we should understand each other and know what is going on. We met several times and the committee put forward certain proposals or resolutions which have the unanimous approval of their central body. I may mention that I was very impressed with the sincere desire on the part of these representatives not only to find a solution for their labour shortage, but also to give the native a square deal, and in the resolutions, when they are published, it will be seen that that is so. They passed some very important resolutions, some of them far reaching. I shall not go into all that. Among other things they asked the Government to establish schools on farms in European areas, where the natives are working. They said it was not fair that the native children should not have the chance of education because they are living on the farm, and my colleague, the Minister of Finance, has agreed to give us £50,000 to extend this principle, which has already proved so successful in the Free State, to all four Provinces. Then the hon. member has referred to the need for training native farm labourers to improve their efficiency. I entirely agree with that and I hope it will be possible to make agricultural training a major consideration for these schools. It must be a major consideration, but I must say this, that natives very often want to be trained as “white collar” workers. They do not like education to fit them for farm labourers. I hope hon. members representing the natives will assist me in making the natives realise the importance of this agricultural training. I am sure I shall have their support in this matter. Going back to this farmers’ representative committee, they also asked my colleague, the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation, to try and arrange for assistance towards the housing of farm labourers, on a sub-economic basis. So they are thinking of trying to improve the housing conditions on the farm. One very important long-term recommendation which they put forward—they put that as number one on their programme of resolutions—was regarded by the delegates as fundamental to any scheme for the solution of the farm labour problem. I propose reading the resolution verbatim, so that hon. members can understand what is recommended—

1. (i) Agricultural or rural.
2. (ii) Industrial or urban.

1. (i) The agricultural group may be sub-divided into—
   1. (a) the native farmer;
   2. (b) the farm labourer;
   3. (a) The native farmer should be encouraged to develop within the native areas (scheduled areas), territories, reserves and locations, other than town locations, in accordance with sound agricultural, practices—members of those families might provide some suitable farm labour outside the native area.
   4. (b) The farm labourer should be housed and accommodated on European-owned farms, not as a tenant or as a part-time worker, but as a full-time agricultural labourer.
2. (ii) The industrial native labourer should be housed and accommodated with his family in proximity to his employment and would be classed as an urban native.

Now whilst the policy underlying the 1936-37 legislation was intended to prevent the development of a permanent urban population and regarded the native in towns as being merely there for the purpose of employment, with his permanent abode in native areas, one must realise that there are large sections of natives who, for generations, have been urban dwellers and who have no homes for themselves or their families in the reserves. In fact, they have lost all tribal connections and sanctions. They have become town dwellers and they have no other home or abode. This is a reality which must be faced in considering the resolutions which were put forward unanimously by the South African Agricultural Union and which represent every shade of political opinion, so there is no question of politics coming into it. It is entirely a case of farmers speaking as farmers. This, coming as it does, from such a body as that, speaking on behalf of agriculture generally, is something which I feel cannot be ignored. It must be very seriously considered, and I have, as I promised to the Agricultural Union, brought this proposal together with other resolutions to the notice of the Government. It has been tentatively discussed by the Government, but no decision of any kind has been arrived at yet. The first discussion took place some time ago, but no decision has been come to as yet. I merely mention the matter at this point to indicate that the Government is not sitting still but is investigating the problem with a view to finding a solution in close contact with the farmers’ organisations, with which I propose to keep in close contact, and also as indicating the trend of thought emanating from organised agriculture. As I have said, the farmers consider this a long-term policy. I personally consider it a very long-term policy, but although the farmers consider it a longterm policy, they consider it fundamental to any solution of the farm labour problem. They are anxious to ensure that the labour conditions on the farms are improved, but they maintain that if industry wants labour, then industry must be prepared to shoulder the full burden of housing, not only of the workers but of their families. They contend that the wives and old people are left to live on the farms, while younger men give the benefit of their labour to industry. In other words, if industry wants the labour of able bodied men from the farms, then industry must be prepared to provide housing for the whole family and not leave someone else on the farm to bear the burden of looking after the labourer’s family, cattle and belongings generally. I think it was last year in this House that I told a story and it was then intended in a slightly humorous vein. It is not meant to be humorous this time. I merely mention it as a parable which gives the whole position in a nutshell This concerns a native who had worked on a farm for three or four years and who got permission to seek employment in a town. He was later employed by an attorney and when the time came for him to return to the farm, the farmer wrote asking him to come back. The native showed this letter to the attorney, who said he would take up the matter and write to the farmer. He wrote to the farmer: “If you pay this man the same wages as I pay him, I will let him go,” and he ended up by using the word “bloodsucker”. The farmer wrote back that he had no objection to the attorney keeping the native, and added: “I am sending by train carriage forward three huts, four wives, ten children, 16 cows, three donkeys and two dogs.

The Urban Areas Act is responsible for that state of affairs.

This time I am not going to enter into an argument about the Urban Areas Act, and I have no doubt that hon. members who represent the natives will spread themselves fully on that subject when the Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Bill comes up for discussion, so I am not going to break a lance with hon. members on that subject on this motion. They contend that in this way the two sections of the native population will be stabilised to a large extent and that will to a large extent prevent this constant drift to and fro from ones job to another, so that they can never become efficient at any job, and which results in disorganisation and prevents the native from becoming a competent worker in any sphere of life. And they feel that this will avoid that. I have taken up a good deal of the time of the House. I again apologise. I would like to finish off by saying that in view of what I have said, I think hon. members will appreciate the fact that a motion such as this motion which is now before the House, cannot be accepted by the Government at this stage.

During the past few days I have carefully listened to the speeches which have been made here, and especially to those made by the representatives of the native population. I just want to say that if I were a native and I accepted what they say, then I certainly would be the unluckiest and most dissatisfied person walking in South Africa. In addition to that, there would be in my heart a feeling of hatred towards the European, so strong that no one would know the extent of it. In my opinion the European would be a person who was at all times, suitable and unsuitable, busy trampling me down. With the passage of time one thing has become very clear to me. The time has arrived when these two facts must plainly be brought to the notice of the people. The first fact is this, that the attitude of the native representatives is to a large degree nothing but a smokescreen behind which the Government is hiding with its policy. I say that it is nothing but a smokescreen under which the Government, to a very large extent, is hiding with its native policy. There is the practical policy which is given effect to today, and we must look it squarely in the face, and when we do look at it, then the question arises: Have those three native representatives got the whole Government on the run, because that is what it boils down to. The fact remains that the native policy, to which effect is being given, is quite 95 per cent. the policy which is propounded by the native representatives on those benches. If we look Clearly and squarely at the facts then we cannot come to any other conclusion. I listened attentively to how the hon. Minister of Native Affairs and also the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. Van der Merwe) have been attempting to parry. On the other hand, I have listened equally attentively to how the Minister of Native Affairs has continually been giving the assurance that the policy which is being given effect to is, to a large extent, the policy which is supported by the native representatives. In effect, it is nothing else but the policy of the native representatives. I say that the time has arrived that the nation should be made aware of this, namely that the native representatives are being used as a smokescreen by the Government by means of which it conceals the implications of its policy. I want to pause for a few moments in connection with some matters. In the first place I would like to deal shortly with the question of native land. We have four different types of native land in South Africa today. Firstly, we have the demarcated native areas as determined by the Native Act of 1913, and these consist mostly of the old native reserves. Secondly, we have the fixed areas as determined by the Native Trust Land Act of 1936, and which consist of approximately 28,000 square miles. In the third place we have the native land outside these demarcated and fixed areas, which still consists of a large number of native farms and settlements. Then we have the native locations in the towns, of which there are 317 in existence with an area of approximately 16,000 morgen. The reserves consist of a total of 1,330, of which 1,139 are in the Cape, 89 in Natal, 99 in the Transvaal and three in the Free State. Let us just for a moment look at that state of affairs. I want also here to support what the hon. member for Potchefstroom and the Minister of Native Affairs said, and which was so pointedly confirmed by the present High Commissioner for the Union in London, namely that looking at the position in South Africa, you will see that the best land belongs to the natives, and a very large portion of the poor ground to the European population. There is the interesting work by the American, Tinley., in regard to native labour in South Africa. He also says that the best land in South Africa belongs to the natives, but here is the rainfall map of South Africa. If we look at that, we can come to only one conclusion, and that is that the best ground is today in the hands of the natives, and that that ground can carry very many more natives if it is properly cultivated. It has been said that the natives are neglected. I just want to pause there for a moment. Look at the development of the native reserves. I challenge the native representatives to show me another country in the world which does so much for its native population as South Africa does for hers. No such thing exists. I just want to mention a few figures. The Minister of Native Affairs says that from 1936 until the 31st March, 1944, £2,459,000 has been devoted to the development of the native areas. The fact remains that the largest portion of the taxes paid by the natives is simply converted to their own benefit and development. It is deposited in the Native Development Fund. Show me another country in the whole world which acts in that way in regard to its native population. Take the Estimates, especially the Estimates for the war years 1940-41. In1940-’41 an amount of £610,000 was devoted to the development of the native areas, of which amount only £585,000 came out of the natives’ pockets. The Minister has announced here that, so far, he has purchased 5,582 pedigree bulls to expand and improve the class of native cattle. 559 Pedigree cows have also been purchased Show me another country in the whole world which does that. In latter years no less than 32,000 houses have been built for natives. Rather more than £186,000 has been spent on the provision of water. An amount of £180,000 has been spent on cattle diseases, native cattle diseases only. The Government has devoted an amount of £102,000 to the fencing of locations and the building of camps. We need only point out that last year the Government, in the form of a subsidy, devoted an amount of £1,850,000 to wages on the mines. Wages and salaries to nonEuropeans in the army have amounted to £23,250,000. But I would like to revert to the Estimates before the House this year. We see in the Estimates that an amount of £1,235,000 is being earmarked for native pensions. That is an increase of £1,070,000 in comparison with last year. We see that £33,000 is being earmarked for needy natives. That is an increase of £25,000. We see that an amount of £161,000 is being devoted to cost of living, that is £61,000 more than last year. An amount of £2,530,000 is being devoted to native education, of which amount £380,000 is being used for school feeding. I would like to point out the significant fact that a country like England, in 1937, in its ten dominions, devoted an amount of £700,000 to the education of 37,000,000 natives, and we devote, to approximately 7,000,000 natives, an amount of £2,530,000 this year. I ask where the native representatives get the right to cast reflections on the European population? Surely that is unfair. But not only in that respect, but in other respects the natives are equally well-off. Take for instance their stock. In the 1937 census we see that 62 per cent. of the total number of goats in the Union belongs to natives; 46 per cent. of the number of horses and pigs belongs to natives; and 44 per cent. of the cattle belongs to natives. And today the Minister of Native Affairs tells us that they have 5,644,000 cattle and 8,890,000 small stock. But look also at the grain. Look at the income of the natives in that respect. In 1937, 65 per cent. of the total production of kaffir-corn was reaped by the natives. In that year the natives reaped 19 per cent. of the total harvest of mealies. The native reaped 1,000,000 out of the 19,000,000 pounds of tobacco. His farming activities continue unmolested whilst he implements that from work in the cities. And so I could continue to lay figures before the House. I say they have no right to come along with those accusations. But I go further. Look at the community services rendered to the natives. I make this definite statement that there are many Europeans who cannot make use of the privileges of such community services as the natives, as a whole, can. I doubt whether there is a country in the world •which renders so many community services, and community services, of such a high class, to the non-European population, as South Africa does. But look at the hospital services. For example, I take the conditions in Kenya. In Kenya there are 500 beds for approximately 3,000,000 natives. On the Gold Coast there are 1,000 beds for 3½ million natives. What do our natives in South Africa get? In South Africa we find that there are in the hospitals alone almost 10,000 beds for our native population. Not one of these countries comes near to that. But I want to pause for a moment on the labour question. According to the 1936 census there were 1,442,000 natives between the ages of 15 and 65 years in South Africa. There were 66,000 Asiatics between those ages and 178,000 coloureds between those ages, a total of 1,686,000, while it is estimated that approximately 200,000 natives yearly come into South Africa from heighbouring areas, especially to seek employment in the surrounding areas. Thus, according to the 1936 census, we had a total non-European labour force of 1,686,000. The native Farm Labour Commission of 1937-’39 gave us the following figures. Transvaal approximately 600,000; Natal, 340,000; the Cape, 522,000, and the Free State 133,000. It was estimated that there were 228,000 natives in the Union from neighbouring areas. There must be added to that 132,000 natives between the ages of 16 and 17 years. The grand total is 1,764,000. 1,144,000 of these were calculated to be engaged in work not of an agricultural nature and 614,000 engaged in agricultural labour. In fact, there were 320,000 working on the farms. In 1911, 290,000 were working on the mines. In 1938, there were 421,000. In the gold mines alone in 1944 there were 292,692. Now we come to a point which I want to emphasise. In 1911 the payment by the gold mines was £28 10s. per head. In 1938 it was approximately £44 10s. per head. That rose further during the course of the year, but the calculation is that it amounts to about £50 per head per year, if the food provided to the natives is taken into account. Last year the mines paid out to the natives an amount of £12,895,535. Then we have industry. In the year 1915-’16 there were 61,500 natives in employment in industries; in 1935, there were 192,000 and in the year 1941-’42, 264,000. The average payment to the non-Europeans in the years 1915-T6 was £35 per head. In 1941 the payment to them by the industries was £18,800,000. In the transport lines there were 50,000 in employment; in Government undertakings, 50,000. In commerce there were approximately 25,000 in employment, and in domestic service there were approximately 275,000. It has been calculated that the general average income of the native is about £50, or a little more, per year. The farm labourers, of course, do not get that. It has been said that the farm labourers do not get a high wage, but when we look at all the advantages they get on the farms, then we ask ourselves whether they are not better off. Look at the farm labourers’ good houses. They are huts and not modern houses, but in general they are healthy dwellings. Look at the value they get by way of food and old clothes. They get lands to cultivate. In the case of our farm, I know of natives who have reaped 100 bags of mealies, and there are many such cases. But the best test is this. Take the household of a native on a farm and compare him and his family with the family of a native in town. On the farm we Will get fat and healthy children, but in town we get thin, consumptive and neglected children. Looking at that; we can see what great service our farms render to the natives. I also want to make comparisons with labour conditions in other countries. I take Kenya, Nyassaland, Tanganyika and Rhodesia. What is the average wage there per month? It is from 5s. to 10s. In the Kenya gold mines it is 11s. 6d. per month. In the Rhodesian copper mines it is £1 12s. to £1 16s. per month. In all the mines the average wage is £1 1s. 2d. On the Gold Coast the average wage is £2 5s. per month. In the West Indian Islands it is up to £1 5s. per month. In India it is £3 per month on the railways. In the mica mines of India the average is £3 per month. In Chile it is from 10s. to £1 12s. 6d. per month. In that large population of 400,000,000 in India there are only 35,000,000 with an income of £15 and more per year. The 365,000,000 have an income of less than £15 per year. I go further. I take the position of the farm population in Europe. Take a country like France, and we find that according to the latest census there is more than 200,000 of the European population of France engaged in work on farms, who did not even have a dwelling in which to sleep. They had to sleep in cowsheds and horse stables, something which is unknown to us. And then I ask what right the native representatives have to make these unfair attacks. Take even the labourers in England. I have before me the average income of the labourers in England, according to official figures. There are 15,525,000 in the working classes in England who earn less than £250 per year. Of that number 10,600,000 earn less than £125 per year. It is a fact which stands out clearly if you look at the labour conditions in other parts, at the labour conditions in the whole of Africa, we can come to one conclusion only, and that is that the native population in South Africa is not only well treated but that there is no other part of the world where the native population is so well treated. Then I come to the Government policy in regard to the natives and I want to say that in a large measure that policy is not in the interests of the Natives, and even less in the interests of South Africa. I appreciate that the natives must be given every opportunity to develop. But what kind of policy is now being applied to the native reserves? The policy which is applied there, is the cheque book policy, which the native does not understand at all. We should bear in mind the background of the native. He is suited to agriculture and he must be gradually taught to be able to take part in agricultural development. The native is also a practical person, and he knows that he will not be able to continue to exist as things are going on now, and therefore, he flees to the cities. I say that we should so formulate our policy so as to preserve and strengthen the native kinsmanship. Much has been said here about the native family life which is being broken up. If the native representatives truly wish to preserve and strengthen the native family lives then their attitude should be to preserve the kinsmanship of the native, because the family life of the native depends on his kinsmanship. The kinsmanship of the native is the basis of that beautiful family life, it is the embracing of all those beautiful things in the native’s family life which we desire to preserve. If they want to provide the native with a healthy family life, they must preserve his kinsmanship; but instead of that, the Government has a policy of denationalisation of the native. I want to emphasise here what I emphasised at the commencement of my speech, and that is that the native representatives are being used by the Minister of. Native Affairs as a handy smokescreen to hide his transgressions, and it is high time that this should be brought to the notice of the nation.

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.

I would just like to put a question to the Prime Minister. This side of the House raised certain objections and the Prime Minister then gave notice of an amendment. In that amendment mention is made of "boundaries,” and I would like to know which boundaries are meant. We have often stretched our boundaries, from the Limpopo to Abyssinia, and then up to Egypt, and now it is Italy. Will the boundaries again be stretched to Japan? I would like to have this information.

There are two oaths in question, because there are two attestations in question. The one oath was limited to Africa.

Is that the red oath?

Yes, that is what is commonly called the red oath. The second attestation was for service anywhere. That is commonly called the blue oath. There are cases which come under the red oath and there are cases which come under the blue oath. Many of our prisoners of war, especially those who come under the red oath, are now in prison camps in Germany and elsewhere, outside Africa. They are outside the boundaries which are mentioned in their attestation. They are being released there, and they must be brought back to South Africa. Now we are saying that those persons can be brought back under military discipline. I therefore move my amendment as follows—

To omit the proviso and to substitute the following new proviso:

Those persons, although they fall under the red oath, will be able to be brought back under military discipline.

Is their return being expedited?

As quickly as can be done. We are expediting their return in all possible ways. I may say that we are making special arrangements to ensure that our freed prisoners of war return as speedily aS possible. Several thousands are already back. As soon as they reach Egypt, they are transported here by plane. The trouble is to get them to Egypt in the first place. Thousands have already arrived there. The terms of the provisions are now put in such a way as to avoid all suspicion arid misunderstanding, as to whether perhaps some indirect or concealed coercion will not be exercised against these people to get them to again do military service, and perhaps to take some other form of oath, perhaps under a measure of coercion. The committee will see that the amendment is so worded as to make that impossible. They cannot performany military service of any nature whatever, nor are they asked their permission. That simply cannot be demanded of them, except in two cases: service in the camps where they are, and service during the course of their transportation. There they are under military discipline, and it is possible that service may be demanded of them in the camps where they are and also in the aeroplanes, ships, and other vehicles in which they may be transported. It may be possible that in the course of transport to the Union they will have to perform service. The military authorities have drawn my attention to this, and they may be used for those purposes. As the amendment is now worded I do not think there is any possibility of misunderstanding or of indirect coercion being exercised against these people. I think that the committee can accept it in safety.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to On Clause3,

I would like to put a question to the Prime Minister. It is provided here that a soldier may be detained until six months after the war. Does that concern demobilisation? I am putting this question because the sooner we can allow these people to return to their ordinary lives the better. I would like to know the meaning of this.

Six months is the longest period. The purpose of it is to demobilise the people. It is not a question of any further service because the war is over. It is just a question of allowing the demobilisation authorities a period in which to demobilise the people.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to Remaining Clauses and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

The Chairman reported the Bill with an amendment.

Amendment considered.

Amendment in Clause 2 put and agreed to, and the Bill, as amended, adopted.

I move—

I object.

Bill to be read a third time on 7th March.

When the debate was adjourned at the previous sitting I was endeavouring to show how necessary it is that a stop should be put to the migrations of natives in South Africa; that is in the interests of the white population in the interests of the country and in the interests also of the natives of South Africa. It is also in the interests of all our industries and undertakings. I can only again emphatically express the hope that the Minister will, at the first opportunity, introduce the necessary legislation to put an end to this migration of natives. The Minister may feel that a consolidating measure will offer no practical solution in that respect. I return to the statement of the Minister, that this Bill contains nothing new. It signifies, nevertheless, that the House, through the medium of this Bill, is being asked to give its approval to the native laws as they now exist. If we approve them it means that we are satisfied with them, that we are satisfied with all the laws that are being consolidated by the Minister in this measure. On that account I want to say that though the House is giving its approval to this consolidating measure the Minister and the country should not deduce from that that we are satisfied with these measures as they now stand. We will all agree that we are only taking this step to give the Minister a reasonable opportunity to place on the statute book as soon as possible an efficient measure to end the movement of natives in South Africa, so that we can supply our industries with an adequate amount of suitable labourers in a proper manner, and so that it will not be necessary for natives to travel from south to north, and for natives in the north to travel down south, so that it will not be necessary for natives to wander hither and thither, and from one industry to another, from farms to factories and from factories to the mines, looking for work. No, we must have an efficient measure so that we may obtain the necessary permanent labour in all those spheres of employment that require labour, and so that the natives do not need to roam from one end of the country to the other. That is not in the interests of industrial development, nor is it in the interests of the Europeans, or of the natives themselves. Then I also want to take this opportunity to express the hope that since the Act of 1937 is, together with others, incorporated in this measure, and seeing that to a certain extent we can discover in that measure a solution to the difficulty regarding natives that roam around in centres such as the Witwatersrand and others, the Minister should give effect to this Bill. For example, we know that on the Witwatersrand during the last five or six years there have been large numbers of natives who have absolutely no work.

Let me understand the position-thoroughly; you are not satisfied with this Bill, and you still want the relevant legislation to be put into effect?

Provisionally I support the Minister with this consolidating measure in order to afford him an opportunity to prepare a proper measure in the meantime. In addition to that, I say that the Grobler Act of 1937 is consolidated in this measure, together with other Acts, and if the Minister carries out that measure in an effective manner it will, to a large extent, stop the influx of natives to places such as the Witwatersrand and Cape Town. But the position is that that measure has never been put into effect.

But do you not agree with the native representatives who want that act repealed?

I understand that they are dissatisfied with the whole thing. I am only satisfied with this as a temporary measure to give you a proper opportunity to introduce legislation as soon as possible to make the whole business more efficient. What I say is that in the interim you must adopt effective measures against those thousands and thousands of natives that we see today in places such as the Witwatersrand and also at other centres, where they saunter around to the detriment of themselves, of the European community and of the whole country, and in many instances they are without any work. I cannot over-emphasise this aspect of the matter to the Minister. During the mornings, about 11 o’clock when there is the hum of activity,"everyone being at work, when the people are perspiring at their work, then at the street corners we find numbers of natives who have no work at all. We find them in every suburb of Johannesburg and along the whole length of the Reef, from Krugersdorp through Roodepoort, to Brakpan, Benoni and Springs. You can see hundreds of them standing and chatting, and you will find them there every day. Things cannot continue like that. There are various reasons to account for it. The native representatives maintain that this condition of affairs is the result of our bad laws. Well, supposing it is due to the bad laws. Nevertheless the time has arrived that those bad laws should be done away with. If this is not the reason then it must be found in the inherent weakness of the natives; that must account for them continually loafing around, and we simply cannot tolerate it. We cannot expect that the European community should be satisfied with prevailing conditions. When you examine the criminal records you will see that there is a tremendous number of burglaries. If you examine the matter further you will find that it is due to these fellows who do not Work. If the Act of 1937 is carried out properly, we should not have these concentrations of natives that we now have. Accordingly I say that this is the course that we must follow. Then I would like once again to emphasise that we shall be compelled to be honest in regard to segregation; and this will have co happen soon, because it can no longer be postponed. The principle of segregation has been adopted by this House. Measures have been placed on the statute book, and we shall have to carry out these measures in a more efficient and a more honest way. If we do not proceed on those lines we shall continually have clashes between European and native. My hon. friends on my left have pleaded for more rights for the native. It is their job to do that, but they do not take sufficient account of the fact that the Europeans in this country are a small minority, and if we want to give the natives all the rights which they are advocating, and if the natives obtain all those rights, then we may just as well stop talking about South Africa being white. On the other hand, I agree that we should administer the segregation policy in an honest manner. If we give the natives that political status to which they aspire, let us give it to them in their own territory, where they can live as natives, and where they will not be led by the nose by Europeans. Many people imagine that they are engaged in leading the natives, but all the time they are actually misleading the natives. I can only visualise a sound native life if they, have their own areas, where they can follow their own traditions and their own instincts. If those natives then feel in their own country that they require light and leading from the Europeans, we can give them what they ask. But a clear dividing line should be drawn between the European in his territory and the native in his territory, and the European should hot then have the right to go and poke his nose into the native territories. We must be honest over this policy of segregation. I differ on this point with my hon. friends. What they want is that the native should buy land in the Europeans’ territory. Are they also in favour then of the European being able to purchase land in native areas? You cannot have both. We must make a plan to give the native rights in the native areas, but if we decide that land may not be purchased by Europeans in native areas, then we should not desire that the natives should have the right to buy land in European areas. We must be honest. The native will continually make higher demands if we are not honest about carrying out segregation, and I do not see how we can grant higher and higher demands in the social sphere and in the political sphere to our natives and then expect our white civilisation to continue to exist. Then we will have to stop talking about a white man’s country. What is the difficulty, against whom are we clashing? We hear continually of a native problem, but at the same time we hear that there is a shortage of native workers. What is the problem then? How can you in one breath say that there are too few natives for our industries, while on the other side you talk about a problem of vagrant natives? It is then a question of administration; the administration must be faulty. Consequently I maintain that the administration must be put right, and then these difficulties will solve themselves. When you talk of the insoluble native problem, and in the same breath cry out that there are not enough native workers available, you are contradicting yourself. It is a matter of efficient administration, and since there is reason to believe that the native problem as it is viewed by us today, will less and less become a football in the political arena, there are all the signs to justify us assuming that we shall be able to solve the problem in the spirit of goodwill from all political quarters. I think the Minister has a fine opening. I do not say that it is necessary that it should be done during this session, but while the country is in the mood I think the Minister should turn to account this goodwill with a view to adjusting the matter efficiently. Right must be done in the political sphere, and in the social sphere, so that we shall get co-operation between the European race and the natives. Now is the seasonable time to solve the problem effectively through legislation. The Minister will say that it is a tremendous task. We know that, and therefore we are prepared not to put obstacles in his path and not to pass undeserved criticism, but on the other hand to help him in every way that is in our power. He and his department and the whole Government should solve this problem, because it is necessary. If we do not do this we shall continually be having cases of clashing and friction, and the clashing and friction will become more acute after this war. That is why it is so necessary that the matter should be tackled with all seriousness with a view to arriving at a solution. We do not want to have clashes. We do not want continually to be having clashes, because every clash is something that is recorded in our history books, and it accumulates and accumulates and leads to difficulties. I think that hon. members will all agree that we must have a definite line of demarcation in South Africa, and we must attempt to have as few collisions as possible in the transitional period. If later we have to suppress clashes and collisions with violence, it will be a blot on our history book. Today we can avoid resort to violence if we make a timely start, before the friction assumes a more serious form, and lay the foundations for a better future.

From this side of the House we have repeatedly made an earnest appeal to the Minister to consolidate the laws relating to natives in urban areas, and are very glad that he has given effect to this and eliminated what in our opinion has for a long time been a big defect. From this standpoint we can only cordially welcome the step taken by the Minister. On the other hand I cannot refrain from expressing my deep disappointment that the Minister has not approached the whole matter de novo, and come to us with a strong, sound and comprehensive measure. The fact is that in recent times matters have resumed a shape that fills every right-minded person with very deep anxiety. This influx of natives into the towns has brought into existence social evils of such a character that the position can only be relieved by our tackling it with comprehensive legislation, sound and comprehensive legislation, and especially should we see to it that when good legislation is placed on the statute book it is carried into effect. On the other side, we want to welcome the Minister’s idea of referring the whole Bill to a select committee. We can only express the hope that he will give the select committee some measure of freedom of action, and sufficient time to be able to do good work. Then perhaps the whole measure Can be transformed into a convenient and usefill measure under the present circumstances. I want to mention a few census figures. According to the census of 1936, 83 per cent. of the natives were recognised as rural natives and 17 per cent. as urban natives; as regards coloured people 46 per cent. were regarded as rural and 54 per cent. as urban; and as regards Asiatics 34 per cent. were classified as rural and 66 per cent. as urban. There were on farms, according to the census, 2,196,000, and in the native areas there were 2,962,000 natives. The figure given for purely urban natives is 824,000, while in the various compounds there are about 613,000 natives, the larger proportion of whom are only temporarily in the towns and must be regarded as being domiciled in the native territories. I hope that I shall not weary the House if I quote a few more figures. Some 390,000 of the natives that is to say 5.9 per cent., stay in urban residential areas and on town lands; 355,000, or 5.4 per cent., stay in urban locations; 11,000, or 2 per cent., stay in rural suburbs; in rural villages 36,000; in native villages 32,000; on European farms 999,000; on coloured and Asiatic farms 27,000; on company farms 101,000; on Government farms 14,000; in Crown reserves 2,400,000; at mission stations 114,000; on farms that are tribal property 134,000; on farms that are the private property of natives, 143,000; on Crown land, 150,000; on the alluvial diggings, 25,000; in mine compounds, 387,000; in industrial compounds, 114,000; in municipal compounds, 36,000; on construction works, 43,195; and in other areas, 10,000. The fact is that the whole problem has in recent times assumed an entirely different shape. A large-scale transfer has taken place, so that today we have not to deal with the same problem at all. It has taken on another form, and here I want to make an earnest appeal to the Minister and to the Government to take into most earnest consideration the taking, as soon as possible, of a complete census of the people, and not to shrink from the expense that would be involved in that connection, because it is only by having a proper census of the people, especially of the non-European races, that you can tackle this matter in an effective way. This afternoon I only want to mention a few points in connection with the matter. In the first place, I want to refer to the large scale influx of natives into the towns. This is occurring today on such a scale that where, for example, in Cape Town a few years ago you had virtually no natives there are today, if I am not mistaken, 80,000. This process is at work not only in Cape Town but throughout the length and breadth of South Africa, and whilst it is going on the Government is sitting absolutely quiet and not raising a finger. In that the Government is doing a great disservice to the nation. By behaving in that way the Government is not only burning its own fingers, but is setting the whole of South Africa ablaze. I only want to point out that one of the evils that flows out of this unnatural position is that here in the Western Province we are going to have a new problem. Not only is a new problem developing but it is a problem that threatens clashes, serious clashes, between the coloured people and the natives in the Western Province. The Government does not budge an inch but lets this sort of thing go on. We must not forget that these collisions may eventually lead to the shedding of blood—I make so bold as to predict this—between coloureds and natives here in the Western Province. And that is a problem that will give the Government some very anxious moments. We have always taken up the standpoint that as far as the Western Province in concerned it is the natural sphere of labour of the coloured people. What is happening today? On a large scale the natives are displacing the coloured people from their natural field of labour. We must remember that today there are numbers of coloured people in the army, and numbers of them are in service of a merely temporary character. What were formerly the legitimate spheres of labour of the coloured people are being annexed by the natives, who are streaming down here on a big scale. Take the building industry. There you find that numbers of employers actually give a preference to natives as labourers. It now becomes clear who are actually the protectors of the interests of the non-Europeans. The same people who have always shouted about the coloured people are saying today, “The coloured man has always been too poor at his work,’’ and they are giving preference to the natives. The standpoint that this side of the House, the Nationalist Party, has always assumed is that the Western Province is the natural field of labour of the coloured population, and that it is the duty of the State to protect the coloured person here in his natural field of labour in a proper way. The native has other fields of labour. I want to warn the Government seriously to act decisively in connection with this matter, otherwise an unpleasant situation will arise in the Western Province in the near future. Another development is that more and more natives are becoming detribalised, breaking loose from their family life as it has been maintained according to tribal tradition. If you really want to maintain a sound family life amongst the natives you must not allow this sort of thing to occur. The native must be accorded the opportunity to grow up in his natural tribal life, and that tribal life ought to be protected and encouraged. The trouble is that many of the people who talk about the family life of the native is not acquainted with their tribal life. You cannot take the standard of the European family life and apply it to the family life of the native. We must take the standard of the established trations of tribal life that has appeared to be of such great value to his whole family life. It is only on that sound foundation that the native can be developed in a happy way, and the only way in which he can protect his family life, so that it is not broken down. In the third place I want to point out that in consequence of the policy we are following in our country one finds that there is a terrible waste taking place of labour, waste such as you will probably find nowhere else in the world. Attention is being directed today to the large number of non-European labourers, but I make so bold as to say that almost half of the non-European labour force does not work, that it is not in service; they look for work from morning to night. Just go to the few towns that have established reception depots for natives seeking work. They are overwhelmed with Africans seeking employment. In a place like Pretoria it is no unusual thing to see during one evening between 2,000 and 2,500 natives at these reception depots, people who are looking for work. A terrible concentration is taking place. It is only if it is properly controlled that South Africa will derive the benefit from this large potential labour force. We do not want to treat the native unjustly or to make a slave of him, but we want a proper system of control, a system that is not foreign to the native mind, and that is based on his own patriarchal system, under which the native can lead a proper life. Under that patriarchal system the young native can be properly educated in a happy family life. If we protect it the whole of the native population will derive benefit from it, but what do we get if the system is destroyed and the native is wrenched out of his tribal framework? Then you get the position that the young native will not admit responsibility to anyone, and if his own father calls him to account he is in danger of being punished. Today there is bitter reproach on the part of the old natives towards the head of the Government and the Europeans in general, because the old natives no longer have any control of their children. I want to refer further to the large-scale thefts that are occurring. In Pretoria and Johannesburg the position is of such a character that we can hardly live there. Every night numbers of thefts are committed in Johannesburg and Pretoria, sometimes up to a couple of hundred. The police do not hear of one-tenth of the houses that are broken into, and thefts are taking place in this way which a few years ago would not have been thought possible. Hardly a night goes by but some resident of Pretoria is robbed completely until nothing is left to him. They even try to steal the clothes off your body. There are organised bands that perpetrate thefts on a large scale, and it has developed to such an extent that natives do not hesitate to enter a house in broad daylight and to take what they want. They have already gone so far as to use gas and to pump the gas through the key-hole to make the people sleep, and then rob them of everything. In the suburbs of Pretoria and Johannesburg assaults are taking place regularly. If you want to go to church on Sunday night you have to arrange with your neighbours that one or two of them should remain to watch things, otherwise while you leave your home everything will be stolen. You cannot go on holiday and lock up the house, because when you return everything will have been left bare That is the position that you get as a result of the unnatural state of affairs. I want to point out further that the urban locations today are nothing else than breeding grounds for idleness, drinking and immorality. Instead of being centres of uplift, as they ought to be, they are nothing else than breeding places of crime. When a native once lands there a fortnight does not pass before you can do nothing with him. It is the policy of this side of the House that these matters should be tackled immediately, and that after thorough investigation effective steps should be taken and sound legislation introduced to eradicate these evils. I make an earnest appeal to the Minister to tackle these matters. This side of the House approaches the matter from the angle that the native must have the reserve as his background. That must be his home, and he must feel at home there, and not in the urban location. This is the policy of this side of the House—that the urban locations should only be of a temporary character. They should only be there for a time, and then they should go back and desire to go back to the reserves. At the moment there are naturally already thousands of these detribalised natives who will never return to the reserves, and who have grown up in the urban locations, and their children have also grown up there, but this should be the ideal, that the native should return to the reserves. Just as many of our English-speaking friends who have come here always desire to return to England, where they eventually do return, so there should also be in the case of the natives a desire to return to the reserves sooner or later. We should like to see a policy followed that awakens in him a desire to spend the last of his days in the reserve. We do not want to do what the present Government is doing, namely, to hold out a bait even for the old natives that will generate the desire in all of them to go to the towns, that awakens the desire in them to grow old as soon as possible so that they can go to the towns. We want to do the opposite, we want to awaken a deeper desire in the native to live in the reserve in the tribal setting of his fathers. That is the policy that this side want to follow. The stay in the urban locations must be of a temporary character, and he should look forward to the day when he can return to the reserves. And while they live in the locations we desire that they should live under clean conditions and well controlled conditions. There should be proper housing, not great modern, dwellings such as many municipalities are erecting, but well designed, neat huts. It is a common experience that natives in huts are cleaner and tidier than they* are in houses to which they are not accustomed. It seems to me that at any rate for a time the natives are more slovenly when they are in houses than when they are in huts. We desire that there should be proper health conditions, and that these places should not be the breeding ground of all sorts of mischief and immorality. They ought rather to be educational centres, so that if a native is away from his reserve for a time and returns to his reserve, he will go back a Letter man than before he left the reserve. But under present conditions he deteriorates. If you go to the reserves it is really a pleasure to see the natives living clean and healthy lives there in their tribal environment. There you see the value of tribal life, but when you come to the urban locations you are dismayed at the prevealence of venereal disease, and the immorality and drunkenness that are rampant there. These are conditions that we cannot tolerate. We plead for a policy whereunder there will be a strong missionary effort of the right sort in the urban locations, a policy that will take cognisance of separation and what is founded on Christian-national principles. We want to teach the natives to be proud of his identity and of the identity of his people. Then we shall make of him a respectable person who will be an asset to the nation. What do we find today? That the native is ashamed of being a native. We find a subdivision into groups. Take the natives in the locations. They talk there about the natives in the reserves who are as superior to them on moral as on other grounds as they are over the baboons. A gulf has been created between the two sections. We must cultivate amongst the natives a pride in what is their own. That will make for progress and happiness. We want further to see that a stop is put to idleness. There should be an end to the present conditions in the locations, there should be control. Today there are tens of thousands of natives who lie about and do nothing, especially women, and they are the cause of most of the evil. We do not wish to put up with these conditions. We do not want to have any oppression, but we want to see the natives developed under the old patriarchal system in conformity with their customs and traditions. With all this vagrancy and idleness we are not doing any service to the native people, on the contrary we are digging a grave for them in the towns, nothing else. I wish to close with the thought that I voiced at the outset, namely that the Minister should introduce sound and strong legislation to put an end to all these ills, and if that legislation is considered and adopted by this House, it should then be carried into effect and not remain a dead letter. If legislation is adopted after thorough consideration has been accorded it by this House, it will be the duty of the Government to carry that legislation into effect. Then we shall achieve results. Then we shall be acting not only in the interests of the native population, but also in the interests of the European population and of the whole of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, at the outset, I would like to say that I welcome this Bill as a consolidating measure. The Minister, in giving coherent shape to a complicated mass of legislation, is undoubtedly rendering a definite service; but at the same time, I would like to support the plea for a reconsideration of our native policy in this connection. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that our whole native policy rests upon a fundamental contradiction. On the one hand, there is a fear that native development is a menace to white civilisation, or, rather, to white supremacy. On the other hand, there is a natural and irresistible desire to exploit the natives for our own advantage. And these two impulses are constantly at war with each other: The fear of native advancement deprives us of their full and efficient co-operation, whilst exploitation Is steadily breaking down the barriers of segregation. We cannot do without their labour, and yet at the same time we take no effective steps to make them efficient or to integrate them into our economic structure as a permanent and indispensable element. I submit that the time has now come to resolve these contradictions. We stand on the threshold of a new world. This is eminently the time for a revaluation of national policies. Native policy, which is fundamental to the future progress and prosperity of this country, cannot be exempt from this searching process. No matter what aspect of national development is under consideration, no matter what social reform we contemplate, we are invariably brought up against the same fundamental difficulty, namely, the essential poverty of this country. Take social security, for example. We are all talking social security these days. We insist that social security must be the keystone of the new edifice, but at the same time we have to remind ourselves constantly, as a curb to unbridled enthusiasm, that we cannot really afford to pay for a social security. The national income is only about £50 per head per annum. This means, in simple terms, that when we have paid for the elementary basic necessities, such as food, clothing and shelter, there is little or nothing left over to provide for social security measures, such as sickness benefit, free medical service, old age pensions, family allowances, and so on. I have before me the Government White. Paper on Post-War Reconstruction. It is on the whole a very impressive programme, but underlying it all is the fundamental assumption, both tacit and outspoken, that there must be a very great increase in the national wealth if this programme is to materialise. Yet what recognition is there in the new scheme of things for our native population which comprises the greatest reservoir of industrial wealth in the country? Are we going to accept them as industrial co-operators or treat them as the mere chattels which many white people would like them to be? Are we going to prepare them for efficient participation in post-war development or are we going to carry them as a heavy load of ineffectives? It seems to me that we can no longer postpone this vital decision. As the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) has pointed out, the main lines of economic development in this country have been laid down for us in the Third Interim Report of the Industrial and Agricultural Requirements Commission. And if we accept this Report as a master plan for economic development, then clearly it must shape the character of our native policy. This Report makes it clear that the economic salvation of South Africa depends on a twofold process, namely, the reorganisation of agriculture side by side with industrial development. This Report points out that one of the chief reasons why South Africa is such a poor country is that far too many of our population are engaged in farming. Our soil is overburdened and ill-used. Approximately 65 per cent. of the population live on the land and they produce only about12½ per cent. of the national income. The Report points out further that a reformed agriculture, which would give us an abundance of protective foods, would require a much smaller but more efficient farming community. It is obvious that we cannot carry out these reforms unless we can provide alternative employment for all those forced off the land by a rational and improved agriculture. We must expand industries and create new industries to absorb all those displaced from the land by this process of reorganisation. The majority of those living on the land are natives, and the bulk of them live at a meagre subsistence level in overcrowded reserves. Therefore it is chiefly the natives who must be absorbed into industry. In industry they will be far more productive than in the reserves. They will be able to earn more and buy more. As a result of these two parallel lines of development, we shall have on the one hand a smaller but more prosperous farming community, giving us an abundant supply of essential foodstuffs, and, on the other, a stabilised labour force, far more productive than they could be as primitive peasants in the Reserves. The grand result must be a very great increase in the national income. I would like to put this question to the Minister. It is a crucial question. How does the Government Intend to carry out this broad programme unless it is prepared to revise its native policy in accordance with these fundamental economic requirements? I know the Minister has a plan for improving native agriculture in the reserves. It is an admirable plan and I wish to congratulate the Minister on it, but I submit that if he wants to see his plan put into successful operation, it must be accompanied by a parallel plan for native development in the urban areas. It is an admirable thing to make roads, fences and irrigation works in the reserves. It is a fine thing to teach the natives to work their lands more scientifically and tend their herds more expertly, but if these things are to bear fruit, the Minister must take steps to put an end to the migrant labour system. A system which removes a majority of the vigorous young males from the reserves at any one time, and leaves old men and women and children to cope with the hard work of winning some nourishment from the reluctant soil—such a system must militate against any attempt to regenerate the reserves. If the Minister wishes to ensure the success of his plan he must abolish the migrant labour system. He must establish our native labour force as a permanent part of the urban community, living normal family lives, on decent wages’ in their own townships in the vicinity of their work. Once the congestion in the reserves is relieved by this process of urbanisation, those left behind will have a continuous interest in the soil and will have a far better opportunity of becoming efficient and progressive farmers. This process of urbanisation is the natural line of development. Even if the Minister succeeds in developing the reserves to their utmost carrying capacity, he will not arrest this movement into the urban areas. The movement from the country to the town is inevitable in a progressive society. The explanation is economic. Agricultural production can never be as efficient as other forms of production. In other words, the output per head of workers in agriculture is always far lower in terms of value than the output per head of workers in industries. This shift of manpower from agriculture into industry therefore results in increased national production and a higher standard of living, while the shift of manpower from industry to agriculture has the reverse effect. Take England. She rose to a position of pre-eminence and prosperity in the 19th century because of the enormous increase of the proportion of her manpower engaged in industrial production. That is why other countries have been so anxious to industrialise themselves. It is highly significant that Hitler made it an important part of his plan for world domination to concentrate industrial production in Germany and impose a reactionary back-to-the land policy on his subject countries. In America, a century ago, 80 per cent. of the population got their living on the land. Today only 25 per cent. live on the land, and with the aid of modern technical improvements they produce far more than the 80 per cent. did. South Africa is destined to repeat this historic process until a new and stable equilibrium is achieved between agriculture and industry. Nothing can stop this process, not even our gold mining interests, which at present enjoy an undisputed ascendancy in the economic life of South Africa. And the sooner these interests adjust themselves to this inevitable process the better it will be for the progress of the country. The gold mining interests have always opposed industrial development because they fear that sooner or later it must put an end to the migrant labour system. The gold mining interests argue that if we are to maintain gold production on the existing scale they simply cannot afford to pay a full economic wage such as an urbanised native would require. They insist that they can only pay a supplementary wage to the native whose basic livelihood is to be found in the reserves. In other words, it is the migrant labour system which makes the mining of low grade ore possible. Thus, when we say, as we often do, that the gold mining industry is the basis of our national prosperity, what we should really say is that cheap, subsidised labour is the basis of our national prosperity. This subsidy comes out of our most precious capital asset, namely, the soil. It is paid for by the deterioration of the soil, and the consequent depletion of our manpower resources through malnutrition, tuberculosis and a high infant mortality in the native reserves. Thus, the cost of lowgrade mining is far higher than many people imagine.

Order, order! I am afraid the hon. member is getting very far away from the question before the House.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to show that the more conservative houses in, the gold mining industry oppose the policy of industrial development, and if their point of view prevails the native reserves will be kept as squalid pools of cheap labour. But fortunately there are also progressive mining houses and they are entering the industrial field on an extensive scale. They see no conflict of interests between gold mining and industry, for obviously they would not foster industrial development if it were a threat to their existing interests in the sphere of gold mining. I would like to read an extract from a remarkable speech by the Chairman of the Anglo-Transvaal Investment Company. Speaking about migrant and casual labour, this is what he said—

That is a clean and emphatic statement. I shall not labour the point here, but this is clear evidence that stabilised labour is not incompatible with the future of gold mining operations in this country.

Is that man a member of the Gold Producers’ Committee?

He is a gold producer.

Then this man is going against his own people.

I do not suggest that the change-over from the migrant labour system should take place abruptly. Obviously the transition must be gradual. But it must be planned in accordance with a declared policy. Once the principle is accepted, the details can be worked out. Thus, for example, the new mines could be induced by suitable tax concessions to make provision for a stabilised labour force. The point I want to establish is that even in the gold mining world there are forces ready to co-operate with the Minister in developing a progressive native policy. I trust the Minister will appreciate the full significance of this important development.

I had not intended to take part in this debate, but I want to say a few words with the object of explaining that here we are dealing with a consolidating measure. Fortunately it presents an opportunity to members to make particularly important speeches at the second reading, but unfortunately the public outside undoubtedly gains the impression, since these Speeches are made at the second reading, where the whole native question is dealt with and all the aspects of the matter gone into that it is possible to bring about alterations in this measure. We know, of course, that that cannot be done. We are dealing with a Consolidation Bill and we know that under the rules of the House alterations cannot be brought about. I must say that I am a little puzzled why such a Bill should be brought before Parliament at all. All that seems to be necessary to me is that the law advisors should examine the various Acts and then frame a consolidating Act to be placed on the Statute Book of this country. I do not know why it is necessary again to have it passed by Parliament. You will agree with me, Mr. Speaker, that we now have a Bill before the House, and when we reach the Committee stage and move amendments, I shall not be allowed and no other member will be allowed to move an amendment if it does not agree with the law as it stands at present. What is then the object of such a Bill? What do we achieve with such a Bill except to give members an opportunity at the second reading to make speeches in regard to this very important subject? I mention it here because it has been indicated on various sides that members should like to see certain amendments to the Bill, and the public is led to believe that such amendments can be brought about. I should like the people in the country outside to know that it is not permissible to do so and that those amendments cannot be moved. But while. I am on my feet I want to say that although I do not agree with everything which was said by the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Friedman), I do feel that he made an important speech which directed the attention of the country to the biggest problem which faces us, namely the relation between Europeans and non-Europeans, and by nonEuropeans we mean natives, coloured persons and Indians. The time has arrived, and it is practically overdue, to tackle this question. It is a pity that the amendment which has been moved was worded in a certain way, because I was almost inclined to vote for the amendment which was moved by the representatives of the natives. They moved—

Up to this point one can agree with it. But then the amendment goes on to say—

With the very last portion one can also agree. We all feel that the time has arrived for a thorough investigation to be made. I want to make a serious appeal to the Minister to see whether he cannot take the matter so far that a truly national convention, or call it a commission, will be called into being which will not only report on this matter, but bring out a report on which the Government will act, a commission which will face the facts. It is of no avail criticising each other across the floor of the House. I may find fault with members on the other, side, and in their turn they find fault with me, and we get no further. The main question is that we must face the realities of the situation and find a solution. Take the matters which were raised by the hon. member for Hillbrow and also by members representing the natives. What is the policy of the country going to be — I am not only speaking of the Government —in connection with the industrialisation which is taking place and which is going to take place on a very much greater scale, and in which we are going to find that thousands and hundreds of thousands of natives will be employed in industry. What is the policy of the country going to be; are we going to allow the natives to go there temporarily and, when their time has expired, allow them to return to the native territories? Are we going to apply segregation as we had it in the past, or are we going to depart from it and allow the natives to go there not only as individuals but to take their families with them so that they can take up permanent residence in the neighbourhood of those industries? The time has arrived when we should come to a decision in regard to this question, because as I have already said, it is a matter which will have to be tackled and we can no longer put it aside. I want to compliment the Minister on accepting the segregation policy, but in that respect we want to know what the particular policy is going to be in the future. Since he has accepted the segregation policy, it would be a good thing if he appointed such a commission consisting of people who are really in earnest about this matter, people who do not want to regard it from a party point of view, but from the point of view of the interests of the country as a whole. We are faced with this position that we are going to have an influx of natives. We have the interests of agriculture, the mines and the industries, and we should go into the matter thoroughly now. Then the hon. member for Hillbrow also stated, perhaps with a certain amount of truth, that some people regard the native as a danger for the future. If we allow the doctrine which is being propagated to the natives, unfortunately mostly by Europeans, to continue in this country, if we allow the native to be told that he should be treated on an equal footing with the Europeans, and that he is the equal of the European in all respects, the native can become a danger to us in this country. I do not, however, regard the native as a danger. On the contrary, I regard him as an important asset in this country. The native is a particularly big asset to the country, because without the native we can hardly carry on with agriculture. The farmer must have native labour; industry must have native labour, and the mines must also have native labour. All these industries need the native, and we must regard the native as an asset and do everything in our power to build up that asset. We should build up that asset and make the native happy. We should improve his health. If we do that, we do our duty towards that section of the population and towards the country. I am sorry therefore that the Minister came forward with a consolidating measure and nothing more. It is all very well, but we cannot bring about an alteration to this measure once this measure has come back from the Select Committee.

I did that at the request of members on the other side.

I agree with the Minister that it is convenient to have all the Acts together. But it is a pity that the Minister did not go further, because I feel he ought to tackle this question and I want to ask him to tell us in his reply what his interpretation is of segregation. Is the Minister going to allow native townships to be created on the Rand and elsewhere where industries are established, where houses will be built, not only for the natives employed there, but to which they can also bring their families to take up permanent residence. We should like to know what the policy is going to be. Various replies have been given in the country as far as this is concerned. But we are faced with the practical position that natives and coloured people are already taking up residence amongst the Europeans. That is happening everywhere in this country. That is one of the reasons why this matter was referred to me and why I am taking part in the debate. It is not only in the cities that that is taking place but also on the platteland. Pietersburg, which is a fairly big town, has a suburb called Annandale. A fair number of Europeans, especially people who are employed on the Railways, have their own plots there, on which they have their own houses. They are living there quite happily. But because the land is still cheap, we find that considerable numbers of natives—I cannot say it is a very big number—have bought land there. They now have plots, and they are living amongst the Europeans. Coloured people are in exactly the same position. Coloured people are also living there amongst the Europeans.

Where is that?

Annandale, which borders on Pietersburg.

Is it a native township?

No, it is not a native township. I want to explain the position. Today we have this position that they are living there. Some of them apparently bought plots before 1938. There again provision must be made for those natives. Surely it should be possible to remove them. After all, it is not sound to allow the conditions which have developed in the Cape, to develop in the Transvaal, for example, and elsewhere. There should be a law under which steps can be taken. The present law ought to be sufficient; in that case I want to ask the Minister to proclaim that law. If the Act does not make provision it should be amended. This does not only cause dissatisfaction, but it will also lead to serious clashes. As it is, one hears threats that if the natives resist, it will lead to clashes. If it is possible there, it should also be possible in other parts. We should lay down clearly what we mean by segregation. Is it going to mean that the natives will live apart and that they will be allowed only temporarily to work in the urban areas for a fixed period, or will they be allowed to take up residence in areas which we regarded as European areas. It is so important that even at this stage we make an appeal to the Minister. The time is overdue. Why then should we postpone the matter. Let us appoint a convention. We struggled for years to pass the native legislation. All parties were represented. The hon. Minister of Mines was there; the present Prime Minister was there. One found, when it came to divisions, that the present Minister of Mines, the then member for Roodepoort, I think, voted with members of the Nationalist Party, and some members of our party voted with the Prime Minister. There was no question at all of party advantage or party matters. I feel that if we could again establish such a body, we could do a great deal to solve the question of the relation between the Europeans and the natives and coloureds and the relation of the European towards the Indian. We should try to find a solution so that it will not be necessary for us to level reproaches at one another, but so that we can co-operate in the Interests of the country.

It was really interesting to listen to the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé) this afternoon, arid I must congratulate him on his speech. When we bear in mind that we are discussing in this House the interests, the past, the present and the future of a large number of people, namely the natives, who outnumber us, and especially if we take into consideration the fact that those people have no say in the discussion of their own interests, then one should heartily welcome any expression of opinion or suggestion which is intended to keep the native question out of the political arena and to discuss it on a high level from a national point of view. And in that respect I think the speech of the hon. member for Pietersburg really deserves the compliments of this House. I think hon. members of the Opposition will concede that on this side of the House there are members who hold very sound ideas, very sound opinions, on the native question, and if investigations are made I hope that the idea, as expressed by the hon. member for Pietersburg, will be taken into consideration, namely that all sections of the House should have representation. The Bill before the House this afternoon is a consolidation Bill. As such one cannot, of course, oppose it. It consolidates a number of statutes which are already on the Statute Book of this country. Various pleas were made this afternoon for revision perhaps the hon. Minister does not see his way clear to accept those pleas at this stage, but let us express the hope that in the near future he will see his way clear to accept those pleas. If one takes the appendix to the Bill and one looks at the various dates on which those Acts which are consolidated in this consolidation Bill, were passed, one finds that a great many years have elapsed since those Acts were passed. And this afternoon they are being consolidated in their original form in this consolidation Bill. It is my own honest opinion that the greater majority of them are out of date, obsolete and no longer meet the present conditions as far as our urban natives are concerned. We so often hear of the black danger in South Africa today. It is so often used as an election cry in South Africa—the tremendous black danger. But what we are so fond of describing as the black danger, can easily become a blessing to this country. It can become a blessing if it is handled fairly and properly. The European population in this country has always been so busy with its own problems, especially during the past 20 years, that they have given little attention to a population numerically greater than our own population. I refer to the native population. At one time a Minister of Native interests in South Africa, Sir William Porter, said it was better to allow those people to settle their differences in the conference chambers than on the battlefield. I think that idea was expressed about a century ago; it still holds good today; and it is my plea this afternoon that while there is an opportunity to eliminate that friction and those clashes in conference chambers, we should avail ourselves of that opportunity. I think the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. van den Berg) made his plea on the same lines this afternoon. I must fully associate myself with the idea that while there is still an opportunity to settle these differences in conference chambers, we should make use of it. We have seen how much unpleasantness there can be when those unnecessary and undesirable clashes take place between Europeans and non-Europeans in the cities. And I feel that this is the best time to take that step before it is too late. There is no doubt that the question of the urbanisation of non-Europeans has reached a very advanced stage in our life, a stage which makes it decidedly difficult to control it. Urbanisation took place along with industrialisation in our cities. In this country, unfortunately for South Africa, we never regarded industrialisation seriously. May I take hon. members back about 20 years? We did not realise what the possibilities of industrialisation were. We had not decided whether we wanted big industrial development or whether we would have primary development. What happened? By degrees a transformation took place from a rural population to an urban population, and that transformation took place at a time when we were not prepared for it. We were not prepared for it. No supervision was exercised; no provision was made. No provision was made for such requirements as housing, for separate residential areas and possible competition. In other words, it was a question of letting matters take care of themselves, and by dégrees these problems were created, problems which, by the time we realised for the first time that they were problems, had become so extensive and complicated that they could not be solved by legislation. I want to say with all due respect that the question has reached such an advanced stage today, that we must seek a solution in co-operation, in the co-operation of those non-Europeans rather than seeking a solution in compulsory legislation. This problem has reached a very advanced stage. Unfortunately when we look at this legislation we find, especially under the 1923 Urban Areas Act, that the greatest responsibility of solving this problem as far as the cities are concerned, is still being thrown on the Municipalities. I think I can make bold to say that I speak as someone who has experience of this matter. We know there is a motion on the Order Paper which prevents us from going into this matter too deeply. But this question has become so great, so extensive and so complicated that there is no municipality within the borders of the Union of South Africa, which can tackle it effectively. I am absolutely convinced of that, and I am also convinced that if a proper investigation were to be instituted, one of the recommendations would certainly be that the native question in the cities falls outside the scope, the capability and the possibilities of the Municipalities. As a matter of fact, I want to go further and say that it is extremely unfair to leave that matter in the hands of the smaller local authorities. It is a matter of national interest, and I hope it will not be long before the administration of the platteland native and of the various classes, as in the case of the reserves today, will also fall under the direct administration of the Central Native Administration, just as in the case of urban areas. What has happened? Two groups of people have migrated to the cities. These two groups are the poor Europeans — I do not mean poor-whites in the ordinary sense of the word — but the man who was ruined …

The less-privileged man.

Yes, the less-privileged plattelander. The poor natives too, who could not make a living on the platteland, did the same. They migrated to the cities. They did so for two reasons; in the first place for better wages, better productivity and better remuneration for their activities, and especially owing to droughts and failure of crops on the platteland. They came to the cities. Nothing was done to receive them. They had to pave their own way; they had to find their own way. There was no housing. There was no definition of areas of employment. They were not told where they were to live. They had to find their own way, and they received no definite vocational training. What happened in the big centres, especially on the Wit-watersrand? Both those sections went to the poorer areas of the big urban centres, and there they competed with one another both in the sphere of labour and in the sphere of housing, and as a result of that, problems have arisen which we are trying to solve by legislation of this nature, but which can no longer be solved by legislation of this kind. There they competed with one another. That is why we find those mixed places today where Europeans and non-Europeans sometimes live next to one another; where they sometimes live next to one another in the suburbs. However deplorable it may be, we even have cases in this country where they live in the same building—not really in the same house, but we find that non-Europeans and Europeans live in the same blocks-of flats. Surely that is unsound. The native does not want that state of affairs either. I do not believe that he is happy amongst Europeans. He does not like being scattered amongst the Europeans. He is happy in his own kraal amongst his own people. We must face those conditions, and it is our duty as responsible leaders of this country, it is our duty as the chosen representatives of the country to solve those problems. Today the question is, what is the solution? We made a plea here this afternoon for a revision of the whole native policy as far as the urbanisation of natives is concerned, and I think hon. members who have been in this House longer than I have—and I hope hon. members of the Opposition will not hold it against me—but they will admit that when they discussed the Bills of 1936, they discussed those Bills more specifically from the point of view of rural conditions. When one reads through those Bills one finds that everything relates to the rural position only. Why that is so we do not know; but the question of the urban native was practically never raised. I think the hon. Minister of Mines, who was the member for Roodepoort at that time, made an extremely interesting speech in regard to this matter, on the same lines as the speeches made here this afternoon. Apart from that, it was in those very years, that the question became so critical. I hope and trust that no hon. member of the Opposition will get up today and blame the Government and say: “It is your fault.” Indeed, I do not believe they will do so. That means, as I have tried to indicate earlier, that for a large number of years—I should say over a period of 20 years—we have not devoted specific attention to this matter, and what makes the matter more difficult is that as a result of natural conditions, we now have our Indian question, our coloured question. I do not want to enlarge on that. But it is extremely interesting to ascertain to what extent those three questions were interlinked. Well, what is the solution? May I be permitted to say with due respect that this matter is of such great importance, so extensive, that I think no member in this House will have the audacity to say: “My scheme, my plan is the best.” In that respect I think it is right to say that it is a matter where we need the contribution of everyone, that it is a matter which requires proper investigation—and particularly proper investigation. Let me try to raise certain points on which such an investigation can be concentrated. In the first place such an investigation should cover the whole Union. There is no doubt that what is today a problem in Johannesburg, is also a problem in Cape Town, and it is a problem in other cities as well as in the small platteland towns. It seems to me the small platteland towns have had the best success in solving their difficulties in this respect, but even there the problem is assuming such proportions that it requires proper investigation and assistance. The first point on which we can concentrate is the systematic stabilisation of the urban native population. That is a question in connection with which my friends on these benches are going to differ from me. They are entirely and absolutely opposed to any restriction on the movement of the native, whatever its nature and to whichever centre it may be. They want no restrictions. There is no doubt that the time is rapidly arriving—we shall now be told that the natives do not want it, that they do not want any restrictions—but I say this afternoon that the time is rapidly arriving when the natives themselves in the cities will come to the Government and say: “Look here, you ought to protect us against people who are entering the city from far and wide and who are taking up our places.” We so often talk about control. What is the position today of a European who goes to Johannesburg to seek employment? He has to be registered in the city for two years before he can obtain a position from the local authority, for instance, and the same rule applies as far as Government subsidised work is concerned. At the moment, while there is a demand for labour and no shortage of work, that restriction is not applicable to the same extent, but in the past it has always been applicable. The urban native is going to pay for this. Today one finds urban natives who know nothing of the platteland, of the reserves. They are almost like Indians who came to South Africa from India, and who, if they were now kicked out of South Africa, would be hopelessly lost. The same applies to the natives, and I think it will be those natives who will ask for protection. That is what I mean. Then there is the question of the natives’ movement to the cities. It is my considered opinion that that should be controlled. In the second place, whatever movement takes place, should be coped with in three stages in the cities. The first stage is the erection of hostels for the natives. There are two types of natives. Firstly, we have the unmarried native. The other type is the married native who leaves his family on the platteland and who temporarily goes to the city to seek employment. In those hostels—and I think the hon. member for Pietersburg touched on this question—they can receive guidance as far as urban life is concerned. We know that very serious crimes are often committed in the cities by natives who, as a result of clashes during their first few days in the cities, developed a grievance against Europeans. If we can prevent those people from coming into contact with undesirable influences we shall make assets of them and not burdens to the State. Take the poor soul who comes in from outside. He rides on a bicycle. He is arrested and locked up for the night. The next day he appears before the magistrate and he is fined. That native always has a grudge against the European, and if one goes into his record one finds that serious crimes which he later commits are attributable to that initial clash with the law during the first few days of his sojourn in the city. It is a pity that one should have to say it, but we find unscrupulous Europeans in our cities who use those raw natives to rob other people for their own benefit, so that they can open second-hand shops and make money at the expense of these people. I can speak of experience. I have seen some of those poor people who were absolutely unsophisticated. Nevertheless they were used by unscrupulous Europeans to commit burglaries involving a high degree of skill. Those people teach them to do it. We should prevent those natives from being used in this way by unscrupulous persons, because they themselves do not suffer; they initiate the natives into a life of crime, but they do not suffer from the consequences of great crimes which may later flow from it, and I think it is our duty to have strict supervision in that respect. The second step will be the institution of sub-economic housing on the hire-purchase system, to enable the native who is employed but does not receive a high wage, to live in a house with his wife and children. The rental should be so low that he can afford to pay it and the third stage will be ah economic ownership scheme whereby he will eventually become the owner of his own home. Here I just want to pause for a second. There are people who say that the native should not be given the right of ownership near or in the cities. I think it is an indisputable fact that one always looks after one’s own property better than after the property of another man. Housing in this country is something which has only received attention in recent years. The other day we heard a great deal about housing. Take the Jan Hofmeyr housing scheme, for example. If hon. members throw their minds back a little, they will remember that Jan Hofmeyr was the first European housing scheme in Johannesburg and the money for it was only voted in 1935, and it was only completed in 1937 or 1938. At that time one heard from many quarters that it would be a poor white affair. What happened? What did the people do who were assisted to obtain houses under this scheme? Today the township looks beautiful; but if it had been their properties, it would have looked even more beautiful. If we give the natives the right to possess their own little homes, they will look after those houses and be proud of them. Then there is a further consideration. When I pleaded for the removal of non-European areas from our big European centres, I met with tremendous opposition. It was stated that I wanted to remove the people, disorganise them and deprive them of their privileges. My contention is that in theory the non-Europeans in big centres have certain rights, such as the right of ownership, but that in practice it is nothing but fiction, and I feel that when one gives them the right of ownership in separate residential areas, if one makes it attractive for the natives, they will go there of their own accord. We heard here of segregation this afternoon and we heard other terms which have been used in the past. I think those terms are just like the legislation of old. Even the word “location” is an out-of-date word. We have compounds at the mines, but the masses of natives no longer live in locations but in townships, in suburbs. Let me again emphasise this thought. We shall make very much better progress with segregation if it takes place on a voluntary basis; if separate, parallel development takes place in separate areas, on a voluntary basis and under attractive conditions. We shall achieve very much greater success in that way than by trying to apply compulsory segregation. So much with regard to the control of the movement of the population within the cities. In the second place, we must concentrate on building up the platte-land and the reserves. It is not necessary to emphasise that point much, because other speakers have done so. I just want to say that as far as the economic aspect is concerned, the platteland is to a great extent responsible for the influx to the cities owing to the economic conditions on the platteland. Another point which I want to mention is the social life. I do not know whether my farming friends will agree with me, but we often hear complaints from them, from both sides, that there is a shortage of labour. But have they ever stopped to ascertain the reason for that shortage? Have they ever thought of the reason why bywoners trek to Johannesburg or Cape Town, and why the natives migrate to the big centres. I have often had the privilege of speaking to these people — Europeans as well as natives — especially the older people. I struggled a great deal to get people away from Johannesburg, and I must say that when one deals with a younger man, one still meets with some success, but one experiences great difficulty in dealing with elderly men. It is difficult for one to have to force those people, through circumstances beyond one’s control, to work with pick and shovel. I asked many of these old men, including a large number of non-Europeans, why they left the platteland. I would say to them: “But you can no longer make a living in the city.” The reply would be: “My children, my sons and daughters, are grown up and they say the platteland is too quiet, that there is no social life, no pleasure.” The employers of bywoners, when they have the privilege of taking out their motor cars once or twice per week to go to bioscope, should remember that the bywoner is equally entitled to a little pleasure and that the native is also entitled to a little recreation. It is not mainly because of the wages that those people flock to the cities. The social life should be made more attractive on the platteland, otherwise we shall not be able to prevent the influx of natives and even Europeans to the cities. Generally speaking, I feel that this Bill is acceptable because it consolidates the existing Acts. Even the natives will be able to know whether they are acting within or contrary to the law. But we shall have to review the whole matter and as far as the urban natives are concerned, we shall have to adopt a policy in the future as a result of which they will become an asset to the country instead of a burden.

After the long explanation of the hon. member who has just sat down on the difficulties which the Minister has to contend with in connection with the native and coloured question, I do not intend to discuss the same aspects of the matter. We want to stress immediately that if the native question has proved a problem in the past, it is, at present time, a much greater problem, and when we on this side of the House express anxiety over what is going on, we are only voicing the feelings of the people outside, quite apart from their political convictions. I think that when in the past we have discussed the coloured or native question, there has always been an inclination to attribute to members political motives. I have noticed that today another spirit prevails. The speakers who up to now have taken part in this debate, have tried to express their views clearly and have not sought to ascribe motives. I do not want to impair the spirit which now prevails. Neither will I repeat what was said in the past when political motives were attributed, when we spoke of the danger of the native problem and of the coloured problem. I will also, therefore, not reminisce too much on the warnings we issued at that time. With all respect, however, I must say that if the people who were then in power had paid more attention to the criticism which was then offered, and if there had been fewer personal motives attributed, the question we now have to contend with, would never have assumed the proportions it has today. I do not even want to discuss the urban areas, but desire to discuss the influx of natives into the rural areas. I want to point out that no control is exercised. I put a question to the Minister, and it was not a catch-question, about the natives who are entering the country from Rhodesia. The Minister replied that it was impossible to exercise any control over those people because you would need an army to guard the borders. I am inclined to agree.

I said that you would need an army to prevent their entry, but when once they are here we try to exercise control.

Then the control is very inefficient. I asked the Minister whether he as Minister of Native Affairs had exchanged correspondence with the governments of Rhodesia in an endeavour to stop the influx of natives. I asked him if he were aware of the fact that veneral disease amongst the natives had increased enormously, and in view of the lack of control is was increasing apace. If you go to the country villages, you find natives from Rhodesia who work in hotels and in the kitchens of private people, and it is not necessary to be a doctor to know that some of them suffer from venereal disease. Looking at the matter merely from that angle, I want to ask the Mniister whether he does not think that something more should be done besides consolidating legislation? Let us just take one aspect. This House wisely decided that the supply of drink to natives was a danger to them, and therefore unlike the Europeans, they are precluded from obtaining wine and brandy. It is looked upon as a great danger to the natives themselves and for the people in their vicinity. As a result restrictions were imposed. But what do we find today? Today if you visit the small villages in the Eastern Province and in the Western Province, you find almost more drunkenness among natives than among coloureds. Smuggling trade on a considerable scale is being carried on among the coloureds and the state of affairs which is thus created is the chief reason why the European population is beginning now, more than ever before, to look for a solution of the problem. If you look into the thefts which are committed, you will see that in the majority of cases natives are involved. If you examine the police records, you will find how seriously crime is on the increase among natives under the influence of liquor. The Minister should give more attention to that aspect of the matter than he has done before. And as if there are not already sufficient difficulties, we have people in this House who are making it more difficult for the Minister and the nation to solve the native question. When years ago this House decided to grant representation in this Parliament to the native population, it was thought that such native representatives would endeavour to uphold any government which happened to be in power and that they would indicate how, from the native’s point of view, the problem in this country, the difficulties with which the natives have to contend, should be approached. In this manner they would have rendered a valuable service to the European population and to the natives in bringing these matters to the notice of the Minister. I can only say that during the six years that I have been privileged to be a member of this House, it has become clear to me that these members are creating problems which previously never existed, instead of helping to solve them. Let me just read what was said by a member on that side to show the type of speech which is made among the natives. From that it becomes clear how the problems which face us are made still more difficult by these speeches. It was a reply to a speech by the Minister of Native Affairs and this type of answer by a member of Parliament is broadcast among the natives. This is what was said—

This is the type of thing which the natives are told the Europeans are doing to them. Is this going to help to create a better understanding throughout the country in order to solve the native question? I will go further. I do not know whether it is incorrect, but I just want to say that the person in question is Senator Basner. This is the result of the attitude adopted by hon. members on the cross-benches. In this manner the native population is incited against the Europeans. This attitude is not conducive to the solving of this great problem, but, in my opinion, helps to incite the natives against the white people. The result thereof is that the Minister and the Government who happen to be in power, or any government which may in the future come into power, will have more difficulties to contend with than there are at present among the natives. Now I want to go further. I want to focus the Minister’s attention on the lack of control which is exercised over natives who are streaming into the different parts of the country. I trust that I will not bore the House, but I would like to quote some instances in this connection. I could not put it into better words than the way in which it is expressed here. It took place in one of our big villages, a village which many of we Afrikaners look on with pride, namely Paarl. I am quoting what happened there to prove the lack of control which exists. I might say that this does not savour of a political aspect or colour. It was raised in the municipal council there on which members of the party on the other side and members on this side officiate, and the names which are mentioned here are partly supporters of the other side. It reads— [Translation.] Rev. P. P. Joubert, chairman of the committee concerned, and the mayor, Mr. A. J. Reyneke, explained the extent to which the council is continually handicapped officially in its attempts to settle the matter.

Here we have a direct complaint that officially they are hampered. A municipality complains that they cannot tackle the matter because officially they are handicapped. It might have been the Department or an official under the Minister, but. I am bringing the complaint to the notice of the responsible Minister. Then they give dates and data of what happened. The Minister told us that he had no control over people coming from Rhodesia. But here we find people alighting from the train at Paarl and there is no control exercised over them. I will read further—

Klippiesdal is between Paarl and Daljosaphat. Let me say in passing that if the Minister were to visit the Cape Flats, he would be amazed to see the number of huts which are being erected there. I continue—

I have just been discussing venereal disease amongst the natives. Here we have a place like Paarl, thirty miles from Cape Town, and there are no sanitary conveniences. I think hon. members will agree that it is probably one of the reasons why diseases such as consumption and others have gained ground in South Africa during the last few years, and why our health officials complain of the spreading of infectious diseases. I will read further—

With regard to this influx, I want to ask whether it cannot be controlled on the trains. These people must in any event purchase train tickets to get there. Surely there it would be easy to exercise control. I do not wish to detain the House any longer with quotations. There are many more which indicate how this influx is taking place in the Western Province. The Minister of Native Affairs certainly knows more about the native question and the natives themselves than I do, but on the practical side I am just as well-informed as the Minister. He has to acknowledge that during the war the native question has become more serious. What the position is going to be after the war, one can hardly visualise. Where previously coloureds were employed, one now finds natives, and when those coloureds come back who have been in the army, they will discover that where in the past the coloured population had their sphere of employment, it has now been penetrated on a large scale by natives. I want to ask the Minister, as the responsible person, where the coloured population are going to find employment. What is going to happen to them? And if the natives have to be removed, how is this going to be accomplished and what is he going to do with the natives? I do not want to criticise what other departments are doing, but one finds that a coloured girl whose husband is in the army, receives £8 per month. When that man comes bäck, will the Minister or the Government employ him and are they going to earn the same wages they have become accustomed to since the war, or what are they going to receive? Are they going to be paid the same wages as the natives who are now doing the work? An hon. member asked why the natives are coming to the towns. They come here because here they find the so-called civilisation, and when they arrive they only learn the bad side of civilisation, drunkenness and so forth. Does the Minister think he will ever be able to turn the natives out? What problems will not then be created? It is a difficult problem facing us and the Minister, and therefore I support the suggestion made by the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) that a commission be appointed to report on the matter. We have passed laws, but notwithstanding this, be it the result of the war or the result of our laxity, or the laxity of former Governments, the position has deteriorated, and one thing is certain—something must be done. The only practical proposal made was offered by the hon. member for Pietersburg that a commission be appointed, and I hope that the Minister will lift himself above party politics and suspicion in connection with everything which is said from this side. Let him appoint a commission, not of so-called experts. With all respect for experts, I think that they would perhaps confine themselves to the theoretical side too much and not deal sufficiently with the practical side of the problem. I want to ask the Minister to give serious consideration to the suggestion made by the hon. member for Pietersburg and to do his utmost to appoint a commission to investigate thoroughly, not only the native question, but the whole coloured problem in the country. Both English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking people feel very strongly about the native question, the coloured question and the Indian question. We feel more strongly about it now than in the past because we realise that the coloured problem is one of our greatest and most serious problems having regard to the welfare of the whole of the population in the country. I am one of those born in this country and who can look to South Africa alone as my fatherland. From our point of view there are certain things which must remain as they are. We contend that South Africa must remain a white man’s country, and also that the white man shall be the guardian of the non-Europeans. There is not one of us who would not like to see the non-European races make progress in our country. We want to help them in every possible way, but one big thing must come to pass—white and coloured must be segregated so that the two cannot mix with one another.

Whenever the consolidation of existing laws is under discussion the question involuntarily arises whether these laws are effective, and I believe that after the Minister has heard all the arguments he must be convinced that those laws are not convincing. We must look fairly and squarely at the problem as it presents itself today. It has been rightly said that the Western Province is the field of labour of the coloured people. We in the north have to deal with natives. What we are experiencing there is an influx from natives, even from Basutoland. They do not go to the farms but they go to the towns and the villages. The farmers require labourers but these natives are going to the towns and the villages and they manage to get through without a pass. There are Europeans who need labour and they are only too happy to utilise that labour. That creates an unhealthy state of affairs. It has now been decided to pay old natives a pension. They are going to the towns because the pension paid there is higher than in the country. It would be more to the point if the pension was higher on the platteland than in the towns. That would induce them to remain on the platteland. But the great complaint is, even from the old natives, that they no longer have any auhority over their children. When the child has turned 18 the parent no longer has any authority over him and he simply goes where he wishes to. The old natives are disquieted over the sorry state of affairs. I want to ask the Minister whether there is any law to protect those old natives. Is there any law that makes provision for that sort of thing being put a stop to—that the native should be of age when he turns 18 whereas the European child has to be 21 before he is of age? Those old natives complain that this is an injustice toward them. We can see the danger of these natives moving all over the country. Here in Cape Town once when I called at a garage I saw two Zulus. I asked them where they came from, and their reply was that they had come from Ladysmith in Natal. That is an indication of the distance from which the penetration is being carried on. I then asked them why they were here. The reply was that they had come here because they had learned that there was a lot of money here. When I asked them whether they were returning home one of them told me that he could not return because here he had married a bushman woman and that he had children by her.

A bushman woman?

He described a coloured woman as a bushman woman. He told me further that he could not return to Zululand because he had married that woman. He could not return because he had a bushman wife. That is the tribal custom of the Zulus. They do not stand for their people marrying strangers because it causes the disintegration of the tribe. Once the native comes here he becomes absolutely estranged, and there are already indications that another element is being created. The tribal chiefs of these natives are very dissatisfied over that state of affairs. They do not want it at all. They would like to see their people remaining pure and keeping together. Consequently I believe that the hint that was given by the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) should enjoy the serious attention of the Minister. The fear exists that unless this consolidating measure is adopted it may make the position in the future very difficult.

No, how can it make it difficult?

In any event it will not in any way alleviate the problem that has been brought to the attention of the Minister. It is an urgent problem. The Minister has been informed on every aspect of the matter, and I want to make an earnest appeal to him to take those matters into serious consideration before he adopts this consolidating measure. The problems are being aggravated, and even today we are at our wits’ end over them. These problems are going to become even more difficult. There is going to be great industrial development once the war is over, and in what way is labour going to be distributed after the war? We are going to experience great difficulties in connection with the distribution of the European labour force, and how are we going to cope with the natives? Therefore I want to make an appeal to the Minister to take these matters into serious consideration and not make them even more difficult.

At 6.40 p.m., the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1945, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 7th March.