Year after year we on this side of the House have pointed out to the Minister how Europeans and non-Europeans work together in the various industries without any dividing line, as is advocated by this side of the House. I am glad that the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans) frankly declared yesterday that he has seen with his own eyes the conditions which exist in the industries in Johannesburg. The conditions which he described in Johannesburg are dreadful, and if members on the side of the Government, who have always endeavoured to deny and to conceal the matter, have not yet been convinced by the hon. member for Losberg, then I shall be very surprised. I appreciate the fact that the hon. member for Losberg expressed his opinion on this point very clearly. He stated explicitly that he was not taking this up as a political matter, but that he was rasing it in the interests of the nation and the children of our country. I appreciate this, but I trust that the hon. member will suit the action to the word, and will continue to do so until justice is done towards the people and a dividing line is drawn between Europeans and non-Europeans. The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) jumped up suddenly yesterday to defend the Minister, and he made an attack on the hon. member for Losberg. It is not necessary for me to defend the hon. member for Losberg. He is man enough to do that and will certainly do so on another occasion, but I just want to draw attention to one thing; the hon. member for Krugersdorp attacked the hon. member for Losberg because he was discourteous and did not inform the members representing Johannesburg that he was going to inspect the various factories. The position is that last syear the Minister extended an invitation to members to go and inspect them. The hon. member for Krugersdorp is the last man who should talk of courtesy. I do not know whether when he was recruiting soldiers he said to members: “I am now going to your constituencies to recruit soldiers”. He is one of the last members who should talk of a lack of courtesy. His defence of the Minister was exceptionally weak. He said for example that the difficulty is that there are 3,500 industries and it is impossible to keep pace as the officials are not available to execute the inspection work. If the hon. member for Krugersdorp wants to tell us that they are unable to obtain inspectors to inspect the factories of Johannesburg in other parts, I must believe him as a member of Parliament, but I think that more than 2,000,000 people will doubt very much if it is really the case that the Government is not in a position to find inspectors to carry out the work. There are probably more than 100,000 soldiers here in our camps. Some of them have already been there two or three or four years and have never been to the front. Does the Minister want to tell the country that out of all those people there is not a small handful who could do such inspection work? I think the hon. member for Krugersdorp is making a big blunder when he offers that excuse. It is one of the most absurd statements which has ever been made in this House. Now I just want to say that I on this side welcome the registration of people who are unemployed, but what does it help to register people and put them on a list if the State does not accept the responsibility of affording these people work? The position will be that people will be registered and remain on the list for a month or six months, or perhaps even two or three years, without being given employment, and meanwhile they will perish of malnutrition, hunger and misery. Of what help is it then to register people if the Government does not see to it that every man in the country has work? We have had the assurance from the Government and from every Minister as regards to what they are going to do in South Africa. A new world will be created, a heaven on earth, it will no longer be necessary for people to roam around without employment. I say that every man who wants to work is entitled to work, and it is the duty of the State to ensure that every citizen is employed. If a man does not want to work, then control must be exercised so that he also becomes a good citizen and an asset to the country. The Minister has failed, and other Ministers have failed, to declare that the State will undertake that our people are ensured of employment. The question then arises as to whether there is employment in our country. The hon. member for Gordonia referred yesterday, for example, to the promises that our rivers will be dammed up, and that all dry areas will be irrigated. We know also how great the housing problem is. There is plenty of work. But this Government is so powerless and hopeless and desperate that it cannot even afford work to the 4,000 people who have been put out of work as a result of the Pretoria explosion. They are walking about in the streets of Pretoria and Kimberley. How in heaven’s name then can the Government which is now in power accept the responsibility of providing work for more than 150,000 soldiers who will return? They do plenty of talking and promising, but they remain at promises. Yesterday in the Church Assembly a statement was made about the miserable conditions here in Cape Town, and they said that up to 10 people have to live in one room, and that the children are sent out to find somewhere to sleep with neighbours. Can we tolerate this state of affairs any longer? Ten people in one small room? It is going to undermine the health of the nation and cause difficulty and bring disaster to the country. But the Minister only registers the people who are out of work. If the Government cannot afford employment to the 4,000 who have become unemployed as a result of the explosion, what is it going to do when the soldiers return? Then I see that this registration is limited to Europeans.

No, you have not read it thoroughly. It is not limited.

It states here, the Minister “may”, and the Minister said in his speech—

Exactly. Is that not only the natural procedure?

Don’t be so hasty. It is proposed to make use of the machinery, at least at the beginning, which exists in the Department of Native Affairs in municipal areas under the Native Urban Areas Act in order to register natives for employment. The Minister of Native Affairs said himself that he is at his wits’ end as regards the condition prevailing here, where 80,000 natives have come in while there is only employment for 25,000; the others are unoccupied and roam around, and thefts and such like are the order of the day. Now the Minister says that he intends using the machinery of the Department of Native Affairs. They do not possess the machinery. The Minister said himself that he cannot stop the natives coming to the Cape. Every Minister’s department is watertight. The Minister of Railways refuses to stop the natives coming here by train. He takes the natives who want to come to Cape Town by train. That is the position. The natives are allowed to come here and be idlers in the towns and constitute a danger to the European population. And when one asks the Minister of Justice how it is possible that these crimes take place, then he says that he has not sufficient police. We have about 100,000 returned soldiers who are already here. They surely have to be discharged one of these days, and the sooner a portion of them are inspanned for police work the better. There must surely be a number among them who can learn police work. It is surely not so difficult. The Minister says that he is going to use the machinery of the Department of Native Affairs, but the Department of Native Affairs say that they have no machinery and can do nothing. The municipalities of the Cape Province are holding a congress at the moment here in Cape Town and the question of the removal of redundant natives has also been discussed. Now I would like to refer the Minister to the official information the congress has received in connection with the removal of the natives—

Let me say at once to the Minister that while thousands of natives migrate to Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria and other towns, there is not a surplus of natives in the reserves. In a part such as the Wakkerstroom division hundreds of natives can be absorbed, just as in other parts. But now these black spots are allowed to originate in the towns, which was never the intention. Here we have the declaration that there is no provision for removing the natives. The machinery of the Department of Native Affairs which the Minister wants to put to work, does not exist. Now the Minister says that the ultimate aim is that the natives should also be placed under he Act. If this is the case, why is it not done today? In heaven’s name, why postpone, postpone and postpone? The Government only procrastinates. If a plan exists to bring the natives under the Registration Act, why is it not done now? No, the machinery is not there, and therefore it is the duty of the Minister to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein), namely to retract the measure and to compile a proper Bill which will also make provision for what is asked for in the amendment, namely separate spheres of activity, a proper dividing line for white and coloured, proper registrartion of natives to put an end to the idling and the unsafe condition which has originated as a result thereof, especially in the towns. The state of affairs is practically so that people are afraid to go out and the menfolk do not know what condition they will find in the evening at home. We on this side have done everything in our power. Every year we have drawn the attention of the Minister to this, and now the Minister comes along with this insignificant Bill. He says that he is now making a beginning. But what does it help to compile lists of people who are unemployed, if they are unable to obtain employment? It does not help them to provide their families with food if their names appear on a list. I am convinced that the Minister himself feels that he ought to withdraw the Bill and provide legislation by which the State accepts responsibility for the provision of employment. There we have the 4,000 people who ought to be treated in the same way as returned soldiers, for they provided the ammunition for the prosecution of the war. If those people had not executed that work, then it would have been impossible for our soldiers to prosecute the war, and not only our soldiers, but it is quite evident that they also made ammunition for other countries. It was very evident when the Minister of Defence asked the British Government to relieve him of the manufacture of ammunition as the war had already progressed so far. Although those people did not go to the front, the provided the Government and our troops with the necessities of waging war, and not only the Union, but also other countries. Those people are now being told that they will have to walk the streets until they can find employment. Look at the demonstration there was in Pretoria. If it is already beginning with a handful of 4,000 people, what is the position going to be when 150,000 come out of the camps? No, the Minister must have the courage of his convictions of affording those people employment. It looks as if the Government is only concerned with prosecuting the war abroad; in the interior havoc can continue; we do not wage war against this destruction. The Minister of Labour now has the opportunity of making this legislation such that it will answer its purpose. Let the State accept the responsibility. If the State dare not or cannot take the responsibility, then the Government must come and say to this Parliament that it cannot do so, and then we know what to think of all the wonderful promises which we have had and all the delays which there have also been year after year. This is the position. I repeat that this side has no objection to the Bill in so far as it makes provision for the registration of the unemployed. I say that there must be registration of all the unemployed of all colours and races. We do not want to create in parts of the country hotbeds of natives and coloureds who are unemployed. We must have registration and I heartily support the amendment which is proposed. I want to express the hope that the Minister of Labour will accept it.

I am glad to hear the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) say that the Opposition are not opposed to registration, which is really the principle of the Bill, and what the Bill is designed to effect. However, if they persist in their amendment I suppose the Minister will say: “It is all very well to dissemble your love but why do you kick me downstairs.” I rise for the purpose first of all of congratulating the Minister on introducing what is, I believe, the first of a trio of measures— national insurance is another—which is going to make an important contribution to the solution of the unemployment problem. I support the Bill wholeheartedly. I regard it as another link in the chain of measures which will give us the only real social security that will last, that is provision for employment to the workers with a decent’ wage, because they will then be able to look after’ themselves. There are some points on which I should like to have elucidation, particularly as affecting the coloured worker. I suppose one might say the object of the Minister is to secure a system of national registration, and this will probably be the first step towards it. I cannot find any reference to the position of coloured juveniles in relation to apprenticeship committees— at present the coloured people are not represented on the apprenticeship committees—and I should like know whether this Bill makes any difference in the present position. The coloured people experience great difficulty in obtaining apprenticeship in various trades.

This Bill has nothing to do with apprenticeship.

I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps registration will help in this regard; but it is very necessary that the coloured people should be given a fairer show than they have at present in regard to apprenticeship. The number of apprentices is limited, and when it comes to coloured apprentices they have practically no chance whatever of getting into the trades. If they were given a chance I am sure they can provide proper standards, exactly the same as the European, in the various trades. They have very little to look forward to and-under the present system of apprenticeship machinery they do not appear to be offered any hope of becoming apprentices. Then in regard to the Juvenile Affairs Boards, I believe the position today as far as coloured people are concerned is that these boards are entirely advisory. Now the Minister proposes to abolish the Juveniles Act, 1921, and I should like him to tell us in his reply what difference that is going to make to the position of the coloured boards. Is he only going to provide for one type of board? I would like to know that there will be an improvement in regard to the coloured Juvenile Affairs Board, that it will not mean that it is an advisory board only, but that it will have some effective control over this subject as far as the coloured juvenile is concerned, and that it will help the coloured juvenile more than at present is possible under the existing law. I am not able to gather from the Bill how far it will be altered, and whether the coloured boards will be advisory or just ordinary juvenile affairs boards to deal with coloured juveniles. Then with regard to the system of registration, so far as I am able to gather from the Bill the onus is upon the worker himself to become registered. Other people do come into it. The employer is compelled once he engages a person, to send the particulars to the department, and under Section 10 the employer—

Then in Section 7—

But is there anything in this Act to prevent a person who is unemployed and who is not registered from approaching an employer and securing immediate employment?

No.

Nothing at all. I mention that point because it seems to me that the man who registers does not get any advantage over the man who does not register. It is true that if he does not register he can be prosecuted. I have no doubt that the Minister will be able to tell us the machinery he proposes to set up; it all depends on the machinery. It is a matter of administration. There are many misgivings. One recalls the old days of registration at the Labour offices. People used to come in from all parts of the Cape Peninsula when there was a wave of unemployment—often they could not afford the bus fare, and they came into the Labour Office again and again and again. I take it this system will be improved, because in the old days there were complaints from men who lived some distance away from the registration office.

[Inaudible]

That would remove a very serious difficulty, because the experience of the past certainly shows that if you make them all come to a central place they will not come. Those who call and are disappointed when they are not offered work will soon cease calling.

We are stopping that.

One other suggestion I should like to make in regard to whether the Minister—who has made provision that the employer must give notice regarding the person he is employing—could not introduce some provision whereby if a man comes to an employer for work he will be required to produce his registration card. That would be an effective and rapid way of bringing about complete registration. The employer could be told not to employ a man until he produces his registration card. Such a provision might save a great deal of money; it would save a lot of prosecutions. It will be a distinct advantage to the man and to the worker. But if you do not make provision the man will know that he will get employment without being registered; the employer will, of course, have to notify the Department after he has secured employment. The question has been put to me in connection with the coloured men in the Peninsula. If it was provided in the Bill that before an employer engages a worker he must produce his registration card you would get very quick and complete registration. This procedure would save the State a great deal of money. This procedure would do that, especially if employers would arrange to help the man by sending someone with him to the registration office at the time they engage him. I do not want to hold up the Bill. I think it is a very good measure. I would like to add my congratulations to those that have been showered on the Minister. I do not want to shower too many on the Minister.

They will always be counteracted.

I wish the Minister every success with this measure, and I shall be very glad to welcome the other links in this chain when they are forthcoming.

We do not wish to create the impression that we oppose this legislation as such. The registration cf unemployed is a good start and we approve of it. But what we object to is that the draftsmanship of this Bill is very weak. It is ill-considered. We expect from the Minister of Labour that he shall not introduce such a one-sided Bill into the House. We regard him as the lion of the past who was a prominant figure in the labour sphere and we expect him to bring a great measure before the House, a comprehensive Bill and one which aims at a final solution. And that we do not see in this Bill. I am one of those who admire the Minister, but I admire him for his past and not for his present. We cannot deny that the Minister of Labour every time he rises in this House creates the impression that he has been victimised. He sits there as the lion and the champion of the past, but today he is behind bars; his teeth have been extracted.

The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

I just want to say that he is being fed on milk, but we hope that the time will arrive when he will again be leader of labour as in the past. Civilisation and development have gone so far in our country that we can no longer speak about civilised labour. Our education and development is such that the poor man thinks the same as the rich, and feels like them. We cannot devote enough attention today to putting labourers on an equal footing with the rich. The labourer must eat in the same butchery and bakery as the rich. He must be clad and fed just like the rich. His children enjoy that fine civilised education which makes him feel hurt when he sees that the rich man’s child lives better than they. For that reason I feel that the South African Government, and especially the Minister of Labour, who is in a position really to act in the interests of the workers, should tackle this matter with the determination that the Minister of Labour will not rest before unemployment has finally been stopped in the country, before the worker has the right to live like a civilised and educated person. It grieves us deeply to see the way in which our working classes are treated. They find themselves in an unfortunate position. South Africa is a land of milk and honey. It is a rich country compared with other countries. It is a rich country compared with other countries and we cannot hide behind the fig leaf that South Africa cannot look after its poor and its workers. We have all the conveniences and possibilities, but what we lack is the energy and initiative, the interest and the will to solve unemployment and to place the workers in the position where they can live a happy life in this sunny country, and where they can be placed in the position of being able satisfactorily to provide their own requirements in society. But today we see that the workers are enslaved, doomed to the beggar’s staff, and nobody worries about it. There is nobody who really steps into the breach and tries to solve unemployment in a proper manner. What we feel today is that the workers are being shabbily treated, and that there is unwillingness to tackle the matter energetically. We should simply feel so that we will say: Dead or alive, but South Africa ought to solve this problem, and not only temporarily, but for ever and for the future.

Did you solve it in 1932?

If we revert to the past, we find mistakes on both sides. We live today in an entirely different period from that of 20 or 30 years ago. As a result of compulsory education South Africa developed, and it is today living on a higher level than in the past. There is no use in reproaching each other. But what will help is to put our heads together and to use all our powers, and that we should say that we should meet the poor and the unemployed in the country by providing work for them. The provision of work does not just happen of its own accord; we learnt that and everybody knows it. If we want to provide work for all our poor and unemployed, if we want to enable them really to live decently through their own labour, this matter will never be solved, this most important matter will not be solved, unless the Government creates possibilities for employment. I personally was very glad when the present Minister of Labour came into the Cabinet, and I thought that we would now finally see something done. Where they have made so many gestures in the past, I thought that we would now really see something effective. But today we are just where we were five years ago.

Now you are hurting me.

I say that action and initiative are required, because this matter is a very important one. The machinery of State is there, and I do not know what prevents the Government from finding a final solution. As I said, it demands willingness and energy, and that willingness is lacking. There is the much-lauded Planning Council; there is the much-lauded social security; but in the same breath we can mention much-lauded fraud and much-lauded hypocrisy, because no real progress is made in the solution of these problems. There are no results. There are words enough, tout deeds are lacking, and we have a dissatisfied working class. It cannot be argued away that our workers are deeply unhappy and dissatisfied. They do not know where to turn for help. If they go to the Minister of Labour, he shrugs his shoulders; if they go to the Prime Minister and the Government they are referred to the Minister of Labour and told to go to him for help.

We will send them to Namaqualand.

We can therefore understand that the workers speak about fraud, because they see no results. The Minister of Labour enjoys himself at the festive board. He helps himself but does not help the workers. There are all sorts of possible resources in our country. I ask that those resources be used to create employment; I cannot understand why we in South Africa should still talk about unemployment. We have large resources of our industry, irrigation, road and railroad construction, combating soil erosion, forestry, mining, ship-building and many others. If we want to develop and expand these resources, South Africa has more work waiting to be done in the country than we have labourers. We noted in the past that the tendency is to provide food for those people and the unemployed, to give them charity. I do not ask for food for our workers. We ask, and the workers ask, that they should be given work. They are ashamed of accepting charity. But now, the man is placed in this position. He is civilised and educated; he wants decent work, and he is ashamed to accept charity. He has pretty children at school whom he has brought up decently, and if those children are hungry and ask him for food, their father is obliged to accept charity. He does not want that confounded charity; he wants work. He wants to work for a decent wage. But how many people in the country do not still work for starvation wages? That is what we object to, the starvation wages paid here. The outside world does not have a small population like South Africa. There we find populations of millions upon millions. We have here a population of 13,000,000 Europeans, coloureds and natives. With all the possibilities of the country we cannot even provide for these 13,000,000 and give them a decent living. I say that is due to the fact that we have not the initiative and courage which we should have. The possibilities are there, but our poor people become enslaved and degraded through unemployment and starvation wages, instead of being uplifted, as we ought to do. How much of our raw material is exported today, and has the time not now arrived when we should prohibit the exportation of raw materials to overseas countries where they are manufactured? Is it not time that we should prohibit the importation of articles which can be manufactured here? We send our raw materials and our money out of the country to create employment for the workers of other nations. We send our money overseas to provide work for the workers of other countries, and we do an injustice to our own people. Can we then be surprised that there are recriminations and dissatisfaction in the labour world? Other countries provide for their millions, and our Government is busy helping them to provide for those millions. But our own workers receive starvation wages and are degraded by unemployment. In the Bible one reads: Begin at Jerusalem. I say that it is our greatest and most holy duty in South Africa to provide for our poor people and the unemployed, and not first to provide for those of other countries. We send our money overseas to buy things there; we provide work for people overseas and our own people must pick up the crumbs. The labourer works but he cannot keep body and soul together on that small wage. He works, and in whose interest does he work? He works to fill the pocket of the rich man. With his small wage he is busy filling the pocket of the rich man, and the rich man lives on the blood and sweat of the poor. The Minister of Labour taught me that years and years ago, and therefore I speak in this strain today. We feel that the time has arrived that the worker should not only be satisfied with his wage but there should be a bonus, and we must very seriously consider uplifting the unemployed in the sphere of labour in this sense, that they should receive their usual wages in factories and industry and elsewhere, but the labourer should also share in the nett profits of those factories and industries. I say the time has arrived when we should consider creating a satisfied world and a satisfied labour force in South Africa. I do not see why the rich man should take it all and why the rest should be left in poverty and want. The one has £100 per month to provide for the requirements of his household, and the other has to do it on £10. Will we ever be able to create a satisfied South Africa if we continue on this road, as we did in the past? The capitalist has no consideration for the worker. The capitalist is busy killing the fatted sheep and takes the best; the poor man receives the offal. No, the time has arrived that we should tackle this great matter with commonsense and bring it to finality, in order that not only the rich man, the capitalist, should be satisfied, but so that every member of the community, the workers of the country, whether they are European, coloured or native, should also be satisfied. We must do that. But as long as the capitalist retains his stranglehold on the workers* of the country, we will never accomplish that beautiful ideal. If no changes are made —and I speak very seriously here—we are busy creating revolution in the country and we are drifting towards the spilling of blood. The labour world is dissatisfied and we cannot blame them when today they are grasping at any other means which will help them. I say they will grasp at Communism. They will leave the Labour Party, they will leave the United Party, they will leave the Nationalist Party; they will grasp at anything that they consider will save them, if we do not co-operate in solving this great problem. I say the Government is aware, and everyone in this House is aware of the approaching catastrophe, and I say that the explosion will come because we did not do our duty in the past. Now we bring in these small, one-sided, inefficient Bills. Can the Minister blame us for having hurriedly drawn up an amendment to see whether the Minister will not further consider drawing up thorough and comprehensive plans for the provision of work to the unemployed and to enforce the principle of separatism in all spheres of labour? How can the Minister refuse to accept this amendment? It is essential. I do not say it is the solution. We just hurriedly drew up a little thing and handed it to him. Perhaps he will tell us that next year he will introduce a broad, comprehensive plan.

Who made this little thing?

Keep quiet in the kitchen.

Just a few words in regard to separatism. I said in the past that the principle of separatism is not only acceptable to the European but also to the coloured and to the native. We all want to be separate, but we are forced to mix through the pressure of certain unnational elements. No right-thinking English-speaking person in this country, or Afrikaansspeaking person, is against this great principle of separatism. I say that we as Afrikaners and English are truly unanimous on that point. We will not stay together with coloureds and natives in the same hotel or in many other places. We are in favour of separation. Bring a native or a coloured into a European hotel, and he feels unhappy. He does not feel at home. Why then cannot we have separation in our industries? Why that mixed labour? Why should we cause hatred? I plead not only for separateness in all spheres of labour, but I also want to plead that we should consider separating the coloured and the native. The coloured dislikes working together with the native. They are two different nations with their own ideology, and seeing that the coloured lives on a higher standard than the native, one cannot expect that coloured and native should be forced to work together. I say that God made us different and we are all happy. Each of us has his own nature and way of life. The coloured wants to work with other coloureds in his own surroundings, and the same applies to the natiye. Now the Parliamentary Leader of the Labour Party, the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) reproaches the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans) for haying seen with his own eyes the mix-up and how coloureds and natives and Europeans work together in the factories in Johannesburg. Now the hon. member has committed a great sin. Could we not have expected the hon. member for Krugersdorp to bring the true facts to light years ago? I want to ask whether the hon. member, for Krugersdorp is also busy victimising the hon. member for Losberg with his criticism because he told us the truth. We can well ask: Is there still a Labour Party? Does something like that still exist? Is there still a party which acts on behalf of the poor man and steps into the breach for the salvation of the worker? We as an Opposition feel that. We are in the minority at present; all we can do is to criticise constructively. It is for the Minister to listen to it and to accept it. We on this side do not treat this as a political matter. It is no political matter. It is a general and a common matter, and we all feel the same. We feel concerned and look for a solution. We want to solve the problem of unemployment, and for that reason we plead for the Minister to adopt this amendment as it stands. It will be a nice gesture; it will be a good start; it will give rise to co-operation in the future, a hearty co-operation with a view to the solution of the unemployment problem.

Mr. Speaker, I welcome this Bill because it goes a long way towards relieving a very serious problem, namely the employment of juveniles. At this stage I should like to pay tribute to the work done by the Juvenile Affairs Boards over a number of years while they were in existence. If it were not for these boards many of our boys and girls, on leaving school, would have had no employment, but through the working of the boards thousands of them all over the country have been placed in suitable employment. I should like, as I said on the previous occasion to see the work of the boards extended throughout the Union. I believe that throughout the Free State there are a number of boards, with a central board at Bloemfontein. In the larger areas of the Cape, Natal and the Transvaal we also have our Juvenile Affairs Boards which are doing excellent work, and I should like to see this principle extended to some of the other districts which are thickly populated, because of the good work they really can perform on behalf of our juveniles.

That is contemplated.

School principals have to notify the boards of all students up to 18 years of age who leave school, and I would like at this stage to pay tribute to the school principals of the Union who have given such help to the boards every year, supplying to them the lists of pupils leaving school, thereby making the work of the boards much easier. This can still be carried on. In the earlier stages of the work of the Juvenile Affairs Board—I go back now quite a number of years—this board was looked upon unfavourably by a large proportion of the commercial community, but later they found that it was valuable to them, and that when they wanted juveniles they could go to the board for their requirements. For that reason I hope that in the near future these boards will be extended. I now want to come to the Act. The Act defines a juvenile workseeker as a workseeker under the age of 18 years. 1 notice that at the end of Section (b) of Section 1 on Page 4 of the Act one finds that it does not include a male person over 65 years of age or a female person over 60 years of age. Now, I wonder how the Minister can reconcile and provide for them by creation of a board called the Juvenile Affairs Board because I cannot understand how a person of 65 or 60 can be a juvenile, unless such persons are in their second childhood. I realise, as I said before, that the Bill is one going in the right direction, but there is one other matter to which I should like to draw the attention of the Minister, and that is in line 45 on the first page of the Bill. It is there stated, under the definition of “native”—

“Native” meaning any person belonging to one or other of two categories stated. I understand that at present we have a Juvenile Affairs Board for the sole purpose of assisting coloured people, and if we could extend it to others, I would really like to see it extended to the natives.

Mr. Speaker, I think this Bill is a step in the right direction, but not, I hope, the last step.

Hear, hear.

I visualise, with our supposedly large industrial expansion, an extension of the facilities for employment, and that we shall need legislation which will go very much further than this Bill provides for at the moment. The hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander) in his remarks this morning has indicated some of the problems which confront officials who are responsible for carrying out the provisions of this Bill, what they will have to contend with, and apparently some of those matters raised by the hon. member for Castle are not provided for in this Bill. That is one reason why I say I hope it will not be the last step. No, in my opinion, very much depends on the officers or secre taries of the boards, who will be appointed by the Minister. Clause 3 reads—

You will notice that from the reading of this clause, the only qualification which that officer requires is to be bilingual. Now, I agree that it is essential that the officer performing a task of that description should be bilingual, but I also think, Sir, that that officer or secretary, as the case may be, needs other qualifications.

Hear, hear.

I consider that it is absolutely essential that this clause should be amended in some direction to provide that that officer must have some experience or training for the job which he is going to undertake.

Hear, hear.

I think that following on “bilingual” should be added the words “and trained officers”, because I feel that unless it is laid down in this clause, or somewhere else in the Bill, that the officer is to have experience and training, many persons will be appointed who are no improvement upon the class of individual who has been handling this type of work in the Juvenile Affairs Boards of the past; and I know from my experience that very often a young civil servant has received an appointment for the position. Well, if we think that a young and inexperienced civil servant is going to make an efficient officer for the placing of juveniles, or adults for that matter, in employment, we are making a very big mistake. Now, Sir, I received a letter the other day from Miss H. B. White, the Research Officer for Labour Management Problems. This lady has been engaged in that type of work in connection with the boot and shoe industry for quite a number of years. I may say that knowing the lady personally and having come into contact with her in the execution of her duties, I know that she is very capable and very conscientious and a thinking person, who takes a very deep interest in all matters pertaining to the efficiency of the industry; and she has taken the opportunity of the introduction of this Bill this Session to make some pertinent remarks with regard to it, and some observations as to where she thinks it can be improved. She deals more specifically with the appointment of the secretary of the board, who is to be appointed by the Minister. She, in a letter to me, proceeds to say—

I do not know whether I am in entire agreement with her there. Whilst I agree with most of the observations made by this lady which showed a very intimate knowledge of what is required, I am not prepared to follow her to the extent that one has to have a university trained person for every post of that kind; but I do contend that the officer or secretary must have some knowledge of industry and its requirements and some special aptitude for the job to be able to fulfil the requirements of the post satisfactorily. I sincerely hope that the Minister will, before the committee stage of this Bill is reached, see to it that this particular clause is amended so that provision is made that the person so appointed shall have some special knowledge or training to fit him for the post. Then there is another point which occurs to me. Reading through the Bill I do not find any mention of the remuneration of such an officer. I suppose that the scale of remuneration may vary according to the extent of the job which the officer is required to fulfil, but what is the first essential. Whatever type of job he has to carry out, the first essential is a living wage; and I do want to point out that if we want to get real efficiency from the officials in this particular type of work— and efficient officers are absolutely essential if the Bill is going to be a success—we must remunerate them in accordance with the responsibilities which they will carry. Then there is another point I wish to mention, in Clause 14, in regard to the composition of the board. In my view many boards are unwieldly because of their size, and I think that the Minister will agree that a smaller board has more likelihood than a big one of working efficiently. I see in the present Bill that the Minister makes provision for a minimum of six members of the board and a maximum of 18. Well. I would suggest to the Minister that he should work on the basis of six as much as he possibly can. It makes provision for two from each section which he visualises may be appointed to the board; also their alternates, and in my opinion I am very positive that the Minister, from his own experience of various types of committees, must agree with me that the smaller the committee is the more efficient is the work performed by it.

Coming from the conservative benches opposite, the socialist sentiments of the hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen) must have rejoiced the heart of the Minister, except, of course, that the hon. member did not explain how his plan was to be brought about or how the change over was to be carried into effect. He complained bitterly about unemployment at present, despite the fact that South Africa at the moment has less unemployment than it has had for many years. He contended that the Minister should first of all provide employment, quite forgetting the fact that when the Opposition party were in power in 1932 the kind of employment they provided was to put people on the roads at 3s. 6d. a day. Then, of course, there were a lot of complaints about there being no differentiation in this Bill, but that I will deal with later. I am one of those who welcome the Bill, because I feel if we really are to have a planned society, a planned economy if the State is to take on the duty of providing opportunities for employment, it seems to me the logical first step is to have a register of those persons offering themselves for employment. You cannot provide work, as the Opposition amendment asks the Government to do, without knowing the numbers of those who ought to be provided with employment. It is quite obvious that the amendment tabled by the Opposition seeks to put the cart before the horse, and the Minister’s reply to that is the correct one, that he must know the numbers for whom he may have to provide employment, when private industry fails to do so. I believe private industry too will welcome this Bill, because it will provide some statistics some figures regarding the number of those seeking employment, and, as the House is aware, South Africa is lamentably lacking in statistics of that nature. It was sad and amusing too to hear the hon. member for Namaqualand again perpetuate that old fallacy that South Africa is a wealthy country, that it is a land of milk and honey, whereas, of course, statistics show and the economists have proved times without number that South Africa, judging by income per head of population, is one of the poorest of countries. South Africa is far from being a rich country. It is indeed one of the poorest of countries. So I say it is necessary if we are to have a planned society, and that it is necessary if we are to develop industry in the post-war period along the lines we want it to go, that we should have the machinery that is to be set up in this Bill which is welcomed by the country. But there are one or two gaps in the Bill. For instance, the Minister does not necessarily take power under this Bill to establish boards and juvenile affairs boards for natives. The Minister does not take power to do it immediately. The Bill as drafted gives him the power to do it after consultation with the Native Affairs Department. That consultation is undoubtedly necessary, but I would like some assurance from the Minister that he will set up boards for native workseekers in the towns, and also juvenile affairs boards for the natives, for the reason that on the Witwatersrand the native juvenile delinquent is becoming a far more urgent and far more pressing problem than was before. We want to take the juvenile natives off the streets. We want some record of their numbers. And I do hope that the Minister will appoint such separate boards as he has the power to do under this Bill a very necessary power, that he will set up native juvenile affairs boards so that we can have some idea in our urban areas of the numbers of native juveniles that will be coming into the labour market. I hope also that he will set up boards to deal with any native work-seekers, just as he is doing with European workers. The problem is even more pressing, if that is possible, for native work-seekers, and in respect of native juveniles, than it is for Europeans; because at least there is some organisation for European work-seekers at the moment, and there is very little provision indeed for the natives. There is another gap, too, which I would like to see filled. The Minister has exempted agricultural labourers and also domestic servants from the provisions of the Act. I know that it is customary to exempt farmers from the operations of Acts of this character, but I feel the time is coming when any general plan of the nature of this Bill should include farming. Farmers, e.g., were exempted originally from the Workmen’s Compensation Act, yet the Minister in his amending Bill has inserted a permissive clause allowing them to come in if they wish. I would like the Minister to put a permissive clause in this Bill too, saying that farmers and agricultural labourers may register if they wish. Make it voluntary to begin with, and if it is clear it works well the clause in regard to agricultural labourers should be made compulsory. Then in regard to domestic servants I feel that a Bill of this sort should recognise that there is an important field of domestic employment; and I feel it would be a benefit to the employers and to the servants themselves that they should be brought into the Bill, perhaps on a voluntary basis to start with, but also here, should it prove a succes, later a general compulsory clause could be applied. Those are gaps that I would like to see filled in. I would also like to deal with the point made by the hon. member who has last spoken, the hon. member for Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson). He was dealing with a letter addressed to him by Miss White in connection with vocational guidance. I should like to say I am in full accord with nearly all she said in her letter, for I personally think that the comparative failure of the juvenile affairs boards up to date partly lies in the type of officer that we have as employment officers. Out of 40,000 juveniles leaving school in 1939 there were only 13,000 registered and only 6,000 odd have been placed in employment. I maintain it is of first-class importance that the employment officers appointed both to the Juvenile Affairs Boards and to deal with the adult work-seekers should be a trained officer who is conversant both with the labour market and who has enough understanding and training in psychology to be able to sort out types of work-seekers, so as to guide them into the proper channels. I would remind the Minister that our universities are catering for such trained workers. I am not referring only to the social workers who are trained. For instance, the University of Stellenbosch has a vocational guidance course, and the University of Grahamstown has a department for training personnel and welfare officers. Those courses are providing the sort of staff that is needed in the sorting out of workseekers, juvenile and adult. I think where the universities go to the trouble of training people for these jobs the country will be missing an opportunity if we do not make it compulsory to employ officers with training in vocational guidance under a Bill of this sort. I certainly would not press for university training for clerks, but when it comes to the officers responsible for placing the people, for putting a round peg into a round hole and not into a square hole. I say that the Minister must in the interests of the successful functioning of the Bill, and in the interests of the country at large, see to it that he takes advantage of the trained personnel our universities are turning out. Otherwise why train them?

You cannot train people in psychology.

Why not? You can train them in vocational guidance. I am not saying they should be trained in psychology only, though psychology should be included in the course.

You cannot get commonsense out of ….

The point is that people trained in vocational guidance have a general all-round training which is necessary in the successful functioning of this kind of Bill, and I would like to ask the Minister if he does not want to amend the Bill so as to include that they should necessarily have professional qualifications, that he would accept some amendment that the people appointed as employment officers should have training in vocational guidance. The Minister is perfectly well aware that vocational guidance includes a knowledge of the field of industry and a knowledge of the work available, and it also includes, on the other hand ….

You have to be practical.

You can get it in the practical field provided by the Administration. I should feel happier about this Bill if the Minister would consider this point at the Committee stage, and put in some words to ensure that the employment officer is not only bilingual but that he shall have some adequate training. It does seem to me it is really imperative for the successful functioning cf this Bill; and the juvenile affairs boards which the Minister says he proposes to extend, if they have these professional officers, will have a much better record in the years to come than the successful placing of 6,000 out of 40,000 juveniles in one year. Finally, I would like to compliment the Minister on at least one thing ….

There is one thing.

I should say perhaps, one additional thing. For the first time in any Bill the definition of “guardian” in this Bill makes the point that where the father is absent the mother shall be the guardian, and that certainly is a very distinct improvement on any legislation we have had, and I would like to compliment the Minister on that advance.

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

Just a few preliminary words in connection with the speech of the hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon). But before I reply to a few of the thoughts expressed by her. I want to refer to the very unsavoury interjection which the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) made during the course of her speech. The hon. member for Jeppes was referring to the Union of South Africa as having one of the poorest populations in the world, and then the hon. member for Troyeville interjected that if they are very poor, it is as a result of their inefficiency. I challenge that sort of statement, and I challenge them the more when they emanate from a person like the hon. member for Troyeville. The two settled portions of the European population of the country had to go through a very difficult process. Where it took other nations centuries to develop from a pastoral to an industrial and commercial nation, the two settled portions of the nation in South Africa went through that whole process in practically one generation. I think that they did very well under all the circumstances, and I am convinced that the large measure of poverty which exists is primarily the result of exploitation by unscrupulous hunters of fortune who came here from elsewhere and were parasites on the settled population.

And there were Jews amongst them too.

When that hon. member states here that our population is poor as a result of inefficiency, I wish to tell him that if our population is poor, it is poor as the result of the unscrupulous exploitation by strange interlopers and foreign exploiters coming to this country. The hon. member for Jeppes made the remark that we on this side of the House have no right to speak about the interests of the poor workers because in the past, when this Party was in power, we paid 3s. a day to certain workers, or in any case whatever figure she did mention. Allow me to say that if the hon. member wants to revert to the dim past, when circumstances and conceptions of life were quite different, and if she blames us that we in those days paid a small wage to the workers, I wish to inform her that we were forced to pay those wages because we inherited a bankrupt Treasury from the Government preceding us, of which she is a supporter. She also said that she objects to the farmers not being included in the provision of this Bill. I readily wish to agree that if all sections had been provided for in this Bill, it would in a sense have promoted the effect of the Bill. But as a practical farmer I know this, that although we as farmers perhaps would have liked very much to be included in the provisions of the Bill, there are so many practical difficulties connected with it that I do not think the effect of this Bill would be assisted to any great extent by including the farmers.

When you speak about all sections, do you mean ethnological sections?

The hon. member for Jeppes said that the farmers should also be included. I now say that that would perhaps have been good, but I do not think that it would serve the purposes of this Bill. The farming community is widely separated; they live far from each other, and in addition we know that farmers generally need seasonal labourers. They use a small number of labourers, but then they again need a large number for a week or so. In that way the number of labourers in their employ varies from time to time. A farmer like that probably lives 25 or 30 miles from the Post Office or from the place where the registration official is posted; is he now expected to give notice every time he employs new labourers, and again when they leave his service? We must view the matter from a practical point of view. It will give rise to a position where there will be one prosecution after the other of such people, or else the Act will continually be evaded, and the evasion will be permitted, something which certainly cannot be of advantage to the application of this Act, and for the attainment of the objects with which this Bill was introduced. We on this side of the House have already clearly stated that we welcome the registration of unemployed. That registration must be done with a definite object in view. The object is to ascertain how many unemployed there are in the country, in order to be able to supply work for them. That is the point of view of this side, that there should be registration of unemployed in order to provide work for them. In the second place there should be registration in order to ehable us to make the most economical use of our manpower. Thirdly, there should be a systematic division of labour between the various groups of the population. In that spirit also we moved our amendment. I personally am in favour of the registration of the unemployed, but I cannot congratulate the Minister on his introduction of this Bill, because it does not in the least fulfil one of the aims which we on this side have in view with regard to the registration of the unemployed. The preamble to the Bill is very imposing. It seems that the time has now dawned that all workers should be registered; that it should be done properly by the State and that an attempt should be made to provide a living for people who are destitute. But if we refer to Clause 2 of the Bill, we see how far this measure falls short. It is there provided that the Minister by means of a notice in the Government Gazette can declare that the adult workseekers in a stated category of workseekers in a stated area must have themselves registered. As regards adult workseekers the Minister will proclaim certain areas. In other words, all the adult workseekers in a proclaimed area must register themselves. I find fault with this and I say that if there is registration that registration should be for the whole country. I want to make this statement, that in the olden days when the: were large numbers of unemployed, it was not only the cities who suffered through that. That unemployment also caused misei on the platteland. The fact that there was unemployment in the large cities caused the greatest misery on the platteland, and v on this side say that if the Act is suitable to a certain area, it is suitable for every other area. We then come to Clause 9. There we find that the Ministertan proclaim certain areas as areas where Juvenile Affairs Boards should come into operation. That will again put the children of the country towns in far worse position than those in the cities. In present circumstances we know that it i particularly difficult for the platteland child to find work. He is far away from the various labour circles, and for that reason we fin the greatest poverty on the platteland, because it is very difficult for those children to find work. This Bill now provides that the children in the proclaimed areas should be registered. They are children who have attained a fairly high educational standard They either reached matric or a standard where it is no longer necessary for them to remain at school—that is clearly stipulated in the Bill—and they must then be registered with the Board which the Minister wil institute in the proclaimed areas. I say that if the Minister now proceeds to proclaim only certain areas, it is inevitable that the platteland child will again suffer tremendously. We should not discriminate in this connection. If we do that, I am convinced that the platteland child will suffer intensely. If we have the position provided for in this Bill, that the boys and girls of only certain areas will be registered on leaving school, we can be sure that those people will be the first to be considered when there is an opportunity for obtaining work. They will essentially receive the first consideration when those boards have to place the boys and girls 4n employment. The result will be that the platteland boys and girls must suffer because they are not registered. They will have to find their own way, while the others are assisted to earn a living. The Minister wants to register a certain group of unemployed, and I say that the Minister ought to adopt the point of view of this side of the House, that the people in the country as a whole should be registered, and that the State should then give them the assurance that it will assist them to earn a proper living. We are continually talking about social security. I am not an expert, but in my honest opinion it is nonsense to speak about social security unless one has taken the first step namely to assure every willing worker of an opportunity to obtain work. With the best will in the world one cannot provide social security for the nation if one does not give the mass of the people decent work. For that reason we moved our amendment and we say that we are in favour of the registration of the unemployed but in addition we demand that the State once and for all must accept the responsibility of providing work for those people. We on this side believe that the State is not doing the citizen a favour by providing work for him. We believe that humanity has developed to that degree where it is the holy duty of the State to provide work, decent work, for every citizen who is willing to work. The hon. Minister last year already in another Act—let me express it that way —under pressure accepted the principle of State responsibility for a group of people as regards the provision of employment. Why does not the Minister accept the first portion of our very reasonable amendment? I want to say that if the Minister of Labour does not adopt this first portion of our amendment, it is very clear to me that the Minister does not sit there as the champion of the working classes in the country, but in the role of the brightly painted doll of the capitalistic ventriloquist. What prevents the Government from adopting this principle of State responsibility for the provision of work for its citizens? When does unemployment become a problem? When is it really necessary to register the unemployed? Only when commerce and industry are in such straits that there is a surplus of people who demand work. South Africa will probably after the war reach a state of affairs where there will again be a number of unemployed. The Minister proceeds to register them. But the question I wish to put to him is this: We have heard that the Juvenile Affairs Boards, as they are now constituted could only place in employment a few thousand youths out of 30,000 who applied in one year. That was under favourable conditions. If conditions after the war are unfavourable, and there is a surplus of workers, and those who have no employment are registered, what will the Government do if it does not accept responsibility for providing employment for these people? Really, I cannot appreciate the spirit which is behind this refusal. The Minister proceeds to register the people, and if the State finds that they cannot place these people in employment, what will the State do with them? Will it allow them to wander about the plains of South Africa as unemployed? It would be a shame for a young country like South Africa, which still has to be developed and which has its future still ahead of it. It will be a shame if we permit them to wander about as unemployed. I honestly believe that that is not the intention of the Minister, but if it is not his intention, why does the Minister not take the bull by the horns and say that he and the Government in future adopt the principle that the State is responsible for the existence of the citizens of the country? There is only one other expedient, and that is that unemployment allowances should be paid to those who are unemployed. I think that we should have to hide our heads in shame if we in South Africa were to be forced to pay an unemployment allowance to the unemployed citizens of our country. The hon. the Prime Minister in a speech during this Session assured us that the great problem after the war in South Africa will not be unemployment, but a shortage of labourers. I do not think I am interpreting the Prime Minister’s words wrongly. He said that the problem would not be unemployment, but a shortage of workers. Are we now busy trying to satisfy the workers of South Africa with words which carry no guarantee? If the Minister and the country believe that the words of the Prime Minister are correct and that the problem with which we shall be faced will not be unemployment but a shortage of workers, where is the danger in this amendment proposed by us? If the Government believes that the State will be able to provide work for all the workers, why is the principle which has been pleaded for in our country so long, namely that the State should accept responsibility for the provision of employment, not accepted? It is my earnest conviction that if in future we want to have or to old in existence a settled South African nation, and if we want to maintain the great principles in which our nation believes, then it is our duty to prevent our people, and especially our workers, being pushed into the arms of revolutionary elements and it is our duty to prevent their being pushed into the hands of those who wish to introduce strange ideologies into this country; and we can only do it if we assure a decent living for all the citizens of the country. The Minister consistently refuses to accept this portion of our amendment, but allow me to tell the Minister this, that if this Government will not accept the principle of State responsibility for the citizens of the country in so far as their earning a living is concerned, we on this side will govern the country in the near future, or else we will force the Government to do its duty towards the citizens of South Africa. We have now come to the conviction that it does not help a jot to try to satisfy the people of South Africa by means of beautiful words and beautiful ideas, while in the end nothing is actually done. We must decide on a radical change, and those of us who have something must in future be content to put our hands in our pockets and to pay the taxes which are erquired. We shall have to make proper provision for the poor in our country, or else European civilisation is doomed. That is my earnest conviction. Another aim of our amendment and of the idea of the registration of workers is that the manpower of our country should be used systematically, but also that cannot be achieved by this present Bill. We cannot do that unless we also register the natives. The hon. Minister says that it can be done. It can be done in conjunction with the Department of Native Affairs. But we point out that for some years we have been busy with the Minister of Native Affairs, and he has got into the habit of throwing his hands into the air in connection with a matter and saying that he can do nothing. Will we this afternoon witness the scene of the Minister of Labour also throwing up his hands and saying that he can do nothing about the matter? We are in favour of natives being registered. We have heard, from the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) about the miserable conditions in the Cape Peninsula. In the past we also heard about that, but today the position is that thousands upon thousands of natives rush in. It is therefore necessary that native unemployed should also be registered. The way in which our labour force is being used in this country is a sin. We hear every day that we should increase our production; every day we are told that we are one of the countries with the lowest national income of any civilised country in the world, and therefore we must increase our powers of production. How can we increase our powers of production to full capacity if the people in the country are not prepared to work? One finds the condition on the platteland that thousands of farmers simply cannot produce because they have no labourers, but at the same time the locations in the country towns are full of natives who will not work. We feel that natives should also be registered, and then only can one use one’s manpower systematically. A third great principle is contained in our amendment, and that is the systematic division of work amongst the various groups of the population. Therefore we propose the quota system. In our country we have three different population groups, the Europeans who have attained a certain standard of civilisation, the coloureds who have attained a lower standard of civilisation, and the natives who have attained a still lower standard, and because in this country we have the European civilisation which we must save and maintain, we are in favour of imposing a quota for the various groups of the populationtion as regards labour circles in our industries. I am convinced in my soul that we owe our primary duty to the European workers, if we want to maintain European civilisation, and I apologise to nobody in the world because that is my conviction. When we say that a decent standard of life should be created for the European, we realise that it is essential that there should be separate labour circles, and that our workers’ organisations must apply the principle of separateness. We do not do this just for any reason, but because we are convinced that if the Minister continues to permit that Europeans and non-Europeans should work together in our country, we can expect one result, and one only, and that is that in the national consciousness, especially amongst the generation to come, that clear realisation of the colour bar will be absent, and then European civilisation must suffer. We on this side feel that we must in every possible way keep the idea of the colour bar very actively before the eyes of the nation. The hon. the Prime Minister a little while ago stated here that in this connection matters are fast improving. I cannot accept that statement. When we read that people holding responsible positions in connection with our workers say things like the following, we realise that conditions are dangerous—

Then it continues further—

If we permit that the workers should be put into the same pens any longer, nothing good can flow from it in future for the country. What good can it be to South Africa when we permit coloured and European workers to belong to the same organisations? It can do no good but can only do harm in future. We therefore plead with the Minister to accept the principle of separate labour circles and separate workers’ organisations. But it seems to me as if when hon. members on the opposite side of the House cannot satisfy themselves with the liberal attitude of the Government, they try to satisfy the people outside and want to make a scapegoat of the Minister of Labour, a figleaf behind which they want to hide the liberalistic tendencies of their Party and of their Government. I admit that the Minister of Labour exhibits liberal tendencies, but we also know that it is not only the Minister of Labour who exhibits that tendency. He is only one of twelve, and we can realise that. In 1926, however, this House adopted legislation which accepted the principle of separate labour circles and quotas for various sections of the population. At that time the Minister of Labour was a member of the Government and he voted for the principle of fixed quotas for Europeans and non-Europeans. But then he was a member of a Government which was not liberalistically inclined, but truly nationally inclined. Now that same person serves another Government, and he no longer stands for the same principles, but consistently refuses to adopt the principle of separateness and of quotas. The objection I have is that some members opposite want to convince their constituents that it is not the Government which is liberalistically inclined, but that they are landed with a Minister of Labour who is such a great liberalist. That is not correct. He is a great liberalist, but only one of twelve, and as far as this matter is concerned, the team pulls together beautifully.

Th hon. member has come before the House with a Registration for Employment Bill which is somewhat worse than if you had to deal with a one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed person. It is a Bill which leaves out the most important counterpart. If he told us he was coming before the House with an Employment Bill coupled with a Bill for unemployment, we would have been satisfied, and there would have been no amendments.

You have not been listening; there was one.

Not the one we contemplate in the amendment before this House. The hon. Minister is worse than the centipede who tried to make it on one leg and left 99 behind. I want to remind the Minister there is such a thing as losing your enthusiasm, and that is what happens to the unemployed throughout South Africa when they have to register month after month and experience the same disappointments month after month. I would like to assure the Minister that though this new legislation may perhaps not make men criminals it will make them people who have to disobey the law because they find the law that is made is utterly useless as far as they are concerned. I want to remind the Minister of the bridegroom who was about to get married. When there is a marriage there is not only a bridegroom but a bride. This bridegroom was standing before the pulpit waiting for the bride. His best man noticed him fumbling in his pockets and asked him whether he had lost anything. The bride was late. The bridegroom said, “Yes, I have lost my enthusiasm.” That will be the position in which 99 per cent. of those who have to register under this Bill will find themselves. The importance of this amendment which has been moved cannot be overestimated. It embodies a large part of the fundamental programme of the Herenigde Nasionale Party. The Minister may smile. He would like to have that as part of the constitution and programme of principles of his own party.

Rubbish.

But he is not able to do so.

Where is your imagination?

The Minister is quite right. His party is really not interested in universal employment either in South Africa or in any other country.

That does not come well from you.

When I say that I am not trying to belittle the Minister. The Minister has a good heart. The Minister personally wants everyone to have employment, but it is his party that will not have it.

Do not be silly.

His party is concerned with groups of persons, and for those groups of persons they want closed doors—which they always say the medical profession has. Is there any other profession which has tried so continuously, which has gone to the Government, which has secured new means and new universities for increasing the output of personnel to the greatest extent possible, than the medical profession? Does the Minister’s party stand for that, to train even a larger number than is required for each particular group of workers in the country? No, the doors must be closed; the numbers must be kept limited; and the wages must be kept up. I appreciate that one aspect of the Minister’s attitude, that the wages which are paid must be such that the persons in that group may have an honourable and healthy existence. That I appreciate.

Tell us the real difference between your profession and the trades; it is you are protected by the law and the trades are not.

The Minister knows he protects the groups of technicians and workers much more strongly than the medical profession does its members. They have an apprenticeship system which makes it impossible for the young man from the platteland ever to get into that profession at all; I call it a profession, I call the trades a profession; there is no difference between the trade and the profession. The trade has to be learned in three, four or five years, but it does shut its doors to a large proportion of the population, and in that respect is, I say, in a worse position than the medical profession. But we need not labour that point. I know the hon. Minister in his heart would welcome this amendment and would really like to have it applied to the whole country, but he is not in a position to do so. As the hon. member who spoke last has pointed out, this is a fundamental amendment which has been moved, and it carries with it what we regard as the basis of all social security in the country. Why has the Minister to come to us hoping that we shall believe he has a pair of scales which he wishes to balance, a scale of unemployment, and on the other side weighing it down with an equal quantity of employment? We know very well he has a ton on the one side and a feather on the other. What weight is there in this that you can compare with more than a featherweight if you have on the other side a ton of unemployment? We regard this amendment as absolutely fundamental. If we are not prepared in South Africa to come forward and say it is the duty of the State to arrange matters so that there will be potential employment for every portion of the population, then I can only say we misunderstand the function of government as it is interpreted today. Yesterday was quite different.

Of course it was when you were in power.

The function of government was regarded in a very different light in the past.

Why?

Simply because the world has changed, and the world has developed.

Because Germany is beaten.

Let me tell the hon. member this, that Germany set an example in giving employment to its people. She may have done it in the wrong way. She would have been an example to the whole world if she had not given employment largely in the form of military activity. [Interruption.] I am not arguing that point. I say they set a tremendous example to the world in providing their people with employment 100 per cent. Does the hon. member not wish that could be the case in South Africa, in America and Great Britain.

On the same conditions, on the same standard?

We need not labour that point.

Not the same standard of living.

I am not talking of those conditions. I submit it is not necessary it should be on a lower standard either.

It was.

If you get the last Reader’s Digest you will see that it was only in Russia that the standard was so high that the Minister would not know it if he saw it.

Are you prepared to subscribe to socialism?

And digest it.

I am sure he can. I say again we in South Africa are looking forward to the day when there will be a new conception of the function of government. I know this is not regarded at present as a function of a government by everyone. I have spoken to economists and they say: It is utterly wrong, it is not the function of government to create employment for the people.

[Inaudible.]

I understand the hon. member agrees that it is the function of government. He does not agree; consequently he agrees it is the function of government.

It is the other way round.

When we ask for this new function of government it is not entirely a question of giving employment to hundreds of thousands of people in South Africa and other countries, but we go further and say that the time has come when it must be realised it is the function of the State to take cognisance of the standard of employment of its whole population and to encourage private enterprise to such an extent that employment can be given to the largest numbers possible. It should create employment by means of Government works, such employment as is necessary in the railways, defence and police departments— and that is what the hon. member means when he says that Germany went wrong— and in other State departments, so that work can be given to a large number of persons. When those avenues are exhausted the Government shall start such enterprises as neither the Government itself nor private enterprise wishes to embark upon. There you have certain intermediary types of employment, given by utility companies and by other organisations which have a certain amount of State support. That matter may still be in the experimental stage. There may be certain doubts still as to the exact functions and necessity and advantages, and even on the question as to whether it should exist. But if these intermediary organisations could give employment, these utility companies and other semi-State ‘ organisations, it should be exploited to the full. But when these avenues have been exhausted and the large or small reservoir of unemployment still exists in the country, it is the duty of the State to make provision for these persons who cannot be absorbed in either Government, semi-Government or private enterprises by means of State schemes. It should take cognisance of the whole field of unemployment in the country. It is only when we really consider and investigate this new function of government that we can come to any decision and say to ourselves. It is the duty of the State or it is not the duty of the State. When we have decided that part of the programme we can go on to create the employment. But I am sure that in the world as it is today, no government can for long exist unless it accepts that absolute responsibility that it is its function to create employment, compatible with good living conditions, in so far as the wealth or the resources of the State allow it. Now, how far do the resources of South Africa allow of safe and universal employment? The resources of a country are those assets which it can use internally, and those which are necessary for export, and those products which we have internally in South Africa are fortunately largely of such a nature that they can give satisfactory living conditions, if thoroughly organised, to the whole of the population. What does human life demand? What is demanded for the sustenance of human life? Air and water and food and good enviroment and to combat these things which militate against good food and good environment. We have all these necessary resources in South Africa. We will some day produce the food, if we do hot produce it today. It is almost impossible to say in South Africa that the resources of the country do not allow of universal employment at a wage which will give to the individual the primary necessities of life. When I make that statement I do so with the full feeling of responsibility, because it is something which can be thrown back at one at any future time. I say it because I believe it is true. I believe that by organisation we can give food and housing and a large measure of health to every individual in South Africa. But we must organise. I do not say that there will be a high wage. There may be a 10s. a day wage, but what does that matter? What does it matter whether the wage is £1 or 10s., if it buys the fundamental necessities of life? Therefore we have to arrange our internal economy so that those fundamentals of life, through employment, can be given to our people, and that is why we regard this amendment as absolutely fundamental, to the whole programme, to the future programme of our Party, which we believe will form the next Government of South Africa. We are not afraid to state it publicly today and to propagate it in the country, because we have the full belief that it will be carried out by the future government, just as it is not carried out by this Government. If the Minister will accept the principle that the Government should provide full employment so far as compatible with the resources of the country for the whole of the population, he can join this party; but he cannot accept it and he will not join it because …

He cannot speak Afrikaans.

That is all right. We will teach him.

But I do not want to join your Party.

You cannot do so, because you have not got the faith, nor has your Government got it, because there are certain complexes which prevent you from doing so, and which prevent such a conglomeration of persons as there are today in the Government from carrying out a policy such as I have outlined here today.

That is a very good speech, you know, Karl.

Thank you, Walter. That is high praise, coming from you.

The Minister seems to agree with it.

We have always been in favour of giving the best we can to all sections of the community. It has been used in argument against us that we do not wish natives and coloureds and Europeans to work in the same rooms and under the same conditions and in the same social admixture with Europeans. We are not in favour of that and never will be; but that does not take away one iota from our determination to give to every member of the community these things which we ask for here today. We ask for it because we want to deal fairly and uprightly with every section of the community, because we want to give to the European worker, the coloured worker and the native worker those things which are necessary for the healthy existence of this country. We do not want thousands of natives — and I ask the Minister of Native Affairs to listen to this —to come to the urban areas uncontrolled. I know the Minister does not believe in it either. What do we believe? We believe that the native used in industry and in other spheres should be brought from the territories only after housing has been provided for him and work has been provided for him, and after we know what the wage is which he will receive.

Hear, hear.

Only then are we prepared that the native from the territories should come to the urban areas, under good conditions, and not under the foul, mean and low conditions which he has to create for himself when he comes here today. Those conditions are not directly created by us, but by him, because he comes here in numbers which only means exploitation but which cannot mean his uplift or be in his own best interests. That is the policy we demand in the creation of work for all sections of the community, and we want that work to be of such a kind that it will create a decent standard of living for each section of the community, where they will first of all be able to have the primary necessities of life, and after that where they will be raised up and improved as far as possible, as far as compatible with that separatism which we demand and which is part of our policy. Now, Mr. Speaker, I think I have said enough to convince the hon. the Minister. He, of course, will not admit that he is converted, but I am sure that if the hon. the Minister should today turn round and say that he is in favour of the State function of creating employment for the whole of the population, so far as it is compatible with the resources of the country, he will be on the right road. But I have no faith that this Government will do it. I know they are powerless to do it, because of the composition and completion, not only of the Cabinet, but of the whole Government party.

They are a fruit salad.

I do not say that I blame them for that composition; circumstances brought it about, but I do not believe that it will last for long, because when once a ship begins to sink we know who are the first to leave it.

I want to direct an appeal to the hon. the Minister in connection with this Bill. I want to appeal to him to let the matter go to a Select Committee and to tell him that there is considerable opposition to this measure in this House, not only from the Opposition benches but from other sources also. This Bill should not be dealt with in a Party spirit. It is a Bill which affects the whole community, and I think the best way in which to take it out of the Party arena, is to allow the measure to go to a Select Committee, with power to bring in a new Bill, if necessary. It seems to me that this Bill, which is intended to prevent unemployment and to put employers in touch with employees who would like to work, is only a half-bite into the cherry. One of the greatest problems we have to face in this country today is the question of discrimination between European and non-European. We have been too apt, in the past, to try to emulate other countries with homogeneous populations such as England and Australia, and I think it is time that we should come to the realisation that legislation which is suitable for England or Australia is not necessarily suitable for South Africa, with its complex population. I do not want to be unfair to any section of the population. If the hon. Minister will do what I suggest and let the matter go to a Select Committee, I think everyone in the country will be satisfied and pleased with the outcome.

With what object?

I will just say this, Mr. Speaker, that unless something is done on those lines, so that all sections of the community can be protected in the matter of employment, the European section of the population will be the first to suffer. They will be the unemployed and the other sections of the population will take their jobs; and what is going to be the position of the returned soldier? A few days ago we had it from the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister that there are some 60,000 South Africans engaged in war activities outside the borders of South Africa. Where is the employment coming from for these 60,000 returned soldiers? I say that unless we have some kind of machinery, such as I hope will eventuate from this Bill when it is put in proper form, there will be no employment for the soldiers. I recall the days before the war when the Department of Labour sent round its inspectors to various firms and suggested that they should engage more than one section of the community in their employ and that, in most cases, I believe, was done, but on a purely voluntary basis. Now we find a different situation arising in South Africa. Owing to the absence of our gallant soldiers from the country, while they are fighting to maintain white civilisation, their jobs have been taken up by other sections of the community, and how will those soldiers on their return be reinstated in their jobs? I can see great trouble looming up for the Government unless something is done in this connection. I should like to give an instance, for which I can vouch, of a large parking garage. Before the war the employees were all Europeans. All the employees who came into contact with the patrons of the garage were Europeans. Of course, the washing of the cars, the sweeping of the floors and work of that nature was done by natives. But all the work where the employees came into contact with the patrons of the garage was done entirely by Europeans. When the war broke out these young men said that they were going to join up and they did, and it was impossible to fill their places with European men. The firm then decided to give European girls a chance, and European girls were engaged to do the work of the men. But in due course the Government appealed for girls to join the Forces, and the girls all volunteered. What was left? Employees of non-European races were introduced to this garage and they are there today. There must have been hundreds of similar firms throughout South Africa where jobs formerly done by Europeans are now being done by natives and others, and with the expansion of trade in this country more jobs will be created which will be filled by non-Europeans. What are we going to do about the returned soldiers? This Bill will not help the position.

There are other Bills which force them to take the men back.

Much is being said, but when it comes to practical politics, nothing is done for these returned soldiers.

Hear, hear. Tell them.

So I tell the Minister that he must listen when we tell him that there must be differentiation in legislation in a country like ours, where there are mixed races, and unless we apply it, it will not be playing the game towards European civilisation, nor towards the returned soldiers, nor to other sections of the community. I want a fair deal for all, and the only way to get it through this measure is to let the Bill go to a Select Committee and to let the Select Committee bring in a Bill which will help us out of our difficulties.

I do not think that the monkeys of the Kalahari can equal the somersaults we have seen today on the Opposition front bench. Quite suddenly, after we have had experience of the administration of those hon. members who are sitting on the Opposition front benches, we hear the proposition that the State should accept responsibility for providing employment to the unemployed. I remember when in 1932 I went to see the Minister of Labour in connection with unemployment, the Government said to me: It is not our function, it is the function of the town councils, and we can only give work at 3s. 6d. a day.

On what occasion was that?

They must go back a little into their own past. As soon as we mention this they feel hurt. They cannot get away from that. Let me tell these hon. members that if there is one person who can talk about unemployment it is I. I have had experience of it under two governments. But I will not waste my time by going into that now, because those members are upset as soon as I stand up. It does not admit of doubt that the spectacle that the Opposition has afforded us yesterday and today in connection with the colour question has been very mirth-provoking. They can no longer use racialism to exploit the Afrikaansspeaking people against the English-speaking people and the Jews. Now they have grasped at the last straw, the non-European question. They have again exploited that question in this amendment, and they have endeavoured to exploit the fear of unemployment after the war with the amendment that they have proposed here, just to be in a position to be able to go to the voters and say, look, this is our star achievement in the House. And then they have the audacity to turn on us on this side of the House when we do not vote for this amendment, and to challenge us with being in favour of white men and natives and white girls and coloured girls working alongside each other in the same room. Let us test the members on the other side. Let us go with them over to Keerom Street and look at who are working there; let us see what we will find there.

What will we find there?

We will find coloured girls working together with white girls.

You are talking nonsense.

I do not come here with proofs of what is stale news. Those hon. members must not tell me anything in connection with this matter. In the City Council of Johannesburg I was responsible for separating the natives and white men who were working together, so that there was no necessity for them to continue doing so. These members are talking about labour matters, and they have no knowledge of these matters at all. They have only one member from the Witwatersrand, and he has never had any knowledge of labour.

What do you know about it?

That hon. member cannot talk. In 1932 he was living on Mr. Pieter de Kock’s farm and eating butter and fat mutton. Now they are trying to use the empty stomach of the unemployed as a drum to play an accompaniment while they dance around waiting to fill the Government benches. Time and again they have made attacks on the trade unions of the country. Why? Because they have absolutely no understanding of trade unions. They do not realise that they are doing the worker incalculable harm when they attack his trade union. If they want the workers of the Witwatersrand to vote for them they should leave their trade unions alone. They should meet him in his house and visit him privately, but they must leave his trade union alone. Do not attack him in his stronghold or his fort, in his trade union. That is his protection.

Does this Bill make provision for trade unions?

If they attack him through his trade union he will not thank them for it. All sorts of reproaches have been hurled across the floor of the House at us. I was challenged to deny that there are coloured members in branches of our party in Cape Town. That may be so, but are there not also coloured members of their party? I want to ask these members whether they are prepared, should they come into power, to deprive the coloured people of their vote?

Yes.

Thank you. Then I would like to put a further question to them, whether they are prepared in any future General Election to tell the coloured people in the Cape they do not want their vote.

We have already said that.

Then it is rather peculiar they have sometimes made statements to the contrary. But let us hope when the time arrives for these statements to be tested, they will put into practice what they are saying here. Another attack was made today in reference to the so-called revelations of the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans). I shall return to this later. At present I only want to say this, that the hon. member for Westedene (Mr. Mentz) in refernce to that and the postion in the trade unions used words that show that he is absolutely ignorant of trade unionism. He used these words: “The future of any worker in an industry where there is an agreement for the closed shop is very uncertain.” He forgets that the closed shop represents one of the fundamental principles of trade unionism in South Africa and in any country. But we know that the members of that party are bent on killing trade unions. It began during the period when they began to participate in commercial undertakings. They systematically attacked the trade unions on the Witwatersrand. We know that money came from Stellenbosch to finance these attacks. I do not need to go into details. What did one of the members of the organisation say about this himself? “I resign because I see that I am being used as a tool by the Nationalist Party to undermine my fellowworkers.” The principle of the closed shop is one of the fundamental principles of trade unionism and I want to express the hope that hon. members will discontinue these attacks on trade unions. Supposing that A, B and C fight as a matter of life and death for an improvement in conditions; H undermines it all, but if A, B and C happen to gain a victory he is the fellow who shares the benefits with them. This is what in English is called “scabbing”. I have extracts here to show that the same people supported “scabbing” in South Africa. I now come to the so-called terrible revelations that we had here yesterday, and about which such a big fuss was made. I do not believe that one of the hon. members opposite really investigated these conditions. I want to say this also, that those conditions which the hon. member described also existed when the members of the Opposition party were in power. It also happened in their time, but we heard nothing about it then. I tell them that when they were in office they let black and white work together at Buchuberg and Vaal-Hartz. That is the truth. That is the reason why the workers of Johannesburg refused to listen to Mr. A. B. Fourie when he asked them to go there to work. They think that we know nothing about those conditions. The hon. member for Losberg mentioned certain things here in all sincerity.

What do you know about Buchuberg?

When that hon. member was still looking for diamonds and making a fat living while in the pulpit I was working with a pick and shovel, and I know about it. I say that the hon. member for Losberg brought certain information to this House in all sincerity, and the Opposition immediately seized on it to exploit it. I have the whole report here and I want to go into it. It has been stated here that there are 3,500 factories on the Rand. Of those 3,500 he only investigated five. Should one then assume that all the factories are in that state?

Did he only see five?

He only mentioned five. 1 can mention quite a number. Take Lever Brothers and many others. I can name them one after the other. If hon. members opposite wish to be honest they must admit that in the Factories Act provision was made for separate conveniences. Provision was made for separate dining rooms. Provision was also made for separate entrances to those buildings. They know this. Why are they trying to mislead the country? Why are they trying to mislead the public, and why are they trying to blacken us all the time? In 1937 they called me a pal of the natives. I challenged them for a wager of £100, and the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) who is now making such a noise, was there, and up till today they have not taken up that challenge. They can throw up smokescreens, and when it comes to actual facts they remain behind them. Today we have strong emergency regulations in connection with over-payments and various matters, and in spite of this transgressions of the law occur daily. This can happen in any state and in any organisation. Is it not also possible then that evasions of the Factories Act can occur? Must we then make an elephant out of a mouse, must we make a mountain out of a molehill. My hon. friends of the Opposition are not so concerned about the dog as about his collar. A terrible fuss has been kicked up in connection with the sworn declaration. That sworn declaration is not worth the paper on which it is written. That sworn declaration condemns itself for two reasons. In the first place if an election took place by secret ballot it is to be understood that every member could vote as he or she pleased without being intimidated. If that was the case that woman could have given the seven votes for Mr. Grobbelaar. She says that there were many other persons in the same position as herself. I say that if there were so many we would have had their declarations before us as well. No we cannot swallow those stories. Another aspect of the matter to which I want to refer is this. I am not annoyed that they do not know enough about factory conditions, and I repeat in all sincerity that if they want to catch the worker’s vote they must keep their hands off the trade unions. They only make these people angry when they pamper with their trade unions. The constitution of any trade union in South Africa is so drafted that you can detect any irregularity, and in the second place you can discharge an official who does not show a firm hand. I have in my hands the constitution of my own trade union, of which I am a leader, and it is based on a model constitution that was drawn up by the Department of Labour. Take for instance the disciplinary steps that can be taken. There is nothing to prevent an aggrieved person bringing up his or her grievances for adjustment.

I hope the hon. member will not go further into that matter.

No, I shall not go into that any further. I only wanted to point out that that question was introduced as one of the principal reasons why the Opposition amendment should be accepted. I am practically convinced that next year we shall again have these two questions mentioned. In conclusion, may I say that the statement that these two women can no longer obtain work are not true. They can get work at any time if they ask for it. Now I come to certain aspects of the Bill itself. The difficulty is that most hon. members of the Opposition are more concerned over their political amendment than the merits of the Bill itself. In the first instance as far as the Bill is concerned, the question that can be put this afternoon is: What is the object of the Bill? I know that I shall immediately be told that the object of the Bill is to register people. That is true, but we already have labour bureaux to register people. If today these are administrative institutions one can readily understand that. The next question that I want to mention is the position of unemployed persons who seek for work off their own bat. In 1932 and also shortly before the period of the present war, I have frequently found that people, especially unskilled labourers, register with the bureaux and while they are registered they look for work and find it, and when they return to get their card to take up the work they are told: “Your name has not been long enough on our books; we are going to give that work to another man who has been longer on our books.” It happens that these persons register with the bureau, but then they go to look for work to satisfy the wife or the mother, as the case may be. The poor man who has the initiative to look for work and to roll up his sleeves and who then gets work, finds when he returns to the bureau that he cannot have his card —they refuse to give him his pink card. I want to explain that when you register for work, you get a white card, and as soon as work is found for you, you are given a pink card. I hope that this absurdity will be eliminated by the Minister. Then I think the Minister Will agree with me that if he has registration and if he wants full control over labour, he should also register the sources of labour. My experience of our labour bureaux has been that although they do much good work, they cannot send out to look for work for the unemployed. I am not saying this to cast any reflection on those people. The officials are doing their level best. I know one of them very well, he is an inspector. But those officials have no authority to look for work for unemployed persons. They merely have to sit there and wait until the work comes along. I feel that unless the Act makes provision for the campulsory registration of unemployed, a record should be kept of the various sources of employment. In other words, such a bureau would then serve as a centre where the openings for employment could be registered and jobs given out. The Bill will be more closely studied and it may then appear necessary to propose a certain amendment in the Committee stage. But I think the House is also justified in expecting to be informed what the position of the Juvenile Affairs Boards will be. What will become of them? In that connection I should like to refer to the necessity for the introduction of our youth to the mercantile and industrial world. Our sons and daughters are registering at those offices when they leave school. But the big problem that faces these young people, is that they have to go out into the business world quite inexperienced. They come fresh from school; they know nothing about the business world. I feel that they should be given a certain measure of training before they go out. This is No. 1, but in the second place they do not know how to address a prospective employer. In other words, when they go to see a man they do not know how to talk to him. I think that during the last few years of the children’s school career, they should receive more guidance in this connection. Then there is also the question of their general appearance. We often find a well-educated and intelligent lad is not engaged on account of his slovenly attire when he interviews his prospective employer. He frequently arrives with an open-neck shirt, and the employer immediately forms a poor impression of the lad. I must say that you do not find the same thing with the girls. They are usually neatly dressed. Then I want to mention another matter, that also pertains to the hon. Minister of Education and I hope the Minister of Labour will discuss the matter with him. I feel that we should make better provision for vocational guidance for our sons and daughters. Education is free and considerable facilities exist in the country for free university training. But no opportunity is provided for free university training for the poor man; the poor man’s university is the trade school and the commercial school. There is no opportunity there for free training. In many respects the schools are too small. They cannot absorb all those who would be pupils, and where they can enrol the children the parents cannot afford it, and I feel that the juvenile affairs Boards will be absolutely useless unless we can train our children properly. What is gained if we send our sons and daughters to the Juvenile Affairs Board and they ask the Board for employment? The presiding official asks the young person what training he has had. It frequently happens that the child has had no training whatever. Those officials are not able to teach the children. That is the duty of the State, and I hope that the Minister of Labour with his colleague the Minister of Education will give close study to this aspect of the matter. In conclusion, I would like to point out that the Bill is good in principle. I can see that it is only the forerunner of another Bill that will be introduced. When you read the Bill you will see there is something to follow. It is for the Minister to tell us what he has still in reserve. Unfortunately I was not present in the House when he introduced the Bill. But we should exercise great caution in the practical application of this Bill. A strong appeal is being made to the State to accept the responsibility of providing employment. I do not think the Opposition need be worried about this Government. This Government will solve the unemployment problem better than any previous government has done, but let me say this: It is just those pessimistic predicitions and premonitions of depression we have heard from the Opposition that will cause the unemployment they urge we should prevent.

This Bill that we have before us is really a most important complement to the Soldiers’ and War Workers’ Employment Bill that was passed last Session and other Bills that are to come, and also in respect of civilians generally who have to find employment, and it is essential if they are to be helped to the fullest possible, extent, to have registration. They may be workers of a particular calibre and the employers will not know where to find those workers unless you have an organisation such as is outlined in this Bill. It is ho good laying down a general policy of employment before you deal with this Bill. My hon. friends opposite say that they are in favour of the principles of the Bill, but that they refuse to pass the second reading of the Bill until the Government has laid down a general policy for the employment of every individual in South Africa. The hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) who, I regret, is not in his place, made a very interesting speech on the subject of employment, but his whole reasoning fell to the ground, when one realises certain facts that he overlooked. He talks about the duty of the Government to provide employment. I entirely agree—and I think everyone in the House will agree—that the Government, and private enterprise will have to co-operate to the fullest extent, and that where private enterprise fails or neglects to carry out its duty in the interests of the community, the State will have to step in and provide employment through public utility corporations or through State enterprise. But what is the good of the hon. member for Stellenbosch talking to us about this policy that he advocates when we remember that for nine years, from 1924 until 1933, the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) and the hon. member for Stellenbosch himself and many others on that side of the House, were not only in the Government, but dominating elements in the Government, and they did not carry out the policy which the hon. member for Stellenbosch now advocates.

They resisted it.

Yes, they resisted it. But the hon. member for Stellenbosch tells us that conditions have changed. Of course, conditions have changed. In those nine years our friends over there were in the Government and they had the power to carry out the policy which they now advocate. Today they are in the Opposition. They are busy wooing the workers and therefore conditions have changed, and therefore they come forward with an argument in favour of national employment in South Africa. The hon. member for Stellenbosch — most unthinkingly, I think — suddenly bolsters up his argument by quoting as an example to this House, the position of Nazi Germany where everybody was employed. As the hon. Minister of Labour rightly interjected, in the first place, the people in Germany were employed purely on armaments. In the second place employment on armaménts in Germany was so great because they were preparing to attack all the democratic nations and employment was so great that they not only used all their own labour, but they actually imported slave labour from other parts of Europe. But the conditions, as the hon. Minister of Labour said, were such that no decent person could possibly approve of the policy of that kind, and I submit that it is an insult to this House and to the people of the country to come along today, when the mere thought of Nazi Germany stinks in the nostrils of any decent-minded person, and to hold up Germany as an example of what we can or what we might do, to hold up as an example to us a people who believe in a policy of guns before butter and food for the people; I say that is an insult to the people of the country. The hon. member for Stellenbosch in supporting the amendment which is before the House, also raised the question that in order to be able to provide employment for all sections of our people, we must use the resources of this country to the fullest extent. Again I entirely agree, but I say that when we talk about using the resources of this country, it implies not only the natural resources of this country but the human resources of this country. We must use it to the fullest extent, and it is in that sense that I made the interjection when the hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) spoke of South Africa being a poor country; I said by way of interjection that if South Africa was a poor country, it was because of inefficient labour. That is not a reflection on the people of this country ….

Are you making an apology?

No, I am trying to explain to hon. members what that interjection means. The hon. member for Stellenbosch has said the same thing in so many words. The point I am making is that it is not a reflection on the people of this country. It is a reflection on the policy that has been pursued in this country; it is a reflection on the economic methods by which human resources are prevented from being used to the fullest extent. I think I can quote to hon. members opposite the report of the Social and Economic Planning Council. In the second report on this very point the council stated very specifically—

That is in so many extra words a phrase about inefficient labour. In this country we have in the past not permitted the fullest and the best use to be made of our human resources and then the hon. member for Smithfield (Mr. Fouché) introduces a personal element into the debate and says that if there is any poverty in this country, it is because the foreigners have exploited the country. Who are the foreigners? I suppose in the early days the Huguenots were the foreigners in this country in the eyes of people of the mental calibre of the hon. member for Smithfield. I suppose in 1820 the British settlers who came to this country were the foreigners in the eyes of people like the hon. member for Smithfield, and so one can go on.

You know perfectly well to whom he referred; don’t be so innocent.

But the point I want to make is that I am opposed to any exploitation whether it be by foreigners or Union nationals, and I hope the Government will gradually be able to enforce legislation which will prevent exploitation by any section of the population. The hon. member for Stellenbosch then went on to deal with another aspect. Talking of the second part of the amendment he said that they were out to play the game, to provide employment for every section of the population, including the non-Europeans particularly; he emphasised that. There again, surely we should not have to remind them that when last Session the Select Committee on Social Security sat upstairs and a proposal on social security was put forward which included the non-European people—not to the same extent as Europeans unfortunately, but at any rate it included a provision for the non-European people for the first time —our friends opposite or rather their representatives on the Select Committee moved an amendment that the non-European shall not be included in the provisions of social security. And in the light of that, for the hon. member for Stellenbosch who. I believe, is an outstandingly honest man, to come along and say that they are out to look after the interest of all sections of the population, is something which the people in South Africa will not accept and will not believe.

They will not accept your story either.

One objection—and that is the only point I want to deal with, has been raised by the other side and the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans) also mentioned this matter. He stated that he found that non-Europeans and Europeans were working in the same factories. There again the law as it stands today, as it was passed last Session, makes specific provision for separation as far as amenities are concerned and even for separation as far as work benches are concerned.

Why does the Minister not enforce the law?

I submit that the hon. Minister and his department are enforcing the law, but I can conceive that there are difficulties in view of the shortage of labour that there is in South Africa today, both skilled and unskilled, as evidence by the clamour that is going on from day to day—the hon. member for Vasco (Mr. Mushet), the chairman, of the Public Accounts Committee, will confirm what I say—from every Government department that they are short of labour, that they are short of officials that they are short of staff. I can understand that in the absence of a very comprehensive staff of inspectors, it is possible that an incident such as was referred to by the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans) may have taken place. But that does not mean that the Government and the Minister of Labour are not carrying out the law as it stands today, and that certainly does not justify the amendment which has been put forward by the Opposition. No, Sir, I submit that this Bill is a step in the right direction, a very great step in the right direction. That the Minister with this Bill and the other measures he has passed will have to his credit industrial legislation which is going to redound not only to his credit, but to the benefit of the people of South Africa as a whole. Although there may be a little detail here and there which requires some slight amendment when the Bill comes before the Committee, the Bill as a whole is one which should commend itself to the House and which will commend itself to the country, and I hope the Minister will have no difficulty in getting the Bill through without any fundamental amendments, and so create the machinery to organise those who seek employment in such a way that he can bring them and the employers together and so provide for the more efficient method of utilising our human resources, and of utilising our natural resources by applying the human resources to the natural development of those resources.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker, as it happened you were not in the Chair when the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) (Mr. Tighy) made such wild statements a little while ago. It is usual when the hon. member speaks in the way he spoke today making accusations and allegations at random, when he has finished; he runs out without waiting for the reply. We know him. He has not the moral courage to listen to the truth. I should like to dispose of a few of his statements. He followed the same course as the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) who has just resumed his seat. All they can say by way of excusing themselves for not voting for the amendment is: “There was a Nationalist government and they also did certain things.” But do these hon. members forget that the Minister of Labour now in charge of this Bill sat in that same Cabinet, and consequently they are maintaining that he did nothing for the workers either. Do they forget that other members of the Labour Party were in the Cabinet such as Mr. Sampson and Mr. Boydell and Col. Creswell, and if the other members of the Cabinet were guilty they were just as guilty if nothing was done for the workers. Even the hon. member for Troyeville was a member of the Labour Party in those days and supported the Government, and he is thus accusing himself in regard to nothing having been done, as he alleges, for the amelioration of the difficulties in those trying* times. I notice that the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) is back in his seat. He said here that the Minister of Labour in the Nationalist Party Government stated that in regard to the responsibility for the workers the State had nothing to do with that, that it was not responsible for unemployment, that this was the duty of the municipalities.

Definitely.

I asked the hon. member to read out to me on what occasion the Minister of Labour in the Nationalist Cabinet said this.

He told me this on three occasions.

The hon. member cannot furnish any proof. I say that this is untrue and false, that there is not a grain of truth in it.

I shall obtain the minutes of the interview.

Further, he made the allegation that we on this side of the House, are proposing the amendment for Party political advantage.

Definitely.

Furthermore, he has had the boldness to say without any proof that if we go to “Die Burger” office in Keerom Street we will see European and non-European women working together in the offices of “Die Burger”.

I did not mention office work. I referred to the workshop and the works office.

Now he is repeating it.

Who cleans the machines?

I want to challenge the hon. member and I shall lay £100 of mine against a penny of his if an impartial commission of this House goes there and finds coloured women working together with white women at the Nasionale Pers.

What about the men; when were they discharged?

These are the wild statements he makes at the expense of our Press. I deny that and I make this challenge. It will only cost him a penny if he loses, but he has not the courage to accept the challenge. That shows how irresponsible he is. We cannot take any further notice of his allegations.

He knew that he was telling an untruth.

The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) must withdraw that.

Out of respect for the Chair I withdraw it, but I told the hon. member in the tea-room that this was not so, and he comes ino this House and repeats the allegation as if he did not know better.

The hon. member went further, and in connection with our coloured policy asked whether we were prepared as far as the registration of coloured voters in the Cape Province was concerned to state we did not want their vote. Does he or does he not know that only Europeans can be members of the Herenigde Nasionale Party right through the Union. I have here the constitution of the Herenigde Nasionale Party in the Cape Province, and in reference to membership it states “Only all Europeans in South Africa can be admitted as members of the party”.

Who carried Mr. Bruckner de Villiers on their shoulders?

I am dealing with the hon. member’s allegations. I want to go further and say we have told the coloured people when we come into power we will deprive them of their vote and we will place them on a separate voters’ list, where they belong, and we shall give them limited European representation in the House, as we do today in respect of the natives.

Do not you want their Vote?

They can vote for whom they like, but they cannot be members of our Party. We shall give them limited European representation, as we do to the natives today. But I want to ask the hon. member whether he is aware that coloured persons are members of the United Party and that they have the same say in the Party nominations as Europeans?

Where is that?

In the Cape Province.

What branches?

All of them. Ask the hon. members for Cape Flats (Mr. R. J. du Toit) and Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet).

Please cut out Caledon.

The hon. member would not be here but for the coloured people.

I got 350 coloured votes, but my majority was 1,112.

I have disposed of the wild statements made by the hon. member for Johannesburg (West). I want to point out to him the irresponsible character of his imputations. He cannot verify what he has been saying. If he is anything of a man let him stand up and say that he is sorry that he slandered the Nasionale Pers without an atom of proof.

Is the Nasionale Pers ever sorry when they slander a man?

I must ask the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) not to persist in his interjections.

He has stated that our party proposed this amendment for political reasons in order to be able to go outside and drum on the empty stomachs of our unemployed. Are there unemployed in the country or not? He states that there are unemployed and we want to play on their sentiments. It does not redound to the honom of the strongest Government the country has ever had if with all the means at its disposal it does not provide there should be no unemployed with empty stomachs on whose feelings we can play.

Where are the unemployed?

The Minister of Labour has brought in a Bill for the registration of unemployed. What can it signify?

Were there ever more unemployed than when your party was in power?

All that hon. members can say is that previous governments also did wrong. Assuming previous governments also failed in their duty, do two wrongs make a right?

You admit they were wrong?

I do not admit it, but supposing it were true that a previous government failed to do its duty is that any justification for this Government doing the same?

There is nothing of the sort today.

I hope the hon. member will remember what he stated there, that there are no unemployed. Now the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) and other members state we are moving this amendment for political capital. Let me for the information of hon. members read what this amendment contains, because apparently they have not read it. We say there that we decline to approve the Bill—

Is there anything wrong with us asking the Government nicely to do this? Then it goes on—

Is there anything wrong with that? It continues—

If hon. members read it through again can they offer any objection to it? Are hon. members opposite in favour of workers in the factories being all mixed, or do they want separation?

That is already being done.

We know that there are numerous instances where they are inter-mixed. Ask the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans). He can supply the evidence. Then we say furthermore that a quota system should be introduced in respect of the employment of workers in industry. If the amendment is read aright by hon. members what is there wrong in our request to the Government, and what is there impossible about it? Let them say straight out that the Government should undertake no responsibility for unemployment, that this Government assumes no responsibility for the provision of work for the unemployed in the future. But if they do not want to accept responsibility for the provision of employment why do they not accept this amendment? Let them say then that so far as lies in their power they accept the responsibility on behalf of the State to combat unemployment and to give our people work. What is wrong with that? Our amendment is reasonable. Nothing is being asked that is impracticable. As far as the Bill itself is concerned we are in favour of registration. We maintain it is a good step. The Government are commencing to get to grips in respect of the unemployed and those who may become unemployed. A period of unemployment will be on us again. A register of unemployed can be kept to facilitate people being provided with employment. But it will not help merely to have a register and then to search round here and there amongst private employers to ascertain whether they cannot help a man. We ask that the State as such should bear full responsibility and should see to providing work for the unemployed. It is not anything impossible that we are asking, but apparently a difference of opinion exists between the Minister of Labour and the Prime Minister, as well as certain members who have made interjections. Some say that there is no unemployment. Let the Minister stand up and say that there is no unemployment at the moment. No, by the fact that he has brought in this Bill, the Minister is convinced that unemployment prevails; he is convinced there will be unemployment on a large scale after the war. He is making provision against that. But the Prime Minister, on the other side, fears that our labour force will be too small. We are worried about the whole position, and that is why we are urging so strongly that the State should acknowledge its responsibility as far as concerns Union citizens exclusively. We know the Prime Minister. He is now overseas and he has said in advance there are too few workers. Workers will have to come in. His argument was supported by the late Col. Deneys Reitz when he was High Commissioner. He virtually gave an invitation to Ireland and stated that after the war we shall require thousands of tradesmen from Ireland. Last year I gave a warning to the Minister to make a stand against that. He should see about unemployment in the Union. Now the Prime Minister has again stated there is going to be a shortage of manpower. I warn the Minister not to allow workers to be imported until such time as the men and women of the Union are provided with work. And the State must do its share. The question must be put whether the Government contempalte immigration. Let the Minister say whether that is the intention. As far as registration is concerned the hon. Minister knows that today there are 20,000 refugees in South Africa. A great number of them are working in factories and other works. What is going to be the position after the war? Will they be repatriated, or will they remain here permanently? Will they also be registered as unemployed, and will the bread be taken out of the mouths of our sons and daughters? What is the Minister’s plan in that connection? The Government cannot blame us when we bring in an amendment of this sort. As far as social security is concerned we fear we shall receive precious little because the Government appears to be doing nothing in this connection. I want to refer to the White Paper that the Government issued on social security. Nothing is to be found in it regarding the provision of work on behalf of the State after the war; there is no undertaking that the Government will give work to the unemployed. If that is so, and it is so, what does the cry of social security mean? If they are really in earnest they ought to accept our amendment. But instead of that they are opposing it and speaking against it. I want to tell the Minister that a registration card, whether it is pink or blue or green, cannot keep the unemployed alive. If they are registered as unemployed the State must take the responsibility of providing them with work. Now I come to the other side of the amendment on which hon. members on this side of the House have already laid stress. I want to ask the Minister whether it is the case or not that, as the hon. member for Losberg stated, there is intermixing of European and nonEuropean workers in certain factories in our country. Will the Minister deny that? He does not reply. We shall have to wait then till he replies to the debate, and I hope that he will give a clear answer to the question. We on this side of the House with the experience we have, can declare that these conditions do exist on a big scale.

How do you know?

From time to time an investigation is made and the facts of the position are brought to light, and I believe the hon. member for Losberg that these conditions actually prevail. What objections have hon. members when we say that the State must accept the responsibility for the provision of employment, but that when employment is provided the conditions must be such that there must be separate spheres of employment for Europeans and non-Europeans. I make an eppeal to Afrikaans-speaking members who know the soul of our people, and I ask them whether they can with sincerity vote against the amendment, seeing we ask that separation should be effected.

Why do you sit alongside the native with a sickle and cut wheat?

If the need presses I am prepared to cut wheat with the natives, but I will be doing it of my own free will. But if the Government sees to the employment of work for the daughters’ of our nation then we desire that our daughters should not work at the same table alongside native women or coloured women. Will the the hon. member be content with that? That is all that we ask. Just accept our amendment then we shall say no more about it. We are concerned over the question of separation, we are concerned over the survival of the white race. The Afrikaansspeaking people have in the past been prominent in keeping a dividing line, and they are doing so today, and we want to do it in future. We believe in right and justice, we believe in trusteeship of Europeans over non-Europeans, but we refuse once and for all to let our daughters work with coloureds and natives. The Government, however, refuses to apply legislation to accomplish this in everyday life. I should like to see a number of voters who are supporters of those members’ on the other side of the House who are descendants of the Afrikaans-speaking Boer people and who represent such people in this House, sitting on the gallery to listen how hon. members like the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) and the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. H. J. Bekker) and others shout down our amendment and how they try to kill this sound proposition of ours by their cries and by their votes. I would have no doubt about what their fate would be. They would be thrown out by their constituents. There is another appeal I want to make to the Minister, and it is that as a number of registration bureaux are instituted to supplement the few already in existence, the Minister should see to it that the coloured people and the Europeans should not have to stand together in queues to register their names, but that there should be separate registration bureaux for European men and European women and separate bureaux for nonEuropeans. We ask this in all honesty. The Minister of Labour was someone I looked up to and who I expected would do something for the poor man and for the worker in our country. Today he bears great responsibility and we say to him: Do not let it happen that when the day comes for you to retire from politics and enjoy life in your old age, you should be broached with creating such a position, and with not having prevented something that implies the downfall of white South Africa. You are in a position of authority to ensure these things do not come about. We beg the Minister to accept the amendment and to let right and justice prevail.

Mr. Speaker, I support this Bill, and I think that its efficient application will be of benefit to both employee and employer and will lead to greater efficiency in industry. I am sorry that the Opposition opposite do not understand the implications of this Bill.

We understand it, but you don’t.

They evidently do not understand this Bill is not an industrial development Bill or anything of that nature.

You are used to nibbling at problems, that is your trouble.

We want to provide suitable employment for all our people and this Bill provides for placing our unemployed, and especially the younger generation, in the best and most suitable employment, in their own interest. That is what the Bill provides for. I regard the first part of the amendment as unintelligible.

Naturally. We quite realise that. You have not the intelligence to understand it.

We have the member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) saying that Germany set us an example in creating employment for all its people. I do not think there is any government in the world, including Germany, which has as efficiently provided employment for its people as this Government has. The Opposition state no employment has been provided for our 60,000 soldiers on active service. We will have employment for them when they come back.

But you have not done anything for them yet.

We have to hear these absurd interjections from members opposite, and a Bill of this nature is used by them to strike the coloured man with. That is what they do. They use this Bill as a weapon to strike the coloured man, many of whom, in this country are the descendants of Europeans ….

What did you say there?

They are our responsibility, but the Opposition attacks them and then at the same time says that they are Christians and God-fearing people. The coloured man is our responsibility. I think it is disgraceful that in this House members opposite should use them for political purposes. That is what is taking place. They use the coloured man as a football in politics.

Are you a football?

He is only a flat ball.

I do not want to become involved in this tirade. I want to make an appeal to the Minister of Labour in support of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson) and the hon. member for Jeppes (Mrs. Bertha Solomon). With regard to Article 3 they stressed the appointment of suitable employment officers. The Minister may give some inducement to our universities which are trying to provide post-graduate students to fill these particular posts. They did say here that the Stellenbosch University provides a post-graduate diploma for vocational guidance and that the Rhodës University College also provides a post-graduate diploma for personal welfare and management. Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to stress to the Minister that these are selected students. Those who qualify for this post-graduate course have to go before a committee and they are specially selected. I think that if the Minister would give some indication that these students would be made use of in the larger centres we would appreciate it.

Yes, if they have other qualifications.

I would like the Minister to give the assurance that these students will be used to fill posts of this nature. I have no doubt that we have the Minister’s sympathy. I know it is impracticable to include a clause in this Bill to provide for this. That cannot be done, and I do not claim that professional officers should be used in other than the larger centres; but I hope that the Minister will, in his reply, give some encouragement to these universities which are trying to select post-graduate students for special courses to be able to operate and to help him in this particular work. We know that one of the great missions of employment is to put people in the employment most suitable to them and so also obtain the greatest possible efficiency. I hope the Minister does not for a moment think that I regard his department as not efficient. I think it is a marvellously efficient one and I have wondered why a department like the Minister’s does not give us some report of their work each year. I know the member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) indicated this morning that there were unemployed victims as a result of the Pretoria explosion not provided for. I have not sought information but I have no doubt that I would be correct if I said that the Department of Labour have offered suitable employment for all those who are out of work on account of that regrettable explosion at Pretoria.

Quite right.

I am glad the Minister agrees. I know his department’s efficiency is such. But if members opposite, assumed a little more responsibility, even the hon. member for Wolmaransstad would be more careful about what he said. I think I have stressed the point I rose to make.

Then sit down.

I like this Bill in every way. I am glad it provides that the Juvenile Affairs Boards have decreased numbers. Smaller committees work better. In spite of the remarks made here today about the old Juvenile Affairs Boards, I do not think they gave us efficiency and I am glad of the amendment. I deplore the suggestion made to refer the Bill to a Select Committee. That is unnecessary. This Bill is one of the plainest pieces of legislation that any member of Parliament could wish to study. There is no doubt that it is in the interest of all concerned and in the best interest of the great development we await in this country after the war.

I had not intended taking part in this debate. I had not intended to speak about this amendment or to say anything in regard to the Bill of the Minister of Labour. I thought that members on this side of the House as well as members on the other side would discuss this Bill and the amendment on their merits. But something happened here this afternoon which, in my opinion, affects the honour of the House. I am one of the younger members who believe that this House is proud to occupy the position of the highest authority in the Union. When we differ from each other, I believe that the majority of hon. members differ from one another on the merits of the case, and that we will not avail ourselves of the protection of this House to say things here which do not become the dignity of the House. I rise because I believe that there are many members in this House who feel that something happened here today which we hope, will not happen again in the future—I do not even want to say that we hope it will not happen often. I refer to the remark which the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) (Mr. Tighy) made here this afternoon. I am sorry that it is necessary for me to refer to it here, but I feel that the circumstances justify my action, and the House can then judge for itself in regard to this matter. After the hon. member had made the remark in question, I spoke to him outside the House. The hon. member for Middelburg (Dr. Eksteen) was present. He is in his seat on the other side at the moment, and he can interrupt me and stop me if he thinks I am not telling the truth. The hon. member for Johannesburg (West) stated here that coloured women were working alongside European girls in the Nasionale Pers. I discussed the matter with him outside the House and told him that that was not the case. He replied that his information was correct. I then asked him to accompany me without warning to the Nasionale Pers, and to make investigations immediately, and I stated that I would give him £100 for every coloured woman employed there, let alone coloured women working alongside European girls. He then informed me that he did not want to accompany me. When the hon. member for Harrismith (Mr. E. R. Strauss) told the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) in this House that he had given incorrect information, and when the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) would not take any notice of that, but insisted on the correctness of his statement, I made a certain statement to him. I have every respect for the Chair; I have respect for Ministers and members of this House, but I felt that I was entitled in the circumstances to say to the hon. member that he knew that he was telling an untruth. Ýou, Mr. Speaker, asked me to withdraw that remark, and I did withdraw it. I would not have said it to the hon. member if I had not discussed the matter with him outside and if what I have just told the House did not take place between us. I asked him to accompany me to the Nasionale Pers and to see what the position was, and he refused to do so. Nevertheless he repeated his accusation. You will realise why we feel that the hon. member has lowered the level of the debate and that he has not upheld the honour of this House. When a member advances a certain argument, other members may differ from him, but we still respect his opinion. But when a person gets up in this House and makes a statement of this kind in regard to a great Press, even though he differs from that Press, it is not to the credit of this House. The Nasionale Pers supports the policy of this side and it has played a great role in this country, although members on the other side naturally differ from it. Then we find that a member of the other side makes such an unfounded accusation against this Press; subsequently it is explained to him that his accusation is unfounded, but nevertheless he repeats that accusation. I say that when a member does that type of thing, we have every right to feel that we have sunk in this House and that we are lowering instead of upholding the high prestige of this House. I should like us to forget this incident for a moment, but I want to make this appeal to the Press as a whole; if the press or political agents want to make use of what the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) said here, they should also publish our reply and the challenge we issued to that member as well as other members, a challenge which that member chose not to accept. I want to say to this House again, that there is not a single coloured woman in the employ of the Nasionale Pers, nor is there any question of coloured women working alongside European girls.

What about coloured men?

Coloured men are employed in the evening to clean the machines and they are sometimes used to convey newspapers to the various depots. The House can accept my word of honour as to the correctness of the information I am giving here. I am sorry that the hon. member for Middelburg congratulated the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) on his speech when they walked out of the House. Perhaps he thought the hon. member had spoken the truth. But I want to express the hope that hon. members on the other side will indicate their disapproval of this type of thing and of the fact that members make statements of this kind here. If I level a serious and untrue accusation against a member on the other side, it is perfectly in order for that member to retaliate here, but we know what the reaction of the public is. There are certain people who always believe that where there is smoke there is fire. For that reason I immediately took part in this debate. We must make the people in the country understand clearly that we do not approve of members making use of the protection of this House to say things of this kind. I now come to the amendment which has been moved on this Bill. Speaker after speaker on the other side has discussed this amendment, but they did not deal with it on its merits. What I mean it this. The arguments which were advanced against us and against this amendment were that at one time a Nationalist Party Government was in power, and it was asked what we had done to carry out these things. What has that to do with the amendment? Even if the Nationalist Party Government of the past or any Minister did absolutely nothing in connection with these matters, when conditions such as the present conditions stare us in the face and a motion is introduced in that regard, we must deal with that motion on its merits, and if nothing is done the fact that another Government in the distant past did nothing in the matter is no excuse. Even if nothing was done during those years, it still has nothing to do with this amendment. The second argument which was advanced against this amendment was that there is an ulterior motive behind the amendment. I have been in this house for approximately seven years, and when an amendment is moved which cannot be contested on its merits, we always find that the other side of the House shields behind the statement that there is an ulterior motive and that the amendment is moved for that reason. Surely that is no reply. Why are motives always imputed in connection with any proposal made by this side, if members on the other side cannot oppose it on its merits? It simply means this. We say that the State must accept the responsibility for providing employment to unemployed persons. If members on the other side feel that the State should not accept that responsibility, let them put their case on its merits and indicate where we are wrong. Why impute motives to this side when we move such an amendment? There is no question of motives. The people in the country are acquainted with our policy; there is not a single person who does not know that the Nationalist Party advocates a barrier between European and non-European; there is no one who does not know that the policy of the Nationalist Party is that the State must assume responsibility for providing employment for unemployed persons. The argument was advanced by the other side that we must first know how many unemployed people there are in the country before we can provide employment for them. If we carry that argument to its logical conclusion, when are we going to make a start in providing employment for the people? No, together with the registration of unemployed, we must also make a start with the provision of employment for unemployed persons. I stated that I did not want to take part in this debate. I got up in an attempt to raise the level of the debate a little higher than the level to which the hon. member on the other side reduced it, and to say to all members on all sides that we must try to discuss these matters on their merits and that we must not make use of such an opportunity to make accusations which are no credit to this House. If members on the other side want to find fault with this amendment, let them do so by all means. But if they cannot do so, they must not ask what the motive is behind the amendment. It is very easy to impute motives to a person, but it does not detract from the merits of the amendment. We hope therefore that when the discussion in this debate continues, it will take place on a level which redounds to the credit of this House and which will not lower the level of the debate.

I am very grateful that the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) tried to raise the level of the debate. I hope he will put into effect what he has just told us, and that he will see to it that that advice of his is put into practice by members on the other side. May I just say this at the outset? The other day I was told by way of an interjection that I must have been intoxicated because I travelled on a certain road.

Did I say it?

No, no. I say that I am very grateful that the hon. member for Mossel Bay tried to bring the debate on a higher level. To come back to the Bill, may I say that in my opinion the Minister is taking the right step in introducing registration of unemployed persons. I am only sorry that in my view he is not going far enough. He must not only register the unemployed, but he should also compel the business world to register all vacancies occurring in their businesses. We are very anxious to give our sons and daughters a chance in the business world. I hope that the Minister will at a later stage introduce something of this nature. If he does so, these matters can be better regulated. In connection with the amendment which was moved by the Opposition, I just want to say that they are asking the State to assume the responsibility for providing employment to unemployed persons. May I just say that as I see the matter-it is still fresh in my memory—the State is taking important steps in the direction of providing employment to people who are unemployed. It may not be under this particular department, but other departments of State have tried in a radical way, in every respect to provide employment to ex-soldiers who have returned apd will still return to this country. But before doing so, they used the Labour Department where it was possible to do so. Everyone had an opportunity of registering his name when he was unemployed and desirous of obtaining employment. I really think that it is an unfair representation of the matter for hon. members on the other side to say that no provision is being made and that it is only proposed to register the people. I think we must admit that every effort is being made to provide employment to the people where it is possible to do so. But I again want to return to the point that in my opinion the Minister is not going far enough. I go so far as to say that every department of State should have a list indicating how many people will be required in the future for the purposes of that department. We ought to know how many people we need for the various undertakings of the State; how many we need for our factories; how many we need for trade, how many we need for farming, etc. I think if we did that, we would have statistics of all the people we need. One thing which forcibly struck me was the attitude of the other side in connection with the colour policy. I want to say with all due respect that in my opinion we are applying the provisions of the Act in connection with the colour policy in a fair way, and that we should go a step further than members on the other side want to go, if we have to give effect to the policy which they suggest. They want separateness in the factories. That being so, we should start with our families. What do we do in our own homes? I know that in my own home a native works in the kitchen, and, much as it grieves me, I am obliged to allow my wife to give him instructions in front of the stove.

But he does not sit next to her on a chair.

Give me a chance, and I shall not worry you when you speak. It is really a tragedy that it is necessary for us to discuss these things here again today. The Prime Minister told us just prior to his departure that we must see to it that we bring about a change in the conditions in South Africa by treating all sections in a reasonable way. I, too have a slight knowledge of conditions in Johannesburg, and I know that wherever possible the State has intervened by means of the granting of licences to ensure that the necessary conditions are introduced and carried out. Not only in the factories but also in the business world supervision is being exercised and steps are being taken to see that the necessary dividing line is maintained between European and nonEuropean. I do think that if we want to be fair, we should start in our own homes. I personally have often been forced to reap mealies on the land in the company of kaffir women. The smell is unpleasant, but I was compelled to do it in order to make a living. I am not in favour of it, but I was compelled to do it. We do not want it, but in our own homes we have the position that in the presence of our daughters the coloured girl or boy has to polish the floors. We cannot apply the principle of separateness in the factories only if we do not start in our own homes. Let me mention an example of what happened in the Cape Province. In the early days the non-Europeans attended the same church as the Europeans in the Cape Province. Legislation was not introduced, but in a nice way a line was drawn between non-European and European, and in this way the Europeans got the non-Europeans out of the European churches. That was not done by means of legislation, but in a reasonable and nice way. I say that if we want the Minister of Labour to help us, and if we do our share, we will have a friend in him. But I am inclined to think that we are only too eager to find fault with one another, and that we do not make our fair contribution to rectify things which are wrong. I do not want to suggest for a moment that everything is perfect, but if we do our share, we can still improve matters to a very great extent. I do not want to support the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) (Mr. Tighy) in certain of his statements, but I do want to say that he went out of his way to help to improve conditions in Johannesburg as far as this matter is concerned. I have personal knowledge of that. I want to find fault with him, however, in connection with a statement he made here. I think the Minister of Labour consulted the Provincial Administrations in connection with the proposals in Clause 9 of the Bill, in terms of which school principals will be called upon to register pupils leaving the school. I want to tell the Minister that I am grateful for that action. One of our great problems is what to do with our sons and daughters, in order to place them in employment when they pass Std. VIII and leave school. We are always coming up against a stone wall, because we do not know how to find employment for those children. A channel is now being created for us to find employment for them. When the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) says that no provision is being made for manual labour, I want to tell him that he is not acquainted with the work of the Transvaal Education Department. The Transvaal Education Department went out of its way to give our sons on the platteland an opportunity to receive training not only in farming but in all the other subjects chosen by them. They are going even further and special schools are being established to give the boys an opportunity to become plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, etc., if they want to enter those trades. I think it is a very good phenomenon that the Minister of Labour has now made contact with the Education Departments in this manner. It will mean that those boys will be given an opportunity of receiving training to become professional people in their trades. We do not only want professional people in the professions; we also want to give our less privileged boys an opportunity of becoming professional men in their respective trades, whether they be carpenters, bricklayers or whatever their trade may be. I want to support the Minister in this provision. I hope he will continue with it. If we do our share to help the Minister, I do not doubt that he will do his share to make a success of this measure. I do not doubt that the Minister will do his best to ensure that the less privileged man will also obtain his rights. But he cannot do all that if he does not get the assistance of everyone of us in this country. I trust he will strive to see that justice is done to our sons and daughters.

I do not want to reply to the speech of the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) (Mr. Tighy) except just to state a few facts. The first is that no matter how he tries to cast a doubt upon the facts which the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans) gave to the House yesterday, he will not succeed because I can testify to the fact that the hon. member for Losberg is an honourable and respectable man who would not spread tall stories in this House, as the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) is inclined to do. I just want to say too that in the days of the Nationalist Party Government which the hon. member for Johannesburg (West) now criticises so strongly, he sought shelter under the wings of that same Nationalist Party, and the same Nationalist Party saw him through the difficult depression so that he now finds himself in the position which he occupies at present. But that is the way of the world. It is a scientific phenomenon that thëre are various branches of the geneological tree of the human being, of the homo sapiens, and that the members of the one branch belong to that type which, when they have been fed, bite the hand that fed them. The hon. member falls under that branch of the homo sapiens. It was stated here that the old Nationalist Party did nothing for the workers. I just want to say that that was the first Party which looked after the interests of the labourers, of the working class in South Africa, but not at the point of the bayonet; it was the first Party which looked after the interests of the labourers, not by means of a Lee-Metford policy, but on the contrary it was the Party which laid a sound foundation for the interests of the working classes in South Africa, and no one can deny that fact. During the whole of that period, peace prevailed. The blood of the workers did not flow on the streets of South Africa. We had a period of quiet, such as other countries of the world did not experience. It has been said that the people had to work for 3s. 6d. a day. The whole world experienced a period of depression at that time, and in other parts of the world the position was such more serious. People succumbed to hunger and misery. There were few governments who led their people through the depression as well as the old Nationalist Party Government. We do not say that it is 100 per cent. perfect. We admit that here and there mistakes were made, but I think the hon. member can even go to the records of the League of Nations and there he will find a statement to the effect that the Nationalist Party Government was one of the Governments which led its working classes through the depression in a very admirable way. Bearing in mind the position of the world at that time, I think we ought to be grateful that the Nationalist Party was in power at that time. With regard to the history of legislation in connection with labour, it is a fact that the Nationalist Party introduced legislation which set an example to other countries in the world which were far ahead of us. No one can deny that. Now I want to come to the Minister of Labour, and I want to say at the outset that I am one of those who has always cherished high expectations of the Minister of Labour. He played a fairly considerable role in promoting the interests of the working classes in South Africa. It has been said in defence of this Bill that the Minister of Labour is on the right road. He has been on the right road for 70 years, but unfortunately he remains on the right road without reaching the right place. It is not enough to be on the right road; the workers want to get to the right place, and it looks as though the Minister will never get there. I have always had high hopes of the Minister. He played a fairly considerable role in the life of the working classes; he was very fond of playing first violin and of playing the big drum, and after 70 years we are still waiting in vain for him to come forward with a true Magna Charta for the working classes. I cherished high expectations of him. With regard to the Labour Party and its action in recent years, and notwithstanding the fact that they have such a leader, we find, in spite of much crowing and cackling in regard to the interests of the working classes, that there is only a defunct Labour Party in South Africa today. It is no longer a Labour Party which acts in the interests of the workers; it is a defunct Labour Party. After all this crowing and cackling we now get this diminutive egg, and then it is still an egg of basilisk. The Minister of Labour is the man who came forward and coaxed the labourers with the sweetest of promises. He held out the most beautiful motives to them; he built up a mountain of beautiful motives and promises. He went further and later on he practically promised the labourers the whole moon as well. Last year when this side voiced certain criticism the Minister stated: “It’s coming, it’s coming”. We saw a commotion in the mountain and we waited expectantly, but in spite of all this commotion, what issued forth from the mountain? Not even a decent mouse, but a striped field mouse, and moreover one with a very big stripe. In the legends of the Eastern nations it is often said that when a child is born, the gods come to the cradle and murmur a slogan over it. I speak with respect of the ordinary life of the Minister. But as far as the working classes are concerned, when we look at his actions, especially during the past few years and we look at the past from a spiritual point of view, I think the slogan murmured over his cradle must have been “A life full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. That would have been the Minister’s slogan with reference to the working classes. We shall hear his reply in a moment and we shall witness the same phenomenon. But up to the present the Minister of Labour has not introduced legislation which ensures justice for the working classes. There is no Labour Party today. In the past the Labour Party did afford a certain amount of protection to the workers, but in recent times the Labour Party has floundered in the sands of capitalism and wooed the Imperialists, and as far as the workers are concerned, we find that in recent times they have suffered great injustice. The members of the Labour Party carry out the orders of the Government, and they serve no purpose by attacking the Government once in a while. They must not forget that they are responsible for every one of the crimes committed by this Government against the working classes. They must accept full responsibility for it. They must not shift the blame on to the shoulders of the Government. They are equally responsible for the legislation which has been passed here, for every policy or part of a policy which has been carried out in connection with the working classes; they are equally responsible for the fact that the interests of the working classes are being treated in this manner. There was a Labour Party in South Africa in the past, but today it is a defunct party. Yesterday we had two pictures before the House. On the one hand we had the picture outlined in the Bill of the Minister of Labour, and as embodied in the general policy of the Government towards the working classes. Every worker will have to admit that it has been a tragic spectacle. Every worker feels not only dissatisfied but deeply concerned about the policy of the Government. We must all admit that at its best it is only a halfhearted effort and a dual-purpose policy. On the other hand there is the policy of the Re-united Nationalist Party, as embodied in the amendment of the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein). There we have an exposition which brings the workers a message of encouragement and hope for the future. There we have an economic policy, and I want to read to the House a few points in connection with the economic policy of the Re-united Nationalist Party. That policy is—

The Nationalist Party is the Party which states unequivocally that the State should act as the real protector of the working group. Not only that, but when we look at the policy of the Labour Party, we notice that they are making separate groups of the Labour Party, that they are practically isolating themselves from the national life. The policy of the Nationalist Party on the other hand aims at fitting the working classes, just like every other section of the community, into the organism of the nation; it aims at making it an integral portion of the national life, not an isolated group, but the labouring classes must form a part of the nation, sharing the sorrows and joys of the nation. That is the sound policy of the Nationalist Party. It wants to see the labourer fitted into the State organism of the country. I quote a further passage from the principles of the Nationalist Party—

We also study the interests of the nonEuropean section but we lay down the definite principle that the European, Christian civilisation must be made secure. I was astounded to hear the arguments of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) when he referred to domestic servants. He must not forget that they are employed in the home as servants. They are kept in their places; they are servants under the authority of Europeans. But in the factories they are not servants but the equals of the European workers. Therein lies the whole difference. We also lay down—

We want to carry out that principle consistently. Then we go on to say—

It is often said here that our Party is opposed to trade unions. That indicates how an attempt is being made to mislead the people in the country. We are not opposed to trade unions, but we advocate a radical re-organisation of the trade unions, so that the trade unions will in the first instance look after the true interests of the workers. The next important principle is—

Another objective of the Party is—

The hon. member for Zoutpansberg spoke of vocational training. If he is really in earnest, he should join this Party to see that effect is given to this policy. We plead for separatism. Let me just point out briefly what the position is in America. America cannot be accused of adopting this course from motives of fear. There are only 13,000,000 non-Europeans as against nearly 100,000,000 Europeans. What is the position there? Th position is that today there are large numbers of factories where no nonEuropeans are allowed. Those factories are reserved for Europeans only. In large numbers of factories there is a small percentage of non-Europeans, but the tendency is in the direction of separateness, especially in connection with the establishment of new factories. It is interesting in this connection to read the book of Charles Johnson on “Patterns of Negro Segregation”. The writer of this book is a negro. He says the tendency is in this direction and that the results have been excellent as far as the American population is concerned because this policy has restricted the causes of racial clashes to a minimum. There are other factories which are reserved exclusively for non-Europeans. With regard to the factories which are reserved practically exclusively for Europeans, they cite the factories for the manufacture of technical requirements, radio, electrical requirements, machinery, rubber, aeroplanes. In those factories practically no non-Europeans are allowed, except perhaps a very small percentage. We notice that development in modern factories. And not only that. Look at the trade unions in America. We can follow that example. There we have the same position that we advocate today, and the results obtained in America have been excellent. There are large numbers of trade unions in America, and I refer more particularly to those relating to railway workers, machinists, telegraphists, electrical workers, messengers, glass workers. The constitutions of all those trade unions provide that non-Europeans may not become members. There are large numbers of trade oragnisations which, as a result of years of practice, do not permit non-Europeans to become members—a very large number. There is only a very small number in America where non-Europeans and Europeans are members of the same trade organisations. I notice here, as a matter of fact, that Charles Johnson, who is a negro, says in this connection— [Re-translation ]—

There are separate trade unions for Europeans and non-Europeans. He then refers to the tradition of the northern States and says that it has always been customary in the past not to draw any distinction on the ground of colour, but he says that in the northern States the present tendency is not to allow non-Europeans to be members of trade unions, but to have separate trade unions for Europeans and non-Europeans. Even in the northern States we have this phenomenon. The policy we are adumbrating here, is not an unknown policy. America gives us this practical example. Hon. members cannot therefore advance the type of argument which they have advanced here. The Minister of Labour has had an excellent opportunity as an old, experienced person in connection with labour questions, to place our labour legislation on a sound basis. He had the opportunity of making use of his ripe experience in the legislation of South Africa at least to follow the example laid down in other countries, but as I have said, he is sitting at the sumptuous table of the capitalists, instead of standing by the working classes who have brought him where he is today. But the people in the country are taking cognisance of the fact that their interests are not being looked after by the Labour Party. The Labour Party is dancing to the tune of the capitalist group. The interests of the working classes are not being looked after by this Government which has no sympathy for the working group. The true friend of the workers is the Nationalist Party, the Re-united Nationalist Party. The champion of the labourer in South Africa today is the Nationalist Party. The Nationalist Party is deliberately steering the workers in the right direction in the interests of the maintenance of European South Africa. The maintenance of the Christian, European civilisation in our country is not the task of a section of the population; it is the task of the whole nation, including the working classes, and we say therefore that the working classes must be fitted into the organism of the State; it must not be a foreign element in the life of the State. It must be clear to every person who is acquainted with the facts that the Nationalist Party is the champion of the rights and the true interests of the workers in South Africa, because if we save the worker, we save the European. Christian civilisation.

The hon. member who has just sat down referred here to the wage of 3s. 6d. paid to people who worked on the roads during the depression. I know that there was a depression.

Where did you stand then?

The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) was partially responsible for that payment, and that is what lead to the downfall of the Nationalist Government. It will be many years before the nation again trusts them and brings them to power. The hon. member who sat down referred here to trade unions in America, and he said that in America the principle was maintained that no negroes should be included in trade unions, but just after that he said, when he discovered that the Minister and others also know something about that, that there are a number of trade unions in which they are allowed. He went further and said that there is now a tendency to exclude nonEuropeans from trade unions for Europeans, and that they want separate trade unions for negroes. The hon. member should not argue in that way. I have however risen to support the pleas of the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) and Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson), that in appointing these officials the Minister and the Department will see to it that people are appointed who have had proper training. We request that not only should their training be considered, but that the people who are appointed should also be able to understand the workers psychologically, because only such people can make a success of their tasks. The country is thankful to the Minister for this Bill which aims at the registration of the unemployed, and I hope that the Minister will continue along that road and where there are still gaps to remove those. I am sorry the hon; member for Harrismith (Mr. E. R. Strauss) is not here. I just want to address a few words to him. We are thankful that he has now stated the policy clearly. I take it that that is the point of view of the north in regard to the coloured voters of the Cape. The members from the Cape have always baulked at this point. I should like to ascertain whether that is also their standpoint.

We were always in favour of segregation.

I refer to taking away the vote from the coloureds, to place them on a separate list with a small number of European representatives in this House.

When you were a Nationalist you were also in favour of it.

It is tantamount to taking away the vote, and afterwards he spoke about separate lists. It is a pity that whenever legislation like this is discussed, the poor coloureds must always suffer. The coloured vote is always being hammered on, and to be honest I must say that it appears to me to be done largely just to get political capital out of it.

You do it and get all their votes.

The coloureds played a role of which they can be proud. They did pioneer work to help to tame this country. They can also look back with pride on the role they played in the war. When members opposite were not prepared to do their duty, they did it.

Why did you not fight yourself?

If the policy of the Opposition triumphed at that time, the Nazi policy, there would have been no opportunity for the existence of trade unions in South Africa today Therefore it will still take many years before they will get the workers to vote for them, because their whole policy is calculated to render workers’ organisations powerless. With these few words I just wish to thank the Minister from the bottom of my heart.

The hon. member who has resumed his seat made a peculiar statement. He said that the coloureds went to fight while he remained at home. We on this side of the House were opposed to the war and he cannot blame us for not having gone to fight. But what about himself? The hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) stated that the United Party would just as soon have separation as this side of the House. If this is the case why does the Government come along year after year with legislation that does not acknowledge separation? Why does the Minister or other Ministers not come with legislation embracing separation, seeing that both races are concerned with this? Then it will not be continually necessary for us to stand up here to advocate that provision should be made for separation in our legislation. The outside public are determined to have separation in our country. It is not only the Nationalists who want this. Many members of the United Party also want it. The proof was given yesterday by the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans). He had the manliness to state clearly that he wanted separation, but other hon. members when we get them outside the House also sav they want separation, but then they ask how it is going to be applied and they consider it is not possible. To mention an example we have had the same difficulty in the Lichtenburg Town Council. In the municipal offices there was no divinding line. There was one office for Europeans, natives and coloured people in which to pay their taxes. We felt this could not continue we wanted a dividing Jine and then the Town Council drew the dividing Jine. The office was altered and there was one counter for Europeans and another quite separate for non-Europeans. We had some small difficulties in the beginning. When we placed the Europeans on one side the coloureds did not want to be with the natives, but they soon got accustomed to it and today we have no difficulty. I want to give the Minister the assurance that if he introduces legislation to effect separation he will have nd difficulty. Some people may be dissatisfied with that but the larger section in South Africa desires separation. A couple of members here are always making propaganda, and they consider if they do not plead for the coloureds they will not be returned to Parliament and consequently they have to stand up for the coloured people. We do not want to do any injustice to the coloured people, but we feel that we should have separation in South Africa. We cannot tolerate European and nonEuropean living together. Now we ask the Minister to accept the amendment and to see to it that there is separation in the various spheres of employment. If the Minister does not accept this he will give a stimulus to communist propaganda in the country. The Communist Party is making propaganda in our country to obliterate entirely the dividing line between European and non-European. We on this side want the dividing line, and consequently I cordially support the amendment, and I trust the hon. Minister will accept it.

Mr. Speaker, this has been the most extraordinary debate that I have witnessed in all my experience. Here we have a Bill in respect of which member after member has risen and said that he supports the Bill, that it is an excellent Bill. That is merely ringing the changes on the language used by the various members, and yet here we have been a whole day and a half debating a Bill which every member of the House accepts. I am rather concerned as to what underlies all this wealth of eloquence which has been poured out, and I am inclined to suspect that this is a sort of preliminary canter on the part of a large number of members on the other side of the House to demonstrate their fitness to be a shadow Minister of Labour.

You are going to be the shadow.

It is a shadow that will put my hon. friend very much in the cold, as indeed it has done. First of all we have the member for Serfontein ….

Boshof.

It is the same thing—Buzz off. The hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) and he said his piece, a very good piece too. I congratulate the hon. member upon his eloquence and shall I say upon the consistency of his demonstration of eloquence. Then we had the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren). I think if it were to be decided by popular vote, I am afraid the hon. member for Swellendam has fallen out of the running, and so has the hon. member for Westdene (Mr. Mentz). The best effort in my poor opinion was that of the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) because, Sir, he was so obviously sincere. There was a time when the hon. member for Stellenbosch was flirting with the Labour Party. My hon. friend over there will remember that, because of his very sincerity. But he has back-slid and he is now where he was, trying to rehabilitate himself With all the sentiments he expressed, I entirely agree, but Sir, there arises in my mind another suspicion ….

Don’t be so suspicious.

…. and that is that in order to make their case, they have been reading my speeches of the past.

It is only necessary to read one; they are all a rehash.

I was very much Interested to observe that with the exception of a detail here and a detail there, all hon. members accepted the Bill, with the exception perhaps of one strong objection raised by the hon. member for Swellendam and in a minor way by one or two members on that side of the House, who were rather inclined to reinforce his contention and that is, whilst it is necessary to have registration, why not go the whole hog? Why are we confining it to areas, areas as declared from time to time? In other words, I ought to wave the Ministerial wand and institute the whole thing all over the place without any staff, without any appurtenances and then, when it is a failure, the very people who have been arguing that way, would rise up and jeer because it would inevitably be a failure. No, Sir, we contemplate and intend that this shall apply to the whole of the Union, but we have to do it more or less gradually. The tempo will be increased increased very considerably when the war is over.

More gradually than more or less.

The hon. member might let me finish on that point, The tempo will increase when the war finishes. Then we can move much more rapidly, but the objection of not immediately extending it all over the Union is more apparent than real, because the areas that will be established in the beginning will be those where the largest measure of employment or unemployment will be experienced. We will take the Witwatersrand, the Cape and Durban and centres of that description where at all events we have the machinery to make a start, where we have the material of employed and unemployed to deal with. Most of the criticisms, apart from the actual criticism of the action of the Government, has been based on fallacy, has been based upon imagination, upon desire not upon fact. But before I traverse those facts, I want to deal with one or two of the matters which were raised by hon. members who, while supporting the Bill, feel that certain amendments should be made. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson) reinforced by one or two other members has advanced the point that what we have to do so far as Juvenile Affairs Boards are concerned and what will be virtually employment offices associated there with—the official who will be carrying on the correspondence and what not—is to appoint officials who will possess professional qualifications. I join issue with every one of those members on that point. That is not what we require. The qualifications you want are the qualifications of commonsense. Text books will not bring commonsense or brain power to an individual.

It develops his mind at any rate.

I am not cutting it off, but I do not accept the argument that that has got to be the basic qualification.

It gives him a trained mind.

The mind has got to be there. You cannot instill it. Let it be common cause that you cannot teach commonsense, and let it be common cause that it is desirable to have the very best material; and the arguments adduced in favour of a close examination of the personnel whom you may appoint are based largely and quite correctly upon our experience of the past. Hon. members can be assured that we have had this very painfully and closely under our examination, and they need have no fear. Administratively we will see to it, but you cannot put it into the Act. You cannot lay down the qualifications in the Act, but administratively we will choose the very best, because we are deeply concerned in having these people properly placed in the sphere that they will fill to the best advantage not only to themselves but to the whole of the country. The hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander) was concerned to know whether the coloured Juvenile Affairs Boards would be other than advisory. He is concerned that they should no longer be advisory. No, they will be statutory. They will have exactly the same scope and authority in their sphere that all European boards will have in theirs—so will the native. Let me make this clear; we are not making any distinction, but we are not mixing them up they are all having their separate Juvenile Affairs Boards which will be statutory and not advisory.

You are getting just like Jimmy McLean. You are losing your notes.

It does not matter if I do lose my notes, does it, because some of them are in reference to hon. members on that side of the House, and how little it requires to reply to their assertions and their asseverations.

Nobody is laughing.

I do not want you to laugh; you should be sorry. My hon. friend should be weeping for the attitude his colleagues adopted this afternoon. Now I come to the criticism of this Bill. I said that most if not all the criticism —indeed, I will say all the criticism—that was levelled against me from that side of the House was based upon fallacy and imagination. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) who was very worried about the mint people—we all were ….

Why don’t you help them?

The hon. member says that the mint people as a result of this unfortunate explosion are without work, and he asks what we have done.

Sacked them.

Within one week of that explosion the Labour Department had arranged for more jobs than the number of applicants offering.

At half pay.

No, not at half pay. I am not talking about half pay. I am talking about jobs, and that interjection brings me again to the attitude of mind of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad.

Why worry about him?

I do not worry about him, but his words are reported and I want to have something to say about it, and what I have to say arises out of the amendment of the hon. gentleman opposite. He and others sitting behind him have definitely stated—and based their criticism upon a statement which emanated from their own benches-that there are hundreds, nay, thousands, of unemployed at the present time.

That is true.

What are the facts? These are the official figures.

Where do you get them?

Don’t you want to hear them? Or did my hon. friend merely want to make charges and condemn themselves with charges knowing that they would be refuted and afraid to receive the refutation? The number of adult males unemployed in the Union is 570.

And some of them may not want to work.

A large number of them may not want Co work, but I do not accuse them of that. It is a normal thing to have a number of unemployed in any country in a given time.

How were those figures compiled?

They were compiled officially, not cooked.

Tell us where you got the figures.

They are official figures compiled by my Department.

Where do you get them? Naturally we want to know.

You have not got registration; where do you get the figures?

From records made.

Where did you get the information to make the records?

Juveniles: 914 unemployed due to the rush of schoolleavers but by now considerably reduced; coloured males: 415, and that is the full extent of the unemployment situation in South Africa at the moment.

Nonsense.

They come with that highly imaginative outlook of theirs and they charge the Labour Department with not having done its duty and the Government with not having done its duty; the Government’s policy being so ineffective that there are thousands of unemployed.

Tell us how you got those figures.

What sort of party is that to build the future of the country upon?

Tell us how you got those figures.

My hon. friend has just come in in the usual way knowing nothing of what has been transpiring—knowing nothing at all.

You have no registration; you cannot tell us how you got those figures.

Come on, let’s hear it.

You and I understand each other; these other fellows are not up to our intellectual standard.

Arising out of the intervention of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad in the matter, I would like to ask him and I would like to ask hon. members generally on that side of the House—and I am constrained so to do by the wording of their amendment— when they talk about full employment why do they not mention the wage? What sort or wage do they propose that they shall have?

We have said that already.

I am constrained to ask that question because I have a very vivid recollection ….

[Inaudible.]

I am coming to the point that arises from the experience of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad when he was in a position of authority. I will itemise it still further by placing my finger geographically on the spot. Potchefstroom, and I will go still further in the matter of detail and I will get to the actual industry concerned, the agricultural college at Potchefstroom under the aegis, control guidance, and administrative ability of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad who was then Minister of Agriculture. Do you know what they paid the Europeans? 1s. 9d. per day. Strong exception was taken to the fact that I introduced a wage of 8s. per day for unskilled European labourers working on building contracts for the Public Works Department.

You know that is not so.

Now Sir …. [Interruptions.]

I hope these interjections will stop and that hon. members will allow the hon. Minister to make his speech.

I do not want to appeal on the grounds of physical difficulty, but at least hon. members may have some consideration. What is the amendment? Hon. members on that side make no mention of the standard of living but they ask for full employment. At what price? I have the right to ask them that. What is the wording of their amendment? The amendment reads as follows—

1. (a) to introduce a properly planned and comprehensive scheme for the employment of unemployed persons, excluding aliens, in which particular emphasis is laid on the responsibility of the State to combat unemployment amongst the people ….

What does it mean? Now I come to (b)—

1. (b) to apply the principle of separate spheres of employment for Europeans and non-Europeans in conjunction with the introduction of a quota system in industry.

This amendment is introduced on a Bill which is designed to register every man or woman who may be seeking employment. Surely, Mr. Speaker in any comprehensive scheme of employment the prerequisite, the preliminary act, should be a review, a record of every man or woman who may want employment Surely that is necessary; it is logic.

You want to place aliens before your own people.

But if we stopped there I would agree but as the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) said, this is one of a chain of Bills, and, Sir, my colleague, the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation will be coming to this House with a Bill for which I am demanding the support of the other side, and I will not get it.

What is the Bill?

You wait till you see it. I am pretty certain that these people who mouth platitudes today, who speak so unctuously of what their policy is economically and otherwise, will be strongly opposed to this Bill when it is introduced.

Your Bill means nothing.

I hope there will be more in it than Harry’s houses.

That has you beat.

Where is your Soldiers’ and War Workers’ Employment Bill today?

It is operating.

That is why they are starting a new organisation.

One of the drawbacks about His Majesty’s Opposition on that side, is that they never take the trouble to acquaint themselves with circumstances that are confronting them. They make no enquiry as to what is going on about them. They are like the tortoise; they hide their heads under the shell.

You are thinking of the ostrich.

I cannot accept that amendment; I will not accept that amendment. And why will I not accept the amendment? Because it is already the settled policy of the Government. The policy of the Government is to shoulder the responsibility of providing employment for every man and woman who requires it in the country.

They want to cash in.

They would like me to accept that amendment and then they will go to the country and say they forced the Government to accept their policy. The Government has already accepted that policy on its own initiative. Again I accuse them of putting their heads under the shell, because the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister made a clear-cut statement only a few months ago that the Government had assumed the responsibility for finding employment for every man and woman who requires employment and who is capable of doing it, and not at a miserable starvation wage, but at a wage that will enable them to live in comfort as any decent person should.

You could not do it in Pretoria.

What are you talking about?

You know these people are working one week and laying off the next week.

Five hundred and seventy unemployed—and he refuses to tell us where he got the figures.

Now I come to (b)—

I would like a little explanation of the last part, the quota system in industries, and having got that information, I would like to ask how on earth you can apply that in industries. It may be that these supermen can accomplish the impossible, but I confess, Sir, to be of that lower intellectual stratum that finds it impossible to rise to the intellectual heights of hon. members over there.

Well said.

Very well said. My hon. friend recognises sarcasm when he hears it. And now we come to the next question, of which so much has been said, again fallaciously. I was going to say untruthfully, but I shall not say that. It was certainly based upon misapprehension on the part of the Opposition. Do not these hon. gentlemen remember that I myself with the aid of the whole House, passed the Factories Act not so long ago?

You took it out.

I did not take it out. There again you see, that is the sort of stuff of which the Nationalists are made.

Would you mind telling us what you took out and what you put in?

Let us have criticism which, at any rate, has some remote connection with fact.

And honesty.

It seems to me that this is the appropriate moment for me to support the statement made by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers). Let them take the beam out of their own eyes before they see the mote in someone else’s. Are you going to make that separation universal? Are you in the future going to refuse to have kitchen boys and girls? Can you conceive of a condition without the native in your kitchen bringing coffee to your daughters in the morning?

You are not serious.

Good heavens, take the beam out of your own eye before you start looking at the mote in someone else’s.

Don’t be stupid.

My hon. friend’s interjection can’t make me stupid. What are the facts? The hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans) is perfectly, honest.

Of course, he is honest.

Yes, the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) is not an ornament to the House.

Don’t become excited; you were quite funny so far.

It was perfectly honest on the part of the hon. member for Losberg. Incidentally he wants my Ministerial head on a charger. He can have it.

He will get it.

But the point is this, that the hon. member visited very, very few of these factories, and he visited them under the guidance of the bad company he is in this afternoon.

They gave him the addresses.

They gave him the information.

What does that matter?

Whether you like it or not, the policy of the Government is this, that social contacts must be selective. In other words, every individual has the right to select his social associates, and under no stress of economy or economics or the Factories Acts have we the right to urge—and I contest it most strongly—and to force people to mix with other people whom they have no desire to mix with. Therefore I put that in the Act and it has not been taken out. It is the policy of the Government to separate Europeans and nonEuropeans. I therefore cannot accept that part of the amendment because it is already there is practice.

But the member for Losberg (Mr. Wolmarans) says it is not so.

The member for Losberg discovered it.

He says it is not so in practice.

Only where he went.

It was not so in practice where he went.

My hon. friends must realise this, that we will alter it.

When?

They are so used to bluffing other people that they think I am bluffing them.

Go to the factories in Cape Town and see what happens there.

Whatever happens we propose that this Bill should be put into operation and as a preliminary to the great scheme of reconstruction we propose to make a survey of our manpower.

That is something at least.

First of all I hope that the House will agree to reject this stupid amendment, stupid because everything it proposes is already in practice. Having dealt with that, we will proceed to pass the Bill.

Question put: That all the words after “That”, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the motion

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—64:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Bawden W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Butters, W. R.

Carinus, J. G.

Christie, J.

Christopher, R. M.

Cilliers, H. J.

Cilliers, S. A.

Conradie, J M.

De Kock, P. H.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Eksteen, H. O.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedman, B.

Gray, T. P.

Henny, G. E. J.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hopf, F.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

McLean, j.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Morris, J. W. H.

Pieterse, E. P.

Pocock, P. V.

Prinsloo, W. B. J.

Raubenheimer, L. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, O. L.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard, C. F.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Stratford, J. R. F.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Tighy, S. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Waring, F. W.

Waterson S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Noes—30:

Bekker, G. F. H.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bremer K.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges T. E.

Fouché, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Louw, E. H.

Ludick, A. I.

Malan, D. F.

Mentz. F. E.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Potgieter, J. E.

Serfontein J. J.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Swanepoel, S J.

Van Niekerk, J. G. W.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment dropped.

Original motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee on the Bill on 16th April.

Unfortunately the Standing Rules and Orders do not permit me to discuss the taxation system of the Minister under this Vote. If we had been able to do so, I think the Minister would have heard a flood of criticism this afternoon, and he would have realised how members of this House and the public outside feel in regard to his taxation policy. Unfortunately I cannot do it and I must confine myself to remarks dealing purely with the administration of the Department. I have in my hand the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Inland Revenue. It is for the year 1942-’43. In other words, the only information which the House has had available up to the present, has been the yield of the various taxes up to the 31st March, 1943. I understand that we can expect the report for the next year to appear at any moment. I should like to ask the Ministser whether he thinks it is right to delay the publication of this annual report until the Budget debate is over and until the Inland Revenue Vote has been passed. The Annual Report which we are now going to get brings us to the 31st March, 1944. That is a year ago. I take it that there was time to draw up the annual report and to complete it before the Budget debate started and before we reached this vote. I must say that I find fault with the Commissioner of Inland Revenue in that he did not make that essential information available to the House. Are we going to get this report only after Parliament has dealt with the expenditure on this vote? I should like to put this question to the Minister. This annual report which I have in my hand was not made available to members of the House, nor to the Select Committee on Public Accounts. If we want it, we have to ask for it. I want to ask the Minister of Finance to consider the question of making available to members of Parliament the new report which will appear in the near future.

It will be made available generally.

I am very pleased to hear that. There is certain information which members of the House must have in order to be able to carry out their duties properly and if Parliament is to function properly. I cannot help feeling that the excuse that there is a paper shortage is being abused in order to withhold certain essential information from the House.

When we do it, it is like locking the stable after the horse is gone.

Yes, the horse is gone, but as the English people say, we must be thankful for small mercies. I am very interested in the figures, although they are two years old; and there’ are certain aspects of these figures in regard to which I should like to have a little more information from the Minister. I have before me three annual reports. The first report is in respect of the year 1938-’39; the other is in respect of the year 1940-’41 and the third is for the year 1942-’43. I refer more particularly to statements numbers 30, 31 and 32. There we get the following data. The first statement shows assessments in respect of income tax, grouped according to the amounts of the taxable income. Then follows the grouping of the tax rebate; that is not so important. I find the third group particularly interesting, namely the report on page 25, i.e. the grouping of taxable income according to the sources of income. Here we are told what the total taxable income of the Union was for the years concerned, which are mentioned in these three reports. I took the trouble of making a comparison between the years 1938-’39 and 1940-’41 and 1942-’43. I readily admit that the basis of caculation is not always the same. During 1938-’39 £400 was really the notch on which the income tax started. Thereafter it was reduced eventually to £300. For that reason alone one would therefore expect the taxable income for the year 1942-’43 to exceed the taxable income for the year 1938-’39. In the year 1938-’39 the taxable income of commerce was £15,000,000; in the year 1940-’41 it was £16,000,000; and in the year 1942-’43 it was £20,818,000. A gradual increase took place, as one would have expected, in the taxable income. What I cannot understand is the movement of the taxable income of industry. In 1938-’39 the taxable income of industry was £14,289,000; in 1940-’41 it was £16,500,000; in the year 1942-’43 it was £14,800,000. I think if there is one thing which worked at full steam during the war it was our industries. We have often heard from the Minister, especially with regard to our industries, that there has been a surprising increase during the war. I imagine that the shoe factories have been working at full speed as a result of military contracts, which they did not do before the war. I am thinking of the textile industry; I am thinking of the engineering industry. That applies to the greater majority of industries. How does the Minister explain the fact that the taxable income for 1938-’39 increased from £14,289,000 to £16,500,000 in 1940-’41 and that it dropped again to £14,800,000 in 1942-’43?

There is a very good reason for that.

I hope the Minister will explain that reason to us. I thought that there was either something wrong with the figures or that tax evasion had taken place. We can understand why the taxable income of the liquor trade increased. As far as banking is concerned, the taxable income declined. In 1938-’39 the taxable income of the banks was £5,257,000. In 1940-’41 it dropped to £3,741,000 and in 1942-’43 it dropped to £2,953,000. That shows that bänks do not flourish in times of prosperity.

It is not only the banks but also the trust companies.

Yes, it falls under the same heading. I should like to have an explanation from the Minister. [Time limit.]

I should like to have some information from the Minister in regard to Section A, “Salaries, Wages and Allowances” and more specifically in regard to page 45 where provision is being made for a special war allowance. This special war allowance is apparently being paid to certain groups only. Provision is being made for certain railway officials, but I do not know what the position is on this Vote. Surely it cannot relate to the railways. Then I should also like to put a question in regard to B, “the collection of income tax”. I notice that there is an increase, and the information which is given here, is not sufficient to explain the position to us.

Let me first reply to the hon. member for Ceres (Dr. Stals). He raised two points. One is in connection with D, “Cost of collecting income tax, etc.”, where there is än increase from £2,000 to £5,000. That is in connection with cases which are taken to court. Where we lose such a case we have to pay interest. The hon. member will understand that coupled with the increased taxation, there has been a corresponding increase in the amount involved in cases of this nature, and for that reason there is also an increase in the interest. We are no longer getting off as lightly as we did previously. That explains the increased amount. As the amount collected increased, so there was an increase in the interest we paid. The second point is in connection with the special war allowance. It appears on all the Votes, in the same way as the war expenditure allowance. That was introduced last year, especially as a concession to officials in Pretoria, but a decrease has taken place as a result of the increase in the cost of living allowance. It is, however, a matter which applies generally to the Civil Service as a whole, and the hon. member will see it on all the Votes.

Will this be the last year it will appear?

I think so, but it is a matter for the Civil Service as a whole and I am not fully informed on this point. With regard to the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) I, too, regret the fact that the report for lS43-’44 could not appear earlier, but the hon. member knows what difficulties we have to contend with. In the first place, there is the shortage of staff in my own Department, and in the second place the difficulties with which the Government Printer has to cope. I anticipate, however, that the report for 1943-’44 will now appear any day. It will be made available generally, and I hope it will be available before the motion to go into Commitee of Ways and Means is discussed. With regard to the taxable income for the purposes of normal income tax, the hon. member knows that the amount payable in the form of excess profits tax does not form part of the taxable income for normal taxation. He will see, therefore, that with the increase of the excess profits tax, one must expect a reduction in the taxable income on which normal tax is paid. That applies, of course, more particularly in the case of industries, where there has been an increase in the amount of the excess profits tax. That is the reason for the apparent setback. It is only apparent.

There is only one matter I wish to mention, and it is the attitude of the Receiver of Revenue. A number of complaints have come from people that he at times acts rather unreasonably and hastily, especially in connection with assessments.

Are you referring to the Pretoria office?

Yes. Threats are readily employed and summonses issued and court proceedings are even threatened. We should not forget that the court entails an expensive procedure, and our people are very reluctant to appear before a court. [Quorum.] It is an expensive process, going to court, and the general opinion is that its costs too much trouble to go to court. I will mention an instance. I take the case of a certain person who is a worker and who in addition has a boarding house. In past years he paid taxes and last year he received an assessment of about £400, and the reason advanced for that was that this boarding house did not yield the same profit as those in the neighbourhood. The individual’s auditor wanted to see the Receiver of Revenue, but he was simply told that he could take the matter to court. The matter came into court and the court found that there was no ground for the attitude of the Receiver of Revenue and the matter was referred back to him. The result was that the man subsequently received an assessment for only about £40, a difference of about £360. In the meanwhile this person incurred costs in the court to an amount of £70, and he had all this trouble in connection with the matter.

At 6.40 p.m. the Chairman stated that, in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1945, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), he would report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported progress and asked leave to sit again; House to resume in Committee on 13th April.