I move—

I would be neglecting my duty if I did not protest against the continual tampering with the existing irrigation laws and existing rights. I understand that this Bill was drawn up and that the changes have been made in consultation with the Irrigation Board concerned. The owners of the ground, the owners and taxpayers, were not consulted. The Bill gives certain rights to the board which it did not have before. I understand that the board is satisfied with the Bill as it now appears before us. The owners have been notified about the Bill and did not send in objections. We must therefore accept that they are satisfied with it. The difficulties which exist, I think, will be appreciated by them later. I have thus not risen to speak on behalf of the persons concerned. I rose to protest so that in one way or the other I can get the Government to appreciate what is going on. We cannot be satisfied with this continual patchwork. The position is simply that if I do not rise to ask the Government not to continue with patchwork, it may perhaps be said that I agreed because I did not say anything. For years now I have been pressing the Government to revise the Irrigation Law which was passed in 1912, to have it investigated and to pass amended legislation to suit the changed circumstances. Instead of doing that, for years now we have had tampering with the Act taking place in one way or the other, and for each irrigation scheme we have a different Act.

Perhaps that is the best thing to do.

The position will be that a chaotic state of affairs will eventually be created and that no one will know any more what the Irrigation Act is. Already there are enough difficulties. Lawyers are unwilling to take cases because the compensation they receive is not to their liking. I am of opinion, moreover, that most of them do not understand these laws. The original Irrigation Act was passed in 1912, 33 years ago, and many new things have developed which did not exist at that time. Deficiencies in the existing legislation continually appeared and attempts were made to rectify them, but it is necessary to bring the whole of the legislation up to date in the light of the experience we gain in connection with irrigation and Irrigation Boards. If we do not do that we will land in a quagmire in which even the Government will perish. Once again I want to make an earnest appeal to the Minister to have the matter investigated. If necessary he can appoint a commission, because I think the best advice I can give him is that given by Mr. John X. Merriman himself when the first amendment was made to the law in 1906. He approached the irrigation farmers and Irrigation Boards and got them to form an association. That was subsidised by the Government. Those people assembled every year. The Act of 1906, on which the Act of 1912 was based, was drawn up with their help and advice. The late Mr. Merriman himself attended the first conference held by them at Robertson. At the moment they have no such association. It is an expensive matter. Most of the people are poor and are not able to support such an association. For that reason Mr. Merriman at the time subsidised the association. Later the subsidy disappeared under subsequent Governments, and the association completely disappeared. But such an association can be of great benefit to the Minister of Irrigation and can help him to draft legislation, and they can protect their own rights. The hon. the Minister has probably also realised that engineers do not view matters in the way farmers do. If an engineer sees a site for a dam, which seems to be a good site for a dam, he will build a dam irrespective of rights which are disturbed or taken away. Of course one needs technicians but one also needs the help of those people who have lifelong experience of irrigation. Then one can draft the Bill which will satisfy everybody and will help irrigation. The position now is that there is one Act for the Breë Rivier and one for the Olifants River, and now we are busy with a Bill for Oudtshoorn, and there are also separate Acts for a few irrigation districts in the north.

There are different circumstances applicable to each of them.

But there are general rules applicable to all. It may be that special rules are required for each, but general rules can apply to all. The Act of 1912 tried to deal with the matter for the first time. A start was then made with great conservation dams. Water was conserved in the rivers. One found water in the dams but care was taken that the diversion points should be lower down in the river, and the right to use the water in the river for furrows was never given. In other words, the water in the river was public water, and the rights of people who used that water had to be considered. The Act of 1912 did not make proper provision for the use of water from a river in furrows, and now legislation must be passed for all the various districts. In this case, for example, the owners are deprived of a right as regards the division of water as laid down in the Act of 1912. That is the position. The Irrigation Board is here given the right to divide the surplus water pro rata amongst all owners. The existing Áct says that all surplus water which is public water, shall be divided amongst the ….

The decision of the Water Court is to the effect that no rights are affected.

The decision of the Court deals with the water of the Kamanassie River, but what you are now dividing is the water from the Olifants River. You are giving the Irrigation Board the right to all the water in the river, surplus water as well as the water from the dam. That right was never possessed by any irrigation board, and I say that no irrigation board can divide it. You are, however, determining that the surplus water of the public stream Will be divided pro rata. The owner above up to now could take all the water for his ground, and if there is a surplus it flows on to those who are situated lower down. Now the Minister by means of legislation takes away this privilege and states that the surplus water shall be divided pro rata. You are contravening the Act of 1912 by making a change in the use of surplus water. As regards the Breë Rivier we only had the right to divide the water in the bed of the river, but now the Irrigation Board in this case is given the right to divide the surplus water, a right which no Irrigation Board ever had. I make bold to say that the division of water flowing in a river also does not fall within the powers of an Irrigation Board. They have no powers. You change the division under the Act of 1912, which gave the right to surplus water to the first owner above. There were court cases about that. Take the case in Britstown of the Smartt-Syndicate. It was not provided clearly in the Act, and the decision was that as regards surplus water the owner above had the right of user, without being allowed to waste the water, and when he has taken all the water he wants to use, it flows down to the second man, etc. Now the water is being divided pro rata. But the Act goes further. According to the Act of 1912, Act No. 8, it is provided—

It mentions “equitable” and not “pro rata”. I go further. In the case of Van Graan and Van der Vyfer vs. Maree and others, it was decided that the word “equitable” does not mean a pro rata division but means that there are existing rights to turns out of the furrows. In other words one has to take the vested rights of people into consideration. In this case one has furrows which have lain along the Olifante River for 100 years, before the dam was ever built, and the water in the furrows was divided. I accept that the turns have been changed from time to time as people have sold turns. These existing rights you now want to eliminate by a stroke of the pen and you want to say that the water flowing in the river, from the river into the furrows, shall not be divided into turns, but pro rata. You are depriving people of their vested rights, rights they perhaps bought. There might have been an owner who had the right to water on four days. He might have sold three of those to a neighbour. You are now giving back four to him although he has sold three of them to his neighbour. The board now determines that the water shall be divided pro rata. It is only for a few weeks, I think five weeks, that water flows in that river. Then water can be conserved. Under the existing division the man above can take what he needs, and the Irrigation Board did not have the power to divide the water.

The Court decided ….

The decision of the Court was not in connection with the water of the Olifants River, but of the Kamanassie River. I am now speaking about certain furrows, 20 or perhaps 30 furrows leading out of the Olifants River and not out of the Kamanassie River. The Olifants River comes from beyond Willowmore; the Kamanassie comes out of the Outeniqua Mountains; it is quite a different river. Before it runs into the Olifants River there is a dam. I am dealing with the position of those furrows in connection with which vested rights exist. I know the position there, because I was born and reared there, there is practically no normal flow as regards a large portion of the river, but only flood water, and the flood water is the subject of another division from the normal flow. There you must give a reasonable distribution right to the end, but as regards flood water the position is different, and as regards that this Bill will change the use of the water. I understand that the people at Jan Fourieskraal will also be given flood water, but if they are not entitled to the water, how can you simply take away the rights of other people in order to give these people water? If the Government builds a dam and supplies water, rights come into existence and that I can understand. But what I object to is that there is continual tampering with the laws in connection with irrigation, and especially in regard to the water in the rivers. In this Bill the time has not even been determined during which people will be provided with water. I have no objection if the times are fixed, but one should not violate private rights. A change is made here in the use of the water; it is a change in the existing law. That should not happen before thorough enquiry takes place, and legislation is placed before this Parliament which fits in with the new circumstances as regards irrigation. The present legislation is antiquated. Many new matters have come into existence in connection with irrigation boards and irrigation in general, which never existed before. It was an experiment and it was found that certain things were wrong. There are schemes where no provision was made in connection with existing furrows. The hon. Minister knows of all the difficulties, because the Act of 1912 only makes provision for new furrows. I do not want to employ the time of the House further, but I wish to express the hope that the Minister will give serious attention to this matter. The Minister is busy creating great difficulties by means of this continual patchwork. Let us have an Act which applies to all, and if there are exceptional circumstances in connection with a scheme, provision can be made in connection therewith, especially if Parliament votes the funds. Then conditions can be imposed. But the usual principle of law should apply to the whole country. One cannot have one portion under one system and another portion under a different system. The Minister will land in chaos and eventually we will not know where we are, and it will be a fruitful source of litigation. The position now already is that the barristers tell one that they cannot say what the position is and that one should go to court to test what the position is. And if one commences a case one does not even know whether one should go to the Supreme Court or to the Water Court. Attempts have been made to make court cases cheap, but instead of that it is now so expensive that people cannot go to court. The same thing happened in connection with other legislation. One tries to make a thing cheap but eventually one has to pay for it out of one’s own pocket, because the legal men are not prepared to work for fees which are uneconomical to them. A barrister does not want to accept a Water Court case at a fee of £10 10s. per day; he wants 25 or perhaps 50 guineas, and then the people have to pay it out of their own pocket. The whole thing is antiquated and a plan must be made to rectify it. I speak from years of experience.

There has been a state of chaos in Oudtshoorn for many years.

That may be, but the Minister must not think that he will rectify matters by means of this legislation so that here will be no more cases. Perhaps there will be no more cases for a while because the people are poor and have difficulties and suffer from drought, and they have not the money, but as soon as they have been prosperous for a while, they will bring their cases to court immediately there is a drought. There will still be many cases about water and we are getting thoroughly tired of it. Let the Minister now tackle the matter and rectify it. I feel that it was my duty to rise to protest against the continual patchwork. I should like to see the irrigators happy. I realise that the future of our country in the sphere of agriculture lies in irrigation. If we have no irrigation we cannot expand and cannot carry a greater farming population. My heart is in this. I should like to contribute all my efforts to rectify matters, but we cannot let this state of chaos continue.

The speech to which we have just listened would have appeared strange to the House coming from any other hon. member, but from the mentally developed and versatile member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) who disposes of an unlimited fund of knowledge regarding every possible matter, we can of course expect something like that. We can expect him to talk about all possible and impossible matters.

He knows more about irrigation than you do.

That may be, but if I interpret his speech correctly he is objecting to this legislation because he says it will cause chaos and because it is patchwork.

Will you deny it?

If the hon. member had attended the sittings of the Select Committee faithfully and continuously he would have realised what is being dealt with by the Bill, and that the aim and object is to remove chaos and to do reparation work.

On a point of information: I just want to say that I do not think it is proper of the hon. member to say that I did not spend my time on the Select Committee. I was there one whole morning until 11 o’clock, until Parliament began. Then I left. I proposed that we should adjourn, but after that the Select Committee in one quarter of an hour— when I left we had reached the second or third clause—dealt with the whole matter. There were only supporters of the hon. member’s own Party.

The hon. member objected at the Committee Stage and voiced protest against the manner in which the Select Committee had done its work, and I am therefore entitled to justify the actions of members of the Select Committee.

You attacked me wrongly.

The hon. member accuses us of patchwork. The position in reality is this, that while I do not want to detract from the extensive and unlimited knowledge of the hon. member for Swellendam as regards irrigation matters, we are dealing with a local position, and there we can rather accept the lead and advice of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux) who knows local circumstances and in particular is interested in them. His constituency in particular is affected by it, and I have as yet heard no objection from him. In fact, he will not raise objection because he knows it is good legislation which is desired by the Irrigation Boards of Kamanassie and Jan Fourieskraal. These people realise the benefits which the Bill will give them. They desire this legislation and welcome it, and we once more want to congratulate the Minister and his Department on managing to reach unanimity in connection with the matter and in submitting this legislation. I should like to ask the hon. member for Swellendam whether he is against this Bill or not? Will he go so far as to say that unless the whole Irrigation Act is changed he will not be prepared to vote for this particular piece of legislation? We cannot pass a general Act which will suit all local circumstances. Here we have special circumstances and for those special circumstances we require special legislation. Finally, I should like to give the House the assurance that we do not detract from and that we do not come into conflict with private rights. The fact that the Irrigation Board is being empowered during certain periods of the year to use the river for the division of the conserved water, does not mean that we are thereby derogating from the rights of any private interested persons. Their turns to lead water are being postponed but they do not thereby lose any water rights, and that eventuality arises at the most perhaps twice or three times a year. No, the criticism raised against this Bill is not sound criticism. Not the least reason exists why we should not wholeheartedly accept this legislation, if we want to protect the interests of the local people who are concerned.

The hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) evidently did not quite appreciate the point of view of the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren). He pretends that the hon. member for Swellendam now opposes the Bill and does not want it, while the hon. member for Swellendam clearly stated that an agreement had been arrived at in connection with the Bill and therefore he does not oppose it. He only pointed to certain complications in connection with the Irrigation Act in general. And hon. members of the House know that irrigation is perhaps one of the most complicated matters which this House or the country have to deal with, and for that reason the hon. member for Swellendam is right when he pleads that in connection with irrigation there should be more clarity and certainty; and if we want to proceed in the direction of more clarity in connection with irrigation. I want to associate myself with it, but when one thinks that an Act can now be passed which can be applied to any problem or development which can exist where the State specially steps in to build a dam in one or other irrigation area, then I say that is asking too much. One will immediately find that as soon as the State builds a conservation scheme in an irrigation area, the usual laws in connection with irrigation will be disturbed there, which as a result necessitate special provisions to meet the special circumstances which arise. But when the member wishes that as regards general irrigation rights there should be more clarity and that there should be further investigation so that rights can more clearly be determined, that is a good thing. When, however, an irrigation scheme is built by the Government, the Minister and the Administration before commencing it, should take the matter in review and consider it and work out a proper scheme. And it is here where I wish to excercise criticism, because after this scheme has been completed almost 20 years legislation is now only being submitted to regulate the water rights in connection with this scheme. That shows a tremendous delay on the part of the relevant administration during that period.

That is the position.

That regulations are necessary whenever there is interference from outside is undoubted. In this scheme for example, as the hon. member for Swellendam correctly said, existing rights are affected. But circumstances demand it. My objection is that the rights are only being affected now, and that only now is legislation submitted, after the scheme was completed 20 years ago. It should have been done 20 years ago, and I therefore want to express the hope that in future whenever irrigation schemes and dams are built, and whenever there is interference on the part of the State, plans will be evolved first before rights are disturbed and legislation should not be introduced afterwards, but in the beginning. The Kamanassie Dam was built to conserve surplus water and to give that surplus water to the irrigators. In order to give the surplus water to the irrigators is was essential that there should be canals to give the water to the owners. The hon. member for Swellendam is quite right. Unless one makes provision for giving the people this surplus water through one’s own canals, one will have to revert to the old method of dealing with the water, and that will be along the beds of the river, and then there will be no question of pro rata division, but the usual provisions of the law apply.

But how must one divide the two kinds of water?

One can only divide it if one has diversion canals which served the whole area.

But there is only one canal.

It is exactly my objection that originally when the scheme was built the Administration should have kept that in mind. It should have built canals to serve the whole area, and that was one of the reasons why certain parts of the district received unjust treatment because there were no canals serving the whole area, and as a result the owners above were benefited at the cost of those lower down. The chaotic condition about which the Minister spoke arose as the result of this lack of a considered plan, and what I plead for is that in future when schemes are initiated they must be initiated only after a considered scheme has been drawn up for the division of the conserved water. In connection with this scheme, because delay took place, 20 years ago, rights must now be asked for in order to divide the water. Another provision of the Bill is to appoint a committee which will exclude certain ground from the irrigation area. In regard to both these matters recommendations have been made by the Irrigation Commission for a number of years. That was still prior to the costs in connection with the scheme being written off. At that time I told the relevant Minister of Irrigation—I think it was the late Colonel Reitz—that he must not deal with the matter piecemeal. He must meet the irrigators there and come to an agreement with them and work out the whole matter. He did not do that and as a result the chaotic condition about which the Minister spoke developed. It could not possibly continue like that and the time dawned to interfere and to see to it that that scheme should be administered properly. The Minister told us here that he met the irrigators and that after discussions with them they agreed that this Bill should be introduced. The fact that the irrigators were ready at this stage to consent to the alteration which would be brought about as regards their private rights is proof of the reasonableness of the irrigators in that area. The fact that they agreed in connection with the legislation is proof of the spirit of reasonableness amongst these people, and if there now is such a spirit of co-operation amongst the irrigators, they would originally have exhibited it still more, and for that reason it points to a serious neglect on the part of the Administration at that time. The fact that the irrigators are so reasonable gives me pleasure. At the same time I fear that there may be irrigators who cannot realise all the results inherent in this legislation and consequently are willing at this stage to let certain matters go through which afterwards they might discover to be to their detriment. But that is not my concern. The irrigators had the opportunity to acquaint themselves with the matter. The Minister met them and the Kamanassie Irrigation Board which represents all those interested parties agreed to support the scheme. If they decide in that way and are not willing to take steps to protect themselves where their rights are being detracted from, it is not my concern to plead for those rights. I must abide by the fact that they are willing to accept the provisions of the Bill. I am also glad that in the Bill provision is made in connection with the Redemption Fund which was instituted, that a separate fund is now being awarded to the Irrigation Board of Jan Fourieskraal to be used by them. In the past representations have always been made by the Irrigation Board of Jan Fourieskraal to be incorporated in the Kamanassie Irrigation Board, but it never succeeded. They are now a separate board, and where funds for unforeseen expenditure are being collected by the Kamanassie Board, the Irrigation Board of Jan Fourieskraal have no say in the matter. The Irrigation Board of Jan Fourieskraal felt that they should have authority over part of that fund. That provision has now been made in the Bill and I think it will remove that grievance on the part of these people. In general I then abide by the express wishes of the interested parties and especially by the Kamanassie Irrigation Board who represent the interests of those people, to find a solution of the problem along these lines. I should have liked to see perhaps that more time should have been given to these people thoroughly to investigate this matter and to make clear suggestions, but seeing that from their side they approve of this measure I cannot do otherwise than to abide thereby.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

To continue with the speech I was busy making here yesterday, I just want to say that the home education of the native, his education and process of development in life, are links of the same chain. And if it is true—and it is true— that in the education which the native child receives in his home it is essential to retain the tribal connection, the tradition and philosophy of life peculiar to his tribe should form part of the education he receives. If that is so, then it is also essential that when one gives him education, one should also retain that tribal connection in that education if one wants that process of development to continue and to be a stabilising influence in his later life. In connection with the financial aspect I just want to repeat what I was pleading for yesterday, namely that the time has now dawned when we should call a halt as regards this question, that the demands as regards native education are still increasing enormously and that from year to year more burdens are laid on the shoulders of the European taxpayer. T put this question to the Minister of Finance, and I want to repeat it. The demands as regards native education have grown enormously in latter years. The percentage of the native poll tax which is devoted to native education has increased since 1926 to 1938 from one-fifth to three-fifths. Thus, in a period of twelve years, the fraction increased from one-fifth to three-fifths; in other words, there was an increase of two-fifths in that period. But from 1940 to 1944, and especially during the period the Minister of Finance has been in control, in that period of five years that speed doubled itself. In that period of five years it also increased by two-fifths. It increased from three-fifths to five-fifths. That is, in a period of five years. And now I want to ask the Minister of Finance: To what does he ascribe this increased tempo? Have the demands for native education increased to this tremendous extent just during the last five years, so that we have this position? I just want to refer to the report of departmental activities of the Department of Native Affairs for the year 1944-’45. It is not that the demands have not increased in latter years, but there is an unlimited tempo. On page 25 I read the following—

It is a well-known fact that it is generally recognised in this House—it was stated overseas and it was stated in this House—that as circumstances in South Africa now are for the natives, also as regards education, South Africa has become a magnet for the natives in the protectorates around the Union of South Africa. When South Africa is such a magnet and perhaps draws hundreds and thousands of natives from the adjoining territories, it is time that we should ask ourselves where this matter will end that the European should be expected to pay for the development of the native. I said that we should now teach the native to contribute a part of the cost of his education. That is a matter which is generally accepted. I just want to say that that rising fraction which is now taken from the native poll tax and applied to native education in the past was applied to other services. It is not the case that they now pay more for the other services. The fact is that money which was devoted to other services is now to an increasing degree being spent on native education. I say that the principle that the native should be taught gradually to pay for the services he receives has been accepted inter alia by the Commission of Enquiry in connection with health conditions in the country. In order to put it clearly I want to read what the commission says in its brief summary on page 9. There the commission says the following—

Here the principle is laid down and it is recommended that the native, where he shares in the health services of the European, must learn to pay out of his reduced income, and if it is a sound principle in connection with health services, then it is also a sound principle as regards the educational services provided for the native. As far as the general argument is concerned, I should just like to tell the Minister this, that throughout all the years of his process of development the European had to pay for every step of his higher development himself. People are not born with knowledge. In his process of development the European had to pay for every stage of his development himself, and if that was the process in connection with the development of the European, why cannot the same principle be applied in connection with the development of the native? Where the European himself had to provide for the education of his children, let the native also be taught gradually out of his own income to pay for the education of his child. But I now come to the Bill itself, and want to say just a few words in connection with the amendment of the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel), and I just want to say that as the amendment stands now it gives the impression that the commission is being told beforehand what its findings should be, namely that it should recommend that the question should fall under the Department of Native Affairs, and the amendment can be interpreted in such a way that it excludes completely the possibility of provincial control. Because there is this possibility of an ambiguous interpretation of the amendment, I want to move, as an amendment to the amendment of the hon. member for Wonderboom, the following—

For the sake of clarity I want to say this, and I want to be very frank in discussing this matter, that as far as I personally am concerned, if I am faced with the choice whether I want to place native education under the Provincial Administration or under the Union Department of Education, I say that as matters are now I want to place it under the Provincial Administration of the Free State—and I now speak as a Free Stater—because I have more faith in them as regards the policy of that education. If I have to choose between control by the Minister of Higher Education or by the Minister of Native Affairs, there will be no doubt in my mind; I would prefer it to fall under the control of the Minister of Native Affairs. I indicated yesterday that from now onwards it will be necessary to try to realise in which direction matters are developing, also as regards the tendency followed in the education given to the native. In dealing with the Bill as it is framed now, I just want to make the following remark. I want to put a question to the hon. the Minister: Why does he not include in the Bill the details as to how the board will be constituted? It is obviously a general principle; it was accepted in the Apprenticeship Act; it was incorporated in the Soldiers’ Employment Act that when boards are appointed it is determined what the constitution of those boards will be. Members then receive the opportunity to know what the composition of the board is, and from that they can judge as to what the direction is in which the board will develop. In the second place I want to say this: It is provided in a clause of the Bill that the board will be an advisory board, and the advisory board must give its advice in two directions. In the first place the advisory board must advise the Minister; on the other hand it must advise the Provincial Administrations. This is an important question: Supposing that advice satisfies the one party but not the other party? What solution does the Minister propose? Whose will, then, will be applied the Minister of Education’s will, or that of the Provincial Administration? It is an inconsistency which today exists in the Bill, and I think it is essential that the Minister should devote his attention to it. Then I want to ask the Minister this question. It is not stated here what the number of members will be. It is only referred to in one clasue, which says that there will be one representative for each Provincial Administration. In Clause 3 (2) we read—

But it is not clearly stated who will nominate that representative of the provinces. Will the administrations of the provinces nominate their representative, or will the Minister nominate him? It is of importance that we should know who will appoint that representative. I take it that administrations will nominate the representatives. They nominate their representatives, but how many members will the Minister appoint? The Minister can appoint an unlimited and unspecified number. He can thus retain a controlling position on that board. The following clause, that is Clause 4, which makes provision for the promulgation of regulations, gives the Minister extraordinary power. I should like to put a few questions to him: the one is in connection with the Constitution of the Board. The Minister also has power to dismiss members of the board. He can therefore appoint members of the board and can at will dismiss those members from the board without anyone else having a word to say about it. I think it has been worded ambiguously here and it gives the impression that the Minister will have a dictatorship. Then there is a provision in connection with the regulations that the Minister determines the powers, duties and work of the board. We just want to know in how far this question of the powers, duties and work will give rise to the board being controlled by the Minister, so that this board which is an advisory board can now be dominated by the Mniister and that he can dictate to them as regards their duties. [Time limit.]

It is with pleasure that I second the amendment of the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein). We listened with pleasure yesterday to a few speeches— champion speeches if I may say so—in connection with this matter of native education. I specially enjoyed the speech of the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel) as also the speech of the hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp). It was clear to us that we were dealing with people who have made a study of their subject, and yesterday they made a very useful contribution and it was very agreeable to listen to them. But after I had listened to the speeches delivered in this House it became obvious to me that after 300 years of European civilisation in our country there still exists the greatest measure of uncertainty in connection with the future policy on native education. We do not know after these centuries that have passed what we really want and what objective we should really aim at in connection with this extremely important matter. It is clear to me that in the past we have had two divergent perspectives or schools of thought regarding native education. As a result of that difference in outlook, we have had a tremendous struggle in our country, a struggle that has drenched our plains with blood. We may say that this difference of opinion, this variation in the conception of what course should be taken in connection with native education is one of the principal causes of that struggle that has been taking place in our country. Today we have the same confusion and the same two conflicting outlooks. In the past the position was that that difference in outlook was a difference between the two main elements in our European population. Today it is no longer a difference between these two main population groups. We find that Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking people are on the one side attached to the same opinion in reference to the course that should be shaped for native policy; and on the other side English-speaking people as well, and to a lesser degree Afrikaans-speaking people are wedded to another philosophy in connection with native education. But the division still exists. To me it is very clear that the policy native education has followed in the past has not been a definite policy aimed at the best interests of the natives. I do not want now to discuss what that policy ought to be in order to comply with the requirements of the natives. Hon. members have already done that. But to me it is at present quite clear that the tendency in the past was to impart to the native the same type of education as was given to the European. I want to put it this way: After all these years can we affirm with conviction that the product we have provided as a result of that educational system, that the native we have fashioned as the product of that educational system, is a better native? Can we with conviction say that we have shaped a more useful and a happier native, and that the relationship that we have created between Europeans and natives is a happier relationship as the result of the system of native education that we have pursued? Or has that education that we in the past have given to the native made of the native an inferior and a less trustworthy man? In the days of the second war of freedom we were still dealing with natives who were absolutely staunch; they still clung to their tribe. That war was the cause of the Boers having to leave their towns and their farms, and their families were left behind. Tens of thousands of members of those Boer families were faithfully looked after by reliable and grateful servants. I want to put the question, are the natives that we have produced under the educational system we have followed still as reliable as those natives we had on our farms? Can we trust these natives today to the same extent as we trusted the natives who were still loyal to their tribe? Suppose now that the men today should have to leave our farms and villages and that the women and children had to remain behind; can we still depend on those native servants looking after our wives and children? No, everyone of us knows that today we have to deal with detribalised natives and that those detribalised natives as a result of the educational system we have followed are no longer as dependable as the tribal natives with whom we have had to deal in the past. We also know that under our educational system the native has not been made a happier man. Daily we hear that tens of thousands of natives are the most uhappy people. They are unhappy in respect of their fate as natives; they want to become white men. You see that the natives are dissatisfied and unhappy, and we can only attribute that to the education that has been given the natives in the past. Furthermore the education that we gave the natives in the past did not improve the relationship between the European and non-European. Is it not a pointer to us after we have spent several hundreds of thousands of pounds on native education, that we have not improved relationships between European and non-European? On the contrary, it is just in these present days that the native is more hostile to the European than he has been throughout the centuries. I am positive that we Europeans have nothing to pride ourselves on in respect of the education that we have given to the natives in the past. The previous Administrator of Natal, Mr. Heaton Nicholls, used very significant words in this connection. A congress on race relationships was being held in Natal. At that congress there was a discussion on the lamentable economic position in which urban natives found themselves, and Mr. Nicholls commented strongly that the difficulty in the urban areas was not alone to be ascribed to the economic position of the natives but that they also basically sprung from the education and upbringing that the natives had received. From the report of his speech in the Press he said, inter alia—[Re-translation]—

It is clear to me that at its best we can merely say today that we have only reached an experimental stage in connection with native education. There exists amongst us absolutely no certainty regarding the future, and while that is the case we cannot understand the Minister presenting us with such a Bill. As far as the real problem is concerned, and it is a big problem in our country, it can achieve absolutely nothing. Here we have a trivial little Bill of four clauses which can in no way impinge on this great subject. It offers us no solution; and because this is so I am prepared to support the amendment of the hon. member for Boshof and also the amendment of the hon. member for Wonderboom in which he asks for an enquiry. In the past the Minister of Education was known as a man with firm convictions but also as a reasonable man. Unfortunately we must now admit that years of political life have made the Minister in many respects an uncompromising man. He very seldom makes concessions when an appeal is made to him from this side of the House, and even when it is made from his side of the House. In this case, however, we would ask him to reflect and to grant what is asked in our amendments. I wish to raise an earnest objection against the rapid rise in the expenditure of public money on native education. Let me say most emphatically that I am all for proper education for the natives. But I feel that while we are in the experimental stage and while we are still uncertain about the course we should steer in respect of native education, we are going too far in granting these steadily mounting demands on the European taxpayer to pay hundreds and sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds on native education. I want to object to this. There are thousands of European children who are begging and praying for a better opportunity to be equipped for the battle of life. I speak subject to correction, but I believe I am right in saying that some 80 per cent. of European children leave school at Standard VI and embark on life hopelessly unequipped. And while those children are yearning for a better opportunity for education and for being able to equip themselves better for life, while they crave for better education, the Minister goes and sacrifices the European child on the altar of his liberalism. The Afrikaner is certainly not opposed to education of the natives. Last year a people’s congress was held in Bloemfontein on the race policy of the Afrikaner, and there the delegates came to the following conclusion in connection with native education—

1. (1) That in the past the Afrikaner, although it is historically understandable, has given too little attention to the education of natives in the Union, it being so to say left entirely in the hands of foreign churches, and that the Afrikaner people should do everything in their power to make up that leeway.
2. (2) That native education must be Christian in character; they should be given preparation for life; it must be linked up more with what is good in their own national life; it must assist in combating what is unhealthy in their social and general cultural life, while it should also be associated more with the special (including the Western) circumstances under which they are living in our country.
3. (3) That education in the first instance should envisage the provision of elementary instruction to the masses of the people, but it should also be so designed to provide instruction of the necessary specialised type to prospective leaders, publicists and artisans, etc., who will have to fill a part in the uplifting of their own people as professors, teachers, etc., etc.
4. (4) That native education as it is most closely bound up with native policy as a whole should remain permanently under the Department of Native Affairs together with all other native matters.
5. (5) That although the native in the first instance is responsible for the financing of their education it is the duty of the State on account of our principles of Christian trusteeship towards the natives, to contribute to the financing of it.

That is still our sentiment and our conviction. We want to provide the native with proper upbringing and education. We appreciate that they constitute the poorest section of the community and consequently the Europeans should contribute towards their education. We have no objection to offer to that, but what we do object to is that the Europeans alone should be called upon to contribute to the upbringing and education of the natives. That has not a good effect on the native himself. What a man gets for nothing is not apperciated by him. It is high time that as the European is being called upon to make so many sacrifices and as so many free services are being granted to the natives in other spheres, that the natives should also be asked to contribute their share to the education of their children. Now I come to the Bill itself. I want to say straight out that I as a Free Stater am jealous of the few rights that the Provincial Administration still possesses. We have full confidence in the Provincial Council of the Free State, and consequently we are the more jealous that they should retain their rights. The Minister yesterday used honeyed words in his statement that the sacredness of provincial rights is not being touched But while the Minister was making that statement we find that he was introducing a Bill whereunder he is accorded full powers in connection with native education, although it falls under the Provinces.

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

Before the adjournment I was stating that I would speak straight out but in the meanwhile I have been to a birthday party and I feel at peace with the whole world, and I no longer think that I shall speak out so absolutely bluntly. The objection that I have is that we feel that in this Bill too many powers are placed in the hands of the Minister of Education. For years we have had a fight between two divergent standpoints in connection with native education, and here the Minister comes and says that he is not going to trample on the rights of Provincial Administrations, but in the Bill he gives himself the right to dictate to the full how native education will be carried on in the future. In Clause 4 we read—

The Minister may prescribe how the board should function and what its powers are. But paragraph (f) is to my mind of even greater significance, because under it the Minister may make regulations with regard to—

I can only make out of this that the Minister will have a big say and that he will be able in the future to prescribe to the the Provincial Administrations the form of their native education. I must say that at this stage I cannot see that the future of native education in South Africa should be placed in the hands of one man. Let us be honest in the matter. We on this side of the House, and I think the outside world regard the Minister of Finance as a man with very liberal tendencies, and we cannot vote for the Bill in view of it imparting that character to native education and placing it in the hands of one man, especially it being the Minister of Finance. Accordingly I feel that the Bill should stand over and that a proper investigation should first be made. Even the Minister cannot under these circumstances assume the responsibility of directing native education into that channel along which it should develop in the future. Therefore investigation is necessary and a commission or committee must bear the responsibility for setting the course along which native education must be steered. I protest against this measure, and I cannot possibly give it my Support. This is a subject of the greatest importance on which there has been a tremendous fight for years, and how can the Minister take the power into his hands? Accordingly I feel that the measure should be referred to a Select Committee and that there should be a thorough enquiry.

I should like cordially to support the Bill which the hon. Minister of Education has introduced. It is a Bill which is long overdue and it Will make an important difference not only to the educational facilities and opportunities which the native population will secure but also to the industrial development of South Africa. The hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) today raised an objection to the expenditure that would be involved in providing education for the native population. Expenditure on the native people is an objection that the party on the benches opposite have raised for some time. Last session I remember the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) and another hon. member on that side of the House strenuously opposed expenditure for old age pensions in respect of the native population, and when we had a Parliamentary Committee sitting on the subject of social security the Opposition put forward a specific amendment to exclude the native population from the provisions ….

You are quite wrong.

That was the case, and that seems to be their policy.

What about people on your own side?

I was a member of the committee, and I am telling the House that was the amendment, the object of hon. members being to keep the position of the native people down.

That is very unfair.

Not only from the point of view of the interests of the natives but from the point of view of the interests of European people of South Africa it is imperative for us to do everything we possibly can to advance the position of the natives and to improve their economic lot.

Are you reprimanding your own side now?

I remember some years ago I happened to be a member of a deputation which met the late Mr. Piet Grobler, then the Minister of Native Affairs, and we then discussed with him the question of making better provision for native education, particularly on the Witwatersrand, where large numbers of native children were wandering about the streets without any facilities whatever for education. On that occasion Mr. Piet Grobler was very sympathetic—and as Ministser of Native Affairs he was always very sympathetic to the cause of the native population. He pointed out that one of his main difficulties in dealing with the matter was the financial arrangements, because the financing of native education was based on a particular fund raised by revenue from native taxation, and as a result of those difficulties he was unable to do anything at the time. Many years have elapsed since then, and although changes have taken place in the amount allocated from the fund for native education, it has not been possible until today to deal with the matter effectively and adequately. Today the Minister is to be congratulated on having realised that position. The Government having realised that position has decided that in future provision for native education shall come direct from consolidated revenue and shall be voted by this House, and that will give a much greater opportunity to provide the native population with adequate education. Moreover as was pointed out yesterday by the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger), it will also afford the opportunity to Parliament to exercise greater control on the subject of native education than has been the case in the past, and than would be the case if the attitude of the Opposition were to be accepted of leaving the matter in the hands of the Native Affairs Department. As I have said, the object and I think the effect of the Bill before the House will be to give greater facilities for native education, which will be in their interests as well as in the interests of the European population and of industrial development in the country. What is in a nutshell the essence of the Opposition to this Bill has been aptly described in the editorial in today’s “Cape Times”. Our hon. friends on the benches opposite are very prone to quote with approval the “Cape Times” when its views suit them; and the editorial in the “Cape Times” today—

Order, order. I must remind the hon. member that under the rules of the House quotations from newspapers having reference to debates in the present Session shall not be used,

I am not quoting; I am referring to the effect of that editorial that the knee-haltering of progress, is the attitude of hon. members opposite. They are out to knee-halter progress riot because they do not want progress and would not like to see the native population given a fair deal, but because they are afraid, they are actuated by panic, they are actuated by prejudice in so far as the non-European section of the population is concerned, and they are afraid that any progress made in the form of proper education for the native population may result in them becoming serious competitors ….

What about members on your own side?

If the Opposition had a chance to put the clock back, to revert to complete tribalism in South Africa, or at least to a complete policy of segregation they would do so. But they must realise and the House and the country must realise that tribalism has completely broken down in the country and we are responsible for it, for the native population having become detribalised, because in the process of utilising native labour we have thrust them among European people, not only in industry, but also in agriculture. The moment you encourage the native population to get away from the reserves and live amongst the farmers, obviously they must get a different outlook, and that applies to an even greater extent to industry; and we cannot develop our industries in South Africa, whether primary or secondary, without the native population, and we cannot have an efficient native labour force without giving them an adequate education. They mix with us and we have now arrived at a stage in the development of South African when, from the point of view of justice and in fairness to the non-European population, they not only emulate us but share in our civilisation. And, not only must we take the steps which the Minister is taking today in the interests of the natives, but in our own interests. In the interest of industry we must see that a native labour force is available to be used to the full, and that can only be done by breaking down the artificial barrier which existed in the past. Perhaps that may be a gradual process but we must break down the barriers and give the native educational facilities and so create an efficient native labour force to develop the industries of the country in the interests of South Africa and of the European population as well as of the natives. I say without any reservation that the Opposition is anxious to put the clock back and you cannot do that and thrust the native back into his own areas, inadequate as they are at present, and debar him from the benefits of European civilisation. Unless our friends there are prepared to deprive every farmer of his native labour, and to deprive the mining industry of its native labour, and to check the development of secondary industries by depriving it of native labour, and to drive the native right back to his own segregated areas, they cannot put the clock back. Having forced the natives amongst us—the natives did not come amongst us of their own; we were the magnet—and having adopted the policy of exploiting native labour, perhaps partly to the advantage of the natives, but especially to our advantage, and having forced them amongst the Europeans we cannot now sit back and say that we will not give them the fullest opportunity of getting the education they are entitled to and making them able to absorb our western civilisation. I believe that it is imperative that we should maintain western civilisation and advance it in the Union, but we cannot expect to maintain that civilisation by a retrograde policy as regards the native population. We cannot maintain our western civilisation in South Africa by telling the native that he cannot get the fullest opportunity to be educated. You cannot do it, Sir. There is only one method by which you can save European civilisation in South Africa, or otherwise being a handful of Europeans in a sea of colour we will go down. There is no hope for us unless we adopt a liberal attitude towards our native population. We cannot save our civilisation unless you make the non-European a partner with us in that civilisation and make him value that civilisation; and to do that you have to create the facilities to give him the opportunity of getting a proper education which he has not had in the past. I would refer to the importance of that not only for the nonEuropean, but also its importance for our European population. The Second Report of the Social and Economic Planning Council deals with this question of education. In that report, in dealing with the whole subject of education, at page 79 of that report, in paragraph 6 of the report, special reference is made to this question of native education, where it states—

And then the commission goes on to deal in paragraph 8 with the general position, and it states—

Now that is the position that we are faced with at present and I submit that the Minister and the Government are not too quick in taking up the matter today and trying under this legislation to make some provision whereby the education of the native population will no longer be dependent on the limited financial arrangements made, and they will fall definitely under the same system and control of education as the European. It is only by pursuing that method in South Africa—and I hope the time will come, as indicated by that commission, when it will not be only a matter of giving the Europeans the privilege of education, but that the principle of compulsory education will be applied to our natives and our non-Europeans generally, so that there will be compulsory education for all, and we will have an efficient labour force in this country to develop the secondary industries in this country about which our friends opposite talk so continuously in this House. We want to develop the natives. If we are to compete with any other country we must develop our secondary industries and agriculture, and that can only be dope if there is an efficient labour force, and that can only be achieved if you develop the ability of the labour force, not only the European but also the non-European. That being so, I welcome the Bill. I will not criticise any part of it. I would have liked to see the Advisory Board presided over by the Secretary for Education, but I believe that although it will be presided over by the Secretary for Native Affairs he will not dominate the board but will specially act in the interests of the native population. There is no doubt whatever that that board, whilst co-ordinating the educational arrangements of the Provinces for the native population, will see to it that they will get the fullest possible facilities for becoming educated and becoming useful factors in the development of the country.

We have just listened to the extraordinary speech by the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge). I just wonder, if the policy of that member and what he has stated is carried out, where South Africa will land in half a century. We shall be a coffee coloured nation, we shall no longer be a nation. The white man will no longer exist here. There I will leave the hon. member. In these days we often have people who talk about things of which they know absolutely nothing. When we talk about the native problem we should at least have first hand knowledge of the matter. From childhood I grew up with the natives; I know their language and their distinctive outlook on life. If we allow the native to remain in his raw state, if we allow him to remain within his tribe he has his own laws and he continues to govern himself, and there is not much difficulty. But things have developed. Civilisation has come. The natives have gone out to work for the white people and they have landed in the big towns. What has been the result of that? Today we are at our wit’s end to find a solution of this great native problem. I think that history shows very clearly that the old permanent section of the community always treated the natives very well, that they always dealt with them fairly, and meted out justice to them when those natives worked for them. We now get many reports that natives are best treated on the farms. In various circumstances provision is made for the natives. The hon. member opposite did not speak about the white children. He spoke continuously about the native children, and their general education. I want to take my own area, because I know it well. There are five native schools. I know the teachers; I know the natives; and they know me. Do you know what the educational system is? Those schools fall under a certain church society that is supreme there. Although the province provides the money, it pays the money out to them. You should see what these natives are being taught. I have 15 little natives on my farm and they go there to school. I do not keep them back. We give them a chance, although we do not want to make them white children. We want to keep them in their own place and let them develop there. But do they learn anything in those schools that will be useful to them and that will help them in the future to carry on their work and make a living? No. In the first place they learn out of a book, and then they learn history. I have come into contact with those teachers, and I will say clearly here without beating about the bush what those children are taught. In the history lesson those little natives are told that Europeans came to this country and stole it from them, and that they ought to get it back.

Is not that what we said about the English?

That is so, but we are not talking about the English now. We are dealing with the native problem. And that is what the small natives are taught. In many respects the Free State is a model to us and we can go and look there at what the natives are being taught. They are also being taught history, but they are taught what is useful to them and what is in their interest. This problem cannot be solved if we do not all stand together. I am very glad that we have seen in this debate that many of the members on the other side wish honestly and sincerely to co-operate with us in solving this problem.

But you must not put on the brake.

No, we shall not do that. No member on this side of the House or his supporters in the country desires to impede the progress of the native. But we say that he must live in the hut and we must live in the house. He must remain separate in his place. We want to retain the respect of the native but we are not going to sleep with him in the kraal. He is not our equal, but we do not want to oppress him. We came to this country because we were persecuted and consequently we can also perceive the rights of others. One cannot exercise sound judgment on a matter when you imagine you are always in the right yourself. One must also be able to see the other man’s standpoint, and we on this side can do so. If a man imagines he is clever, he is stupid, and unfortunately we have so many people in the country today who know everything. They cannot learn anything more. We feel that we should have central control of native education and that the Minister of Native Affairs must be responsible for that. But we do not want to belittle the provinces. We should consult them and work in co-operation with them. The hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp) yesterday gave a delightful exposition of the history of the subject. Once or twice while he was speaking I wondered whether he should not have been sitting alongside me. He ought to be here with me. Many of them ought to be here with me and one of these days they will be sitting here. Our policy is in the direction of a permanent solution of this problem, and we shall moreover tackle that solution. We must confer more with each other and not hurl reproaches at each other. Since the old days we have had an acquaintance with the native and we know how to treat him. He is disposed to distrust the white man, and I cannot take it amiss as there are certain white people in the country who say they want to give him everything, who make all sorts of promises to him that they never carry out. Here I want to say something to the representatives of the natives. We know that they do a considerable amount of good, but sometimes when I listen to their speeches I come to the conclusion that they do more harm than good. I shall tell you why. They agitate for certain things that they know they cannot get, and they also indirectly incite the natives against the Europeans.

How?

There are a hundred and one things. Do you know what the policy of those three members is? They do not go to their own constituencies to deliver addresses, but they go to Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Johannesburg and such centres, and there they make speeches that are published in the papers as wonderful speeches, but they do not go to their own constituencies.

That is not true.

You know that it is so. They have anticipated their duties. They have not come here with the object of discussing everything in the House.

They can.

They can do it because we have a democratic country. But they must first set their own house in order before trying to look after someone else’s. They have concerned themselves with everyone else’s work except their own. That is their attitude and they know it is the truth that I am stating here. I am not going to say it behind their back. I say it here directly to them. I want to ask the Minister to postpone this matter for a little while. Let us deliberate and obtain evidence. You know that this little Bill represents a minute portion of the whole subject, and it cannot effect a satisfactory solution. There should be central control. I think we all agree with that, but the central body that you establish will not solve the problem. I ask the House to accept this amendment. Postpone this Bill and let us first make a thorough enquiry into the subject, and then bring up a Bill that we may adopt and that will solve the problem in a proper manner.

When one sits here for two days and listens to the speeches that are made, speeches of a high standard such as those that were delivered yesterday by the hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp) and the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel) as well as other speeches that all represented a contribution to this debate, and which brought home to us the seriousness of the subject, and when we come today and have to listen to a speech such as that we have just heard from the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) it is enough to make one envisage the future with concern and trepidation. It is just this type of person that the hon. member for Troyeville represents and the members who represent the natives as well as other members who are sitting here constitute a menace to the natives of our country. The natives are not a danger to themselves, but it is these people who are the danger to the natives. They come here and they announce a policy for the future for the natives in South Africa that is tantamount to equality, or a “partnership” as the hon. member for Troyeville described it. I am an ordinary farmer who has grown up with natives. I have lived amongst them and brought up many of them. I know them. If we proceed from the standpoint that we are going to bring up natives to form a “partnership” with the white man and if we fix that in their minds, that the white man alone is responsible for his upbringing and his learning, where are we going to land with the native? Let us go back to our own history, and see where we as farm lads obtained our education. Our parents had to pay for it and no one else. They toiled and moiled to give their children the education that they received, and now the Minister expects us to accept a Bill under which the European in South Africa will make himself responsible for the upbringing and education of the natives.

Why not?

I should rather not answer that question. I would come too close to the hon. member if I answered that. It is a question that has been put in ignorance. An unhealthy principle is being created by this Bill. Let us take the ratio between European children and native children at school. For every European child there are two native children at school. The Europeans constitute a small population of 2½ millions, and must this small population now accept the responsibility of paying for the education of the natives? This is what this Bill does. The European must pay and the native has not to pay. The Minister of Education was prepared last year in his capacity as Minister of Finance to make the Europeans also pay for the aged persons amongst the natives. If we peer back into our own history we shall find that many members sitting here gained their learning as the result of the hard work of their parents. But now it is simply accepted that we must do anything for the natives and give them everything for nothing. Can we justify such a principle? But the worst feature of the whole business is this, that although the European population have to pay for that education we shall have no say in the methods of that education, and in regard to the lines that that education will follow. The hon. member for Wonderboom mentioned here, and it has not been contradicted, so I accept it, that there are 500 different sects and societies in the country labouring amongst the natives and who are exercising themselves over the upbringing and education of the native. The Minister of Education has no authority over the actions of those sects. Has he any control in respect of the lines on which these sects are bringing up the natives? No, the Minister has not. The Minister ought to intervene and to have the work done by the recognised and established churches, the Anglican Church and the Afrikaans-speaking churches. They should be responsible. So long as the European population has to pay for education the little natives are instructed on lines which engenders animosity towards the Europeans. I have referred here to the sects. The hon. member knows about them. He cannot tell us that he does not know about them, that more than 50 per cent. of the sects labouring among the native population are communistic and the sequel to the fact that these people are free to go round and play their rôle creates the position that the native youths are not taught to be submissive to their superiors and their employers, but these little natives are told of the rights that the hon. member for Aliwal (Capt. G. H. F. Strydom) has just mentioned: This was our country; you ought not to be here, you must get out. But the worst of all is that if you go to the native schools and enquire what they are instructed in you will find that of the more than 1,000,000 native children in our schools only a very small percentage receive instruction in the language of their masters.

Where do you get that figure?

The hon. member can get the figures in the Library if he will take the trouble. The fact remains that the native youths are instructed through the native language and then in English. You are creating the position that you will have a purely English-speaking native population in the country. The Minister ought to give to the recognised churches the sole right to carry on uplift work amongst the natives. So long as those sects are allowed free scope amongst the natives with their propaganda ….

It is the provinces who are responsible for that.

This Bill does not prevent it but strengthens it.

Must we take native education away from the provinces?

I do not say that, but this is the principal body and we must see to it that these people do not continue to do harm. There are the recognised Dutch and English churches which are doing excellent work in the Free State. Give them greater representation on the board. As conditions stand at present the farming population are becoming more and more sceptical in respect of native education, for we have learned by experience that where it has started you immediately have difficulties among the natives.

This Bill of the Minister’s may appear rather innocent, but as a practical farmer I feel that I cannot completely identify myself with this legislation and I want to associate myself with the amendment of the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel). We as practical people know that this is a big problem that has to be solved. Now it is expected from our small white population to find this colossal sum. As that is the position, we want to know how this money is to be spent and whether in voting this money we are creating a danger to ourselves. It is easy for hon. members to ventilate opinions here and to speak about the poor natives that are being oppressed and who do not get the rights that are their due. Experience teaches that the Boer nation with the Dutch churches have done everything in their power to give guidance to the natives and we have been regarded as the guardians of the natives and have always acted in that capacity. It appears to me, however, as if this legislation sets up a wide prospect that will be detrimental to us in the future. I might infer from the discussion that has taken place here that there are members who believe that natives should be placed on an equal footing with Europeans and that they should be granted the same facilities and rights. If this is the position it is all the more reason why I should associate myself with the amendment of the hon. member for Wonderboom. In our country we cannot permit that the native should be placed on an equal footing with the Europeans. We must safeguard our trusteeship. I am one of the last people who would make a slave of the native. I have stood up here repeatedly and proved with figures that the native gains all the privileges to which he is entitled, that the farmer on his farm takes care of the native to the greatest possible extent, and if the native is going to be put on an equal footing with the European then I say that the sooner I get out of the country the better for myself and those who follow after me. I cannot tolerate the native being placed on an equal footing with the Europeans. The Dutch churches followed the policy of instructing natives in the correct way, and if the European population are called upon today to finance native education it is a far-reaching measure. Let us go back a little. The hon. member for Pretoria (North-Central) (Mr. E. P. Pieterse) made a remark that surprised me. He is a farmer’s son, and as a poor lad as the result of his own initiative without any assistance from the State he worked himself up until he sits here today as a representative of the people. That redounds to his credit. He had to get down to it and work himself up.

Not for £1 10s. a month.

I myself worked for six months with Jews to learn commerce, and that hon. member for Pretoria (North-Central) was a poor farm lad and got on through his own efforts. Now it is expected that we should pay to place the native on an equal footing with the European. I cannot support such a Bill, We as trustees must ensure that the native obtains his rights, and we must make an enquiry with a view to investigating this matter to the last detail, and then have a report before us. We must get a scheme that can be put into operation and that will be applicable to the natives. The hon. Minister in reply to a question by the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) intimated that native education would remain under the various provincial administrations. I am grateful for that.

That is not what the amendment asks.

The amendment only asks for an investigation.

With the object?

That the Minister should thereafter apply the educational system. It is not necessary to take it away from the Provincial Administration.

What is the object of the enquiry that is being asked for?

I do not believe that is the object of the amendment. I am in favour of this education remaining under the provincial administrations, the people who can talk with authority and who can exercise authority. I hope that the Minister will meet us, so that the provincial administrations will have an authoritative voice over education in our country.

One of the things our friends on the other side hurled at the heads of the Government during the last General Election was that the Government would never solve a problem unless they had a commission. That was the cry they raised throughout the country—this Government was a Government of commissions. Now here is a problem, a great problem, coming along, and the first thing they say to the Government is: “Appoint a commission”; that is their solution, “Appoint a commission”. One of our friends on the other side told us there were over 1,000,000 native children in school. I take it he did not mean in Government schools. I challenge that figure, because according to the figures put before us here there cannot be more than 500,000.

You know as well as I do there are 1,000,000 native children in school.

I was only asking a question, and if the hon. member is not intelligent enough to answer the question he might benefit by having a surgical operation. Did the hon. member mean children in Government schools? We have been told that the amount spent on native education by the Government is £2,500,000 and that the average amount expended on the education of native children is £3 15s. per child a year; I ask the hon. member to work that out. It may take him three months, but he should be able to work it out. It appears to me we are discussing an epoch-making thing in this House, and I want to know whether the policy of the hon. J. H. Hofmeyr has arrived, or the policy of the hon. Maj. Pieter van der Byl? There are two distinct and definite policies on the Government side today; with which policy are we, as humble backbenchers, going to agree? When it comes to talking about this native question my hon. friends on the other side are full of the enthusiasm of cowardice. We have heard about their policy and read about it for a hundred years. The white man on the whole has had the same enthusiasm of cowardice. He has made all sorts of rigid laws and the resuit is that the country is blacker than ever before. Right through this period we have had laws of restraint following each other; colour bars and everything else, but the country is blacker than it ever has been. The question is whether this policy and the enthusiasm of cowardice has paid any dividends. Our towns are thronged with native people. The Communists are getting hold of them. There is more crime in the cities than ever before. This is the old Voortrekker policy. This policy has been preached by the Afrikaner-bond, by the Oranje-unie, by the Suid-Afrikaanse Party when it had Gen. Louis Botha at its head, and it was the policy of the Nationalist Party under the late Gen. Hertzog. Where has this policy got us? Our friends over there are absolutely frightened of the position in South Africa today. Therefore we as a Parliament have to make up our minds on this: Are we to agree with the principles set out in the excellent speech made by the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel); or are we to agree with the policy laid down in the City Hall at Cape Town not so many months ago by the Acting Prime Minister? That is what this House will have to decide and decide quickly. Are we going to take the liberal line, as adumbrated by my hon. friend from Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge), or are we going to take the line laid down by the hon. member for Vryheid and Nationalist friends on the other side? The world is asking us that question; that is why the Prime Minister has taken to San Francisco with him the Secretary for Native Affairs. We are standing at the bar of public opinion of the whole world, whether we like it or not, and we are going to be asked that question. The natives themselves do not know the answer to that question. This resolution is being brought up at their next Bunga, Resolution No. 204, which reads—

One of their own councillors asks the Bunga to agree to a distiction being drawn between the educated native and the uneducated native. My friends on the other side are basing their policy on the natives in the kraal. We in the towns have every sym pathy for their feelings. We also have played with little kaffirs as children. We algo when young were brought up amongst the native people just as they were. We know their language and we know their troubles and tribulations. We who live in Johannesburg are faced with this: That we have on the Witwatersrand 250,000 natives, the majority of whom are absolutely detribalised. Some of them are particularly well-educated men. I have had them in my office; I have shut my eyes and I have thought the hon. J. H. Hofmeyr was talking. On the other hand, if you go into the slums of Johannesburg, or even along the streets of Johannesburg, you will find little native children sleeping in the doorways, not one or two but dozens of them; they have no home; I have seen them myself. Those children are growing up without the advantages of any home influence, with the result that you have increasing crime on the Rand. It is dangerous today for any woman, no matter where she lives, to walk across the road in the dark after 8 o’clock at night; she stands a chance of being murdered. It is not only in Johannesburg that is happening. I am told by my hon. friend the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn)—of whose policy I think highly— that that also is happening in the native territories. Therefore it is no good us quarrelling over the floor of this House about this great problem, pointing our fingers at one another and saying “jy” and “jou”. We have to sit down and reason together as men of understanding and try to work it out. I back the Acting Prime Minister; I back his policy; I am not a great supporter of the hon. Minister in other things, certainly not of his financial policy, but when it comes to this I back his policy—it is the policy of Christ. It is the policy of Christianity.

You are also a “yes” man.

It is a policy that the man on top must take the man below by his hand and guide him along; the policy of the Twenty-third Psalm; the policy of the Sermon on the Mount, and if white South Africa casts that policy away from it, white South Africa is doomed. You cannot take 8,000,000 people and say you will legislate for them in the future, that they will only be taught the simple story of the old days of their people; you cannot do it; it is nonsense. In passing I may say that the native representatives are to be congratulated on this Bill; it represents the greatest step forward since Union for the liberal view, and my friends are to be congratulated. When it is passed we shall have taken away the question of trusteeship; the question of the trusteeship of the white man in respect of the black man will have gone, and it is a partnership that has come along to take its place. If you pass this Bill we will discuss in this House the salaries of native teachers in the schools; education will have been moved at one fell swoop from the Provincial Councils to this House.

The Bill has not passed yet.

Yes, the Bill is going through, and even Natal—which has not come into the Union as yet—will have to come in too. I congratulate my hon. friend the Minister on the clever way he has effected this change in the South Africa Act by a simple touch with his magic wand.

It is very clever.

It is the right thing to grasp the nettle, and that will be the policy of South Africa in future, and nothing will stop it. You might as well try to keep back the sea. I am not going to speak at length, I cannot speak on the educational question like the hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp) or the hon. member opposite. I am a humble member of the three R.’s, I have not gone much further. I have lived a long life now and have seen this change happening. There is no doubt that the old native was right who said: “When the white man came to South Africa we had the land and you had the Bible, now we have the Bible and you have the land.” What is the good of saying it is not so; it is true. Let us face the position. We have tied these people to the wheel of industry, and the hon. Minister of Labour has taken the right line when he said: You have brought these people into industry and you must lift them higher and higher, you must bring them under the Workmen’s Conciliation Act and you must treat them as ordinary workers, and, as time goes on, they must get the same pay and the same advantages as the European. That is actually what is happening in South Africa today. In regard to the new textile industry which is being opened, the hon. Minister of Economic Development will tell us that natives will be used and paid high wages, as high as the white men. Why not? When my friends on the other side turn round and say we are paying for the black man to go to school, I retort: “The man who says that is a fool.” I would not say that to a member of this House, but the man outside who says that is a fool. On his broad back the native has carried the white man; he is our greatest asset, he has built our railways, he has dug our mines he has even looked after our children. Most of us were brought up by black servants. The natives have been the greatest asset we have had. If you think you are going to send them back to the days of Chaka or to the days of Moshesh or to the days of Lobengula, you have another guess coming. We must take the line laid down in that remarkable speech by the hon. Deputy-Prime Minister; it should have been printed in gold. Follow him and we shall not go wrong. The line of demarcation between this country and the North is only a small one over which you can almost step, and on the other side of our borders are the two Rhodesias and Kenya and Nyasaland, and millions and millions of black people; and if we do not lead Africa who will lead Africa? Will the Mohammedans coming down from the North lead Africa?

It looks like it.

It may be so. Or will the Christians going North lead Africa? I say let us follow the Christian attitude and go forward with this wonderful idea. We do not want mixing of the bloods, we do not want social mixing, but we want fair play and proper play for these black men who have been born and bred amongst us, who have fought for our country, who have stood by our country, and who are in every way a valuable people. I say to the young men of this House: Do not be turned aside by the cry of hon. members opposite; it is the cry of the agonised man who is afraid. Do not let us be afraid. Let us gird up our loins and say: We shall not be afraid. We are a European people and we are not afraid of the black man. We shall work well with the black man and in doing so we shall make this country a shining jewel amongst the countries of the world.

I did not intend to speak on this Bill but after the last speeches I should be neglecting my duty if I did not say a word in support of the amendment of the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel). If this innocent Bill has wrapped up in it the opinion of the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge). I fear that the Bill is much more dangerous than it appears to be. The hon. member delivered a very communistic speech and it is quite clear that their desire is complete equality should occur between European and non-European. If this is the case then I fear that should the Bill go through and should the hon. Minister carry that opinion into practice, the people of South Africa will experience some very unpleasant things. The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) has stated that although so many commissions have been appointed, although so many laws have been placed upon the Statute Book the country is becoming blacker and blacker. There I agree with him. It is since that agitation for equality between European and nonEuropean was launched that we had this great problem. I agree that the native represents a great asset to the country, but then he must not attempt to be placed on an equal footing with the Europeans. If we place the natives on an equal footing with the Europeans then I want to ask: For what did our forefathers fight? Did they not always treat the natives well? They always acted as the guardians of the natives. They did that and we never had this great dissatisfaction that we have today. I am not at all in favour of the native being kept under as a human being, and that we should give him no say. I maintain that if the native representatives in this House adopted a more moderate attitude and if they regarded the subject in its true perspective I believe they would be doing the native outside a much greater service. We have heard so often in speeches in this House pleas for equality. We have even heard that this country belongs to the natives and that we robbed the natives of the land. Those hon. members with their agitation to attract the natives to the cities are committing a grievous error. The natives on the farms are much better treated than they make out. I shall mention an instance here. I have one native who has worked for me now for 10 years. He worked for me in the village for eight years for the same wage that he now gets, and he could never save anything. He has now been two years on the farm and he has his own milch cow and a couple of sheep; he has his own fowls and today he is living much better and he is much happier than he was in the town. I will not detain the House for long. A great deal has already been said about the Bill, but I do believe it will do any harm at all if the Minister accepts the amendment of the hon. member for Wonderboom and refers the Bill to a commission of enquiry.

I welcome this step as being one in the right direction. I welcome the reasons which have actuated the Minister of Education in putting this Bill on the Statute Book. I do so because the whole of our native educational policy has been an anomaly right from the very first days of Union. The education of the native tribes has never been anybody’s baby. We know very well that the first concept of financing provincial services was based on that unscientific and anomalous venture of expecting the greatest financial disbursements to be made on account of taxation, and it was an attempt to simulate the education of the children of the Union of South Africa. First of all there was the basis of subsidising services and drawing a distinction between subsidies paid to the provinces in respect of European and coloured children. With regard to coloured persons they all got a flat rate of £5 a head. It is perfectly true that the provinces had additional revenue, but for the first 10 or 15 years we know the provinces showed a profit. The provinces did not spend the £5 per head that was given to them, and they spent probably twice as much in respect of the European child; so there was no sub sidy given at all for native education. Nobody, until the Pact Government came into power, thought anything really about the education of native children, other than the churches, and until the Pact Government came into power it was believed in many quarters that the native contributed little or less than nothing to the revenue of the country. Those people who were interested in the development of the native said: If you are going to take so much money out of the pocket of the native, for goodness sake, let him have some share of the direct taxation you take from him. The basis of it was that two-fifths of the tax would be returned to the Native Development Fund for the purpose of financing the services which were being given to the native. If such a policy had been adopted in respect of Europeans we would all have been starved by this time. It soon became clear that more money would have to be released for the purpose of financing native education. It was then decided to release the remaining three-fifths. I am very pleased to see that the Minister is now prepared to take this step and to incorporate the education of the native child as one of the real services for which the Union of South Africa must pay, and I hope his next step will be the complete abolition of the native poll-tax. There never has been any justification for singling out the native and making him pay for his own education. We have heard hon. members, particularly the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) say that more and more we look with alarm at the increased amounts which the Union is paying for the education of the native. But the Union has not been paying for the education of the native. One hon. member on the other side had the temerity to tell the House that more than a million native children were in school today. He got no applause but he stated in reply to an interjection by the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) that the figure was nearer two million. I do not know whether there are two million children of school-going age in the country. If that figure were correct, it would mean that 25 per cent. of the total native population of the Unoin would be in school. Let me give the House the correct figure. In the Cape Province there are 222,571 native children in school. That is the total number of children who were in school on the 31st December last year or the last day of term. In the Transvaal the total number of children in school is approximately 160,000. In the Free State there are 51,000 in school, and in Natal it was 62,000. The latest figures had not yet been published, but I understand it is somewhere in the vicinty of 90,000. So there are less than 500,000 children in school today, which is a reflection on us. We have done nothing or little to train and educate the native in this country. And is he a privileged individual in this country? The hon. Minister of Finance yesterday said by way of interjection, when the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) spoke, that there is no colour bar in income tax. There is no colour bar in any tax, unless it be to the detriment of the native. We know and we know quite consistently that there has definitely been an opposition and a definite united governmental opposition to the importation of calico for the native. More than 100 per cent. customs tax was levied on the essential articles which the natives wore. We know that there was always a prohibitive tax placed on the calico blanket, a tax which was designed, it was said, to build up a blanket industry in this country. We were also told that the native in this country could not afford to buy ready-made clothing. But a great quantity of second-hand clothing was imported, and a prohibitive tax was levied on that. Here we have three instances where the native was singled out, not for preferential treatment but taxation which was definitely designed to prevent him from finding ways and means of ameliorating ins condition. One would have supposed from the speeches of hon. members opposite that the native was a privileged individual, that, in fact, he was paying none of the taxes of this country. One would have imagined that the cigarettes he smokes were being given to him without that licence-tax which goes into the pocket of the Minister of Finance. I know of no store where the native can buy boots more cheaply than I can; I know of no store where he can buy cigarettes more cheaply than I can. I have persistently and consistently heard appeals made in this House from the native representatives and from the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) before he became associated with the Native Affairs Commission, asking that special consideration should be shown to the native in regard to the mealie levy. The mealie levy is designed for no other purpose than to support the export of maize. Those hon. members have persistently asked: “Release us from this special tax because you know that we eat very much more mealies than you can produce”. Why should the natives make a contribution to the mealie kings who come from the Transvaal and the Free State? Let me tell you that the native in this country is not a favoured individual when it comes to taxation. He pays every penny of the taxes proportionate to his consumption that any hon. member opposite or anyone on this side of the House pays. Is money spent on education worth while. The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) has shown most effectively, I think, that an educated man is a better man. That an educated man is of greater economic value in the service of his country than an uneducated man. While the hon. member for Hospital spoke, the hon. member for Natal (South Coast) (Mr. Neate) made an interjection which was in affirmation of the fact that the native under the rule of Chaka was a better citizen of South Africa than the native of today. I am surprised that a Natal member should express a view of that nature. As a Natalian I repudiate it most emphatically. The hon. member for Tembuland said that the native was a far happier man in those days. That remark shows that the Native Affairs Commission is starting its deterioration. One hon. member says that the native was a better man and the other says that the native was a happier man. All I can say in reply to that is that they both have an entirely wrong outlook on the matter.

[Inaudible].

I am advocating the principle underlying this Bill; and the hon. member for Tembuland knows that such conditions as obtain at Windermere find no approval in my breast. But I say it is quite wrong of the hon. member for South Coast and the hon. member for Tembuland to say that the natives were better or happier under the dynasty of Chaka than they are today. If the native is unhappy today it is our fault. As the hon. member for Hospital has shown, we have chained him to the wheels of industry. He has built our railways; he has built our mines and by the sweat of his body and by the blood of his flesh we have flourished. Every thriving, prosperous industry in South Africa today, is thriving and prosperous at the expense of the wages which were paid to the natives. There can be nothing to gainsay that. I have always advocated not a reduction of the skilled wages that are paid, but I have advocated a reduction of the margin between skilled and unskilled labour rates. How many times have we listened to the advocacy of the three members representing the native interests— and not representing native voters—they are here in Parliament to represent the natives of the Cape Province. They are not here to represent the less than 5,000 or 6,000 voters who are in their constituencies. When they talk they talk for the native in the Cape Province. And, Sir, they also talk in this House for the 8,000,000 natives in the Union of South Africa. Once again I come back to the question of education. Ask the hon. member for Hospital, whether we as a population, as citizens of the Union, are going to derive any benefit from the amount of money which we spend on the education of native children. Most emphatically I say we will. I say that every penny spent on education is a penny and a pound spent on uplifting the intelligence, the economic efficiency of the natives whose services must be rendered to South Africa. I hope that we will hear no more of these fatuous arguments—that is all I can call them—that the native is a fortunate, privileged individual in the eyes of the Minister of Finance. He is nothing of the sort. He has been singled out, it is true, for individual taxation, when no other section in the whole of the community of South Africa has been singled out, and the money that has come as a result of that, I hope, will now be merged in the Union finances, and I hope that the next logical step will be to see that this anomolous, this iniquitous position of singling out the native as a person who is able to bear additional taxation pro rata to the rest of the community, is abolished. I hope the Minister will take his courage in both hands, and I hope he will abolish this iniquitous Poll Tax, and I say to the hon. member for Hospital that is a real step along a Christian line. On these foundations will you build up economic prosperity, economic happiness, social security for the whole of South Africa. There can be no social security while there is the fear of ignorance. The hon. member for Hospital also taught the hon. members on my right in a very friendly way about the attitude of fear in which they approach any of the Christian advantages which are likely to come to our depressed native people. Give them education so that they will not at any time tolerate the conditions under which they have to live at places like Windermere. I know that the natives have come down here under the stress of economic pressure. They come here hoping for something better. But we have 80,000 here when opportunities are merely offered to 10,000 or 15,000. That is the reason behind the slums in Cape Town—and we have terrible slums in Cape Town. Windermere is by no means the only black spot in Cape Town. I was going to say within a hundred yards of this House, but I can say within half a mile of this House, on the main outlet of one of the most luxurious suburbs, Sea Point, right at the outlet below Signal Hill, there are slums that would make even Windermere blush. I am very pleased that the hon. Minister of Finance has taken this step. It is the first time that it has ever been done in South Africa, and it is not really due merely to the fact that there had never been people who have been prepared to do this, but it is due to the illogical, unscientific step with which the whole of our provincial taxation finances were measured out and given to the Provinces. I say to the Minister of Education who is in charge of this Bill: “Go on, Sir, the natives in this country are behind you; they will thank you for the step you have taken; on this foundation and on similar foundations alone can be built up economic security and social welfare in this country.”

I think I should commence my reply by quoting a remark made by the hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming). I wish that other speakers had remembered that remark and taken it to heart. He said that the question before us is not the type of education, but how it is paid for and that is the question put by this Bill. A good many speakers have dealt with the question of the scope and content of native education. It cannot, of course, be said that their remarks were not germane to the Bill, but they are only incidentally germane to the Bill. Those questions will under this Bill remain primarily provincial questions, and therefore I propose in my reply to deal with these questions only incidentally and to apply myself mainly to the constitutional and administrative aspects of the matter with which this Bill is concerned. I said in my opening remarks, in introducing this Bill, that I had no doubt that there would be those who would criticise the proposal embodied in the Bill from one point of view or another. I admitted that if we had to start with a clean slate, we would no doubt propose to do things differently from what we are proposing to do in this Bill, but I said that that was not the position and that we had to take things as we found them. I was right in my anticipation. There are many hon. members who have criticised this Bill without realising the difficulties in the way of going further, as they would wish us to go. They have criticised the Bill because the Bill does not go far enough, but they have not taken account of the hard and stubborn facts of the constitutional and administrative position. They did not appreciate that to go further than we are going in this Bill would mean an encroachment on provincial powers, or if they did realise that, they did not appreciate the difficulties in the way of taking action on those lines. The hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp) in the very interesting speech, with which he opened this debate, said that at the present moment, in regard to native education, there were four courses open to us. I think his analysis is perfectly correct. We may leave the position as it has hitherto been. That is number one. Secondly, we may act as is proposed in this Bill; that is number two. Thirdly, we may transfer native education to the Union Education Department; that is number three; and fourthly we might transfer native education to the Department of Native Affairs. It is perfectly clear that the last two of the four courses in my hon. friend’s analysis involve a transfer of native education from the Provinces to the Union. If it is accepted that such a transfer cannot take place at the present moment, then obviously courses numbers 3 and 4 cannot be applied and then, as my hon. friend very correctly analysed, we are left with the choice between courses 1 and 2; in other words we are left with the choice between the continuance of the present system and the proposals of this Bill. Well, if I appreciate the sentiments expressed in this debate aright, as far as that point is concerned, it seems to me that on that issue—and that is the issue to which we are brought back —the House as a whole prefers the present Bill to the continuance of the present system. Members may not like this feature or that feature, but if that is the choice—and it is the choice—then quite clearly the House prefers this present Bill to the continuance of the present system. As I said, hon. members in this debate have in many cases failed through not realising the difficulty in the way of transferring native education from the Provinces to the Central Government, and then proceeding to argue as if there were no such difficulties. When it is once realised that it is not practical politics at present to transfer it, four-fifths of what was said in the debate falls away. I do not want to go into the question of Union control as against provincial control of native education. That is not really an issue in this Bill. There is something to be said on both sides. I would merely suggest to those members who have argued as if there can be no question that Union control of native education is better than provincial control, that there is something to be said on either side. There is, as the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) pointed out, real value in the experience and traditions of the provinces, and here I agree with my hon. friend the member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) that there are differences between the natives of one province and those of another; that aspect of the matter seems to have been overlooked rather strangely by some of those who took part in this debate. Several people, commencing with the hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp) emphasised the argument that native education should spring from the tradition and background of the natives. Now, there is a good deal to be said for that. I certainly agree that the education of any class of the population should take account of its background and tradition, and that applies to the native as well as to other parts of the community. But that is only one side of the matter. The other side is this that native education, like every other type of education, must take into account the life for which the child being educated is to be prepared to lead.

I said that.

Yes, that is so. The hon. member for Vryheid also tried to discriminate between three classes of native children, those in the reserves, those on the farms and those in the towns, and he seemed to assume that the native child growing up in the reserve is always going to stay there, and that the native child on the farm will always stay there. If you do really take into account the life to be lived by these people you cannot shut them off into watertight compartments. But I have rather diverged from my argument. There are quite a number of people who have emphasised the point that native education should spring from the tradition and background of the native. I do not think they sufficiently realise that there is quite a considerable difference between the backgrounds of natives in the various provinces, and if they accept and press that argument they must be careful lest it be turned against them when they proceed to argue that native education should be taken away completely from the provinces. That argument can certainly be used as one in favour of the continuance of some measure of provincial control. However, I do not want to argue the question of Union control of native education as against provincial control. At the present moment that is a theoretical question. I am trying in this Bill to find an appropriate solution of a practical problem, and the practical problem iá based on the fact that at present native education cannot be taken away from the control of the provinces. It just is not practical politics. The provinces today are definitely opposed to it. The Union Government put it to them to ascertain their views and they turned it down unanimously. They are perfectly ready to accept this Bill, including Clause 4 (f), even Natal, but they are not prepared to go further. I must again remind the House of what is contained in Act 45 of 1934.

A bad Act.

It may be, but there is the Act. My hon. friend would like to break down the sorry state of things entirely and then mould it to his heart’s desire, but he cannot do it. There is the Act and it says that you cannot abridge the powers of the Provincial Councils except on their petition. My hon. friend says it is a bad Act. I rather gather that there are others who say so too.

I say so to.

I want to know whether there is any Party in this House which will propose the repeal of that Act. If the hon. member for Ceres says it must be repealed, I would like to know what the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) says.

National interests must prevail.

Will the hon. member for Winburg agree with it? I want to know whether the other hon. members from the Free State who spoke about the existing powers of the Provincial Council will agree. Will the hon. member for Heilbron (Maj. Pieterse) be in favour of the repeal of this Act and the hon. member for Smithfield (Mr. Fouché)? Of course not. And when it comes to the point their Party will not agree.

The Party is divided.

We know that. That is the difficulty. Well we have to talk about practical politics. The hon. member for Vryheid saw that difficulty. His speech made that perfectly clear. In that respest he was certainly more realistic than the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel) who rushed into trouble immediately the hon. member for Vryheid had sat down and asked for the immediate transfer of native education from the provinces to the Union Government. The hon. member for Vryheid said he would like the control of native education to be in the hands of the Union Government, but he said he had to admit “that the time for such control had not yet arrived” and he hoped that the time would come when the provinces as well as ourselves would realise that all national powers should be in the hands of the National Government. The hon. member was perfectly correct. He recognised the practical difficulties. But I say again that if we accept that position, then in dealing with this Bill we are faced with the simple choice between the continuance of the present system and the set-up proposed in this Bill. Just at the moment we cannot talk about taking away native education from the Provinces. Incidentally the hon. member for Vryheid raised an interesting point in regard to the Act of 1934, which I admit had not occurred to me before. He pointed out that in the definition of provincial powers in the Act of Union the position in respect of education is rather different from that in respect of other provincial powers. He did not state it quite correctly, I think. The Act of Union says that education other than higher education is to be a provincial function for a period of five years and thereafter until Parliament otherwise provides. I rather think that the hon. member suggested that Parliament had to extend the period. It is the other way round. If Parliament had to extend the period beyond five years I do not think the Act of 1934 would apply.

That is an infringement of the Act of Union.

But this House has the right to amend the Act of Union. How can it be an infringement of the Act of Union? But it is quite clear that this provision in the Act of Union indicates that education remains with the Provinces until Parliament otherwise provides, and the Act of 1934, says that Parliament cannot otherwise provide until the Provinces ask for it. Well, the hon. member indicated a possible way out of this dilemma in which he found himself, but I think that in fact his argument is not correct.

Did the Provinces agree to this Bill?

Yes, but not to the transfer of education from themselves to the Union Government.

But that is just what happened.

The hon. member may of course put his own interpretation upon it. We are faced then with the solid fact that the administrative control of native education remains with the Provinces, and we just cannot argue it away. Now the hon. member for Vryheid, while admitting the immediate practical difficulty in regard to the question, did not, I think, quite take into account that fact when he went on to argue the relative claims of the Union Education Department and the Native Affairs Department in that respect. That is an issue which would arise if the administration of native education were to be taken away from the Provinces, but it does not arise at present. It seems to me that that part of the argument is really academic. I can also take part in that argument if I wish to, but I will not go further than to say that that matter was fully gone into by the 1936 Commission to which reference has been made, and that Commission was in favour of the transfer of native education from the Provinces to the Union Education Department. It is important to know that the Commission, in coming to that conclusion, was very largely influenced, as the report indicates, by the evidence of the Secretary for Native Affairs. The head of that great and important department very strongly urged that native education should not go to his Department but to the Union Education Department. The hon. member spoke about the existence of competent personnel in the Native Affairs Department, but one of the main reasons advanced by the Secretary for Native Affairs was that he did not have the trained personnel.

Neither have you.

We have an educational staff but the Native Affairs Departement has not got an educational staff. The point I make is that native education could be dealt with better by the Education Department than by a Department which did not have the personnel. That, however, as I indicated, was more or less an academic argument. I think I agree there with the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) speaking as a member of the Native Affairs Commission, that the Native Affairs Department has far too much on hand and could not adequately tackle the job. But I say again that that is not a question which this Bill sets out to solve. We do not start with taking away native education from the Provinces. We leave it there and all we have to do in this Bill is to provide the machinery for the distribution and and allocation of the money which this House will make available for native education.

Will you tell us how you spend it?

No, what will happen is this. As has happened for a good many years, the Provinces will put up their Estimates. The Advisory Committee will report on the Estimates. It may have to revise the Estimates and cut them down, and these Estimates will then be submitted to Treasury, and when Treasury has approved of the Estimates, the Provinces can spend the money, and they will only be subject to such regulations as there are in regard to the ordinary type of financial control. That is the procedure envisaged in this Bill. All we have to do then is to set up this machinery for the allocation of funds between the Provinces, and this we propose to do by the setting up of this Advisory Board. The Secretary for Native Affairs will be the chairman, and the Union Education Department will provide the secretariat.

That is not in the Bill.

If you want to put it in the Bill I have no objection. Let me assure my hon. friend of this; that there can be no question of jealousy between the two departments. There is no difference of view whatever between the Minister of Native Affairs and myself about this Bill. We are entirely agreed upon this Bill. It was drafted in his department. There has been the happiest co-operation between the two Ministers and their departments in regard to this Bill and I can assure you that there will be no difficulty.

The Minister of Native Affairs has never heard about this Bill.

He has heard quite a lot about the Bill. The hon. member may be quite assured that the discussions about it took a long time.

What is the position if the Administrator does not hold the same views as you do as regards administrative matters?

Then his view prevails. It is purely a Bill for financial control. The policy is still in the hands of the provinces. They have to put up their estimates, and those estimates must be approved. Once they are approved they will be carried out. The Advisory Board has the right to approve these estimates. It is true that they can cut things out of the estimates. To that extent there will be some measure of control and power.

We also have the power to cut things out.

Yes, the House also has its power. Ultimately it comes to the House for approval and the last word is said here. But the set-up which this Bill contemplates is that the provinces can do what they did in recent years but when it comes to allocating money that is done on the advice of the Advisory Board. As far as the board is concerned, a good deal was said about its composition. I think it will be clear from what I have said that there has been a tendency in the debate to exaggerate the powers of the board. This board will not be an executive body; it will be an advisory body. It will not impose a policy on the provinces. The hon. member for Ceres was quite right. The Bill does not give us the power to impose a policy on the provinces. He would like us to do it. Apparently the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) wants it too, but not the hon. member for Winburg. [Interjection.] My hon. friend wants us to impose our will on the provinces and break down the provincial system, but he must convince his own Party first. Apart from allocating funds I believe that this body, although it is an advisory body, will perform a very useful function on the co-ordinating side. It will bring together the three elements in native education, the provinces, the Education and the Native Affairs Department, and although it will not lead to immediate uniformity in regard to the policy of native education, it will work in that direction and that is why it seems to me to be a sound thing that this board should be composed as I have suggested, should be representative of these three aspects, the provincial aspect, the native affairs aspect and the educational aspect. I think that for the rest there should be some elasticity in regard to the composition of the board. If the hon. member wants us to say definitely that the Secretary for Native Affairs should be a member, there is no objection to that. If other hon. members say that the size of the board must be defined, I will not object.

Will the churches be represented?

I do not know. One of the difficulties would be that there will have to be a limit to the number of people on the board. We shall have to be careful there. At this stage perhaps I should come to something which is worrying the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate) and the hon. member for Pinetown, namely Clause 4 (f). They seem to think that there is something sinister in that. I do not think the Administrator of Natal will agree with the hon. member for South Coast in that regard. The only regulations we contemplate under Section 4 (f) are regulations of financial control, dealing with funds, transferring money from one sub-head to another, etc. It certainly does not regulate anything in the way of policy. [Interjection.] I assure you that nothing more is intended than that. To the hon. member for Berea (Mr. Sullivan) I would say that I contemplate, as far as this Bill is concerned, that the present set-up in the provinces will continue. Those provincial bodies to which he refers will continue to act and to have the same functions that they have today. This Bill leaves the position in the provinces unchanged. It merely provides for special machinery in regard to the allocation of funds. I would also like to tell the hon. member for Berea that I am entirely with him in his views as to the value of the work done by the missionary societies not only in the past, but also in the present in regard to native education. I am with him, as I am with the hon. member for Ceres as to the importance of the Christian basis no less in regard to native education than for all education; and despite what was suggested by some speakers in this debate I would be very loth to see the missionaries pushed out and all the native schools becoming State schools.

†*And now, Mr. Speaker, I should like to turn to the amendment or amendments that have been put in the name of the Opposition. But perhaps I should say something first on the financial aspects of the Bill. The hon. member for Ceres (Dr. Stals) wishes to know what the financial implications of this legislation will be. He has stated that I am asking here for a blank cheque. I do not think that this was altogether fair, because I laid on the Table the estimates on which provision is being made for the vote “Native Education”.

Yes, for a year.

Yes, of course, for a year. He apparently desires that I should say what the expenditure will be over a series of years. We never do that in respect of ordinary services. I have already in my introductory speech advanced my argument against the contention that we should pay a contribution on the per capita basis, and I pointed out that it is not the practice of the Government to bind Parliament over a period of years. If my hon. friend takes up that attitude he might as well ask what our expenditure will be over a period of five years in connection with public health or any other service. It would be wrong to do that. Under this legislation native education becomes an ordinary service, just like any other service, and in determining the amount that will be expended on it we shall have to take into account on the one hand the needs of the service and on the other hand the financial position of the country. There are other hon. members who are very concerned about the increase of our expenditure in relation to native education. Now the expenditure has mounted—in the last few years it has mounted considerably. An important factor in connection with that has of course been the cost of living allowances. We are spending at the moment some £400,000 per year on amounts for the cost of living allowance in connection with education in native schools.

Were those amounts already there in 1940?

No, I think it began in the year 1940-’41, but at that time the amount was still small. In that year it was £40,000 and now it is £400,000. A large proportion of the increase of the expenditure is due to that fact. But apart from that there has been a normal growth of expenditure. In reference to that the Department of Native Affairs has in the last few years followed the policy of making provision for the normal growth on the basis of 10 per cent. more than the previous year’s expenditure. But that was the practice before 1941. In the report of the 1936 committee it was recommended that there should be a 10 per cent. normal increase every year. That practice was followed before I became Minister, and also after I became Minister. I will however concede this. What my hon. friend has perhaps not seen clearly is that the 10 per cent. is on the previous year. It is thus a progressive amount. This was the recommendation of the committee, and it was already the practice before I became Minister. I am in any case not prepared to apologise because this expenditure has amounted considerably. The 1936 commission furnished clear evidence of how backward we were in the sphere of native education, and I am convinced that it is in our financial interest as well as in the general national interest to make proper provision for this important service. I am not apologising for our doing more at this moment than what we did in the past in this connection. The question has been asked: Who must pay? The hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. J. N. le Roux) quoted certain figures regarding what is being expended on the natives and the income that is derived from the natives. He gave only the figures of direct taxation that is paid by the natives and not of the amount that is paid by them in indirect taxation.

But those Europeans also pay indirect taxation.

Yes, but if my hon. friend will place the expenditure against the income received from the natives then he should not only take into account what is paid in direct taxes but he must also take the other taxes into consideration.

But there are also other general services in which the natives participate.

Yes, but then the hon. member should make a comparison of all income and of all expenditure. In any case we cannot approach the matter in this way. We are here dealing with the poorest section of the population. I am very glad that the hon. member for Smithfield (Mr. Fouché) alluded to this point. He said that he would not go so far as to say that we should not pay out to the natives any more than we collected from them. He stated they were the poorest section of society and that the Europeans should contribute.

But I said they should also contribute their share.

Of course. I give the hon. member all credit for having said that. Other members of the Opposition would not go so far. They stated that the Europeans should contribute nothing. The Europeans had to fight their own battles and the native must see to it that he also fights his own battles.

My question was when will the native learn that he also should contribute.

But the native does make his contribution. Under this Bill the native is not relieved of anything. He will still have to pay the same direct taxes as he has paid in the past.

Yes, but the services have been increased, and on the other hand his taxation has not been heightened. More money is being expended on him, and that means that that money is diverted from other services.

He receives increased services because the services must be extended and because at the moment they are unsatisfactory. Various sections of the European population are also obtaining increased services without having to pay more for having these services. Old age pensions have been augmented, and we do not require those who draw augmented old age pensions to pay a special tax in respect of them. Whenever we come to dealing with the various services we have on the one hand to take into account the amount we have available to devote to those services, and on the other hand with the requirements in respect of those services; and when you come to how this money should be collected you must take into account the capacity of the various sections of the population to contribute to the taxes. No one will tell me that at the moment the natives as a whole are favoured in regard to taxation as compared with the Europeans. No one can tell me that in comparison the natives pay less by way of taxation than Europeans who might be in similar circumstances.

Do you agree with the recommendations of the National Health Commission that all sections of the population, including the natives, should make their contribution in respect of such a service as they proposed?

I absolutely agree with that, that if a system of free hospitalisation is instituted the natives should also contribute towards it.

. If the principle is good there, why is it not also good in this instance?

But no direct education tax is imposed on Europeans to cover the expenditure on education. What we propose here is that the native should pay the same tax. It is the only reasonable and proper way. He pays the same tax as heretofore. Now I return to the amendment of the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel). We have really had a comedy on the other side in connection with this amendment. It is not only one amendment we have had but two. The hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) wishes to amend the amendment of the hon. member for Wonderboom. The hon. member for Wonderboom moved an amendment in which he asked for a commission of enquiry with the object of placing native education under the Department of Native Affairs in order to obtain uniformity of policy and administration. The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer), Chief Whip to the Opposition, seconded this to add importance to it, and he stated that the commission should decide what the nature and content of the native education should be I really cannot see what we will gain by such a commission. We had such a commission in 1936. The commission made its report and devoted considerable thought to the nature and content of native education. As the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) has rightly said, the suggested commission will not be able to tell us anything that we do not already know. But I return to the amendment of the hon. member for Wonderboom. What is the object in the appointment of the commission? To place native education under the Department of Native Affairs. That is quite clear. He desires the elimination of the provinces in connection with the matter. Native education must be taken away from the provinces. He has plainly said so. “Native education must be placed under the Union Government.” “It is necessary that native education shall be controlled by the Union Government,” and he added that policy and administration may not be separated. He stated that the time was overdue to place control under the Union Government. “If we look at the hopeless failure that the provincial administrations have made of the matter the Government dare not allow it to remain under them any longer.” I ask my Free State friends to listen. He says: “The Government must take it over immediately.”

Are you now making a party matter of it?

I want to know where the hon. members stand. That motion was seconded by the Chief Opposition Whip, and he spoke in the same sense.

Are they unanimous?

It is very clearly stated there that in their view the matter should be placed under the Department of Native Affairs. The hon. member for Humansdorp introduced some interesting arguments in this connection, for instance the argument regarding the Protectorates. He stated that if we leave native education to the Provinces we shall have difficulty when the Protectorates are incorporated. I do not believe that is a sound argument. If he refers to the appendix to the South Africa Act he will see that the Protectorates are not to be incorporated as Provinces but as territories that will be directly controlled by the Union Government. His argument falls away, but the object is clear. He wants to do away with the control of the Provinces and in support of that he employed this argument. He stated further that at the moment you cannot obtain properly defined spheres in reference to missionary societies, but you will be able to get that if native education is taken away from the Provinces and placed under the Union Government. The hon. member for Ceres went further. He said: “The Central Government should not give the responsibility to subordinate bodies in connection with this matter. Here we have to deal with a problem for which the Provinces cannot be held responsible.” The tenor of the argument was quite clear and it was even clearer where the argument led to. What has the hon. member for Wonderboom said to reinforce his argument? He said: “The present system of native education is chaotic. There is a muddle. Every Province is going its own way.” Therefore according to him native education should be taken away from them. But may the same observation not be applied to European education? Every Province is taking its own line. Should we then take European education away from the Provinces? You will see that if you once find yourself on this road it is very dangerous. Today you take native education away from the Provinces, tomorrow European education, the following day hospitals—it will signify the beginning of the end of the provincial system. No wonder that the hon. member for Winburg took fright. He stands for the maintenance of provincial rights. He is against any curtailment, and various other Free State members spoke in the same vein. So the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) had to propose an amendment. The junior Opposition Whip had to propose an amendment to the amendment that the senior Whip seconded.

You are now just like a school child.

Is this now a party matter?

Is there unanimity amongst you?

The Chief Whip is in favour of the elimination of the Provinces, and the junior Whip moves an amendment to prevent that. Where do we stand now? A section of the party opposite wants to eliminate the Provinces, and another section wants the Provinces to retain their powers. A section of the party on the other side wants us to appoint a commission with the object of ensuring that native education will be transferred to the Department of Native Affairs.

What about your seconder, the hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp)?

Another section wants to appoint a commission without any object. You see they have always told us that we are a commission government, now they are a commission opposition, they have no policy, and now they propose a commission to help them to frame a policy. The hon. member for Wonderboom said at the commencement that the Government was without a will and without a policy, but that they, the Opposition, had a policy, namely that native education should be transferred to the Department of Native Affairs. But his party came, his caucus came and said: “No, we will not have that.” His policy was thrown overboard. They are now the people who are without a will and without a policy. They have no policy except to appoint a commission. I should like to know where the Opposition stands in connection with the provincial matter. Do they want to curtail the powers of the Provinces? The country outside will pay close attention to what has occurred in this debate, and how the Opposition has come to light without a will and without a policy.

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

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—75:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Barlow, A. G.

Bawden W.

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, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Connan, J. M.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, P. H.

Derbyshire J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Faure, J. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Friedman, B.

Goldberg, A.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Henny, G. E. J.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hopf F.

Jackson, D.

Johnson H. A.

Kentridge, M.

McLean, J.

Madeley, W. B.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Oosthuizen, O. J.

Payn, A. O. B.

Payne, A. C.

Pocock, P. V.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Russell, J. H.

Shearer, O. L.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Stratford, J. R. F.

Sullivan, J. R.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Ueckermann, K.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Wanless, A. T.

Waring, F. W.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—36:

Boltman, F. H.

Bremer K.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, H. S.

Fouché, J. J.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Le Roux, J. N.

Le Roux, S. P.

Louw, E. H.

Ludick, A. I.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swanepoel, S. J.

Swart, C. R.

Van Niekerk, J. G. W.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Wilkens, J.

Tellers: P. O. Sauer and J. J. Serfontein.

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendments dropped.

Original motion put and the House divided:

Ayes—76:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Barlow, A. G.

Bawden W.

Bell, R. E.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, J. C.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Butters, W. R.

Carinus, J. G.

Christie, J.

Christopher, R. M.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Connan, J. M.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, P. H.

Derbyshire J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Faure. J. C.

Fawcett, R. M.

Friedman, B.

Goldberg, A.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Henny, G. E. J.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hopf, F.

Jackson, D.

Johnson. H. A.

Kentridge, M.

McLean, J.

Madeley, W. B.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Oosthuizen, O. J.

Payn, A. O. B.

Payne, A. C.

Pocock, P. V.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Russell, J. H.

Shearer, O. L.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Stratford, J. R. F.

Sullivan, J. R.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Ueckermann, K.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Wanless, A. T.

Waring. F. W.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: G. A, Friend and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—34:

Boltman, F. H.

Bremer K.

Brink, W. D.

Conradie, J. H.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges T. E.

Erasmus, H. S.

Fouché, J. J.

Grobler, D. C. S.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Le Roux, J. N.

Le Roux, S. P.

Louw, E. H.

Ludick, A. I.

Luttig. P. J. H.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Steyn, G. P.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swanepoel, S. J.

Swart, C. R.

Van Niekerk, J. G. W.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Wilkens, J.

Tellers: P. O. Sauer and J. J. Serfontein.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee on the Bill on 6th April.

I am not rising to oppose the amendment that has been proposed. The clause, however, as such determines the composition of the bureau. It embraces really more than the mere composition of the board. A question of principle is also involved in this, namely how the board of the bureau should function, how independently it can act. If the composition remains as it is in spite of the amendments proposed in the committee stage, I think that I owe the Minister and the board a small explanation at this stage. Originally we welcomed the Bill cordially in the expectation that certain amendments could be brought forward that would give expression to our conception of how the Bill shouid function, how it could best be amended to give effect to the objectives we expected in respect of the board and the bureau. In the absence of the amendments it is now necessary to state that the measure does not fulfil our expectations, and in our opinion it cannot provide the services to develop industry, and consequently I wish to inform the Minister through you, Mr. Speaker that we shall not comment on any of the amendments as they are before us now.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Amendments in Clauses 7 (Afrikaans) and 9 put and agreed to.

In Clause 13,

There is a slight alteration in the Afrikaans version which does not occur in the English version. If there is no objection to that I would like to move that amendment.

Amendment put and agreed to.

In Clause 15,

First and second amendments in Clause 15 put and agreed to.

New sub-section (2) proposed by the Committee of the Whole House, put.

I shall be quite brief in what I am going to say on this clause, but I want to repeat the feeling that this clause is a highly dangerous one, that it is revolutionary, not being found in legislation anywhere in the world, and that in consequence it is very desirable that we should approach the aspect of compulsory standardisation with a degree of caution and set up safeguards which will assist in promoting the Bill and obviating any possible abuse, abuse which may be quite justifiable from the point of view of the council. The Minister in this new sub-section (2) does help us up to a point, but in the committee stage I moved a simple amendment which the Minister at that stage could not see his way clear to give effect to. I may say that since then those of us who are interested in this particular aspect of the Bill have given close attention to the matter and the difficulties under this clause only grow as we consider it, so much so that one cannot escape the feeling that it is bettter to delete this clause altogether at this sage and to proceed with the Bill which will enable standards to be determined on a purely voluntary basis, as is the case in every other country in the world. I am wondering, though, whether the Minister will be prepared to consider other representations to be given effect to in the Other Place, as it is difficult in these rushed proceedings to give effect to them today. May I point out that the amended Bill only appeared this morning, and this subject is now before the House. If the Minister would do that I feel that we would have time, between now and the time when this Bill reaches the Other Place, to go into the matter and to consider the problems confronting us. If the Minister is not willing, I would like to move at this stage the sanie amendment, which I moved at the committee stage—

The effect of deleting these words will be to leave the matter open for an appeal to the courts of the land on the question of whether it is practicable or not to set up a specification of the end product and not a speciafication for the process or manufacture of the product. Sir, the Council in this case is most certainly an interested party, The Council is responsible for bringing forward the compulsory standard. The Minister is interested to a certain extent, and under this clause, as I see it at the moment, I submit that the Minister’s position is a very difficult one. If the Council recommends that a standard should be made compulsory, and the Minister agrees with that, the matter is then Gazetted in terms of the further provisions of this particular section, and all that an objector has the right to do is to lodge objection in writing with the Council. Bearing in mind that this is a matter of a highly technical character, I see great difficulty in weighing the merits of any objection. The Council is interested. The Minister is not likely to be so technically experienced as to judge of an issue of his own knowledge, and the objector therefore is confined purely to an objection in writing. There is no opportunity, as there is in a court of law, for the objector to be heard in person, for cross-examination and for the employment of all the rules and procedure which have been evolved in order to sift a matter to determine the issue. Here all those safeguards are absent and the Minister would be faced with an extremely difficult position in determining whether the objection contained merit or not in those circumstances. I submit that that will be the position and in view of the fact this is, as I repeat again, a revolutionary clause with far-reaching effects, I suggest that at this stage of our legislation, it would be desirable and wise for this House to allow that safeguard for appeal to the courts of the land. I am quite prepared to hear arguments raised that such an appeal would be difficult, that the courts would be confronted with considerable difficulty, but I only say that if the courts, after sifting the evidence, find it difficult, then under the procedure laid down here the difficulty of the Minister in the matter would be doubly grave. I therefore think it most desirable, in the interests of this Bill, to ask the Minister to set up this one further safeguard, and I close on this note that I know of interested bodies in this country, such as commerce and industry and the standardisation committee, which has done such valuable work in the compilation of this Bill, feel that a safeguard of this nature is very essential and necessary. With the leave of the House I move my amendment.

I second the amendment. Although for some time in our legislation provision has been made to exclude the right of appeal to the courts, I think that the way we are moving today makes it desirable that those rights should be restored, and where people have any grievance they should have final recourse to the courts of the land. I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I have a rather more fundamental difficulty in connection with this clause, and, while I am inclined to support the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) in his amendment, I do not know whether that will solve my difficulty. The purpose of the amendment which the hon. Minister introduced in subsection 2 of this clause was, I understand, to meet industry. Industry felt that the clause, as it stood previously, gave it no protection against a possible introduction by the Council of compulsory standard specifications for a manufacture or a process. The amendment was designed to give them protection, the protection being that no such standard specification would be introduced if the purposes of a standardisation specification could be achieved by laying down a standard specification for the commodity. Now, in examining the clause as amended, one asks oneself the queston, “what are the purposes of a standard specification?” As I understand the position—the Minister may correct me here if I am wrong—the discussions in regard to this clause, with industry, proceeded on the footing that the purposes of a standard specification were to ensure a certain standard of quality in the final product. On that basis it will be appreciated that the provision to which I have referred did give to industry a certain protection. Now, on further consideration one finds nothing in the Act which defines what are “the purposes of a standard specification”, and it occurs to me that one of the purposes of a standard specification may be not merely to lay down a certain standard of quality in a product, but to bring about what, for want of a better term I shall call the rationalisation of a particular industry by introducing compulsorily a cheaper mode or process of manufacture. Once we accept that one of the purposes of standard specifications may be to enable the council to prescribe that a certain process is to be a compulsory process, because it is a cheaper process, then, as I shall show in a moment, the safeguard which we imagine had been introduced by the Minister’s amendment disappears altogether.

Not altogether.

I will elaborate it. The position might be as follows, that you have two processes. I will try to simplify the matter. You have two processes, one economical and the other more expensive. Both these processes produce the same commodity, the identical commodity. In such circumsances it might well be in the interests of the State to eliminate the more expensive process, and the council and the Minister might therefore feel disposed to introduce a compulsory standard specification in the form of a standardisation of that particular process. That might, of course, have very important effects upon industry. The industrialist concerned with manufacturing in a rather more expensive way might find himself in the position that he would have to scrap a great deal of expensive machinery in order to adopt the compulsory standard mode of manufacture. In those circumstances, the council being inclined to lay down that the cheaper process should be followed, the safeguard introduced by this clause would be of no value whatever, because quite obviously the council would not be satisfied that they could achieve the purposes of standard specification by laying down a standard specification for the commodity. Standardisation of the commodity would, in the case we have supposed, be perfectly simple, but it would be ineffective with respect to this purpose of standardisation. It is because, on considering this clause, I came to the conclusion that that was a possible interpretation, and indeed the probable interpretation, of it, that I would ask the Minister to reconsider the whole clause with a view to introducing an amendment, possibly in Another Place which will bring about the safeguard which industry has asked should be brought about. I emphasise that the discussion, to which industry was a party, with the hon. Minister proceeded, as I understand, on a misunderstanding as to what were the purposes of a standard specification. Once we accept that one purpose may be, as I have indicated, to rationalise an industry and to standardise a process because it is cheaper, then this safeguard is of no value whatever. I cannot at this stage suggest what type of amendment could be introduced in order to give the necessary safeguard to industry, but I have no doubt that with further consideration, such an amendment might be devised, and I should like to ask the Minister to give the House the assurance that he will give serious consideration to this point, with the object of introducing an amendment in Another Place.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say this, that I do not quite share the fear of the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Stratford) in regard to this particular clause, if the interpretation he placed on it is correct. He has contemplated that the council would have the power to standardise, from the point of view of rationalisation; I think his fear disappears, because if a cheaper process is the purpose of the specification, then the more expensive or uneconomic process adopted which produces a commodity of the same quality, would automatically disappear in the ordinary market, because if the same quality of article can be produced by a cheaper process, it will drive the more expensive commodity from the market. Why I am inclined to leave that in the clause is because it sometimes happens that where a large capital amount has been invested in a process and later a more economic process is discovered, because of the large sum of money invested in the process, one sometimes finds it economic to buy up the smaller or newer concern with the modern process and to close it down. Is that advisable? It seems to me that the council should have the power, not that they should exercise it indiscriminately, but for the benefit of the public generally, to consider the cheaper process.

Mr. Speaker, in view of the revolutionary nature of the legislation which is being enacted in this Bill I feel it is necessary to support the opinion expressed by the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Stratford) and to support the amendments moved by the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell). It seems to me that the amendment asked for is a perfectly reasonable measure. It appears to me that when it comes to a question of considering the reasonableness or otherwise of applying compulsory standards of processing to a product, then recourse must be had to the courts of the land, to enable them to hear evidence from properly qualified witnesses, technical people. Then, also, I feel that in legislation of this type we are sidestepping the functions of this House to a certain extent. It is well known that our Governmental system is composed of three branches, the Legislature, the executive and the judiciary. Now, I would like to know why this Bill appears to stop at the second stage. It seems to me that the courts of the land should have the final say, and therefore I have much pleasure in supporting the amendment by the hon. member for Houghton.

May I add just a few words to those put forward by the other hon. members. This whole clause does really need revision and may I add my suggestion to theirs that the alteration might appropriately be effected in Another Place. The hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) has dealt with the need for eliminating the words: “The Council or the Minister, as the case may be. is satisfied that”. I do not think I can add any further arguments to prove his claim in that direction, but I do reiterate this, that Clause 15 is a compulsory clause. It is something new in this type of legislation. I do not know of the existence of a compulsory clause in any other similar Bill in any other country. I know and I appreciate that the Minister, conscious of this fact, has tried to meet commerce and industry by introducing certain safeguards. There is the safeguard of prior publicity. There is the safeguard, further down in the clause, of prior consultation with interested parties and that objections may be lodged in writing with the Council. We know that the Minister will act as the umpire in cases of dispute in much the same sense as a judge would act as an umpire if the case were put before him, and we know that he will always endeavour to come to a fair decision on the merits of the case. But in highly technical matters, where he has to decide whether or not we need to standardise a “process”, I maintain that we need more safeguards than we have here. We need the safeguards, not only of objections being lodged in writing, but, amongst other things, of a case being stated, and legal representation being made for a particular interested party, if necessary through argument and evidence, subjected to cross-examination. I think there is probably no better way of arriving at the truth in a technical matter than by legal cross-examination. I feel that this is necessary in technical cases. I have said that the Minister has given safeguards. We know that if a particular party represents that his particular “process” need not be compulsorily standardised and that the standardisation of the end product can achieve the desired object, a permit can be given to exempt him. But a further objection to this clause than those already mentioned is this: This permit can be issued by the Council according to sub-section (6). There I should like some assurance from the Minister that he, in the Other Place, will introduce an amendment (if he does not see his way clear to eliminating the words “The Council or the Minister, as the case may be ….”) and take some steps to see that the safeguard of his own judgment will be added to that of the Council here, as it is inserted earlier on in the clause. I feel that that will be some added safeguard; he will then have some say over what the Council decides and we will have that additional safeguard that we can always come to Parliament and raise the matter on the floor of the House. But, apparently, as sub-section (6) is worded, we will not be able to bring it up in the House and the Minister will not be responsible, and he could shelter behind the decision of the Council. I think matters such as these should be capable of being thrashed out on the floor of the House if we do not have the better safeguard of going to the courts of the land.

Mr. Speaker, I am quite amazed at the quietness and the calmness of the debate on this particular clause, particularly the speeches of the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) and the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Stratford), as on a previous occasion in this House they raised the very issues and principles which we deal with in this particular clause. I want the Minister to know that as far as the Other Place which is referred to in whispered tones is concerned, I am not concerned with it. I am concerned with the principles and the decisions made in this House and I am emphatically against the compulsory clause, even with the compulsory amendments which we have before us here. Why I refer to it as a matter of principle is because I feel that the essentials of democratic economy, as I know it, are involved in this issue. A compulsory clause of this nature, by pointing out certain abuses in our present economy, and referring to the necessity for rationalisation, suggesting a cure of this nature, will result in the cure being worse than the original abuse, and I fear that here, with all the good intentions of the Minister and of this House, we are acting against the essential ideas of economy in the same way as, if we apply a policy of totalitarianism we would be going against democracy.

Mr. Speaker, I moved this amendment in the Committee stage in an endeavour to meet the difficulties which industry felt in regard to this compulsory processing provision, and in doing so I went as far as I possibly could to allay these fears and to provide that for all practical purposes there should be safguards against what they thought might happen; and I am still of the opinion that we have provided here a satisfactory safeguard, and as far as I am concerned I am satisfied with the clause as it stands. I am of course perfectly ready to consider any representation which may be made to meet the case and to provide further safeguards, if they can be provided without vitiating the general intentions of the clause, and I am quite prepared to discuss the matter. The "hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Stratford) has raised a perfectly new point. I myself rather think that it is a point of less substance than he would have us think. Certainly the example which he has taken strikes me as being a very poor one, because as the hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood) has pointed out, if it is a question of a cheaper process, the cheaper process itself would automatically put the more expensive process out of business. It would not be necessary to buy them out, so there will be no question of making the standard process compulsory. However, there again if there is any substance in that argument, I am perfectly prepared to consult with the hon. member, and if there is any substance in it, I am prepared to put it right at a later stage.

And if it is a more expensive porcess?

If it is a question of a more expensive process buying out a less expensive process, or if it is a question of suppressing a new process, that is of course, an argument in favour of the hon. member’s contention. But these points which have been put up only indicate how dangerous it is for a Minister who is anxious to meet difficulties, with the very best of intentions, to accept the amendments, unless one has the fullest opportunity of exploring those amendments.

Question put: That the words, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the amendment.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—59:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Cilliers, S. A.

Clark, C. W.

Connan, J. M.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, P. H.

De Wet, H. C.

De Wet, P. J.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, A. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fawcett, R. M.

Goldberg, A.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Henny, G. E. J.

Higgerty, J. W.

Hofmeyr J. H.

Hopf, F.

Jackson, D.

Johnson H. A.

McLean, J.

Moll, A. M.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Oosthuizen, O. J.

Payn, A. O. B.

Payne, A. C.

Pocock, P. V.

Rood, K.

Shearer, O. L.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sullivan, J. R.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Ueckermann, K.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Van Onselen, W. S.

Visser, H. J.

Wanless, A. T.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—40:

Barlow, A. G.

Bell, R. E.

Boltman, F. H.

Bremer K.

Brink, W. D.

Butters, W. R.

Döhne, J. L. B.

Dönges T. E.

Erasmus, H. S.

Fouché, J. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Klopper, H. J.

Le Roux, J. N.

Le Roux, S. P.

Louw, E. H.

Ludick, A. I.

Luttig, P. J. H.

Nel, M. D. C. de W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Russell, J. H.

Stals, A. J.

Steyn, A.

Steyn, G. P.

Stratford, J. R. F.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, C. R.

Van Niekerk, J. G. W.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Vosloo, L. J.

Waring, F. W.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O.

Wilkens, J.

Williams, H. J.

Tellers: P. O. Säuer and J. J. Serfontein.

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment proposed by Mr. Bell negatived.

Proposed new sub-section (2), as printed, put and agreed to.

Remaining amendments in Clause 15, the amendments in Clauses 16 and 18 and the amendments in Clause 19 up to line 17, page 14 put and agreed to.

In Clause 19,

Amendment in lines 18 to 21 in Clause 19 put,

I move as an amendment to this amendment—

I second.

Agreed to.

Amendment, as amended, put and agreed to.

I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

Remaining amendement in Clause 19, the amendments in Clauses 20, 23, the new Clause 24, the amendments in Clause 24 and the new Clause 26, put and agreed to, and the Bill, as amended, adopted.

Bill to be read a third time on 4th April.

With your leave, Mr. Chairman, I should like to take advantage of the 30 minute rule. Before we discuss purely Treasury matters, the way in which the Treasury controls the Exchequer, we feel on this side of the House that there is another important matter to which this House should give its immediate attention in the hope that eventually we shall have an explanation from the Minister of Finance. I am referring to the world conference that was held last year at Bretton Woods, and the attitude of the Government especially in regard to the world monetary plan that was drafted there. In the first place, I want to say that it is inexplicable to this side of the House why the Minister, from the outset, endeavoured to draw a veil of secrecy as if the conference and South Africa’s participation in it was a frightfully big State secret about which no one knew anything at the outset. We shall be very glad if the Minister will tell us why the Government decided to send à few men from South Africa to attend it, from whom the order came to the press of the country that the despatch of delegates from South Africa was not to be made known to the public of South Africa. We shall be very glad if the Minister will say from whow this crazy order came and what the reason for it was. Just imagine, an important world conference was being held in America in connection with world trade after the war. One of the biggest questions to be discussed at the conference was: Will the world try to maintain the gold standard, yes or no. This in itself is a matter of vital interest to South Africa; yet the decision emanated from I do not know who in the Government to issue an order to the newspapers that South Africa might not know what occurred at the conference. South Africa was not to know whether we were to take part in the conference and we were not to know who were the individuals who would be sent to it. This is not an isolated instance. We know that last year several missions were sent overseas in connection with economic matters. The same order was given to the press. We have now advanced so far that when an official goes overseas it is a tremendous State secret regarding which no newspaper dare breathe a word.

Hush, hush.

Can the Minister give us a singlë reason why this happens? Can the Minister place himself in the humiliating position in which we find ourselves as members of Parliament. Important conferences take place; men go overseas to represent South Africa and we may not know anything about it. But the worst is this: The Conference was then held. Eventually we heard from overseas who represented us. We heard that we were represented by Dr. Gie, our Ambassador in Washington, Dr. Holloway, the Secretary for Finance, and Dr. De Kock, at that time Vice-President of the Reserve Bank. Those men have been back in South Africa six months. Parliament has been in Session more than two months. One of these days, on 1st May, 1945, this thing may come into operation; it may come into operation. Then our Government will have to decide what it will do. And yet we find ourselves in the position that up to the present moment we have heard nothing officially from the Government in connection with the conference. We do not know what decisions were made. The Government has in no way placed before this House the terms of the agreement at which they arrived there. Not a single word, except that the Minister had a few sentences in his Budget speech. That is all that has been communicated officially in connection with the important resolution that was taken at that conference to the Parliament and the people of South Africa. I have before me reports of two lectures that were given by two of the delegates who went from here to America— Dr. Holloway and Dr. de Kock. They appeared in the South African Journal of Economics. It has been sent to some members on this side, but it is not an official document. The Government does not carry responsibility for what appears here. We do not know whether it is correct or not correct. It does not bear the official stamp. We cannot leave it at that, but apart from this we have heard nothing whatever about this important conference at Bretton Woods. I shall be glad if the Minister will tell us one thing on this matter, whether he thinks that South Africa is prepared to take this important step blindfolded, to make a leap in the dark without our having at our disposal any official information. It is to me an unprecedented thing that at this stage the people of South Africa and the Parliament of the Union of South Africa should be kept in blissful ignorance of the whole affair. To me it is just a proof of what the result is when small men are suddenly vested with great authority. Yes, it is very nice to overlord it in South Africa under the emergency regulations, to be a dictator, a sort of small edition of Hitler or of Mussolini.

What about Joe?

Or of Joe Stalin. It seems to me that one of the Ministers who of late has displayed the strongest tendency to domineer in South Africa is the hon. Minister of Finance.

He is a big man in his own caucus.

He fancies himself, and there are many people in the country who feel too that he is a sort of superman in South Africa.

His own people think so.

What is a superman?

A superman is one who believes that he has a monopoly of all the wisdom and all the knowledge in the world. He alone knows everything. No one may differ from him; no one may criticise him. The other day we had the sorrowful spectacle of a member in this House—he does not sit on this side but on the other side—who dared to stand up to differ from the Minister, I refer to the hon. member for Vasco (Mr. Mushet). The hon. member for Vasco occupies an important position in the business world. He fills an important position in this House. He is Chairman of the Committee on Public Accounts, and we had this scene when he dared tell the Minister what the business world felt about his Budget, then the Minister went out of his way to insult him. Yes, he insulted him. Who differs from the Minister is insulted. There was a time when we cherished some esteem for the Minister. We thought he was a man of principles, of convictions. The last few weeks have taught us many things. We have learnt of late to know him as a bumptious person, a man who is puffed up with his own high opinion of himself, and in the second place—and this we did not expect from the Minister—we did not expect that when he knew he had the last word he would be prepared to hit if it was not always above the belt then beneath the belt. If he knows he has the last word he is prepared to hit below the belt if he cannot get in a blow above the belt. I would like to tell the Minister this, that with all his conceit he must not forget that we are Parliament and Parliament rules, and there are many people in this House—all the members with self-respect—that are tired of the domineering of many of the Ministers, and especially of the Minister of Finance. I would only tell him this, that South Africa is not yet a dictator country, and South Africa does not think he is a superman, and it will do him a little good if he comes down a little from that pedestal and endeavours to be an ordinary mortal. Now we return to Bretton Woods. We should very much like the Minister to give us an explanation about it. We know that it is one of a series of world conferences that has been held, or which are to be held in connection with post-war problems, and especially to ascertain how far the nations can co-operate to restore world peace, and especially world prosperity. It is one of a series of such conferences, and I think I may say about the world conferences that have been held so far it is the one that very probably has had the greatest measure of success, albeit on paper. We know that 44 nations agreed there, through their representatives, on a draft world monetary plan, that the governments would now be asked to consider their plan and that on any date after May, 1945, they may be asked to decide whether they accept the plan, and whether they are going to subscribe in the first place to a world monetary fund that is going to be instituted, and also to a world international bank they hope to establish. As I say, in this House and in South Africa we know nothing official. What we know of the conference is what two of the delegates published in the form of lectures, and made known to us. Then we had the opportunity to peruse a number of overseas periodicals that also dealt with the Bretton Woods affair. I had the text of the agreement for a day or two, and it was impossible for me to study the thing properly in that short time. I am consequently not in a position—I must say that honestly—to be dogmatic in connection with the Bretton Woods Conference, to talk or to act. But from what appears in these two lectures and from what appears in the overseas periodicals which came to hand, we have certain serious misgivings and we shall be glad if the Minister will clearly and succinctly answer certain queries that we are putting. South Africa is dependent for its prosperity in the future on three great branches of its industry. These are the gold industry, agriculture, and our secondary industries; and we judge any world monetary plan by the effect it will have on these three productive industries of our country. It is from that standpoint that we approach the Bretton Woods Conference. What is the position of gold in the world monetary plan that was drawn up at Bretton Woods? We know what the place of gold was before Bretton Woods. We know that whatever the alterations were in international relations before the war broke out in 1939 that until the 4th September, 1939, gold was the only international standard, the standard of value, and in the last resort should all other means fail gold was the only medium to equalise the trade balance. Until Bretton Woods gold was the only international money, and when nations traded with each other and one had in the long run bought more from the other—we know that in the period from 1931 to 1939 many other mediums were tried —but after other mediums were tried then in the last resort it was only possible to adjust the trade balance by gold. The question in our minds is, what will be the position of gold if the world monetary plan of Bretton Woods is adopted? We are interested in that because South Africa is a gold producing country. We are one of the few lands that produce gold, and we know what place gold takes in the economic life of South Africa. Although the Nationalist Party does not want the gold industry to be pampered, although it does not want the Chamber of Mines to meddle in the politics of South Africa, although it does not want the Chamber of Mines to try to exercise influence on the poltics of South Africa, the Nationalist Party realises the value of our gold industry in South Africa. We know what contributions it makes to the revenue of the State; we know what an important labour market it is; we know what an important market it is for our products, but we know at the same time that the greatest proportion of our imports (this is what decides the standard of living in South Africa) are paid for with the money that we receive for our gold. Consequently gold plays a very important rôle in the economy of South Africa, and we should like the Minister to say plainly what is the place of gold in the Bretton Woods monetary plan. It appears from everything that one reads that the place of gold is assured. It seems to me that all writers agree on this, that it is a gold standard in a modified form. But we cannot escape from it that one alteration was effected at Bretton Woods, and that is that henceforward gold will not be the only international standard. From now on the dollar will be acknowledged as an international monetary medium. Alongside gold we have another recognised international money. I may be told that the dollar is gold. America has locked up in her cellars gold to the value of £5,000,000,000. America has such a great interest in the safeguarding of gold and the value of gold that there cannot be any thought of any development in the future to the detriment of our gold industry. I may be told that. But in the long run we must take into account that under the new arrangement a decided alteration has been effected. New York has become the money market of the world. New York will be the financial centre of the world. The dollar will play a more and more important part in the world economy. The world will gradually become accustomed to think in terms of dollars and dollars only and to think of the dollar as international money, and one asks oneself whether we have not taken a step along a road the end of which cannot be seen? I mention the misgiving. I have said that it is impossible for me to be dogmatic, and I shall be glad if the Minister will reply to us on that point. And now, what is more important, how is the Bretton Woods monetary plan going to affect our agriculture and our secondary industries? What effect may it have on our agriculture and secondary industries if we link up with the fund? One thing is certain, the moment we join the fund South Africa will yield the liberty of action that it has hitherto enjoyed of applying protection in the interests of its secondary and primary industries. It surrenders a great deal of its liberty of action to act in its protection of its secondary and primary industries. I have in my hand a very interesting article that appeared in the “Fortnightly” that confirms this, and a lecture by Dr. Holloway about what happened at Bretton Woods also contains a reference to it. Dr. Holloway states on page 213 that the moment we join the fund our freedom of action is restricted. He mentions certain things that South Africa will undertake—

And then certain obligations are mentioned to him in respect of our freedom of action. He mentions obligations (a), (b), (c), (d), (e) and (f). We may, for instance, not depreciate our currency.

In certain circumstances we may. He says “Except according to the rules of the fund.”

Do you see our difficulty? We have not the text of the Bretton Woods conference before us. That is the difficulty. The Minister has not yet thought it worth the trouble to place the text of the Bretton Woods agreement in our hands. We can only go by what we get from overseas, what we learn from periodicals, etc. The fear has even been voiced in a certain periodical that I read whether England can buy up all the wool from Australia and whether Australia can then undertake to purchase to that amount from England? The fear is expressed that if you are a member of the fund this can no longer happen. This is the fear that has been voiced, but we have not the text before us. We only know that we are undertaking certain responsibilities and thereby we are surrendering our freedom of action, and we do not know to what extent we shall after the war, be defenceless against other countries that want to dump their products here and that will kill our own industries. That is a cardinal thing to us. The time is arriving when we shall have to go into the whole matter. We shall have further opportunities, but we should like to have the explicit assurance from the Minister that if we join the fund we will not have to surrender our liberty of action to protect our own primary and secondary industries against competition from overseas. We do not want to put out of our hands the weapons that we have had hitherto to protect our national economy. This is what we are asking the Minister, and this is going to be the test in how far we shall be prepared to endorse or reject the Bretton Woods monetary plan. Let me just tell the Minister this, that we are putting three requests to him. The first is that the Minister should without delay publish a white paper, something official, in which the text of the Bretton Woods conference is published, with an explanatory memorandum appended, something official, something on which we can rely. Then I think it is necessary, in the second place, that the Minister should give an opportunity to this House to study this thing—he can call it what he likes—and to hear the testimony of the two men that we sent to Bretton Woods, and also to give an opportunity to the representatives of the gold industry to hear them and to give them an opportunity to hear the representatives of the secondary industries and the representatives of trade. Let them appear before a Select Committee to explain the matter there. We do not ask that the Select Committee should prescribe its policy to the Government, but we only ask for an — opportunity to study this complicated problem and to become au fait with it, because in the last resort it is Parliament that must accept the responsibility for decisions in connection with it. Consequently we ask in the first place that the Minister should issue as soon as possible a white paper with an explanatory memorandum, secondly that in one way or another he will give members of this House an opportunity to examine our representatives to the conference, and to test this with what the representatives of the gold industry and of trade and industry have stated, and thirdly, we want to ask the Minister this: Do not set about things here as you did in the case of Unrra. There we undertook obligations that quite possibly may run to £51 millions. We know that is 1 per cent. of our national income in 1943. According to Prof. Frankel our national income stood at £547,000,000. Our national income for the purposes of Unrra is as the Government determines it, and I admit that the Government may say that Prof. Frankel has set our national income too high. But in any case the obligations that we have undertaken is to pay out 1 per cent. of our national income for 1943 as determined by the Government. [Time limit.]

I am sorry to intervene in this discussion in connection with Bretton Woods, but there is just a question that I should like to put to the Minister of Finance in connection with the calculation of the figures of our national income. The Minister has explained in his reply to the Budget debate that it is not possible to make the figures available earlier because the methods that are employed to calculate our national income are on the lines of the methods employed for the calculation of the national income in Great Britain. I have gone into the matter a little and I find that in Great Britain use is also made of the system of fixing it on what is called the “measure of the monetary output of currency values at factor cost.” In a table that Prof. Frankel has drawn up to show on what basis he has made the estimate in South Africa, he has stated that there are four methods of doing it, and he has said that he follows the first one in connection with the estimate of our national income, namely the ‘nett production method”, called the “nett output method” or the “sources of production method”. There may be other reasons for the difficulty of estimating the national income in South Africa, but it is certainly not because in England use is not made of the “nett output at factor cost method”. If the calculations of Prof. Frankel are to be of any value to this House and the country they must be available before the Budget debate begins, and if that is not possible I want to ask the Minister whether the task cannot be undertaken by the Treasury or the Census Department. In Canada it is the normal function of the Census Department. It appears in their year book. All the information ought to be available for the Treasury or the Census Department or by co-operation of the two departments. I think the Minister also admitted that it is generally accepted that the latest figures should be available in order to he able to judge the budget. The Minister regrets in any case, as we do, that the figures are now only available for the first time after the close of the debate, or at any rate just before the Minister replied. When the Minister replied he had the figures, but they were not available when we reacted to the budget speech. It appears unnecessary, and it is a difficulty that can be overcome. It only means the expediting of the publication of the figures by one month, and I think that if a real effort was made to make these figures available in tinte for the budget debate, that would not be impossible. If it is impossible for Prof. Frankel to malte them available in time then I want to suggest that it is something that can easily be done by the Treasury or the Census Department, or by co-operation of the two departments. Moreover, I feel that it is undesirable that a function of this sort should be left to a private individual, however able he may be. I think it is the necessary function that should be performed by the Government, so that one may have a measure of continuity, and so that it will not be subject to any difference of conception if one person should fall away and another person should be appointed. We should secure uniformity more or less for today and for the future in the calculation of our national income figure. It is also always possible that an outside person may not have all the figures at his disposal and he may not be in the same position as the Government that has all the official figures ready to hand. The Minister has stated that a certain subsidy is being paid for the providing of this information. I think that it is no more than right that the person who furnishes it should get a subsidy, but I think it is unnecessary to give it to anyone if it is possible for the State to carry out the work itself, especially as it could then be published with the official imprimatur of the Treasury as part of the budget. It could then be appended to the budget speech as a white paper and it will be an official document of the Government and of the department, and no longer an individual compilation of figures that the Minister may accept or reject. I feel that this point is of so much importance for the proper judging of the estimates and that the Minister should meet us a little further and not merely join us in regretting that the figures are so much in arrear. He should help to make the figures available and if it should be necessary to entrust the task any longer to a private individual he should in any case make it a condition that the figures should be available in time for the budget speech. I hope, however, that the Minister will go further and make it a Government publication either through his own department or another appropriate department, so that we may have the figures as official figures and not merly as figures from an individual, however high his status may be. I hope that the Minister will tell us that he intends in the future, in respect of the next budget speech — should he be the Minister to deliver that speech — that the figures will be available in time. I think it is an undesirable state of affairs when we are spending this money that we should have figures dished up that are two years old. If it can be done in England it can also be done here, and if a change has to be made in the period and it cannot be made available for the official financial year from the 1st April to the 31st March, it could be made available for the calender year. I hope that the Minister will see to it that in the future we shall have no further ground for complaint on this score. I have mentioned this matter repeatedly, and I hope that the Minister will not let it remain just a matter for regret, but that he will eliminate his regrets and our regrets.

I should like to join the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) in his objection, and I want to register my protest that this Parliament has not previously been given proper official information in respect of the proceedings at Bretton Woods. Here we had an event of the first magnitude and men undoubtedly assembled there with the best intentions for the future, and various nations contributed in an endeavour to find a solution of the difficulties that might arise in future from international trade and to eliminate them. As far as I am concerned I am disposed to think that they attempted far too much, going beyond the boundaries of what was practicable in the circumstances; but nevertheless World history was made there by an attempt to lay a foundation for trade that will ensure the future peace of the world. And though we attach so much importance to this undertaking and as we have discussed the subject during the past three years, and though in July of last year a provisional agreement was reached, we are sitting here as members of the Parliament of South Africa without any official data regarding the significance and implications of this agreement to our people. I want from my place here to express my thanks to the South African officials who, with or without the knowledge of the Minister of Finance, have furnished as much information as officials are permitted to do. In this connection thanks are also due to the originators of this big conception, but it will certainly not make for encouragement if the Government of the Union of South Africa does not even place its own Parliament in possession of the facts. I have before me a document which made me feel even more surprised after it came into my hands, and it is a document published by the Government of Australia specially for the information of its Parliament. It is addressed to the “Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia.” Within a month of the conference the Australian representative at Bretton Woods on his return to Australia enlightened the people and Parliament in reference to the implications of the resolutions of the conference. All the particulars of the conference together with a memorandum drafted by the representatives of the Australian Government were published in the form of a white paper. But we in South Africa have to console ourselves by relying on documents we collect from here and there and which require a great deal of study. For the last month I have been at great pains to ascertain what information we can obtain about this. I have studied various periodicals and other things, and I must say that the neglect— I would almost say the flippancy—of our Government in not furnishing us with the information has caused me a great waste of time. I do not regret the study that I have made of the matter, but it is disappointing when you have to assemble fragments of information instead of it all being made available in view of the fact that it is all of national importance. So many questions flow from the Bretton Woods conference that I hope the Minister of Finance will grant us a full opportunity to put certain implications. I hope that he will not answer too quickly, because there are one or two aspects that require clarifying and that I do not want to put with a view to embarrassing his position but which are of extreme importance. We realise that the Minister has to act on behalf of the Prime Minister in international affairs, and we on our side would like to help him as much as possible in respect of these matters. I stated a moment ago that I doubt whether effect can be given to the ambition of the framers of the measure, but it is nevertheless a great effort they have made and we should like to examine it here. The first question that I want to put is in how far the Government of the Union has come to a decision in reference to joining up with the fund and with the bank. We participated in the discussions, but the period for joining is limited if a nation wants to join under the ordinary conditions. It begins on the 1st May of this year, and normally the date for joining closes on the 31st December. After that, in terms of the details of the agreement itself, the deeds as they are called, it is very difficult to join. There are certain aspects of the matter on which we should like to have information from the Minister. The first is whether the Government has already taken a decision to join or not. The setting up of this fund is apparently not dependent on the great powers. Even though a few of them should remain outside they cannot allow the establishment of the fund to suffer ship-wreck if say 65 per cent. of the quotas are in favour of it. If this is the case then the fund can be brought into being and no single power can destroy the institution of the fund. But as I have stated, it is possible that one of the great powers, or more of them, will find that it is not in their interest to make concessions. It is surprising to note how various writers on public affairs approach this matter from divergent standpoints, and I have observed, especially in the writings of certain prominent British economists, that they have voiced considerable mistrust in connection with the advisability of joining the fund, especially on the part of the United Kingdom. I have read at least four or five articles about it by prominent economists. I do not want to mention the names here. My conclusion is—I will not say propaganda is made — but that there is an active movement in progress by prominent economists, or being promoted by prominent economists, making out that it is not in the interests of Britain to join the fund. I can refer to the article in the “Economist” of the 12th August of the previous year, where the writer advised the British Government — if it was obliged to join, it has no choice — but if it is not obliged then it is in its interests to postpone joining for as long a time as possible, on good economic grounds. The question now is whether the Union Government is going to join if 65 per cent. of the quotas of the fund are taken up, presuming that the British Government is not one of the countries subscribing to the fund. One factor we have to take into consideration, and I want especially to emphasise this aspect, mentioned by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth), namely that the question of gold is of great significance to South Africa. As far as I am concerned it is my personal conclusion that the institution of the fund considerably strengthens the position of gold in the world. That is my own conclusion, and bearing that in mind we must beware of the spreading of this atmosphere that is unfavourable to the British Government joining, and I want to ask the Minister whether our Government for the sake of the strengthening of the position of gold is going to join the fund, even though the British Government does not join. I want to refer the Minister to various articles that have been published on this aspect of the matter and on which I cannot now dwell. I put this question to the Minister in reference to what the Minister has decided. In the second place there is a procedure that is set out in paragraph 21 (2) (a) of the draft constitution of the fund. It is that every Government that signs the agreement must lodge in Washington certain documents wherein it will be set out that the agreement has been accepted and that all the necessary legal steps have been taken to place the Government concerned in a position to carry out the obligations under the agreement. I presume that the Government will submit the matter to Parliament. The Government will naturally have to obtain the necessary funds from Parliament, but apart from that I take it that the Government will not be a party to the fund without consultation with this Parliament. [Time limit.]

There is unfortunately very little time to answer fully the various points that have been mentioned, but perhaps I shall be able to say a few things before the adjournment. The first point has reference to the calculating of the national income. There is a difference between the position in England and the position here in South Africa. In England two-thirds of the national income is taxable and consequently much greater use can be made of the income tax figure in calculating the national income than is the case with us here. Prof. Frankel is now in England—perhaps he is on his way back—and I intend to go into the question further with him on his return. In any case I believe that there is good reason for expecting that next year we shall be able to speed up the provision of the calculation by a month, so that it will be available for the Budget debate. This year we have already expedited it in comparison with previous years. I have the highest expectations that we shall be in a position to do this. In regard to Bretton Woods, there is no question of secrecy. There was no instruction from me to keep the departure of the delegates secret. I do not know from whom it came. Probably there was a general instruction on security grounds, but it did not come from me. As soon as the delegatets returned I encouraged them to deliver lectures in the interests of the public as a whole. Moreover in Febrbuary in reply to a question I said perfectly clearly that any member of this House could obtain copies of this agreement, and I believe that the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) did obtain one. My hon. friend put three questions. I shall answer the third question first. There is not the least intention to come to a decision that South Africa shall join the fund or the bank without the fullest consultation with Parliament. The reason why we have not yet introduced the matter— I said in my Budget speech that we would bring it forward—the reason why we have not done it earlier is because we are waiting to see what the attitude of the United States will be. If they are not joining then the whole thing will fall through. It will consequently make for the convenience of this House if we do not act too quickly in this 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 4th April.