I move—

At this stage I want to make just a few remarks about the Bill. The first is in connection with the leave awarded to the personnel. It has now become a right they have and no longer a privilege —a right in the sense that they receive payment when they leave the service and when they did not really get the leave to which they were entitled. But we should like to see—I mentioned it last time, but the Minister did not deal with it and from his side there was unfavourable reaction to it—that the personnel should be entitled to demand their leave. When they feel that their condition of health is such that they need leave, they must be able to give the Administration a reasonable period, after which they should be permitted to demand their leave. I mentioned that many of these people do not belong to the clerical personnel but are people who have very responsible duties. They do not fill important posts but very important duties devolve upon them. They hold the lives of people in their hands. There are signalmen, shunters, engine drivers, stokers, conductors and so forth. They have to perform responsible duties and are required to work for long hours. Sometimes they work 10, 12, 14 to 16 hours without a break. These are not products of the imagination. If the Minister wants the facts I am willing to give him those facts in connection with hundreds of cases. These people do not mind working long hours in exceptional circumstances. They also work many days per month. They work 40, 45 to 55 and 60 days a month. I know of people who worked up to 65 days a month.

Who?

Engine drivers, stokers and conductors. Those are people who have very important duties to perform. If those people make a mistake they are prosecuted under the disciplinary regulations. They are punished and they are pitilessly punished. The Minister gave me a schedule the other day of the fines imposed in recent years. In 1942 the fines amounted to £3,500. Those are fines collected from railway personnel who were punished. The year afterwards £4,500 was collected in fines because regulations had been contravened. In 1944 the amount was over £5,000. We feel that many of these mistakes are made because the Administration does not grant the personnel the leave to which they are entitled, and therefore we say that when those people feel that their system needs a period of rest, they should be entitled to demand that leave. We do not want to be unreasonable, because there are circumstances where the Administration cannot possibly give a man leave on the day and at the moment when he asks for it. But the man should be able to get leave within a reasonable period. I mentioned the case of a stationmaster, and I can mention the cases of hundreds of stationmasters, drivers and stokers, where these people worked for three, four and five years without going on leave. There can be no excuse for that. The relief staff at a certain period were all busy filling vacancies. The relief staff is not there to fill vacancies. If the Minister wants people to fill vacancies temporarily, let him then appoint such personnel. The relief staff is appointed to take the places of people who go on leave. They are, however, not utilised for that purpose. They are used to fill vacancies which the Minister and his Department do not want to fill immediately. The other day I received a reply from the Minister that there was a post of over £1,000 which has now been vacant for nine months; another has been vacant for six months and others for four months; another one for three months, and quite a number for two months. It is not the fault of the personnel that those vacancies remain unfilled so long, but the fault of the Administration which does not want to fill the higher posts. That is not right. The personnel can expect those posts to be filled, because if they remain vacant it slows down the promotion and the respective seniority of officials. The Minister is misusing the relief staff. He is not using them to relieve people who should go on leave, but to act temporarily in vacancies which exist but are not filled, or to fill the posts of people who have gone to the war. It is the policy of the Government and therefore we do not now object to people being permitted to go to the war. But then people should be taken in from outside, or released men or come to another temporary arrangement so that the relief staff will not be used for that purpose. We must give the lower paid officials their leave. An hon. member opposite spoke about leave for the underdog. We do not like the terms “underdog” or “topdog”. We would rather refer to the personnel as people, and if the lower paid officials do not receive the leave to which they are entitled, why can highly salaried officials receive leave whenever they want it? I pointed out here that a highly salaried official during the past 2½ years has already received leave on six on eight occasions. One of the members opposite then said that on each occasion he took a short period of leave. That is not so. During the 2½ years he was away for more than eight months. He was a highly salaried official whom the Administration had specially selected for promotion because of his extraordinary capability and eminent qualifications, and because they say that he is par excellence the man for the post for which he was elected. He passed over the heads of other officials; he was appointed over their heads. He passed efficient officials who performed brilliant services and still perform them. He was appointed to that post, but he is hardly ever in the post. During the 2½ years since he was appointed he was away on leave for more than eight months and he is still absent. He has had leave for the last three months. It was stated here from the side of the Minister, and the Minister did not deny it, and therefore I must mention it here, that we all know that no railwayman can get more than two months’ leave in these times. We know that. That applies to the lower paid officials but we find that highly paid officials receive three months’ leave and that this particular man is still away on leave. We therefore feel that the time has arrived to give the railway personnel the right to demand their leave. It is essential in the interests of the service and in the safety of the travelling public. The travelling public have the right to demand that the people who take their lives in their hands should be able to come on duty in a state of mind and a state of health which enables them to convey safely the travelling public entrusted to their care. The travelling public have the right to demand that, and I say that if it were not for the stamina and sense of responsibility of those people whom the Minister has in the service of his Department and who are often unjustly treated by the Department, we would have paid very dearly for it already. But the personnel is to be admired for serving the railways so brilliantly in these difficult circumstances and these difficult times over a long period so that there were no fatal accidents for an appreciable length of time. I say that in honour of the raiilway personnel, and that is the case not because of the good treatment they received from the Administration, but in spite of the treatment they have received. I feel that the Minister is sympathetically inclined but he does not receive the information he needs from his department. I believe that if he comes in contact with his officials more often he will hear the truth. Today he does not hear the truth. When he hears the truth and ascertains the facts he will get a fright and I believe that he will then take steps. But I think that he himself sometimes feels powerless against his Administration. He does not act forcibly enough. He adopts a policy which sounds reasonable when he announces it here in the House, but when it is put into practice it appears quite different from the policy announced here by the Minister—we then look in vain for the policy he announced here. I feel that the time has arrived that the personnel should be able to demand as a right that they, after reasonable notice—although we make it three months or six months—can insist on their leave, especially those officials who fill important posts from the point of view of the duties resting upon them, although they may not be highly paid officials. I should also like to press that if the personnel is limited to a maximum period of leave of two months per annum it should be applied uniformly from the bottom to the top. There should be no differentiation in the top grades. Many people are obliged to take their leave in small portions, and that also suits the Administration better, that they should take three days here and five days there. But this man to whom I have referred gets long periods of leave. They are periods of two and three months, and why should he receive that preferential treatment? He gets preference in promotions because he is promoted over the heads of other people. He gets preference as regards leave and everything. Is he such a wonderful curly-headed boy that he must be selected for special treatment? If a rule is laid down it should not be laid down only for the men at the bottom but also for those at the top, so that everybody will be subject to the regulation. Here we have the great gentlemen who must apply the regulations’, but they do not apply them to themselves. This official is now not at his post.

Where is he?

We know very well where he is. We want to bring him back to his post, and the Minister must do so. I can nowhere see where the Minister lays down what the maximum period is for which a person on leaving the service can be paid out for his leave. Will the Minister tell us where he laid down what the maximum period is for which leave will be paid for when a person leaves the service? When a person dies we know that under the regulations he can be paid out for the maximum period of six months. Will that also be applied when he leaves the service? I men tion this only because we should like to have the information from the Minister. The third matter I wish to mention, which is relevant to this whole matter, is the matter we discussed here the other day, namely the house rent charged the personnel. The personnel received an increase in wages, but in some cases it really amounted to a decrease in wages. We are wholeheartedly in favour of raising wages and salaries, but I now want to direct the Minister’s attention to an injustice which automatically flows from those benefits which the personnel receive. That is that they automatically have to pay more in rent. No improvements were made to the houses, but because the personnel received increases they must pay more in rent. The Administration has a system according to which part of the personnel have to live in railway houses, while other classes of the personnel hire houses elsewhere. Those who have to pay rent to the Railway Administration must pay rent which is calculated according to the quality of the house. If it is a good house built of bricks they have to pay so many pennies per square foot of floor space. If the house is constructed half of bricks and half of galvanised iron, they pay a lesser amount per square foot of space. If the house is built exclusively of iron, or is of a low standard, there is again a lower tariff for that sort of house per square foot. But the personnel who receive free dwellings are treated on quite a different basis. They are paid on the basis that one-sixth of their wages are deducted for the free dwelling, and whether the one-sixth of the wage is more or less than the rent which would otherwise be payable to the Administration according to the quality of the house, makes no difference to the Administration. In 99 per cent. of cases the Administration receives much more rent from the personnel than it should according to its own prescribed tariff. With this increase of wages the rent of those officials is automatically raised. That is a source of great dissatisfaction to the personnel and it has already been brought to the Minister’s attention. But I want to make use of this opportunity to bring it pertinently to the Minister’s attention that much dissatisfaction exists on the side of the personnel who are entitled to free dwellings. I know of a case where a man is entitled to a free dwelling and he received one little room to live in, but one-sixth of his wages were deducted for it. The quality of the free dwellings which should be given to these people is not determined. They can give him an iron room where the temperature goes up to over 100 in the shade, and then he is told that that is his free dwelling for which he has to pay one-sixth of his wage. We want the Minister to investigate this matter. If he wants people to live near the railway line and for that reason they must make use of the free dwellings, well, I can quite agree with that, because it is essential. That is a good and sound policy. But let him then, where one-sixth of the wage is more than the rent applicable to such a house, take into consideration the difference and not force the person concerned to pay it. I see that the Minister nods his head affirmatively and it is therefore not necessary for me to deal with this matter further. We raised this matter last year, and we are glad that so much progress has been made in connection with it. We appreciate the Minister’s attitude and hope that he will find an opportunity to rectify the matter in the near future. Seeing that the Minister is meeting us on this point, I want to assure him of our support for this Bill, having expressed these few thoughts.

I would like to remind the House, after listening to the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Klopper) that the railway servants have never been so well organised as they are today. I think it is sufficient to say that they are organised to the extent that they include almost 80 per cent. of the employees in the railway service.

No, it is 60 per cent.

It may be 60 per cent. if we include coloureds and Europeans, but I say definitely that it is about 80 per cent. Therefore, if they are satisfied with the leave conditions, I do not know why the hon. member for Vredefort makes himself such a “voice in the wilderness” in this House. I want to say that as far as my information goes—and I am constantly in touch with these organisations and was so even before I resigned from the railway service because I was actively connected with them—I say it without fear of contradiction that there is not the hue and cry about any differentiation between the lower paid and the higher paid officials as regards granting leave. But to hear the hon. member for Vredefort say that engine drivers, ticket examiners and such people, working 50, 60 or 70 hours a week are in trouble due to the long hours, is in my opinion absolutely wrong. I want to say that I mixed with the rank and file very much more than he did, when I was in the service, because he was employed in Head Office and I at the depôt. I also served on the Appeal Board for many years and it is not correct to say that any mishap in the railways is due to staff working long hours, because I know these individuals. If they find that they cannot carry on they do not run the risk of sacrificing safety and lives of the public; they simply consult a doctor and if found unfit to be working on the footplate they are booked off sick. I want to tell the hon. member that he is doing these people on the footplate a great disservice when he complains about the long hours because many of them do not dislike overtime which they have been working for many years, even during the time the Nationalist Party was in power.

Do not bring in Party politics now.

†Mr. HOPF; I want to say that high officials do not get three months leave. The official referred to may have been seconded to other duties, or if he was on ordinary leave I would like to know what case he is referring to, because it may be due to illness and was covered by a doctor’s certificate. No, I say this is nothing else but propaganda. The railway servants have never been more satisfied than they are today. There are isolated cases where individuals cannot get all the leave they desire, but I again emphasise, as I did in the second reading, that no individual, whether he is the most humbly paid or the highest paid official, is entitled to receive more than two months leave at one time, but if he does get more than two months, then it is due to exceptional circumstances. There is no difficulty in regard to the lower paid railway servant obtaining annual leave. If the hon. member knows of cases it is his duty to report them to the Minister and I am satisfied they will get redress.

I do not wish to detain the Minister too long, but just want to draw his attention to a grievance. I know that there are certain difficulties in connection with the matter, but I think the Minister can surmount them if he wishes to. The grievance I have in mind is that railway officials are given allowances with which to buy houses, or they can get money from certain funds to buy houses, but if they then live in those houses, the houses are registered in the name of the Railway Administration and the people who live in the house are not entitled to vote in Municipal or Divisional Council elections. It means that half the persons living in the house in any case lose their vote. Although the house will eventually belong to them it is still in the name of the department. These people work for the department and a certain proportion of their salaries are deducted, and I want to ask whether the Minister does not see his way clear to have the houses registered in the name of the railway officials, in order that they may vote as owners and not only as occupants; in other words, in order that both the man and his wife may vote. If they live in flats they cannot vote at all because the property is not valued separately. I should be glad if the Minister can meet these people.

Mr. Speaker, in dealing with the matters raised by the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Klopper) I should like to assure him at the outset, that I am very much in sympathy with the desirability of ensuring that every railway servant gets the leave due to him when it is due. Unfortunately during the war, owing to reasons which I have often explained to this House before, it has not been possible to achieve that, but I can give him the assurance that as soon as the staff position permits, I will do all I can to get leave conditions on the railways better than they have been for the past few years. I could not quite follow what the hon. member referred to when he said that people were limited to two month’s leave. The limitation at present, owing to war conditions, is that no-one shall take more leave than the leave earned in any one year. That is to say, no-one shall take more than the leave he is entitled to for the year. That is the limitation at present as far as the ordinary servant is concerned. The leave granted to the senior officer to whom the hon. member referred is of course a special case. That senior officer, as the hon. member knows, is absent on sick leave and that is a case which does not fall under the ordinary category at all.

The papers mentioned not sick leave but ordinary leave.

I can assure the hon. member that in the case of that particular officer it is leave due to sickness. As the hon. member knows, I am sympathetic towards this question and we will see to it that leave is granted. He also raised the question of its being desirable to go round a little more, and I agree with him, but I will tell him that as Minister I have been going around quite a lot lately. One station master whom I met on the last occasion when I went round told me that I was the first Minister of Railways he had seen during 30 years of service.

And did he get a fright?

Even though we are not getting round as much as we should, we are apparently doing better than some of our predecessors did. The question of the rent problem was raised— the increase in rent resulting from the increase in pay—but that has already been discussed with the Consultative Committee of the staff associations, who raised it with me. They pointed out various anomalies that exist at present in regard to our rent payments. Members will know that in certain categories a free house is part of the officer’s pay. In other cases officers pay rent. But one finds a great number of anomalies arising as the result of that, because where the man’s pay goes up the rent automatically rises, the latter being one-sixth of his pay. As the result of these matters having been raised by the Consultative Committee I now have an enquiry on foot into the whole position so as to get rid of these anomalies, one of which was referred to by the hon. member. The question raised by the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) in regard to the occupier of one of our houses under the house ownership scheme losing his vote, is a matter to which I have already had my attention drawn. Apparently it applies only in the Cape, so far as I know, under a Cape Ordinance. The Administration of course retains ownership of the house on the grounds that it is the only security for the loan given, but whether anything can be done to overcome that, I do not know. I shall be only too glad to look into it. Possibly an amendment of some Ordinance may help. If there is any way of doing it I have no desire to deprive an occupier of his vote. I do not think there is any other point which was raised to which I have to reply specifically.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

I move—

Mr. Speaker, this Bill, which purports to establish a wild life sanctuary in the valley of the Limpopo really should have come up in this House in 1944. The reason why it had to stand over was due to the ruling by Mr. Speaker at that time that, being a hybrid Bill, it had to be published three months in advance of the sitting of Parliament. Unfortunately that was overlooked at the time and when we discovered the error it was too late, and therefore the Bill is being brought up at this Session of Parliament.

Brought up for sentence?

The object of this Bill is very clearly set out in the long title, namely to provide for the establishment of a nature sanctuary in the valley of the Crocodile or Limpopo River in the Province of the Transvaal; for the protection and preservation, in the national interest, of the land comprised therein, of its natural vegetation, wild life and of objects of geological, ethnological, historical or other scientific interest therein; and for certain matters incidental thereto. The object, furthermore, I want to emphasise, is first and foremost to reclaim the land which never was intended and never was suited for European settlement and which has been badly misused and, if I may use the term, abused, by human habitation, and to protect and preserve it and put it to wise land usage. It is to create a national sanctuary rather than a national park. When I say a national sanctuary rather than a national park I again want to stress this point that we have not in view the idea of a national park for tourists in their thousands to come and see the game, but the idea is rather to keep tourists away, certainly for a large number of years, until we can manage to bring back the land to nature from the devastated condition in which it is now.

Do you want to restore it again?

No, because the moment you restore it to people you destroy it again. The object is to create a national park where natural problems can be studied without the intervention of man. The National Parks Act of 1936 makes no provision for safeguarding the land as such.

Is that a translation from the Welsh?

It is for safeguarding of the land itself. There is no doubt that in the years gone by, either through ignorance or inexperience, Governments have not realised how to use land in a proper way. One finds in most cases that the land was robbed of its fertility, productivity, by overgrazing, which in turn has led to erosion on a very large scale, and the result has been that we have never learnt how to use our land wisely, and here, in this particular case, where you have land which is in a semi-arid and sub-tropical area of South Africa, with a very low rainfall, settlement has taken place, overgrazing took place, with the result that erosion, and especially wind erosion, took place. It has become increasingly clear to us in past decades that all is not well with our land. It is clear that in the past there was a great misuse of land. The misuse of land has led to soil erosion, the decrease of food supplies, malnutrition and general national waste,

What are you reading from now?

A wise policy is therefore necessary and that is what this Bill particularly aims at. May I quote from the remarks by the Secretary for Agriculture for America. He said—

And that, Mr. Speaker, in effect is what has taken place in that area.

Did that man refer to this particular area?

I wonder why hon. members are so stirred up? I will carry on until Mr. Speaker protects me.

Order! Order!

This proposed sanctuary lies on the south of the Limpopo and Crocodile River in the valley of the Limpopo. It was known in the olden days, in 1848. No one lived there until 1918. It is only 30 years ago that it was still uninhabited. In 1848 Hendrik Potgieter and his pioneers used it as a hunting ground, because there was an abundance of game in those days. I say it lies in the valley of the Limpopo. It starts two miles west of the Messina Bridge on the Limpopo, and then runs in a line to a few miles above the junction of the Makloutsi and the Limpopo Rivers. In the centre the line bulges out for about 23 miles. The length is 63 miles. It peters out, at both ends, at the river. I have said that it lies within the tropics. It is really a tropical area, a desert. The rainfall is very low, and very erratic. It ranges from five to twelve inches. It usually rains only once or twice during the summer months and the water runs off very quickly, and on account of the tropical heat, where the temperature on many days during the summer months goes up to 117 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, it becomes very dry.

Then the people should not sit in the shade.

I said it was in the tropics. If hon. members will look at the map they will find that it is really a tongue of the Kalahari Desert which shoots in there. It is sandy, shallow, and there is limestone underneath with outcrops of granite all over.

How many farmers are there?

It is a rotten place for a nature reserve.

The rainfall is erratic. In this area, there is a place called Kremetartsfontein which my hon. friend knows very well, because he was the person who was Minister of Lands and made Kremetartsfontein the original game reserve, to which I shall precently come, of Dongola; and I want to tell the House that so erratic is the rainfall that at the present moment at Kremetartsfontein no rain has fallen for three years. There are Baobab trees growing there and it is well known that these trees grow only in tropical deserts. Although there was a spring originally at Kremetartsfontein that spring has dried up and it is a pitiful sight to see these huge Baobabs dying in their scores as the result of three years of drought. The country is covered with grass, but as in all tropical areas which are sandy and shallow, it is sparse and thin. It has a growing period of no more than from four to eight or ten weeks at the most, and under human habitation and ranching conditions that grass is speedily eaten off before it seeds, with the result that wherever ranching has taken place all the grass cover has been removed, and there is no grass. An inferior grass, the Steekgras now grows there, which sometimes comes up but it is of very little value. There is no crop productivity. For the rest the land in that area is covered by Mopani trees. These Mopanis are short and stunted. When you go down to the river there is a belt along the river which is most picturesque. The scenic beauty there is wonderful but it is a very narrow strip. It has been stated in all the brochures and literature in the hands of hon. members that along this river there is no less than 30,000 acres of the most fertile land in the Union which could be irrigated and given impetus to food production in that area. I want to say that you cannot irrigate a morgen of land there by making a dam, for the simple reason that it is a narrow strip. The Limpopo overflows its banks when it is in flood, and it comes down in flood very frequently, sometimes twice a year, and this strip where these trees grow is inundated to a depth of anything between five and ten feet. So there is no qúestion of irrigation. For the rest there is stunted growth and thorn shrub which one finds in desert areas.

Were you there yourself?

He spent a holiday there.

Up to 1918 it was totally uninhabited. There were not even natives.

Then why is it kept for ethnological purposes if no one stays there?

If one goes through that area one finds traces of a Bantu civilisation which lived there and cultivated some of the lands probably 250 years ago.

In this terrible area?

I wish you would not interrupt so much. It ill becomes you. Wherever these Bantus cultivated the land and had their kraals you can see traces. All the trees have disappeared and there is not a blade of grass, and that shows that under human occupation the land goes back to a desert. If you look at the land which they cultivated there are bare patches. You find that the sand has been wind eroded and banked up against any fences they had there, and bare rock appears.

Whose constituency is that?

In that area there are traces of Bantu civilisation. There you also have the famous Mapan-goebwi Hill, where there was a native king who lived on top of this koppie. It is a steep precipitate rock of about 300 feet high. If you want to get on top of the koppie you have to climb up a crevice in the rock. Only one person at a time can do so. You have to mount very steep places to get there, and that is where this chief lived. The traces are there. You find any amount of pottery and beads, and when the Pretoria University carried out some research work there some years ago they found no less than several hundred dwts. of gold ornaments and beads on top of this koppie. They have left it, they have abandoned that country, because after living there for so many years, after vainly trying to practise cultivation, they found the country went back to a desert and it was impossible for them to maintain themselves. Even that Bantu race could not live there. [Interruption.] Hon. members opposite can have their say afterwards. I do ask your protection, Mr. Speaker. This interruption is premeditated.

Order! Order! Hon. members must allow the Minister to make his speech. They will have an opportunity later to reply to any points.

It may have been 200 or 250 years ago that that native race lived there, because from the relics that have been discovered it is gathered they were closely related to the Bantu races that were at the Zimbabwe ruins. The land could not carry them. The signs are there that wherever they grazed their cattle the land reverted to a desert. That was the end of any attempt at human habitation in this area. If you go through the river on the north side to Rhodesia or Bechuanaland you find exactly the same conditions. There were no natives, there are no natives today except a few on the Bechuanaland side who are occupied in trapping game and selling skins. For 40 miles north of the river there is no human life, and what is more neither Rhodesia nor Bechuanaland has ever attempted to place a single European there, because their governments are convinced from the lessons learned on the south side of the river that no race, white or black, can exist in those areas. No country in the world has ever attempted to settle people in a tropical desert with such a low and erratic rainfall and which on any attempt being made at grazing or ranching, goes back to desert, as it goes to desert in that area. I now propose to create a sanctuary. In 1918 the government of the day totally disregarding these lessons which anybody can read on going there, that the country is unsuited for ranching or for settlement purposes, decided to survey the land, to allot it and to give it out to European settlement. But the land was given out in the first instance to European settlement; the valuations at which it was given to the settlers varied from 12s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. a morgen. That was in the first instance. I emphasise here at once from the very beginning that land was given out for settlement purposes on these valuations and is now bearing interest at the rate of 1 per cent.

You get that in other districts as well, you get it in the Pretoria district also.

The Government of the day gave those terms because it was convinced that in order to enable the settlers to make a decent living it would be impossible to ask them to pay more than that, and they are paying that today.

You get that in the Pretoria district, in the Waterberg district and in the Rustenburg district, and everywhere else.

After the railway had been carried through to Messina in 1914 the Department of Lands did everything to encourage settlement in that area for the purposes of cattle raising and ranching. Boreholes were sunk on all Crown lands. There were numbers of failures among these first settlers, and these were attributed in the main to lack of capital. Owing to these difficulties the Messina Farmers Association in 1923 pressed for the revaluation of the farms in the district and submitted that all Government land on the Limpopo to 40 miles south of the river, should be reduced in value to 2s. 6d. a morgen. As a result of those representations the Stubbs Commission was appointed in 1923. It examined over 300 farms and recommended that the prices should be reduced from 12s. 6d. to 2s. 6d., 3s. and 5s. per morgen. The amount of relief that was given to the lessees at that time was £62,000. I want to state here that I do not think at any time the number of settlers that the Government put in that area exceeded 40; I do not think they reached 40; I think they were rather under 30. This revaluation did not solve the settlers’ difficulties, and four years later further representations were made to the Minister of Lands regarding the growing difficulties. The grass was beginning to disappear and the country was going back to a desert area. The settlers were always complaining that they needed more land for grazing. Accordingly another revaluation of farms was carried out in the area and further reductions were made in the prices of the farms, and as the veld was now found to be finished and the farms too small, farms adjacent to them were added to supplement grazing. For a second time the prices of the farms were reduced, from 3s. and 3s. 6d. a morgen to 1s. 6d. a morgen.

You gave it to them with a pound of tea.

The total cost of this reduction was a further £27,612. I want to say at this stage that the land was given to the settlers at an average price of 1s. 11d. per morgen.

What year was that?

I am not too sure about the second valuation. Over a period of less than 15 years of settlement relief was given in the form of additional holdings to increase the size of the farms and during this period relief was also given in the shape of revaluations, the relief amounting to a total of £89,612. I repeat, there has not been at any time 40 settlers in that area.

How many are there now?

I will give it to you presently. The additional land did not help one little bit. The settlers were continually roaming about looking for feed for their cattle because there was no grass. I know it has been stated that cattle can live oh the Mopani trees. My hon. friend opposite knows that if you go through an area where there are Mopani trees and wherever there is a farmstead the Mopani trees will have died off on account of the cattle eating them. As a result of sheep and cattle and goats more particularly feeding on them, there is not a leaf to be seen. So the cattle cannot even live on these Mopani leaves. Though some of our hon. friends make out that this is such a wonderful ranching country cattle cannot live there. Any farmer knows that it cannot be done. The grass does not grow there. The difficulties remained the same and the Department of Lands was eventually forced—and my hon. friend knows what I am talking about now—the Department of Lands was eventually forced to the conclusion that it was unreasonable to expect the majority of these settlers to live there, to continue to make a living on the farms. To relieve the situation an irrigation settlement was established at a cost of £180,000.

Is that your official speech?

Twenty-six of these settlers were then removed from that Dongola area but there were others who remained behind. The files of that period, as you will find on looking through them, deal with correspondence from the lessees on other Crown land farms in the area and show a similar state of affairs, namely that the country was deteriorating, the feed was disappearing, and it was impossible to make a living. The settlers were no sooner on the farms than they began to complain that the farms were too small and did not provide enough grazing, and that consequently they wanted to hire more land on adjoining farms, while the eating of cocoons brought great losses of stock. Their grievances and wants were interminable. To get ready cash they even asked permission to cut timber and sell it at Messina, where the mines had then been started and where apparently there was a big market. I was talking about the wise use of land. But there has been this cutting down of the trees, and if you go to Messina today you will see as I have seen, half-a-dozen wagons loaded with timber coming from that area. They cart the timber into Messina where apparently they have a market, and in this way they get a meagre amount to keep body and soul together. There are many of us who knew Kimberley when the diamonds started there. The hon. member for South Peninsula (Mr. Sonnenberg) knows. He lived in those parts. Around Kimberley the country was wonderfully covered with trees, all that area was covered with beautiful trees, but when the mines started they started cutting down those trees, and Í know from my own knowledge that thousands and tens of thousands of trees have been cut down, and the result is that all round Kimberley today the country is bare. It is going back as a result of all those trees having been destroyed. That is one of the things that we should stop, the promiscuous cutting of trees all over the place.

Hear, hear.

The whole position shows a record of sheer waste of human effort, of animal life, of the veld, of the land, and of the taxpayers’ money, and there is not one thing that can be put down on the profit side. Now I want to read to the House a speech made by the then member for Zoutpansberg, Mr. Eddie Rooth. He made a speech in this House in regard to this particular area. He was dealing with the report of the Tom Naudé Commission of Investigation in regard to settlers more particularly in those areas, and this is what he said—[1935 Hansard, col. 4223.]

The commission was confined by its terms to enquire into and report in what respect relief was necessary for settlers. It is very important to find out what relief is necessary, but it is far more important to find out why the relief was necessary. We have so long been accustomed to settlers applying to the Government for relief that I think it is about time we found out why, especially in certain localities, these applications are always forthcoming. For instance, in the Northern Transvaal, to be more particular, in the northern and north-western parts of the district of Zoutpansberg, one finds that although most of these farms were only occupied after 1918, yet by about 1922 it was necessary for the Government to appoint a commission to revalue the holdings and reduce the price. A few years after that again the same process was gone through, and once more the holdings were lowered in value. It is no exaggeration to say that today most of the holdings are valued at 3s. or under 3s. per morgen. But even apparently that was not sufficient, and we find that in 1925 the law was altered, so that the capitalisation of arrears became possible. Apparently that did not meet the case either, because in 1931 the process was repeated, and the conclusion is forced upon one that there is something radically wrong either with the type of settler pr with the land, or with the system of settlement. Allowing for adverse seasons and other conditions there must be something more to account for all these reductions in price and necessity for capitalisation. As far as the type of settler is concerned, I have lived amongst them for 17 years, and I think that they are, taken by and large, a very fine type. They face dangers and hardships which very few hon. members of this House would care to face, and I do not think that anybody who knows anything about the matter will say that the settlers themselves are to blame. Now what of the land? With the exception of the farms along the river banks, the holdings are without surface water, and, unfortunately, originally when they were allotted, no provision was made for boreholes. Therefore you start with the proposition that a settler got a dry bit of land on which he himself would have to provide water, without being able in any way to estimate what the cost would be. When I tell hon. members that in this part nothing can be done but cattle farming, that the farms average about 1,000 morgen in extent, and that the average carrying capacity is one beast to 20 or 30 morgen, I think hon. members will be surprised not that these people are everlastingly in difficulties but that they have managed to survive so long. Really the trouble is, I think, we are expecting far more of that dry barren country than nature ever expected it to produce. I do not think that any writing-off would ever make that land productive. It is not intended to be productive.

There is the opinion of a man who has lived there for 17 years and knew all about it. I am now quoting from the “Star” and this is from the wife of a settler who at present is living in that area, one of the settlers still left there. She said that her husband depended solely on farming income without speculation in cattle, that this part of the bushveld was fit only for wild game and not for human beings, and that since the 1935 drought no small farmer had recovered. She adds—

She states that if there is illness they have to send 30 miles for a doctor, that they cannot grow vegetables or fruit in the hot season when they are most needed, when there is malaria or enteric about. She says—

When she talks about cattle smuggling I say here and now from where I stand, that is one of the greatest industries and that is one of the greatest dangers that has threatened the Union of South Africa with the introduction of disease; that is the danger that lies in the smuggling of cattle. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that every year thousands of cattle are being smuggled through from the northern side. I have already said that on the Bechuanaland side and on the Rhodesian side it is uninhabited for many miles, and this is where all the cattle smuggling is taking place. When we hear as is stated in this brochure about thousands of cattle coming out of the Dongola, I would like them to tell the House how many are smuggled cattle. It is only a year ago that 27 head of cattle were shot by the Veterinary Department because they were caught on our side of the river, and this smuggling is constantly taking place.

Why worry to shoot them? They would all have died in the desert before they got through.

It happens in other parts too.

I say that not only is it a question of smuggling of cattle, but there is a good deal of illicit gold buying going on in that area, and through the river to the Rhodesian side.

You will have to turn the Witwatersrand into a national reserve also.

I have tried to give the House an idea of the results of human occupation and of the attempts to establish a settlement of Europeans. The lesson we have learnt since 1918 up to now is that the country is not intended for human habitation. It is tropical desert and the moment you start to ranch it, it goes back to desert. I have a book here and I want to give to the House—

What story book is this?

I want to give the House an extract of an account of an attempt made in America to establish a settlement in an area which exactly fits the conditions which we have here in Dongola. It is so apt, it so fits in with the conditions here that I really think I would like to read it to the House.

Is it Edgar Wallace?

They had been there a considerable time. I shall not read much—

That was in Montana.

What are you reading from; is it Martin Chuzzlewit?

They had similar conditions. There has been a tremendous amount of opposition to this Bill. I think there is not a member in this House who has not been supplied with no end of literature. I have before me a document which has been put out by the Dorsland Farmers’ Association, whose members by the way are not farmers at all, they are miners at Messina, and some people who live in Johannesburg, rich people; these are the farmers who make up the Dorsland Farmers’ Association. But at the back of this movement there is tremendous propaganda. They have been collecting thousands of pounds to fight this Bill in Parliament. At the back of it is one man, who lives in Messina. He is an interested person in this matter, and he has shown much lack of public spirit and of interest in the national welfare by trying to put up this propaganda to prevent the establishment of this reserve.

What is his name?

He is Mr. Emery. He is the man who has put up all this propaganda, and he has shown a total lack of public spirit in the national interest. I have in my hand a brochure that was put up by the Dorsland Farmers’ Association called “Homesteads or Wild Animals”. It is a long emotional outburst and I make bold to say that not a single fact in this document is correct or can be substantiated. I believe that I can say that 99.9 per cent. or every one of these statements is baseless and not founded on fact. He seems to have enlisted most of the farmers’ organisations to support him in all these baseless contentions, because in the opposition that has been put up, in their protest to the establishment of this reserve they all quote copiously from this brochure “Homesteads or Wild Animals”. In each one of them they talk about the removal by the establishment of this reserve of no less than 15,000 Europeans and 250,000 natives.

No they do not.

You have read it all.

You are not quoting from the memorandum; it is not in it.

We challenge you to read that from the memorandum.

I am going to quote the various resolutions.

Quote whether we said these people will be removed.

I wish you would not interrupt.

You are giving wrong information.

I quote from the Transvaal Agricultural Union.

What is the area of the ground?

240,000 morgen.

No, it is 510,000 acres.

Here is the Annual Congress of the Landbou-unie—

Is that the Transvaalse Landbou-unie?

Yes. These organisations have all passed these resolutions, and I want to say here that in their protests they have all quoted from this Dorsland Farmers’ Association Brochure, absolutely without foundation.

But the name sounds bad, Dorsland.

Major Hunt, who was the chairman of one of the Transvaal Agricultural Unions for many years, should at least know the conditions before he speaks. I, as a farmer, look upon our farmers’ associations as bodies which study the interests of the people and of the land and do not run away with such propaganda as is put into their hands and make protests against anything which is not against farming interests or national interests. But here is Major Hunt, who leads the deputation, and says to the Prime Minister—

Here is Major Hunt who makes a statement of this sort which is absolutely without any foundation whatever. He also had the assistance of some of the members in some cases, and I take very strong exception to these farming organisations one after the other passing these resolutions. But, Mr. Speaker, there is the case of the Louis Trichardt Farmers’ Association. That association has no interest, as such, in the land. They live north of the mountain, most of them. They passed the unanimous resolution—

I have already mentioned those people.

Poor farmers, how they must suffer. And at this meeting a resolution was passed unanimously in respect of the establishment of the Dongola Reserve.

Who was the chairman?

I am sorry that I cannot lay my hands on it now. It was a well represented meeting at which this resolution was taken. I want to add that the Louis Trichardt Farmers’ Association is the parent body, the mother association, of the Union in the Northern Transvaal. They are all farmers and some of them farm in a big way as cattle farmers.

Fruit and vegetable farmers.

I said that it was started in 1918 and in 1922, on representation to the present Prime Minister, General Smuts, he also said that it was impossible to settle people there. The land could not carry stock and therefore he suggested that the Government should take nine of the farms in the vicinity, the poorest farms, and to create a sanctuary for wild life there with the object of trying to bring back the area to nature and to restore the land to the position in which it was before settlement took place. These nine farms were the nucleus of the present Dongola Reserve. At present we have 39 farms which now form the present Dongola Reserve.

How big is it?

I have already repeated it twice. There are 39 farms of 79,000 morgen. Now, the Bill proposes to include in this sanctuary 123 farms with a total area of 240,000 morgen. 39 farms, I have already stated, are the present Dongola reserve, which has been increased and added to from time to time since it started with nine farms in 1922. 25 of these farms—and those are the figures the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) asked for—are held by 14 settlers. That is all we have there. One of the 14 is exempted from occupation. To compel him to occupy the land, we know, would be simply murdering the poor fellow. So that there are 13 settlers occupying 25 farms. The rest, 59 farms, with an area of 132,648 morgen, are held by 37 private owners. 12 of these private owners live on their farms. 4 farmers are under European caretakers, 2 are looked after by coloured caretakers, and 11 by native caretakers, while 5 are completely unoccupied. Now, there is the story of the 123 farms and the 15,000 Europeans I am supposed to be removing.

Who said that? Who said it was 15,000?

I now want to give the House the financial position of these 14 settlers who have been there from time to time. I have already told the House that with the writing off £89,000 has already been written off. (I am not giving the names of the settlers). One settler was allotted his land on the 1st January, 1931. Some settlers have gone away and others have taken their places.

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

At the adjournment I was busy giving some information about the financial position of some of these settlers, of the 14 settlers we still have on the reserve. I do not propose to give any names; I do not think it it necessary. One settler had his land allotted to him on the 1st January, 1931; the purchase price was £641; he paid off £17 3s. 2d. and still owes £623. The next one was allotted in July, 1921. The purchase price was £688. In all these years he paid off £49 and he still owes £638 11s. 3d. Another one had land allotted to the value of £489 and still owes £462, only £26 having been paid off. Another one had land allotted on the 1st January, 1942, for £500, and he has not paid off a penny. There was another one on the 1st January, 1929, for £566 and since that date he has paid off £32 and still owes £534. Another one in April, 1932, was allotted land for £397 and he has not paid off a penny. Another one on the 1st July, 1929, was allotted land valued at £493; he has paid off £36 and still owes £456. Another one was allotted on the 1st July, 1933, land to the value of £230 and he obtained further land later for £300, a total of £530, and he still owes £525 6s. 1d. Then there was an allotment on the 1st January, 1943 for £290, and this man has paid off £80.

Are these loans?

That figure is the purchase price of the farm.

Do they pay interest?

They may have paid interest; probably these small amounts are interest they paid.

It is an important matter.

Is there any obligation to pay off capital in the interim; is it not for a period of 60 years?

Yes. Let me say in respect of these settlers there is not one who pays more than £30 a year. In one case there was an allotment on the 1st July, 1926, for £480 and the man has paid off £47 13s. 9d. This probably represents interest. Then there was one on the 1st July, 1930, for £453; £60 has been paid off and the sum of £392 is still owing. On the 1st July, 1935, there was an allotment for £531; £21 15s. 11d. was paid off and he still owes us £509. The last one was in October, 1921; it was alloted at £180; he paid off £19 and still owes £160. That briefly is the position of the settlers that we have at present in the reserve. I give these figures to show that in spite of the fact that these people pay 1 per cent. interest they have not been able to reduce the payments owing on their properties, to any extent.

They have complied with their obligations.

I say that after the experience that we have had and that I have communicated to the House this morning, it will be clear that that part of the country is totality unfitted for human occupation, and for ranching. If used for ranching the land goes back very rapidly and deteriorates into desert. That is the position in which the land is today? It is pathetic to see the conditions prevailing there today. Not a single one of those settlers would have been able to exist there or to have kept his few cattle if they had to remain within the boundaries of their farms. But they roam all over the place looking for food, and in that way they have been able to hang on. I say that as a result of that experience the Government has decided that in the allotment of land after the war, more particularly for returned soldiers, we will not allow an inch of land behind the Zoutpansberg mountains to be alloted. If we did that we would be committing a crime to the ex-soldier in view of the experience we have had of the country and of the conditions there. Not a single soldier will be allowed land from the mountains up to the banks of the Limpopo River. There are only two clauses in the Bill I think I need refer to. One is Clause 5, which makes provision for the establishment of a Board of Trustees of six members to administer the reserve. These trustees will operate on whatever may be allowed by the Government and certain revenues which may accrue. I have already said this morning we are not out for the purpose of raising revenue through tourists. Certainly for a number of years we do not want to encourage tourists at all.

Except Ministers.

Yes, Ministers who shoot are not welcome there. I say we do not want to encourage tourists at all. It is our intention to form a trust, and this Board of Trusees will have their funds which ultimately will finance the administration of this reserve. Clause 12 refers to the establishment of a trust fund which will be a private fund.

Where will the money come from?

It will not come from the Government or the taxpayer. Private funds will be established and I hope that in time that fund will be sufficient to administer the whole of the reserve. When the second reading has been passed I propose to send the Bill to a Select Committee.

Why not before the second reading?

Now, before I sit down, I think I would be failing in my duty if I did not express my thanks here to a few people who have really been public spirited in helping to further this scheme for a wild life sanctuary to preserve not only the land and bring it back to nature, but also to preserve the flora as well as the fauna in these parts. I refer in the first instance to Mr. Charles Saker, who has a property inside this reserve of about 4,000 morgen in extent. He has a decent house where he spends his winters. He lives in Wynberg now. In order to further the project and the spirit in which this sanctuary will be established he has made the Government a present of his farm and has already given transfer of the property. There is only one condition which he held out, to which he is most welcome, and that is that he will have the right during his lifetime to live in his house during the winter months, not to shoot, because no shooting will be allowed and he does not wish to shoot, but to occupy the house for a few months of the year. We are most grateful to him. Then I also want to pay a tribute and to extend my thanks to that generous lady Mrs. Eileen Orpen who has done so much for the Kruger Game Reserve. She gave the Game Reserve quite a number of farms running into fairly big figures, and she has already, in order to further this scheme at Dongola, made us a present of a windmill which has been put up there. Mrs. Orpen, as soon as this Bill is passed, is prepared to buy at her own expense another farm adjacent to the present reserve which she will also present to the nation. We are extremely thankful to these two generous people.

It was very amusing to listen to the attempt of the Minister of Lands to explain this Bill to the House. He had a large number of documents in front of him, the one contradicting the other, and the Minister contradicted himself to an even greater extent. May I just mention a few of those points before I deal with our objections to this Bill? If we had not seen and heard that it was the Minister of Lands who spoke here this morning, every member would have been firmly convinced that it was none other than Dr. Pole Evans who was introducing the Bill. I have no objection to his being behind the Bill, but I do object to the fact that officials, when their term of office has expired, should be appointed as curators or that they should be appointed to such posts, and that Europeans should be removed from those parts where they are making a living, in order to make room for such officials upon their retirement from the service. But the Minister told us that this area was a barren desert and he stated that all the Baobab trees were dying.

I said they were dying at Kremetartsfontein where it has not rained for two years.

The Minister stated that it had not rained there for two years, that the Mopani trees in that area were dying, that no human being or cattle could live there, and that there was no wood. But in the same breath he told us how many loads of wood the farmers were transporting to the Messina mine. What are we to believe? In one breath the Minister says there is nothing, that it is a dead, barren desert, and in the same breath he tells us how much money these people are making out of the trees which they transport to the Messina mine. The Minister went on to say that large sums of money had been written off on those farms as a result of a revaluation. He also stated that it fell under those parts where the 1 per cent. rate of interest applied. If the objection is that debts had to be written off on that land, and if the people have to be removed because they only pay 1 per cent. interest, what about the other parts of the country where we have the same position; are those parts also to be declared wild life sanctuaries? There are great parts of Rustenburg, of Bechuanaland and other areas too where the rate of interest is 1 per cent. only. Is it the intention of the Government that human beings are not to be allowed to make a living there and that we should make game reserves of those areas? If the position is that the people are not able to make a living in this part, why did the previous Government, of which the Minister of Lands was a supporter, allow people to go there, give land to them and allow them to develop that land as far as they were able to do so? They allowed all that, and now the Minister of Lands tells us that it was never the intention of the Government to afford the people in that part a means of livelihood; that is the pretext on which those people are to be thrown out, that it was never the intention that they should live there. I go further. The Minister told us that smuggling was going on in that area. Are there not other parts too where smuggling is also going on?

What about Rustenburg?

Yes, there are many parts bordering on Bechuanaland and Rhodesia and South West Africa, where there is also smuggling. Are those parts going to be declared game reserves? That argument of the Minister of Lands is so ridiculous that it is not necessary to take any further notice of it. I also want to say this in connection with the Minister’s argument in regard to the 1 per cent. rate of interest. Can the Minister deny that the Department of Lands has frequently written off debt on land throughout the Union? We know that as a result of the report of the Naudé Commission something like £2,000,000 was written off. That is still going on in other parts of the country, and not a single word is said about it. But because debt had to be written off at Dongola for certain reasons, all the sins are visted on those parts, and for that reason those people are to be removed and those parts left to venomous snakes, monkeys and beasts of prey.

And to Ministers.

Yes. It is not only in that area, which is to be converted into a reserve, that the people will not be able to farm, but for a distance of fifty miles around the reserve the farmers will always have to contend with beasts of prey and they will not be able to farm in peace and security. That is the position. Take the Kruger Game Reserve. Are there any people in the immediate vicinity of the Kruger Game Reserve who go in for cattle farming?

Yes, many.

That hon. member knows precious little about it. He sits in Pretoria and he does not even know what is going on there.

Said by a biltong farmer.

That hon. member should rather tell us something about the smuggling of meat. The Minister ought to banish him first, because he is one of the smugglers. The Minister takes a very great deal of notice of what is said in America in connection with those dry parts and the retrogression in those areas. But he takes no notice of what is said by his own people, his own farmers in the north. The Agricultural Union protested against the fact that these lands are to be taken away from the owners. The Minister has so often spoken in this House about support from the Agricultural Union, but in this case he gave the Agricultural Union an undeserved rebuff. The Minister will hear more about this, because the Agricultural Union will have to defend itself. I go further. The people who live in those parts are happy. The Minister says they are not paying their debts. They are paying the interest, otherwise they would have been kicked out by this time. There is no one who takes such a great delight in driving people off their land as the Minister of Lands and if those people had not paid their interest, this Minister who is imbued with a spirit of hatred and jealousy towards the farmers, would long ago have chased them away. I want to come back to a few points in connection with which we strongly object to this Bill, but before doing so, I want to point out that the Minister also told us that for a period of 250 years no native tribes lived here. He maintains that they disappeared because it was so dry. I suppose the Bushmen also disappeared from South Africa because it was so dry. We know that there are cerain parts in Rhodesia, for example, where no tribes have lived for hundreds of years, but today they are all being occupied again. The reason is not that the soil was so poor or dry. Those tribes simply exterminated one another. We had the same position in the Free State and the Transvaal when the Voortrekkers entered those provinces. Whole tribes were being exterminated and it was the European civilisation which saved the remnants, with the result that those parts were again occupied by native tribes. In the north the same process apparently took place. The European civilisation is responsible for the fact that these people could again occupy those uninhabited parts. The Minister went on to say that the area on the northern side of the Limpopo was equally dry and bad, and that Rhodesia therefore created a reserve on the other side of the Limpopo.

When did I say that?

You said so in your speech.

On a point of explanation, Mr. Speaker, I did not say that. I said in the speech that up to 1918 no natives or Europeans lived in these parts and that the same state of affairs prevailed on the other side of the river and up to a point forty miles to the north of the river. I did not say that a reserve had been established there; I merely stated that they had not tried to place Europeans there.

Because a game reserve had been established there, just as we established one.

No, I did not say that.

The Minister will have an opportunity to reply.

But you must not put words into my mouth that I did not use.

The Minister should not become so excited. He must be careful otherwise he will succumb to heart failure. Let me say what our objections are to this Bill. I am glad the acting Prime Minister is here. Let me tell him that if he had been here this morning—I believe he was here for some time—and that if he had heard the tirade of the Minister of Lands, he would probably never again have permitted the Minister of Lands to introduce a Bill. Whenever he introduces a Bill, it causes one difficulty after another. Our first objection to the Bill is this; the Minister did not say anything about it in his speech, but in comparison with other countries in the world, we have bigger game reserves and we afford more protection for game than any other country. I shall give the figures. The Minister was careful not to give those facts to the House. 1.11 per cent. of America’s surface area is a reserve for wild life; in Canada only .8 per cent. is reserved for game. In South Africa no less than 2.8 per cent. of our surface area constitutes game reserves. And now the Minister proposes to set aside another 240,000 morgen for game— monkeys and snakes—and with that object in view he wants to remove the people from that area.

But what about comparing the quality of the ground?

The Minister also refrained from mentioning the various reserves which we already have in this country. Let me mention them. We have the Kruger Game Reserve; we have the Drakensberg National Park and the Bontebuck Reserve nearby, the reserve for Mountain Zebra and the Gemsbuck Reserve. We also know that the Free State Provincial Administration has certain reserves to protect game, and similarly the Provincial Administration of Natal has certain parts where game is protected—the white rhinoceros and the black rhinoceros— and various other types of game which are protected. In spite of all that protection which we already afford game, the Minister now proposes to establish this further game reserve. We must remember that South Africa’s surface is comparatively small. Only 15 per cent. of our surface is suitable for agriculture. The rest is suitable for animal husbandry. No, I think it is far-reaching to deprive the people of that land and to set it aside for game. I now come to our second objection, and I am glad the Minister of Agriculture is here. I just want to say that according to the experts of the Department of Agriculture foot and mouth disease is transmitted by wild animals. We also find that Barberton and those parts which are near the Kruger Game Reserve were placed under quarantine to prevent the movement of cattle. I do not want to object to that now. The fact is, however, that we on the north-eastern side have to draw a line to protect ourselves against foot and mouth disease, and now the Minister of Lands proceeds to create another line on the north-western side, and it is through that area, as a matter of fact, that all the cattle diseases are carried. We know that the previous outbreak of foot and mouth disease came from that side. The Minister is creating a dangerous position for our entire wool industry. We know that overseas countries are very afraid of foot and mouth disease, and if they were in any way to get the impression that we are not being careful in applying measures to combat foot and mouth disease, they would refuse to buy our wool and our entire wool trade would collapse. I should like to know from the Minister of Lands whether he consulted the Department of Agriculture in connection with this Bill and whether the Department of Agriculture strongly objected to this Bill. When I was Minister of Agriculture, Onderstepoort very strongly urged that no cattle should be allowed to come through the Limpopo. When cattle from this side went across, they were shot to prevent them coming back. No cattle were allowed to come in from the other side. The Department of Agriculture stated that wild animals were the carriers of foot and mouth disease. We already have one line that we have to protect and now the Minister of Lands is creating a second line. I am almost inclined to say that he is doing it deliberately and in that way endangering our whole wool industry in the future. I want to express the hope that the Department of Agriculture will do everyhing in its power to protect the farmers of South Africa, because it is the duty of the Minister of Agriculture to protect the farmers against such things. If he does not do so, he is neglecting his duty towards the farmers. The next objection I want to raise is this. The Minister of Lands made sneering references this morning to the farmers’ associations of the Northern Transvaal. All the farmers’ associations and the Agricultural unions protested against this Bill of the Minister of Lands, but notwithstanding that he is acting like a dictator and he wants to pass this Bill because it suits him. The Minister of Lands speaks of democratic rights, but although all these people protested, he is impelled by hatred and jealousy and a spirit of persecution to act like a dictator towards these people. We on this side will do everything in our power to try and prevent this Bill from going through, and I want to say what I said in connection with other Bills of the Minister. If this Bill goes through, one of the first acts of the Nationalist Party when it comes into power, will be to repeal this Bill.

You will have a great deal of work, but the people have no confidence in you.

The Minister of Lands cannot even win a seat in the country, and then he still talks about confidence. He is ruining the party on the other side.

He is a great asset to us.

The Minister knows that there is a shortage of food in the country. I do not want to say that these parts are very productive, but considerable numbers of cattle are produced there. We know that the Department of Agriculture has an experimental station in those parts. It is a station experimenting in cross-breeds, and it is one of the best in the country. Those farms are partially fenced and there are boreholes. All those things and all the money which has been spent in the past are now simply being thrown away, because that experimental station will fall in this reserve.

That is not true.

He is not referring to the one which you have in mind.

That hon. member knows nothing about the matter. I leave him and the Minister to fight it out between themselves. We know that boundaries under this Government are very elastic. They have shifted our boundaries over the whole of Africa and eventually up to Japan. The Minister may in this case again resort to the shifting of boundaries, but at the moment the experimental station to which I referred is within this reserve. That proves that good cattle are being produced in those parts, but the Minister now proposes to eliminate 240,000 morgen of that land, and everything which has been done there is simply being destroyed. He is doing this just because he got a whim to introduce this Bill. But I go even further. The Minister stated here that they were going to appoint a new board to control this new reserve. If this Bill is forced through the House, the reserve will not fall under the National Parks Board. The reason is simply that a post has to be created for someone, or otherwise the Parks Board is so convinced that this reserve will have a detrimental effect that the board does not want to assume the responsibility for it. Apparently the position is that the Parks Board refuses to take this reserve under its protection because it is of the opinion that there are sufficient reserves already. They know what is happening in other countries; they are of the opinion that we have enough reserves and that it is not necessary to set aside additional land. The Minister of Agriculture has now left the House. I hope he is going to get information in regard to the matter which I have just raised. As I have said, unless there is a shifting of boundaries, the experimental station which was established there will fall within this reserve. I discussed this matter with the Secretary for Agriculture and pointed out to him that this experimental station had achieved the best results. He stated that they would be obliged to transfer it to a point this side of the Zoutpansberg and that they had an experimental station there where pedigree bulls were bred. I say therefore that that land falls under the reserve in spite of what the hon. member on that side said. If that had not been the case, the Secretary for Agriculture would not have told me that he would have to transfer this experimental station to another point. But let me relate another incident in connection with this matter. When the late Col. Collins was Minister of Agriculture, he told me as a personal friend of mine that he had told the Prime Minister to choose between him as Minister of Agriculture and Dr. Pole Evans. He was prepared to submit his resignation. At that time Dr. Pole Evans was under the Department of Agriculture. In order to satisfy Col. Collins and to arrive at a settlement. Dr. Pole Evans was placed under the Minister of Lands in his area. It was never under that department previously. Those officials knew that the Minister of Lands knew precious little of his Department and that is why they were at liberty to do things which they were not able to do under Col. Collins. That is very clear. May I just say a few words in connection with the action of the Minister. Never has the Union had a Minister who has been so imbued with a spirit of persecution against his own people as the Minister of Lands. It reminds me of the Psalm writer who spoke of pestilence which strikes at night and of disease which destroys in the daytime. This Minister has destroyed the family life of many of our people. He has destroyed the family life of settlers by providing that sons and daughters are not entitled to have their old fathers or mothers with them in their old age, in the eve of their lives. They had to be driven away. They had to go to another department to live on charity. These words from the Psalm are applicable to the Minister. But not only that. He was not content to drive the old father and mother out of the house and to prohibit the children from looking after them, but he went on to say that those sons who assisted their parents on their holdings must also leave. But he was not satisfied with that. I repeat it because it is necessary to mention it again. This same Minister went out of his way to drive away settlers who were temporary tenant farmers for five, ten, to fifteen years. He drove them away with their meagre possessions, and stated that he was no longer concerned with them. He did that at a time when there was a scarcity of food and when Europe was looking to us for assistance to produce food for thousands of people who were dying of hunger and misery. It does not concern the Minister as long as he is able to destroy and persecute. But the matter did not end there; his persecution lust went further. He attacked the Afrikaans persons from day to day.

On a point of order ….

I think the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) must not repeat arguments which have already been used in the debate concerning temporary tenant farmers. Those arguments must not be repeated in this debate.

I bow to your ruling. I just want to indicate the persecution lust of the Minister. Today he persecutes this one, tomorrow the other, but I shall not enlarge on that. Let me come back to the Agricultural Union. I have here a certain document which the Minister held out, and he told us that there were 15,000 people in this area, that is, in the area with which the memorandum deals, not the whole Zoutpansberg area. The Minister is trying to deceive us. This document was signed by people who ought to know what the position is. The Minister stated that they lived in Johannesburg. This document is signed by Mr. S. J. Lombard, Chairman of the Zoutpansberg Farmers’ Union. Does he live in Johannesburg? Is he one of the American experts whom the Minister got to dictate to us? Then it is signed by Mr. C. Chamberlain, Secretary of the Zoutpansberg Farmers’ Union, by Mr. Campbell, Chairman of the Messina Farmers’ Association. Mr. Campbell also represents the workers in the Messina mine.

Nonsense.

There we have a member of the Labour Party and he has so little sympathy with the mine workers that he speaks sneeringly of a person who represents them. Then there is Mr. A. B. Emery, General Manager of the Messina Development Co. Ltd., and Mr. Ryder, life-President of the Zoutpansberg Farmers’ Union. Here we have the farmers’ associations concerned who strongly object to this legislation, but the Minister ignores them. He admitted that there was opposition to the Bill; he himself admitted that Major Hunt was opposed to it. The Minister said that the Mopani bushes had dried up completely. He knows what Major Hunt said about that. And if they have really dried up, why does the Minister want to protect these bushes for wild animals? On what must the game live? Or is he going to import fodder for them? If the Mopani trees are all dead and if the grass is all dead, if that area is a desert, no useful purpose can can be served by declaring it a reserve. But what was the original object in establishing a reserve in connection with these nine farms? Was it not the object to prevent the veld from being burnt and to see what could grow there? The Minister will agree that today there are coffee trees, orange trees, nartjie trees and other tropical fruit trees, and they grow very well. The Minister himself has partaken of that fruit. That botanical reserve was established with the sole object of finding out certain things, to see what would happen if there were no over-grazing. It was intended to ascertain the carrying capacity per morgen under proper conditions. I am sorry my time is nearly expired ….

Cattle are not allowed there.

I want to move the following amendment—

I feel that we cannot allow this measure to which the whole population of the Transvaal is opposed, to which all the Agricultural Unions of the Transvaal are opposed, to be passed.

I second the amendment and I should like to commence where my colleague, the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) ended, namely to deal with the Minister’s allegation that this whole agitation against the Bill emanates from one man only. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad read out the names of the people on whose behalf this brochure was issued. You will remember that the Minister admitted that the Transvaal Agricultural Union, led by Major Hunt, expressed themselves against this measure, and the Minister made a serious and distasteful attack not only on the Transvaal Agricultural Union, but also on Major Hunt, its Chairman-President. He also mentioned one farmers’ association, which, he alleges, supports his case, namely the Association of Louis Trichardt. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) will be able to tell the Minister that for the greater part the Farmers’ Association of Louis Trichardt does not consist of cattle farmers.

Since I have been asked, may I just reply?

For the greater part the Farmers’ Association of Louis Trichardt consists of fruit farmers, crop farmers and vegetable farmers.

Farmers with 2,000 head of cattle.

The hon. member will later be given an opportunity of justifying his attitude in the eyes of his constituents. I just want to show who the people are who signed his document, because the Minister created the impression that this document emanated from Mr. Emery, that it was he issued it. I should like the hon. member for Mayfair (Mr. H. J. Cilliers) to listen to this. He is now a member of the United Party. He is in his seat. I hope that the Labourites of Johannesburg will realise that he is on that side and that he is misleading them when he says that he represents the Labourites. There is Mr. Lombard, who is chairman not only of a branch of the Farmers’ Association, but Chairman of the Zoutpansberg Farmers’ Union, that is to say, of all the farmers’ associations there. Then there is Mr. Chamberlain, the Secretary of the whole Zoutpansberg Farmers’ Union. Then there is Mr. Campbell, Chairman of the Messina Farmers’ Association. Those people are directly concerned in the matter, because the Dongola Reserve lies in that area. Then there is Mr. Emery. At the same time Mr. Campbell represents the workers of the Messina mine.

Workers smuggled in from Rhodesia.

He represents the workers whose advocate the hon. member pretends to be, but in connection with whom he is now making distasteful remarks. Then there is Mr. Ryder, life vice-president of the Zoutpansberg Farmers’ Union. Is there anyone who can speak with greater authority than these people? Is there anyone who is better acquainted with the position and who can provide bettter informaion? I say this to give the country and the House a picture of what the Minister of Lands makes himself guilty of in his attempt to strengthen a weak case. In this connection I just want to say that in my opinion this whole matter should be approached from this standpoint. Since thousands of morgen of land, 250,000 morgen, apart from all the other reserves which are in existence today, is being withdrawn from occupation and will now—I say this with emphasis—simply lie there valueless without yielding any return, the question arises whether South Africa has enough land to give a means of livelihood to people who need land. There is only one reply to that question, namely that the Government does not possess an abundance of land. It possesses so little land that it has to go to the length of driving people off unoccupied land because it has not even got enough land for returned soldiers. While the Minister is throwing numbers and numbers of people on the street and reducing them to beggary because he has not got sufficient land for them, he now goes further and withdraws land from cultivation and occupation, thereby throwing the people who are living there on to the street. I am not speaking of rich people but of the small farmers on the land. The Minister is committing an act which, if I had not been in this House, although it is a legal crime, I would have called a moral crime against the nation. What are the Minister’s reasons? He says that that part is a desert. The words he used are that that part is constantly subject to devastation; it is a tropical area, a tropical desert. I wonder why the Minister did not look at the map to see where the tropics begin. Does he not know that this is not a tropical area but a sub-tropical area? The Minister says it is a desert. I hope hon. members will glance at the map of Northern Transvaal to see where this part is situated which the Minister calls a desert. It includes only a small portion of the Zoutpansberg district behind the Zoutpansberg range. If this area is a desert, then the whole area behind the Zoutpansberg range is a desert; in that case the whole adjoining area of Potgietersrust is a desert. The Minister created the impression that these areas were devoid of all Vegetation. Let me just say to hon. members who do not know this part of the country which is described by the Minister as a desert, that it is one of the most thickly wooded areas; in certain places it is so thick that one can hardly go through it. That applies to the whole area of Bechuanaland and the northern part of Potgietersrust. The Minister ought to consult the Department of Agriculture. He will then hear that the problem with which the farmers in that area have to contend today is not disafforestation, but the fact that it is so thickly wooded that the people can no longer make a living there.

Small thorny bushes.

I doubt whether the hon. member has ever been there. Perhaps he attended a sundowner party given by Dr. Pole Evans. I know this part of the country and the hon. member for Zoutpansberg will be able to affirm that it is a thickly wooded area, and that it is daily becoming more dense. The Department of Agriculture is concerned about the increasing afforestation in this part of South Africa, in this part which is called the thornbush country. That whole area is becoming more thickly wooded, especially the leguminous plants, so that it is becoming almost impossible to go in for cattle farming in that area. But the Minister of Lands comes along with a story that this part of the country is becoming disafforested, that loads and loads of wood are going to the Messina mines for fuel. Let hon. members investigate the position. Afforestation is increasing on a large scale.

Who is telling the truth?

As far as geography is concerned, I just want to point out that the Minister says that the rainfall in that area is very low, but if you look at the map you will see that the Dongola Reserve falls in exactly the same area as the other parts of Potgietersrust and Zoutpansberg, behind the Zoutpansberg range.

What is the rainfall?

Some years it is four or five inches, but in other years it is as much as twenty inches. But now the Minister comes along and he wants to take out this very part. Why? If that is the justification, if that is his reason, why does he not take the whole of the northern parts of Marico and Potgietersrust and Waterberg and Zoutpansberg? It is exactly the same type of country, with more or less the same rainfall.

Are you concerned about your seat?

Let me disillusion the hon. member once again. It is not my seat; I have no interest in this at all, except that I should like to protect the interests of the farming population there. It is true that the rainfall in the northern bushveld parts of the Transvaal is too low for the requirements of ordinary agriculture, but it is one of the best cattle parts in the whole of South Africa. The position is the same as in all the other parts I have mentioned, and the rainfall is higher than it is in Gordonia. If the Minister wants to advance the argument that the rainfall is low, he will have to deal with that whole area of Rustenburg and Marico and Waterberg and Gordonia in the same manner and expropriate all land there because the rainfall is low. I want to say with all due respect that the statement that that part is a tropical desert, is the greatest nonsense that has ever been heard in this House. It is no more a desert than Victoria West and Britstown. What proof does the Minister advance? He says that there is a place where it has not rained for two years—one particular spot. It is remarkable, since there is not a mountain range which can bring about a difference in the rainfall, that the rainfall in Waterberg and the northern parts of Rustenburg and Marico, of the whole of the bushveld in that area, say, 30,000 to 40,000 square miles, is more or less the same. I want to say this to the Minister: He makes these extravagant statements in order to convince this House. He says that the people in that area have to trek with their cattle, that there is no grass. That is one of the reasons for expropriation. The Minister is a practical farmer and I want to ask him him how often he has had to trek with all his sheep from Britstown and Victoria West? One finds time and again in areas like Kenhardt, Carnarvon and Victoria West and Britstown as a result of periodic droughts, that the farmers have to trek. The same applies in Zoutpansberg. Those areas become drought-stricken and the farmers are then obliged to trek, just as in Britstown and Victoria West. Would that justify any future Minister of Lands in introducing a Bill to expropriate thousands and tens of thousands of morgen of the present Minister of Lands because it is an area which is subject to drought, because it is a desert? Of course not. I have already disposed of the statement that this part of the country has been disafforested. That is the biggest nonsense in the world. Now I come to another statement. The Minister in order to support his story of a desert, says that there is a tremendous amount of wind erosion. Did Dr. Pole Evans tell him this nonsense, or who did? I know these parts. Let me tell the Minister that one of the great difficulties of the farmers in these parts is that there is so little wind that the windmills are almost useless. It is the one part of South Africa where there is practically no wind.

Except when the Minister of Lands goes there.

Owing to an absence of wind the cattle farmers are obliged for the greater part of the year to use oil machines to pump water, because for the greater part of the year the windmills are useless. There is no question of wind erosion. From which official did that story come? It is nothing less than gross misrepresentation. Now I come to the 1 per cent. The Minister, in order to show how badly the settlers fared, quoted to show that the one had only paid so much since 1931, and the other had only paid so much. He wanted to bring the House and the country under the impression that these people did not meet their financial obligations. That is nothing less than reprehensible, because it is not the truth. What is the position? Under the land settlement laws, if a settler is more than three years in arrears, the Minister has no option but to cancel the contract of lease. How many has he cancelled? The small sums which he mentioned—and this he also suppressed, and to suppress a truth is sometimes just as serious as to tell an untruth—are due to the fact that under the Act of 1931 all settlers were given 40 years to pay the capital purchase price. They were not obliged to pay off the purchase price until 40 years have elapsed. Thereafter the period was extended to 60 years. That is the position. These people are under no obligation to pay off the capital debt before that time. All they have to do is to pay 1 per cent. annually, and they are doing that. The majority of people there who, just like the Minister, are great economists, are not so foolish, since they are only required to pay 1 per cent. on the capital, to pay off that debt with money which would otherwise be worth 4 per cent. or 5 per cent. to them. That is the position. So we can take one argument on the part of the Minister after another and tear it to shreds. A further argument advanced by the Minister was that in those parts the settlers only pay 1 per cent. interest, which proves how bad those parts are.

Why were such great sums written off?

Let me just say to the hon. member that it did not only happen there, but throughout the country. Let me enlighten him. I notice he has been misled by the Minister in connection with the debts which were written off there. The same write-offs which took place in Zoutpansberg, also took place in Pietersburg, Waterberg, Potgietersrust, Rustenburg, Marico, Middelburg, Gordonia, Bechuanaland and all those parts. It did not only take place there. As far as the 1 per cent. is concerned, that was also granted to all parts in South Africa which were regarded as dry parts and it includes all those districts, even certain parts of the Pretoria district. The Minister did not tell the House that. He advances that argument in order to prove that these parts are so bad and dry that no one can exist there. He ought to be ashamed to come before the House with such false reasoning. It does not become him as a Minister to put things in such a way that members on his own side, like the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. J. C. Bosman), are brought under the wrong impression. Now I come back to the Minister’s story that the only thing that people do in this area is to smuggle; that that is what they live on. Did the Minister forget when he said that that only a few minutes earlier he had told the House that in those parts no kaffir could exist? He stated that in Rhodesia which lies on the other side of the Limpopo and in Bechuanaland no human being or animal could exist. Now I should like to know where the cattle which are smuggled in come from if all those surrounding areas are such a tropical desert that no human being or animal can exist there. The Minister also told us that in those areas there are no opportunities for irrigation because when the Limpopo River is in flood it overflows its banks and that all ground along the river is simply flooded. That again is nothing less than a gross misrepresentation. Along the Limpopo there are marshes and it is only in certain limited areas where there is a bend that the river overflows.

Just like the Orange River.

It is just like the Orange River. Does the Minister want to tell the House that because those islands adjoininig the Orange River are flooded from time to time, those lands must be expropriated too? Along the Limpopo River we have thousands of morgen of the most fertile land in South Africa, land which can later on be irrigated with a very slight outlay. That too, is not true therefore. What is the real truth concerning those parts? In this respect the Minister is right —it does not only apply to this part, but to all those districts I mentioned—that because there is a low rainfall during some years the carrying capacity in those dry parts is not great. For that reason it was found that in many cases the farms were too small, but that does not only apply to Zoutpansberg. It applies to Marico and Rustenburg and all those places which I mentioned Realising that, the Minister came to the House last year and he granted the settlers in the various districts extra land for expansion, and I say that if the farmers in these districts had sufficient land—if the individual farmer’s land is 3,000 or 4,000 or 5,000 morgen—then I give the country and the House the, assurance that it is one of the parts in this country where cattle farmers can make the very best living, notwithstanding these periodic droughts. What is behind this whole thing? My hon. friend said that to a great extent the man behind this whole thing is a certain Dr. Pole Evans, a retired official who is a great friend of the hon. Minister and of the Prime Minister. This reserve is being established not in the interests of South Africa; it is being established simply because Dr. Pole Evans has an obsession, and Dr. Pole Evans is the man who was employed to wage this campaign. As is stated in one of these brochures—

That is not all. I also want to submit to the House this well considered opinion of the farmers’ Association of Zoutpansberg in regard to this matter—

Political friends, in order to gain their support, were invited to these parties.

At whose expense?

At State expense— …. but a vehement protest must be lodged against the telling of the story from one side and creating an atmosphere in justification of the steps it is proposed to take. Rarely in the history of South Africa has there been such a case of utter disregard and cynicism towards the rights of established farmers.

. Not bad at all for a mine worker.

I say that is what is behind the whole thing. And now Dr. Pole Evans and the Minister have tried to make the country believe that all the farmers in those parts make such a meagre living that they are practically without food, and that if they do not engage in smuggling, they cannot make a living. I do not know whether all hon. members have acquainted themselves with the contents of this brochure, but this is what the Zoutpansberg Farmers’ Union states in connection with the land owners there and the type of living they are able to make. I want to give the House a few examples—

Let me give another example—

Take another example—

Is this a desert country?

Yes, this is the tropical desert—

Now I come to farm “V”. The Minister will like this—

Let me take a further example—

426 if you had been there.

Then I come to the next one—

And so I could go on reading name after name, and yet the Minister wants to bring this House under the impression that these people have no means of livelihood, and for that reason it must be a desert.

Are you prepared to give me the names?

I just want to say this to the House. The hon. Minister got up here and stated that everything contained in this brochure was nothing but a chain of untruths.

Give me the names.

This is information which the Farmers’ Association of Zoutpansberg gives. The Minister promised the House that he would prove that every iota in this brochure was untrue. He did not avail himself of that opportunity. He will have an opportunity to reply to the second reading debate.

Give me the names. It is no use making those statements if you cannot prove them.

I would like hon. members on the other side to remember what the Minister said. The Minister said in his speech on the second reading debate that he would prove that every word in this brochure was untrue.

Give me the names and I will prove it. There is nothing of the kind.

I now come back to Dr. Pole Evans.

Why do you refuse to give me the names?

I have before me a letter which was written to the Minister of Agriculture and also for the information of the Minister of Lands. This person writes as follows—

Nor will they ever become acclimatised.

He goes on to say—

If he did that at my place I would shoot him.

He goes on to say—

That stands to reason—

That would break your heart.

I go on to quote—

Just listen to this. I hope every farmer will do this—

That is not all. The Minister said here that some of those farmers were people who did not live there and that they had native and coloured overseers on their farms when they were not there. That is not an unusual thing. Every Transvaal farmer knows it. Every farmer in the Transvaal high-veld who has a farm in the low-veld has a native on his farm. What does the Minister’s Department do? The Minister started this whole campaign. This is a dual purpose Bill. The Minister’s official in the Dongola Reserve sent a circular letter to the owners. The Minister, as Minister of Lands, has the right to inspect the registers in the office of the Surveyor-General and he knows just who the owners are and what their addresses are. What do they do? Believe it or not, they write letters to those coloured overseers and ask whether they are prepared to have those farms included in the reserve.

The rules of the law require that, and the hon. member knows that if he is a lawyer.

This is the first time in my life that I hear that the law requires the Minister to write to a kaffir on my farm and not to me.

That shows how little you know of the law, and then you are still a lawyer.

Here is a letter which was addressed to a coloured person on the farm.

The law requires that to be done.

That is not the case. I say it is one scandal on top of another. Just imagine, a letter must be written to this coloured person to ask him whether the farm can be incorporated into the reserve. Just imagine, here we have 250,000 morgen which is suitable for ordinary land settlement purposes and where numerous European families could make a living, people whom the Minister drove away like dogs. These farms are now to be expropriated because of the whims and the obsessions of an official, and the sooner members on the other side realise that, the better. [Time limit.]

After the very clear exposition of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) there is not much left to expose about the Minister. During this Session the Minister has already brought in three or four Acts, each of which affects the rights and property of the owner. One wonders whén the Minister will introduce an Act which does not affect the rights of owners, and one feels that when the Minister introduces a Bill of this nature it is necessary that the country outside should be thoroughly acquainted with the plans of the Minister affecting a large portion of the population of this country. I should like to reply to a few of the Minister’s arguments. He says the rainfall in that area is from five to twelve inches per annum. But what is contained in this brochure? This is what they write after having taken thorough measurements for years, that the average rainfall per annum varies from 10 to 15 inches. That is what people say who live there, but the Minister says it is from five to 12 inches. I want to ask the Minister what the rainfall of Williston and Kenhardt is? It is an average of six or seven inches per year. If he wants to expropriate these areas because the rainfall is so low, he must also expropriate the whole of the Northwestern Cape. But the Minister goes further. He says here that the people cannot make a living. What do we find in the brochure? in the latest issue of the “South and East African Year Book” they say this—

That is what the report of the Department says. Then the Minister comes here and says that the farmers find themselves in such a miserable position that they are in arrears. He reads a letter published in the “Star” which was written by a certain lady. But let us see what the “Zoutpansberg Review” says. It reports certain agricultural show held there during the war period, and what does this newspaper say? It says—

So I can go from step to step to show that what the Minister said here today is controverted by people who live there and by this newspaper which is printed in Zoutpansberg. I am sure that this newspaper can speak with more authority than the lady who wrote the letter in the “Star”. This newspaper points out that 15,000 to 25,000 cattle can be marketed yearly from those areas, another proof that it is not such a valueless piece of ground. But what does one find?. One finds that the Minister quoted to us from the report of an official in America about circumstances in America. Has the Minister quoted us one report from his own Department? The Minister is fond of referring to what the officials of other countries say about their own conditions, but he quotes nothing which his own officials say about this country. I cannot neglect at the same time telling the hon. member for Mayfair (Mr. H. J. Cilliers) that he spoke contemptuously here about those people who will now suddenly have ground. Let me quote to him who those people are who work in the mine—

The hon. member for Mayfair comes here and attacks the miners because they want to own their own piece of grbund. I hope that the mineworkers who support him will pay attention to his attitude in the House. I want to ask the Minister this straight question: What will this expropriation of ground cost? What amount will the State pay for the expropriation of the ground? In the second place, what does he intend to do with these people whom he is taking off the ground? The Minister has chased off hundreds of lessees; he gave hundreds of them notice to vacate the ground. He now again wants to chase away other people without finding sanctuary for them. The Minister wants to turn these people into homeless men. The Minister stated in Another Place that South Africa has scarcely enough ground for its own people, when the question was put to him whether he wants to allow immigration from overseas. But now the Minister comes and chases a number of people away and he takes a large portion of the ground of South Africa in order to put it aside for wild animals. I do not think I am wrong when I say that this Minister has a deep streak of Communism, and that his point of view is that the State should own everything. The Minister came here and told us about the miserable conditions there. But he brought no proof. Here, however, one has facts from people who can speak with authority. The Minister now says that these statements are wrong from A to Z. I want to ask the Minister to go to that constituency and to appear on a platform before those people and to tell them that these statements are false.

I challenge you to give me the names. I say it is not true.

I ask that the Minister should take his courage in both hands and not again run away when he is asked to prove his statement. He must not do what he did last year. I challenge him to say at a meeting before those people that they are a lot of liars. He nods. He will not say it outside. He will not say outside what he said in this House in connection with the pamphlet. I know one of those people, Mr. Rider. He is Vice-President of the Transvaal Agricultural Union. Does the Minister want to insinuate that he signed an infamous lie when he signed this document? No, the Minister must not think that we are all children. The Minister came here and said that everything contained in it is false. We go so far as to say that not a single one of the proofs which the Minister gave us here today is true. The Minister will have an opportunity to reply to this debate. One after another properties are taken away from those people and we say they are the property of the owners. The Minister has that same case before him. It is not necessary for me to give him the names. He himself received a copy of this pamphlet. I would even give him my pamphlet if it is necessary. The Minister is imbued with but one thought, namely: “Everything standing in my way must be removed. If I want to do a thing nobody should stand in my way. Whatever happens I will do my will.”

Joe Stalin.

I have already asked the Minister the question what this expropriation of land will cost. In the second place, what income will the country have from this land; what income will the country have from this reserve ft is now creating? In the third place I wish to ask the Minister: What will he do with these people whom he is putting off the ground? In the fourth place I want to ask the Minister why he is breaking faith with these people to whom they gave the ground. The ground was given to these people with the condition that they would one day be able to become the owners thereof. Several of them have already received transfer, and now the Minister introduces a Bill into Parliament and breaks that word of honour and faith which the Government gave to these people. I cannot understand how the country can have respect for this Parliament and respect for the word of the Minister if the Government sets to work in that way. It is small wonder that the country laughs when we say that the Minister of lands said this or that. The Minister of Lands is always building castles in Spain, and if those castles can become an actuality they may perhaps be an asset to the country. But the nation knows it and knows that they are only castles in the air. Unfortunately we have not an air castle here. The Minister is busy depriving these people of their rights and their property. I again put this question: If I enter into a contract with a person in connection with a piëce of ground, on the basis that he will become the owner of the ground if he fulfils certain conditions, what will be said of me if that person fulfils the conditions, and the time arrives when he should become the owner and I then deprive him of those rights? But here we find that the State, and a Department of State which should be an example to the rest of the country, is simply breaking faith with those people. When the time arrives that those people should receive their full property rights, and when some of them have already received transfer, a Bill is introduced to deprive them of all that. It is unjust and dishonest towards those people. I want to make a serious appeal that the Minister should accept the motion of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) and do what the farmers ask for, namely to appoint a Commission of Enquiry so that those people will receive an opportunity of giving evidence. Let the Commission visit that area and let it then report whether it is in favour of this matter which the Minister laid before us, and then the Minister can introduce legislation. Then the Minister will be able to tell this House that A or B told this or that lie. We want the Minister to have the matter investigated, and then it will become clear to him in how far the information submitted to him is the truth, and to what extent it is unfounded.

I have knowledge of those parts of the Transvaal. I come from the north-eastern portion and I have visited those parts where the Dongola Reserve is. I have listened here to the arguments of the Opposition and I must say that their arguments against the formation of this reserve are very weak. The argument of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) was that if many trees grow there the soil cannot be too poor. The hon. member ought to know that where the Mopani tree grows the soil is always poor, and if he goes to those parts he will see that there is no blade of grass to be seen on large surfaces. If one stands there one can look in all directions and one sees no blade of grass. It is only bare ground and stone, and in addition very little ground and mostly stone. We know that there is fertile soil along the Limpopo and it is there that the great trees grow like the Apiesboom and the Hardekool. The Hardekool requires 200 or 300 years to reach full growth. These are the trees which are now being destroyed and in which there is money. The Mopani tree is also cut because then the tree becomes a bush and there is more food for the cattle. This is the wood which is carted away to Messina. We know that Mr. Emery had 30,000 morgen of ground there. In addition he hired another 30,000 morgen. That was about 25 years ago. He comes from America and has only been naturalised recently. He therefore farmed on 60,000 morgen and could not really make a living. He farmed for all these years until Mr. Steenkamp bought his farm with all the cattle for £10,000.

Then why does he buy the ground if it is not worth anything?

He bought the cattle together with the ground.

But I thought that all the cattle had died.

There were 1,000 head of cattle. He bought them for £10,000 and the farm was given to him.

Is it in the reserve?

What is the origin of all the agitation against this Bill? Members opposite regard the matter from the point of view of a number of miners in the Messina mine, and they hope to gain the support of those miners in order to kick out the member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers). That is what is behind this agitation. Members opposite know that people there cannot make a living.

Does the hon. member for Zoutpansberg say so?

I know it and you also know it. The hon. member himself will not go and farm there. I would not go and farm there if they paid me.

You would not be able to farm.

I think that I know more about farming than the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, although I was not Minister of Agriculture. When he was Minister of Agriculture foot and mouth disease from Rhodesia entered the Union through those parts. If we create a reserve there now it will not be able to happen. That is an argument in favour of creating the reserve.

Do you want to declare all the parts adjoining Bechuanaland to be a game reserve also?

There were 40 farmers and now only 13 are left. Then there are another 59 farms with 37 owners, but only 12 private farmers live there and the rest have caretakers on the farms. We know that Mr. Emery does not actively farm on a farm next to the reserve but that he has a dance hall there. The Dorsland farmers drew up a memorandum in which they say that there are great possibilities in the way of irrigating— the areas included in the reserve. They refer to 30,000 morgen of level ground which is particularly fertile, and if a dam is built in the Limpopo at an eminently suitable spot in the reserve itself, this 30,000 morgen can be irrigated. I should like to see where such a dam can be built in the reserve. We know how the Limpopo is there. Two rivers, the Crocodile and the Chasi River join together there to become the Limpopo River. One can walk through the Chasi River in winter without wetting one’s feet. One can sit under the waterfall where the whole of the Limpopo River falls down, in winter. In the summer those rivers wash down so much sand that a dam would silt up in practically one year. It is an impossible proposition. Then these Dorsland farmers further say in their memorandum—

That is what they say, and it is clear that they contradict themselves. There are no permanent rivers and streams in the area. Then they say further that approximately 40 employees of the Messina mine invested their savings in farms in that area which they are now busy improving and stocking. Those 40 employees of the Messina mine live there because the mine could not house them.

And do they daily travel 30 miles to their work?

Their families live there.

Because they farm there, not because they cannot get accommodation in Messina.

Because they have no accommodation at the mine.

You evidently did not sleep well last night.

No, I slept well, but members opposite will still sleep badly because of the twisted facts they put before us. The farmers further declare in their memorandum—

There are farmers who perhaps have 2,000 or 3,000 morgen. But the whole reserve lies there and they farm on much more than that 2,000 or 3,000 morgen. Their cattle graze over the whole reserve because there are no camps. I came to farmers who told me that they have 200 head of cattle and farm on 6,000 morgen. They say, however, that the cattle do not remain on their ground; they go wherever they can find the Mopani tree.

That applies to the whole bushveld area.

But those people cannot make a living unless they farm in that manner. The hon. member will not go and farm there.

I will not farm in Middelburg either; not because Middelburg is so bad but because I am satisfied in Waterberg.

This farmers’ association which is called the Dorsland Farmers’ Association was formed by officials of the Messina Mine, and so they got a voice in the Agricultural Union. They are not people who really farm. Although they have farms there they do not farm. They shoot game. They are the so-called Dorsland farmers.

Do you mean to say that they do not farm?

The ex-Minister of Agriculture opposite also enjoyed shooting game there. They got a voice in the Transvaal Agricultural Union by forming a branch there, but they do not represent farming interests, but their own interests, and especially the interests of Messrs. Campbell and Emery. That, in short, is the position there. It is clear that no person can farm there properly and if members of the Opposition wish to go there they will see that that is the case. If the Minister appoints a commission he must appoint members of the Opposition on it because they are talking here about things they know nothing about and then they will have an opportunity to learn something about those parts.

The hon. member for Middelburg (Dr. Eksteen) has stated here that the arguments emanating from this side of the House have been very weak. The knowledge that he displayed in those few moments has indicated that his acquaintance with these districts is very feeble, and not only that but he himself is very feeble. I shall leave him in his feebleness. As he created the impression that that farmers’ association does not represent the interests of the farmers, and as he stated that the chairman of that farmers’ association and the whole farmers’ association are fostering the interests of Mr. Campbell and Mr. Emery, I only want to point out that the whole farmers’ association of the Zoutpansberg act on behalf of the people, and I only want with that to leave him to his feebleness. When I was young I now and again read one of the wild west stories, and I must honestly say that I never read one comparable to the story that we heard today from the Minister of Lands in connection with the Dongola Reserve. He gave an account of what really surpasses any wild west story and if he will have it published it should become a best seller. He has taken us to the still waters and the shady trees of the Limpopo. He has taken us enraptured into the presence of enchanting nature, a luxuriant vegetation and a profusion of flowers, which could only be found in fairyland. The following moment he carried us into one of the greatest deserts that the world has ever known, one that makes the Sahara look like a toy. He has depicted desert scenes and such heat that makes one think of the saying amongst the farmers that the heat melts your renal fat and singes your hair; there where the sun is so near that you have to brush it out of the way with a Mopani branch. The natives of the Zoutpansberg believe that the sun goes to sleep at night in a Mopani tree. I thought that the Minister discovered the place where the sun went to sleep. The following moment he transported us to ancient civilisations and pointed out areas that they had abandoned and that became uninhabited. He warned us and said: Clear off and remain away— here is the home of the dead. We tarried at Mapungubwe, and after the Minister had finished I really imagined that I was standing at the portals of the empire of Monomotapa. After that story had been related to us I was on the point of jumping up and proposing that we should suspend the rules of the House and let the third reading go through as well. Because the world has never seen anything of this sort: it must be protected. But then I was sobered with the realisation that I know that place the Minister is talking about, I have been there. There is not one of the farms that is embraced in this scheme that I have not visited. I did not go through by road; I was not atténding cocktail parties there, but I went from farm to farm and walked through the veld with the farmers. I can speak with a measure of knowledge of those parts, and I want to say this. I was surprised and amazed that a Minister of State could come here and present such a picture to the House. It was a disappointment to me to find anything of that sort here. I will honestly admit that that part is a dry area, as actually the whole of the Letaba is. But we cannot get away from the fact that it is one of the best regions for ranching in the Union. I have frequently gone through the Transvaal and in those regions I encountered fat stock such as we could not get in any other part of the Transvaal, and I challenge anybody to deny that. If the Minister wants to be logical if he has such a great objection to the Mopani trees and to those dry regions then he must turn the whole of the Letaba district into a game reserve. Then the Minister says that he wants to establish a reserve there for the sake of the vegetation. I take considerable interest in the vegetation and I want to say here that practically every plant that you find in those parts you can also find in the Kruger National Park and in other areas. There is no necessity to declare this area reserved for that reason. Then the other consideration, is that the Minister wants to protect the game. If the Minister really believes that we ought to have more reserves or that we should afford more protection in respect of game, why does he not add a few more farms to the Kruger National Park? There is an interesting scheme that the Minister can bestow consideration on. This step that the Minister is taking represents a grevious injustice towards these people. So much is said about the Mopani trees, but we must not forget that in many respects they constitute one of the best items of food for stock. When everything else is bare the cattle eat the Mopani trees. Not only the cattle but also the cross-bred sheep, but the cross-bred sheep also eat the Mopani in the winter. I have seen cross-bred sheep there fatter than you will find them in any other part of the country. They almost beat the Karoo. There are farmers who have nice gardens in which they cultivate vegetables. There are also farmers who in certain areas have comparatively nice orchards. Paw-paws grow there beautifully. I can cite a number of instances, so why does the Minister come and present such a picture as he has displayed before us today, a picture that bears no relationship to realities. The Minister stated further that these people all had their land written down in value. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) rightly said that this is a feature that one finds throughout the whole country, and if this is the Minister’s argument he will simply have to turn large portions of the country into game reserves. He has also stated that civilisations have died out there. That applies to various other parts of the country. The fact that people could live there shows there is a possibility of sustaining them and the farmers who are there at present have time and again proved that point. But it is not only that small group of farmers who are being affected by the reserve that is being created there. It will also have an effect on the adjoining farms. We have a nice illustration of that with the Kruger Park. Along the whole of its boundaries the farmers see no chance of farming with stock because the lions break in and destroy the cattle. The Minister is creating a similar position here. He is creating a game reserve that will place the people in those areas in a difficult position. If there is anyone who has a love for animals and who has exerted himself in connection with these matters, it is I. I am one of the people who have struggled hard in the Transvaal Provincial Council to have a proper law adopted for the protection of plants in the Transvaal. I have a love for them and also for animals, but when we are dealing with this sort of thing I will not assist, because I see another object in it. The Minister must not take umbrage if I voice the conviction that we are not dealing here with love of wild animals and of plants, that it is not a question of love of those surroundings, but there is an ulterior motive behind the whole affair. He cannot resent it if I say this. It appears to me that the Minister of Lands can really not leave anything alone. One moment he lays hands on the church, the next he comes down on the settlements, then he has a crack at something else, and now he is trying to get at this group of farmers in the Zoutpansberg. We have had a contented community behind the Zoutpansberg. I have frequently observed when I visited these people’s homes what happy families we have there. When we viewed the painting that the Minister hung up someone asked me what the people there look like. We cannot help asking that question. I want to tell the Minister that we have there some of the finest farmers South Africa has produced, strong and solid men like the Minister of Lands himself. They are people who have enough to eat and who are well developed muscularly. If my information is correct the Minister of Lands would not even see these people when they came here for an interview with him. That is the disrespect that he has revealed towards these people. If the Minister is really solicitous about the interests of these people he ought to have given them a hearing. But as I have said, it seems as if the Minister is not only in a dream but that he is in a demented dream. When he wakes up he rushes out and he bites here and bites there, and now he is biting away on the banks of the Limpopo, and I wonder where he shortly will end. The Minister reminds me of a scene I witnessed in the Kruger Park. A herd of buck were grazing peacefully and quietly. A wild dog leapt in amongst them and he bit here and bit there. He did not take one buck and eat enough but he kept on biting all round, and when the buck ran away he rushed at a tree and bit that, and eventually he chased his own tail. That is what the Minister of Lands is doing at present in South Africa. I am not here as the representative of that constituency but I should be failing in my duty if I did not protest against the act that the Minister is contemplating under this Bill. I know those parts and if the necessary interest is taken in them with the requisite guidance and with the necessary expenditure of money, fertile areas can be created that will be an asset not only for numbers of families who will be able to make a living there, but for the whole country. Look at the number of stock that can be produced there. Still more can be done with the right information. These are pioneers who have gone in there. It was a life and death struggle there against wild animals and against the mosquito. They have won through that struggle, and now that they have begun to tame the country and that the battle has been won, now that they can advance their own affairs and develop their own farms, now that they can derive some benefit from the battle they have fought, the Minister of Lands comes along and with an Act of Parliament he wants to brush all that aside. It is nothing else than a scandal a public scandal affecting South Africa.

If I have ever listened to a description that has been all wrong, it is this picture that has been depicted by the last speaker.

Now you have to fight for your seat.

You have made your speech, let me make mine. I want to make an honest speech and not to give a false representation. We have heard from the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel) how he referred to Mr. Lombard as chairman of the Farmers’ Union. Let me say that if the hon. member for Wonderboom goes to hold a meeting there for the Nationalist Party, Mr. Lombard is the chairman. It is thus clear why they are striving today to exhibit such a picture as if Mr. Lombard alone stood up for the interests of the farmers. The hon. member wants to mislead the House by presenting the matter in this way.

Order, Order! The hon. member may not say that another hon. member wants to mislead the House. The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw. Let me put it this way. The hon. member for Wonderboom wishes to represent the real state of affairs as being that Mr. Lombard fights only for the farmers’ interests and not for the interests of the Nationalist Party. When he does this he is not giving the facts to the House as I know them.

Will you deny that Mr. Lombard is also vice-chairman of the Transvaal Agricultural Union?

Look out, Lombard will grab your seat.

Then we have heard from the hon. member for Wonderboom that the Letaba area is a dreadfully dry part. Let me say for his information that that part produces more pro rata than any other part of South Africa. If he wants to create the impression that the Letaba area is waterless then he is a child who is ignorant as far as Letaba is concerned.

Are the donkeys still alive?

Then we heard from the hon. member for Wonderboom about the beautiful orchards at Dongola. I think anyone is able to grow a couple of tomato plants in his drawing room in a glass case, but to describe that as an orchard is not a correct representation. That there are a couple of trees near windmills I admit, but if the hon. member says there are orchards he is misleading the House. But he went further and he talked about the farmers that border on the game reserve in Letaba and who cannot make a living there. I am incidentally interested not only in the Dongola area, but a large portion of the Kruger National Park also falls within my constituency. I want to say that the farmers who are on the boundary of the Kruger Park have nothing to complain about. When I was in the Provincial Council I gave them every assistance to combat wild animals, and if the hon. member seeks to suggest that the farmers cannot make a living in those parts, I want to tell the hon. member that in the areas abutting on the Kruger National Park there are farmers with 2,000 and 3,000 stock. In order to protect them if elephants came out the Provincial Council gave them the right to shoot the elephants, and with an eye on the lions that come out we have appointed a man for the purpose of shooting any lions that come on to the people’s farms. I think it is not proper to make a representation to the House that cannot hold water. The hon. member went further and said that the Minister had ulterior motives. The Minister is quite able to defend himself, but if ulterior motives are being talked about you will find them on the other side of the House. They admit that they are paving the way for the Zoutpansberg seat. They may be fixing things up, but I am quite prepared to fight the seat for the United Party when there is an election.

You would never be able to win it.

I know that the hon. members feel very unhappy that this is a seat that is the pioneer of many Northern Transvaal seats.

How is it you lost the provincial seat?

The hon. member for Wonderboom has stated that the Minister had attacked the church, that he has ulterior motives, that he attacked the settlers, that he has ulterior motives; that he wants to establish the Dongola Reserve—with ulterior motives. What ulterior motives can the Minister have? What benefit can he derive for his party or for himself personally when he wants to do a national service for South Africa? He is engaged on performing a national service. The late Col. Reitz when he established the Kruger National Park ….

What? Col. Reitz?

Read his book and you will see how from time to time he was fought when he laboured for the Kruger National Park. There we have something that has been established that redounds to the credit of South Africa.

It was the late Mr. Grobler, as Minister. It was the Nationalist Party Government.

I give the late Minister, Mr. Grobler, all honour. I merely say that the late Col. Reitz contributed his share. Then there was another inaccuracy from the other side, when it was stated that a deputation came here and that the Minister had refused to see them.

It is his habit to refuse to see deputations.

Let me explain. Those farmers asked me whether I would approach the Minister with a view to him meeting a deputation. I did this, and the Minister stated that he would meet these people at any time if there was anything on which he could meet them, but at the moment there was nothing.

Then he of course refused.

That is about eighteen months or more ago. Then these same people telegraphed me from Pretoria that in spite of what the Minister said they were still coming and they were going to see the Minister, quite apart from whether he wanted to see them or not. When they came here I took them to the Minister and the Minister’s answer was: “What can I see these people about, when there is nothing before the House; when the time comes that there is something I shall be ready to meet them at any time.” This was the Minister’s reply. I must honestly say that the Minister is not a child, and if a deputation treated me as they wanted to treat him I would take up the same standpoint. But I have not yet finished. The hon. member for Wonderboom talked about a wild dog that bit its tail. I think honestly that we have this afternoon seen how certain people on the other side have bitten their own tail. We have heard of “wild west” stories that have been told. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad was very serious today. May I just say that I always respected him as a veteran of the past, but when he comes here and makes this sort of venomous speech that he delivered today and says really nothing, then he must not be upset if the regard we cherish for him does not continue in the future. The hon. member has mentioned the names of certain people. I do not want to repeat their names. May I just say that not one of the people who have been mentioned here is entirely dependent on farming. If their farming fails they have something else to fall back on. Thus we as genuine farmers who are dependent on farming, I believe have also the right to put our case. It is stated here that the Louis Trichardt Farmers’ Association are a bunch of fruit farmers. May I tell the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) that if he is still so unacquainted with those parts that he has characterised the farmers as a bunch of fruit farmers, then he is a stranger in South Africa.

You know little about your own constituency.

Some of the farmers concerned with this resolution own between 2,000 and 3,000 cattle, and to dub them as fruit farmers is going a little too far.

What do the cattle live on in the desert?

There are farmers with 2,000 cattle. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad spoke about foot and mouth disease. Let me tell him that when foot and mouth disease was prevalent in Rhodesia he had the animals removed 25 miles from the Limpopo; not a beast was allowed to graze in the forbidden area, and I want to say that the wild animals could run backwards and forwards through the river, and not a single outbreak occurred in the Union. Until today the Department of Agriculture have never established that foot and mouth disease is communicated by wild animals to stock. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad may laugh, but that is what the experts say. They went so far even as to place stock in the game reserve to see whether they would be infected, and that never happened. But I want to go a little further. There are big cattle farmers in these areas, and what is their experience? When they put up a fence they had no further difficulty, not even with lions. That is the position. Every wild animal learns that when you have a fence and you have the game on the one side, to respect the fence in the same way as human beings, and they remain on the other side of the fence. It seldom happens that animals come through the fence, like tame animals they remain on the safe side.

Apparently you know little about wild animals.

The hon. member who has made the interjection will not put me off my stroke. I live there and I know what is going on.

How long — have you been living there?

That has nothing to do with the position. I have certainly been there long enough to have a better acquaintance with those parts than the hon. member from the Free State. I have certainly a more intimate knowledge of the Zoutpansberg than most hon. members, because when I arrived there I was one of the few persons who had the courage to go behind the Zoutpansberg in the malaria belt and try to assist in taming that part of the country. The hon. member for Waterberg has stated that the wind never blows in the Northern Transvaal. May I tell the House what my personal experience is. I have one of those round dams in which there is only a machine pump, and my experience has been that in five years time no less than 16 inches of sand have been blown in, and then the hon. member comes and says that it does not blow there; that these are stories, it is fiction.

The stories that one reads in the “Kruithoring”,

Yes, the hon. member is right. These are the stories that one reads there. It is also stated here that a commission of enquiry should be appointed. The Minister appointed a commission of enquiry in connection with Kakamas, and when the report appeared they again caused commotion. Whatever he does is wrong. He appointed the Kakamas Commission, and their report was unanimously accepted by the farmers’ associations, but hon. members are howling about it.

Where do you get that story?

When he appointed a commission they asserted that he would only appoint his own people. If the Minister now appoints a commission in connection with Dongola we will have the same story. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad has done something which he certainly should not have done. He stated that Dongola was established for one purpose, and that was to create a post for an official, a person who cannot defend himself in this House. I will not defend him, nor will I be his mouthpiece. But the services that Dr. Pole Evans conferred on South Africa in the past are not to be despised, and I think that when an official has given his best services to the nation, and when he has assisted in the up-building and progress of the country, one should not come here and say that a post has been created for such a person. That does not behove the hon. member. Then they talk about bulls, of cross-breeding with bulls at Messina. May I tell the hon. member that this is incorrect. No bulls have been bred for cross-breeding near Messina. The bulls that are fastened there under the trees eat lucerne that has been produced in other parts of South Africa. May I just say this: I am not championing Dongola, but I want to put the facts here. The animals on the experimental station about which the hon. member for Wolmaransstad knows very well, had to be removed to the grounds of the university at Pretoria a few years ago, where most of them died, and if he says that the farm has been paddocked off, then I just say that the Department of Agriculture says we cannot fence it, because it does not justify the cost of the fencing material. This is what the Department of Agriculture states, a department of which he himself was once Minister. It is not the truth that is stated here. I should like to answer the arguments that have been mentioned here.

Do you support the measure?

Listen, then you will learn. I know that you are ignorant of the conditions. The hon. member may know something about wine, but he knows nothing about Dongola. Then there has been talk here about the aged fathers and mothers in these families who are being driven away from their children. It was a sad story as it was told here.

Will you deny that these are facts?

In any case, what has it to do with the subject? Let me say that we on this side will see to it that what has been stated by members opposite will never happen in South Africa, namely, that a sick father or an old sick mother will be compelled to move on. Let me say this, that sentiment has played a fairly important rôle in South Africa, but I wish to add that we have never plucked such sour fruit in South Africa as we had when sentiment was palmed off on people. We have plucked the bitter fruits. It was done for selfish motives and it was not for the weal and welfare of the people. It has been said that the Church was attacked. May I just say this.

Order, order. I have ruled that out of order.

Let me then pass on to something else. Here is a kind of threat that has been sent to me by the Messina Dorsland Farmers’ Association. It is in reference to the brochure that was sent to hon. members. I have received the following letter—

May I just say that I do not want to cause trouble over Mr. Campbell. He says that he is the chairman of the United Party at Messina. May I just say that the Opposition are playing up to Mr. Campbell terribly to try to use him, but I have never in my life looked out for a soft job, but only to the welfare of my people.

What did you look for in 1914?

I shall just tell you what my answer was to the letter—

Right or wrong, my party.

—

I have a further duty to perform and that is with regard to the 150,000 men and women who were prepared to sacrifice their all even to the extent of their lives. These men and women were called upon by my great Leader, Gen. Smuts, and when I signed on to go up North I was asked to remain in the Union and I then undertook to look after the men’s interests while they were away from their homes, and I gave a further undertaking that I shall dö everything in my power to see them properly established when they return to the Union. If I should fail in this duty, I shall be nothing more than a traitor, not only to my party but to my great Leader and above all to the men and women who went forward to fight for the freedom—not only of South Africa, but for the world in general.

That was my answer to Mr. Campbell.

Sentiment.

Good sentiment.

But he said that sentiment was wrong.

I know that hon. members on the other side are feeling sore, but I am not finished yet. There are just as many people who have asked me to work in favour of Dongola, and amongst them are people who farm with thousands of stock. The day I go so far as to allow returned soldiers to try to make a living there I shall be a traitor of the lowest type. I shall not lend myself through any party, certainly not through the Nationalist Party, to permit returned soldiers with their wives and children to farm in that reserve.

I must honestly admit that except that I have once been through those parts I have no special knowledge of this area, except what one sees when one travels through. But when I find myself in that position I find that I am apparently in the same position as 150 out of the 153 members of this House. And we now have to decide.

The others do not talk about it.

Neither am I going to talk, but I am going to ask for information. I stand in the same position as the 150 members that we are the judges who must judge after we have heard the various arguments from the one side and from the other side, and when we feel that the information we have been furnished with is perhaps not adequate we have to ask for a little more information. One of the things that I want to ask is this. The last speaker was the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) and I want to ask him whether his constituency is, as a matter of fact, as bad as he intimated to us here.

I have replied.

Good. I assume that it is as bad as the hon. member indicated. I can hardly believe it. I drove through it. I do not know whether it was an exceptionally good season. It was in the winter. It was not 117 degrees under the Mopani trees nor even 117 in the sun. The animals I saw were exceptionally fat, and I drove very near to the reserve. I did not see anything so bad as the hon. member for Zoutpansberg suggested that his district was. We do not all represent good districts. The country is large. It is not everyone who can have such a beautiful constituency to represent as what I represent. Another constituency may not be so lovely but it may be fertile. But even though a member should represent the most miserable part of the country as the hon. member for Zoutpansberg represented that his constituency is, he should still not stand up in this House and state openly that he represents such a rotten district. The second point on which I ask for information is whether the position is different in the Northern Transvaal to what it is with us. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg stated that the wind blows such a lot there. He has a cement dam and in the course of five years the wind blew 18 inches of sand into that dam. Down here amongst us we clean out our dams every year. I wondered whether it is the practice in the Northern Transvaal only to clean a dam every five years. I do not want to use that against the hon. member because he is not in Parliament to clean dams. If that was the test then apparently they would not send him here. I should only like to know whether what the hon. member has told us is the general position in those parts. Another thing I want to know from the hon. member is this. He delivered a speech here lasting 30 minutes, and at the end of it he stated that he was not championing Dongola. I do not know what he meant by that. I presume that he meant that he did not understand this Bill. He added to that that he knew more about those parts than any other person in this House. I accept that he ought to know more about it, but if he knows more than any other person about that part and if a Bill comes before Parliament—well if I was in that position I would certainly know whether I am in favour of the Bill or against it. But the hon. member does not know whether he is for the Bill or not. He said that he did not champion Dongola but he only gives the fact to the House. He does not know whether he is going to vote for it or against it. The hon. member also received a letter from Mr. Campbell who is the chairman of the United Party in that constituency. What that has to do with the matter, the fact that he is chairman of the United Party, I do not know, for he is speaking here on behalf of the Farmers’ Association. He wanted to know from the hon. member for Zoutpansberg whether he was going to support him or not. And what was the answer that was returned by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg? He did not say whether he was going to support Mr. Campbell in connection with this Bill. No, he said: I stand for Gen. Smuts and the “boys up North”. What has this to do with the matter. This has nothing to do with Dongola. The hon. member has had all this time to make up his mind, but he does not yet know where he stands, and consequently he comes with another story which has absolutely nothing to do with the question regarding which Mr. Campbell and the chairman of the Farmers’ Association wrote to him. There is something more on which I should like to have information. I see the hon. member for Middelburg (Dr. Eksteen) in the House. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg will have to wait a little, and I shall come back to him. The hon. member for Middelburg said that he observed that the chairman of the Zoutpansberg Farmers’ Association is a certain Mr. Lombaard. I only want to tell him that it is not the Mr. Lombaard who is connected with the Broederbond. It is not the Mr. Lombaard who has made them see ghosts. The members on the other side who are acquainted with the Broederbond are not afraid of him, but the other members are in the position that if they see a figure come round the corner they shout out immediately: “Broederbond.” I only want to say this Mr. Lombaard is not the one who frightened them out of their lives. I want to return now to the hon. member for Zoutpansberg. He asked who were the members of the Dongola committee who registered a protest against the incorporation of that area in a game reserve. He told us only about one member, namely, Mr. S. J. Lombaard, and he asked what right these persons have to speak on behalf of the farmers of Dongola, because Mr. S. J. Lombaard is chairman of the Nationalist Party; he knows nothing about farming and about Dongola, and he is not a person who has any right to speak about Dongola. But what the hon. member suppressed was that this Mr. Lombaard is not only chairman of the Zoutpansberg Farmers’ Association but he is chairman of all the farmers’ associations in the district of Zoutpansberg; and not only this, but he is vice-chairman of the Agricultural Union of the Transvaal. I see the hon. member for Zoutpansberg is now going out. He should not run away. In any case, this person who is also vice-chairman of the Transvaal Agricultural Union is, according to the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, together with all the other members of this committee, not a person who can express a judgment, they are not persons who have any right to talk on this matter. And the reason that the hon. member gives for this is that this person is chairman of the Nationalist Party. If a man may not talk on a thing of this sort because he is chairman of the Nationalist Party; if for that reason he may not talk on a matter which has absolutely nothing to do with politics, then a man who is chairman of the United Party has also no right to say anything on such a matter. We have heard from the hon. member that Mr. Campbell is chairman of the United Party. Here we have a case where the chairmen of the Nationalist Party and the United Party agree on this point, and it is of course a proof that politics have nothing to do with this matter. It is purely and simply the opinions of these people that they are voicing in their capacity of representatives of the organised farmers who have assembled and who have come to the conclusion that this Bill should not be accepted.

No, it is not so.

I see that the hon. member has come in again after having been fortified, but he knows now apparently about what I have been talking. There are still a, few other matters on which I should like to have information. I should like to examine what we have tö give judgment on and what we have before us on which to base our judgment. We have before us the long speech of the Minister of Lands. He commenced, and when he was half way through he said,. “To make a long story short”. He should rather have said, “To make a short story long”. He made his short story long. He told us that we have to deal there with a desert. Other members then stood up and told us that it is not a desert.

That it is a paradise.

No, not that it is a paradise, but that it is nevertheless a place where men can farm and make a reasonable living. We have before us the brochure which is the only document that has been given to ordinary members of Parliament. So we can only make up our minds on the basis of that document. It must be shown whether this document is right or whether it is wrong. If the contents of it are erroneous we are prepared to support this Bill. If it can be proved that generally speaking the points in this document are correct then we must vote against the Bill.

The Minister of Lands has stated that they are all wrong.

Yes, the Minister of Lands referred to this document and he said that the points of this document were 99 per cent. wrong.

He said 99.9 per cent.

He first said that it was 90 per cent. wrong; later he said it was 99 per cent. wrong, and still later he said that not a single word of it was true. We asked the Minister to furnish proof of the untruthfulness of this document, but he has not shown by a single per cent. that this document is wrong. He simply said that everything is untrue, that these are all falsehoods, but he has not brought forward the slightest proof of that. But this brochure is signed by a man who is vice-chairman of the Agricultural Union of the Transvaal, by the secretary of the Zoutpansberg Farmers’ Association, the chairman of the Messina Farmers’ Association, the general manager of the Messina Development Company and others, and we have surely the right to infer that these persons are responsible persons. I do not know a single one of them. I do not believe I have ever seen one of them, but if I have regard to the positions these people hold then I am convinced that the people in that neighbourhood would not have selected them for these posts if they were not responsible persons. Take a man like Mr. Lombaard, who is chairman of the Farmers’ Association of the Zoutpansberg and vice-chairman of the Transvaal Agricultural Union. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg will surely not say that he is an irresponsible person; he will not say of course that Mr. Campbell, who is not only a member of the United Party but chairman of the United Party, is not a responsible person. I presume that the hon. member for Zoutpansberg will say that the United Party does not select its wrost man but its best man as chairman. In any event we have the right to assume that the people who have signed this brochure are responsible individuals. One does not need to agree with responsible persons. You can differ from them on questions of opinion, but you cannot just say that these five responsible persons are liars. This is what it resolves itself into. You will not say that five prominent people who occupy responsible positions are going to draw up a document and sign it when it contains from beginning to end a tissue of falsehoods and lies if you cannot prove it. The Minister has not furnished those proofs. The Minister has stated that it does not contain 1 per cent. truth, but he has not attempted to contradict one of the facts or to show that one of the facts mentioned in this document is not the truth. The cases are mentioned here of a dozen farmers who have farms there. Has the Minister attempted to state that one of the facts in connection with those farms is not true? Has he ever tried to say that there are no such farms, or to produce proof that the property detailed here is not in the possession of those farmers? Has he produced evidence that the carrying capacity of the land as stated here has been given to us wronglyl? Has he ever attempted to refute this?

And he has certainly had the brochure quite a long time in his possession.

If he has had the brochure in his possession for a long time he should now be in a position to produce these proofs. If it has not been long enough in his possession he ought to postpone the Bill until he has had an opportunity to look into the details. As far as concerns this side of the matter I must come to the conclusion that the Minister has not furnished a single proof that the contents of this brochure are untrue. I had expected that the Minister or members on the opposite benches such as the hon. member for Zoutpansberg would have revealed the real state of affairs to us. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg is sitting between two stools. But we can assume that if this brochure contained untruths he would have told us. Consequently I maintain that we have only this brochure on which we can formulate a judgment, because neither the Minister nor the hon. member for Zoutpansberg has refuted the facts that are contained in it. They have made no attempt to do so, apart from saying that these responsible people are liars. Now I come to the second point. The argument that was used by the Minister and by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg is that this area must be declared a reserve because smuggling must be stopped. In so far as the Minister employed that argument it has been answered by the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom). Now the hon. member for Zoutpansberg has repeated that argument, though in a slightly different manner. He says this: If that territory is not converted into a reserve stock will be smuggled through that territory from Rhodesia, and he mentions as an illustration that foot and mouth disease came over the Limpopo through that territory. If that is the reason why this reserve is being established I should like to ask two questions.

It is one of the reasons.

Yes, I am dealing with the arguments one by one. I have already disposed of about ten of them. If this is the reason why this reserve should be established, to combat smuggling and to prevent foot and mouth disease coming into the Union, then those hon. members will agree with me that it is necessary to create reserves along the whole boundary where smuggling is occurring. But this reserve is only being established along a portion of the boundary where smuggling occurs, and I am told on good authority that it is being established just along that section of the boundary where the least smuggling takes place, because the greater proportion of the smuggling occurs along the Bechuanaland side.

You ought to know a lot about it.

Now I want to put this question to the Minister of Lands, and I want to tell the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) that there is only one member of this House who has been sentenced for smuggling meat, and he is not sitting on this side of the House. But if an effort is now going to be made to stop cattle smuggling is it necessary to institute a reserve for that? Is it not possible to smuggle cattle just as easily through a reserve? What is more, there is at the moment more smuggling outside those areas. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg says now that the reserve must be established because foot and mouth disease comes through those parts from Rhodesia. Good, let us accept that this reserve will prevent cattle coming from Rhodesia through those parts. But we know that the Veterinary Department have advised us that certain sorts of game are the carriers of foot and mouth disease, and we know moreover that certain sorts of game that have come into the Union have been shot for that reason.

Where has that happened?

In the Northern Transvaal, in the. Waterberg. We have received the assurance that big game has been shot because it has brought in foot and mouth disease. What is going to be the effect of this reserve, especially if what is envisaged does happen, that on the northern side of the Limpopo there will be another reserve? It is simply going to mean that we shall be creating a breeding place for foot and mouth disease in the Northern Transvaal because we can have a free crossing of animals from Rhodesia to the Union reserves. It appears to me that the argument regarding foot and mouth disease has absolutely no significance, or that it merely proves the reverse. Then there are two further things I should like to know. The first touches on a point that the Minister has not made clear. The title of this Bill runs as follows—

Have we not enough reserves for the protection of animals in South Africa; and can the Minister tell me Whether there is a single sort of animal that we get in the Dongola area that is not also present in the Kruger National Park? Is there a single one? No, the Minister does not reply. There is not a single animal in Dongola that is not also found in the Kruger National Park.

I said clearly that the first object was the reclamation of the land.

I have read out the title of the Bill. The preservation of the land is mentioned, but the reserve is being established for the preservation of animal life and vegetation. I maintain that there is not a single species of animal in that reserve that we have not already got in the Kruger National Park. There is no need for such a reserve on the ground that there is defintely one species of game or another there to be preserved for the country. Why should we protect the same sort of animals in two places? Does the Minister believe that the Kruger National Park is not big enough? The Kruger Park is as big as Belgium. That is big enough. I have driven through it and we cannot really form any idea of its extent because the roads do not take one to all the parts. This reserve then is not being created to protect animals that we are not already protecting. Then we come to the vegetation. What valuable plants does one find in the Northern Trasvaal that we should set aside a quarter of a million morgen in order to protect this plant life? Is the Mopani tree so valuable that we must set aside a piece of land that is half as large as Wales, just to protect the Mopani trees? The Minister of Lands has told us himself that the Mopani is a useless tree. He has explained to us that the vegation in those parts is absolutely of no account, and now he wants to protect it. I have already travelled to Messina and I have seen beautiful cream-of-tartar trees which, according to the Minister, are dying of drought in that reserve. There are consequently no plants that we have to protect there that are not already protected; there are no rare plants. If the Minister wishes to make an experiment with varieties of grass with a view to improving the grazing in those areas, then I put it to the Minister or any intelligent person whether this is a proper reason for the creation of such a reserve. They already have the botanical reserve of 35,000 morgen, and surely that provides ample space for experiments with varieties of grass, or in order to make a collection of all the types of grass and plants in those areas. It is not necessary to set aside another 240,000 morgen roughly for that purpose, and that to protect plants that the Minister himself says are not worth the trouble. Now we come to the land. If the purpose is to preserve the soil then there are farms around the reserve where the same conditions are found as in the reserves. What about the land between the reserve and the Zoutpansberg where the climatic conditions, geographical formation and the rainfall are the same?

They will be included, of course.

No, they are not included. If it is necessary to take over this land in order to preserve it, is it not then also necessary to preserve the other land? To be logical the Minister will have to include in his scheme that whole region where the same conditions prevail, in order to preserve the land. But it is of course really more sensible to make experiments on the 35,000 morgen with varieties of grass and the preservation of the land, and then the officials can go round to see that these methods are applied on the farms. We shall always meet farmers who make misuse of their land, who do not follow methods that preserve the soil, and consequently this would be the wisest method for the Government to follow if it wishes to preserve the land in those parts. Now I turn to another point that is very interesting. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg has again slipped away. He has how fled two or three times. I do not know whether the hon. member for Zoutpansberg meant it, but what he told us is this. We want to know from him what happened to the farmers and the representatives of the farmers who came to the Minister to submit their case to him? I do not know what a Minister does, but I presume that if a Minister desires to introduce a Bill that directly affects the private interests of individuals, it is the duty of such a Minister to give the people on both sides an opportunity to submit their case to him. This is not a question of general interest. This is a hybrid Bill. This is a Bill that deprives private individuals of their rights, and when you deprive private individuals of their rights then you must in all fairness at least grant them the right to submit their case. What did the Minister do, according to the hon. member for Zoutpansberg? When these people whose land is now being expropriated, the people who are now being chased out of that area where they have lived to make room for wild animals, approached the Minister—and apparently they travelled from the Northern Transvaal to the Cape to present their case to the Minister—the Minister told them that he would not even see them. That, in my opinion is the most serious side of the matter, that the Minister refused to see these people who came down here at their own expense to safeguard their interests; that he did not even have the decency to receive in his office these people who had come down from the Northern Transvaal at their own expense, and to ask them what their objection was to the proposed Bill. If there was no other reason why people should vote against this Bill this reason is enough, that those people did not even have the opportunity to lay their case before the Minister or his officials. What is the reason? Why does the Minister want to establish this reserve? No one can understand what the real reason is behind the Bill. The only reason I can think of is this. We have the Kruger National Game Reserve, it is called the Kruger National Park but it is not necessary to couple Paul Kruger’s name with that game reserve in order that posterity should remem ber him. Posterity will know Paul Kruger’s name apart from it being coupled with a game reserve. The late Mr. Piet Grobler was the man who established the Kruger Game Reserve, and his name will always be linked with that of the Kruger Game Reserve. But I want to say that the late Mr. Piet Grobler’s name will endure not because he established the Kruger National Park, but on account of the many other good things that he did for his country and his people. Is it perhaps that the hon. Minister realises when he has gone his name will quickly pass into oblivion, and he now wants to associate something with his name so that perhaps in 100 years’ time people will remember him not as Conroy of Kakamas but as Conroy of Dongola.

I am not standing up to talk about the Bill but I am standing up in the interests of good government, in the interests of clean government. There are rumours circulating in the Lobby that during the recess the Minister gave a 14-day holiday in the Dongola Reserve to the platteland members of Parliament who support his Government. I should like to know from the Minister whether that is so. People say that they went out with 32 Government lorries, tents, food and liquor—not brandy but whisky. If the Minister had the wine of his own country it would have been a different thing. People say that the members of Parliament went to the Dongola Reserve in 32 Government lorries and that a picnic site was selected there for them. That is at the expense of the State. These people came there with rifles and they shot game. They did not even take the trouble to eat the game; they merely shot the game and left it there. I should like to know from the Minister if that is so. I should like to know what right he has to use public money to make propaganda for a thing of this sort. It is even being said that although the reserve lies in the constituency of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) he does not even know the reserve, that he lost his way in it, that he got to the picnic late.

Where did you get these wild tales?

I asked the hon. member who sits on the other side directly opposite me whether he was there, and he replied he was doing other work but he had gathered that the members of Parliament had actually been there. I want to give the Minister an opportunity to say whether this is true or not. It is not only in the Lobby that we have heard it. These are rumours that are going the rounds in the streets as well. It is being said that these people went there and shot game for fourteen days. My objection is this: It is not clean government.

Did you say I was there?

No, the hon. member said that he had other work, otherwise he would also have been there. I should like the country to understand that public money was used by the Minister to give a fourteen-day holiday in the reserve to members of Parliament who are supporting him. The object was Of course to make propaganda for the Government, but the position is that we should like to have clean government in the country, and we want to know whether this is the truth. I want to give the Minister the opportunity to say whether this is so dr not.

Tell us where you heard this.

Does the Minister deny that he had these people there?

Tell us where you heard the story.

If the Minister does not deny it I know it is so.

That is not logical.

That hon. member has never beén logical. One feels that if such things occur in public life in our country it is high time that a halt should be called. If the Minister wants to have a reserve there he can, of course, get his supporters to vote for the Bill, but if the rumours are there then it is time that the country understood that we have to deal with the matter that can occasion a considerable difficulty, and that certainly will not preserve the purity of public life in our country. The Minister says he will reply. I should like to give him the opportunity to reply and to say whether this is so or not. The people who have told me are reliable people. I have put the question to hon. members on the opposite benches whether it is true. I said to the hon. member for Zoutpansberg: “You could not even find your way in the bush.” He did not say anything in reply, he merely laughed. Even members on the opposite side who represent the platteland say that it is not right. Then I want to say that if he wants to spend money to entertain people he should spend it on brandy and not on imported whisky. If it was State money then it was wrongly expended. I have finished with that point. I only want to say that I have also read this circular letter. I did not intend to speak on this because I do not know much about the subject. But the case that the Minister has made out here is so weak that any person who votes for it today only votes because he is obliged to do so for Party reasons. To tell me that you are going to open a reserve because you want to stop land being washed away does not go down. If that was the case then you have to turn the whole country into a reserve. There are many places where erosion is just as bad. The Minister has stated that the rainfall in that area is from 10 to 15 inches But in Montagu and in that neighbourhood the rainfall is also between 10 and 15 inches. The average rainfall there is 12 inches. Five hundred pounds is being paid there for a morgen of arable land, and the rainfall ranges from 10 to 15 inches. Consequently if that is the rainfall, in the area that the Minister wishes to make a reserve, it cannot be a desert. I know of a farmer living at Robertson who has 20,000 morgen. Let the Minister create a reserve there as well. It does not assist matters to tell me that we will not incur expenses, that we are prepared to collect money to cover the expenses. I know that eventually the State will have to pay for it. There are farms there that the Minister now wishes to expropriate. He wants to take people’s land away from them with the object of restoring the soil. This is the first time in my life that I have ever heard that the Government in order to restore soil that has been washed away is making a reserve for flowers, trees and animals. I think the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) has discussed the logical aspect of the matter clearly enough. We on this side of the House are prepared to support any good cause affecting the country, but we should like to have proof that what the opponents of the scheme are saying is hot true, and not a single bit of evidence has been furnished, except that certain figures haye been mentioned which purport to show that the people have not been able to pay off their debt. But on the other hand we have had figures to show that the people are paying off their debt. In such a large area there must necessarily be good and bad farms. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg has stated that he wants to have a reserve there so that he will be able to eradicate foot and mouth disease that is being brought in from Rhodesia. To tell me that you can keep out foot and mouth disease by creating a reserve there is so ridiculous that I do riot even want to discuss it. We are prepared to expend any reasonable amount for the preservation of flowers, trees and animal life. But I cannot understand this measure at all. It is no light thing to go to a farmer and tell him: “I am going to take your farm; you must move on; I am giving you this or that, and if you do not submit then I will take you to court.” However poor a man’s farm may be, what right has the Government to take his farm away from him unless there is a public necessity for it? It is a far-reaching thing to assume this right to establish a reserve where a reserve is not required. If the Government is expropriating people’s rights without there being justification for it, you are going to create a feeling of fear and insecurity in the country. You simply do not know where you stand. I feel that this Bill is unnecessary, and I feel that there is no necessity for it. If you are going to wrest rights from people there should be a public necessity for it, which has not been proved in this instance. It is a serious matter. One cannot violate the rights of individuals, you cannot wrest people’s rights from them without good reasons. But quite apart from the farmers in the area concerned there are the farmers living around the reserve. There are lions and leopards, and the stock belonging to these people is placed in jeopardy. If there was such an urgent necessity for the establishment of the reserve the Minister could have come to Parliament and discussed the matter thoroughly. I say it is unnecessary to start this reserve. The amount of land set aside for game reserves in the country is already more than adequate. I want to make an appeal to the Minister. I want to ask him to withdraw this Bill. I think that through this Bill he is going to perpetrate an injustice and he is going to violate people’s rights, and this will later recoil on him. There is an English saying: “Chickens come home to roost”, and if the Minister violates the rights of these people they will definitely suffer by it, and the country will suffer by it, public life will suffer and Parliament will suffer.

I listened this morning when the hon. Minister made his opening speech in connection with the reserve he wishes to create in the Northern Transvaal. But at a first glance it was evident that the Minister has never been there. He does not know what conditions there are, because he came here to tell the House that that area is a desert, and when the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers), the representative of that constituency, rose, I thought that he would agree with what the Minister had said and that he would also tell the House that it is a desert. But the hon. member for Zoutpansberg did not say a single word about that. In other words, the hon. Minister of Lands did nothing less than misrepresent matters to the House when he told us that it was a desert area which he wants to change into a reserve. I want to tell the hon. Minister this: If there is a man in this House who knows that area, then I claim to know every farm in that area, and I can say that that area is not a desert such as the hon. Minister wants to pretend. If the Minister wants to declare that area to be a desert, then he must declare the whole northern portion, from Waterberg, practically, to be a desert, and he must turn that whole area in a reserve for game. I want to tell him that that area is one of the most fertile parts to be found in the Northern Transvaal, as was stated here by the hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Nel). The hon. member for Zoutpansberg said that not even vegetables grow there. It seems to me that the hon. member does not know what goes on in his own constituency. I want to assure the House that the most beautiful oranges are grown along the Limpopo. The most beautiful paw-paws are grown there and the most beautiful tomatoes. There one can see how nature produces those products without any manure. But here the Minister tells the House that the value of that ground has decreased so enormously that it is not worth more than 1s. 11d. a morgen. I wanted to buy a farm there three years ago, not as a luxury farm but in order to farm there, and my object was to farm there exclusively with black headed Persian sheep, because it is one of the best areas in the country in which to farm with Persians; it is even better than the Karoo. I came to a farmer there. He took me to his kraal and showed me that he got four lambs from one ewe in a year. That shows you how fertile and good that desert area is. The ground was offered at £1 7s. 6d. per morgen. I wonder where the Minister gets his price of 1s. 11d. per morgen. I want to tell the Minister that I am willing to buy all the ground in that area which is offered to me at 1s. 11d. per morgen. I now want to ask the Minister what he is going to do about the people who have private ground there in order to give them a refuge. Will the hon. Minister confiscate the ground of those people or will he compensate them for the ground, and will the Minister tell the House how much ground is owned there by private persons. If he wants to work on a basis of 1s. 11d. per morgen I want to tell the Minister that if it is my ground I will put a bullet through his head. It is one of the most defiant attitudes which the Minister can adopt to expropriate the ground of those people and to change it into a reserve. That ground is so good that one today finds people there who started with over 300 and 400 Persian sheep. They started with that five years ago, and today they have more than 1,600. I can give you the name and address of a certain person. I refer to Mr. S. J. Mathee, P.O. Leslie, Transvaal. Five years ago he started with Afrikaner cattle.

Does he farm in the proposed reserve?

Yes, he farms in the so-called desert. He farms there with over 300 Red Afrikaner cattle.

Tell us, did you buy ground there?

I could not manage it. It was too expensive. If the price was 1s. 11d. per morgen I would have bought not 3,000 morgen but 40,000. I should like the Minister to go and look at the modem farm Mr. Mathee has next to the Limpopo. He has a beautiful dwelling house, electrified from one side to the other. He has a big dynamo on a borehole. The dynamo charges his battery and provides the lights in the house. He dug a well there and the water in that well is so strong that he has more than three morgen under lucerne.

I suppose it is just as strong as the water at Hutchinson.

Yes, it is just as strong as the water at Hutchinson. Mr. Mathee can provide more than one railway station with the water he takes out there. He has gardens; all his fruit is irrigated from the dam. Then the man went and with a hand-drill he bored another hole. He has so much water that the cattle grazing on the various places have enough water and he has no fears that there will ever be a shortage of water.

That is a funny desert.

That is just why I mentioned it. I just want to point out that it is a misrepresentation which the Minister made here today when he told us that it was a desert area which he wants to convert into a reserve. One finds water there at 18 feet.

Then why is the ground so cheap?

The hon. member obviously did not listen just now when I spoke. Three years ago I wanted to buy a farm there and the price demanded was £1 7s. 6d. a morgen. That was the cheapest price at which I could buy. That is in the Dongola Reserve of which I am now talking. But the hon. member has never been further than the Cape Peninsula.

How far from the river is the farm?

Order, order! The hon. member must not take any notice of the interjections.

That farm about which the hon. member is now asking me is about six miles from the river. The river borders Mr. Mathee’s ground.

The farm lies next to the river?

Order, order!

Yes, but he does not use the river water for his cattle. The Minister said here that no grass grows there; it is sandy. I just want to prove to the House that grass does grow there as it can grow in any other part of the world. You have the Buffalo grass which grows to a height of two or three feet. You have the “krulgras”; then one finds the “rooisteekgras” which stands two or three feet high. It grows there in continuous patches and the people protect that grass. There is the white grass also which grows there. It was said here that that was a steekgras. No, there has never been steekgras in that area. That white grass is the equivalent of any fodder grown in the country, and in the winter months it is the grass upon which the cattle of the farmers graze. But that is not all; the Mopani bush one finds there has the highest nutrition value any tree can have. But now the hon. Minister tells us that it is a desert and that we have to conserve the soil there. The Minister alleged that the rainfall was so terribly low that something must be done to prevent erosion. I always thought it was only rain which caused erosion, but now the Minister says that the rainfall is so terribly low. What causes the erosion then? The Minister also said that there were no cattle; if there are no cattle how then is the veld trodden out, as he stated here? I think the Minister appreciates that his arguments are not at all logical and not consistent with what he said, because we are busy negativing those arguments one after the other. Then the Minister says that they want to create a reserve there to stop the smuggling of cattle. I just want to tell the Minister this, that in that area which he wants to turn into a reserve not a single head of cattle has crossed the Limpopo to be smuggled into those parts from Bechuanaland. The adjoining portion of Rhodesia is an area where there are no cattle, and if cattle come through, they go through Messina. There is a small portion of Bechuanaland which under this Proclamation of the Minister is included in that area, but what about the other part of Bechuanaland, from Galakwen to the Crocodile Bridge? There the Bechuanaland natives farm with thousands and ten thousands of cattle. Where the smuggling takes place there is no reserve. Why does the Minister not turn that portion into a reserve? The Minister is busy here with a misrepresentation. As one hon. member stated, the Minister is busy creating posts for certain persons. And now I just want to ask the hon. Minister this: If he should perhaps manage to have this Bill passed—I hope the House will not be so foolish as to encourage the Minister in his wrongful ways—what will he do about compensating those people? Is he going to ask the Minister of Finance to levy extra taxes on the public of South Africa in order to assist him to get his way in expropriating the ground of those people? I am in possession of letters in which people wrote to me asking me to do my utmost to persuade the Minister not to convert the area into a game sanctuary. They write to say that they see no chance, after having spent all that money there and made these sacrifices, to leave there. Where must they go? They consider that they cannot get better ground for their cattle. What will happen to these farmers if they must take leave of their farms so that a game reserve can be formed? Where must they find other ground in order to continue farming? Will the Minister be so kind as to give them ground higher up along the river? Or must the farmers sell the cattle? What will become of the settlers? Must they be chased away and allowed just to see how they can manage in the Wilderness, or will the Minister give them other ground in the place of that? But this is a Minister who follows a chasing away policy. These people must go and the Minister does not care what happens to them in future. The Minister must not make misrepresentations here. The Minister must not give a wrong exposition of matters. I want to assure the House that what I have said here is the truth, and I want to invite any member to go and look at that area comprising the Dongola Reserve. Then he will be able to judge which is correct, what I said, or what the Minister said.

I do not want to go into many of the arguments which have been advanced here. I would like to draw attention to another aspect of the matter. We have learned from the Minister that the first settlers were placed there in 1918, about 40 farmers. We hear today that there are but 14 of them left.

That is only in the colony, on the settlement.

In the area of the reserve.

It forms only a portion of the whole district.

I am speaking of that part. We have heard that there are now 37 private owners and only 12 of them live there; there are four European caretakers so that the total number of European families of the whole area amounts today to only 30.

Are there not a number of Europeans who are there for certain periods?

I say that there are only 30 farmers who really live there. We have heard that the area is as large as the whole of Belgium.

No, the hon. member for Wolmaransstad said that the Kruger National Park is about as large as the whole of Belgium.

In any case, it is a large area, and after almost thirty years of development, only 30 families live there. Every one of us can come to his own conclusion as to why there are hot more people living there. We have heard that only a few years after 1918 a revaluation was necessary there, and a second revaluation a few years later, and a third in 1933 when the commission went round of which the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Naudé) was the chairman.

Those write-offs took place over the whole country.

The first time £100,000 had to be written off, and the Minister informed us that to rehabilitate elsewhere 26 settlers who could not make a living there, cost the State £184,000.

Not only for 26.

For 26, that is what I understood the Minister to say.

The settlement costs £184,000.

The Minister says that the settlement costs £184,000, and today not more than 30 persons live there.

Ask the Minister how many farms he has made available in the past in these parts.

That is not the point. My contention is that it has cost the State almost £300,000 to settle 40 people at the most there. In other words, if the Government at that time had given each one £10,000, it would have been cheaper. I do not want to attach any blame to the present Minister or the former Minister, the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp). Not one of those two is responsible for that.

May. I just ask the hon. member to obtain the information as to how the £300,000 was spent.

£100,000 was written off and £184,000 was spent in rehabilitating the other lot.

Or is it the amount at which the Government valued the ground?

It is the cost of that experiment.

No, no.

The fact is that the rehabilitation of the 26 persons cost the State more than £184,000. It was an experiment which has cost the country almost £300,000, and on those grounds I say—I have nothing to do with the private owners—that I shall not vote in favour of placing more settlers there. I did not accompany the expedition, but I know enough to form an opinion and as a practical farmer who knows that part of the Bosveld I would not allow one man to be placed on the ground, as far as I can prevent it. As far as I know those parts, it is a poor country—and the inspector of lands corroborates that it is an impossible proposition. He says that the carrying capacity of the land as you travel in the direction of Messina is approximately 30 to 50 morgen per head of cattle.

Nonsense.

It is the inspector of lands who has to judge whether the people can make a reasonable existence there. The hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. J. G. W. van Niekerk) is unfortunately not present, but he said that he endeavoured last year to buy a farm there for £1 7s. 6d. per morgen, and that he was unable to get it.

Three years ago.

Everything depends on where the farm is situated.

He said in the reserve.

He said that it bordered on the river.

He said that the boundary of the farm was six miles from the river.

He said that it bordered on the river, and I want to say that a man would have to be a simpleton to think that he can buy a farm for £1 7s. 6d. per morgen on the river. Anyone who knows something about this part of the world will know that farms along the Limpopo are worth at least four to five times as much on the river as away from the river.

The whole reserve is situate on the river, it borders on the river.

There is a small strip bordering on the river; naturally the first farm along the river is very valuable, but you cannot take that as a basis for the valuation of the whole area. I have nothing to do with the private owners as Such but the fact is that most of them purchase farms there but do not live there.

One of Bethal’s biggest mealie farmers has moved to those parts, and he is a big cattle farmer there, Mr. Gert Smith. It is nearby if it is not in the reserve itself.

He is an exception, just as the others. But after 30 years there are only 30 families. This proves what the country is like.

And what about Mr. Steyn, of Steyn Bros., one of the biggest cattle farmers. They have their ranch close by.

That is far away from the reserve.

The point is that as far as the State is concerned, it was an experiment which involved the State in huge expenditure, and we cannot allow further settlers to be placed there, for you cannot rehabilitate them there. There are other parts with better prospects.

It costs the Government nothing, it is Government ground.

Then I want to know why he, when he was Minister of Lands did not grant the farms to settlers. Why did he not make them a present of the land if it costs nothing? In this connection I am rather prepared to accept the opinion of the former member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) which the Minister quoted. He cannot be accused of being prejudiced for he was a member of your party, a front bencher, and his opinion of the area is correct. You get a strip which is excellent, but as far as the larger portion is concerned, nobody can ever make a living, and accordingly I say that as far as settlement is concerned, we must put our foot down and not place any more people on the land there.

This Bill is a hybrid Bill, and the procedure followed in connection with this Bill has been different to that of other hybrid Bills. While the Minister explained the Bill, he gave us a description of the deplorable condition of the land in those parts, and he said that the whole purpose of the measure is to restore the soil. I then asked the Minister: If it is correct that you want to restore the soil do you intend allocating it again after it has been restored? As usual the Minister was not listening, and he passed some foolish remark. Now I want to tell him that the reclaiming of the soil was an afterthought. He had already drawn up this Bill last year, and he informed the House that he could not introduce it then because it had not been properly published, and because it was a hybrid Bill. If it is a hybrid Bill, the preamble to the Bill must be proved, and I challenge the Minister to read from the preamble anything in regard to the restoration of soil. There is no word of restoring the soil in the preamble, and the Minister has not proved his case. If the Minister had come here and said that his object was the reclaiming of the soil, he would still have had a case. But he emphasised that it is a desert and has to be restored and won back, and when the hon. member for Humansdorp spoke, he repeated twice that his plan was to restore the soil. But that does not appear in the preamble. Now I want to ask him what he intends doing, why he misled the House in such a manner? Where does the restoration come in? This morning I got the impression that the Minister knows very little about this matter. The Minister delivered his speech in English, a language which he does not usually use, and apparently it was the speech of someone who is interested in the flora and fauna of the country. It was a very good speech, and it will read well in Hansard, and thereafter when he got to the merits of the case, he again did not express his own views, but put forward a departmental document. But when it was over, the Minister had not touched the root of the matter. We are here as judges who have to give judgment on a public matter. And what is strange is that it is a hybrid Bill and there is expenditure involved in such a Bill. Private rights are being encroached upon and the Minister comes to this House and asks that the second reading should be passed and thereafter he will refer it to a Select Committee. Then the interested parties can come here, according to Parliamentary procedure, to put their case at their own expense. How much is it going to cost them? If it were a utility matter the Minister could still say that they should pay their own expenses but in my opinion when it comes to matters where Parliament makes inroads on private rights, the Government should bear the costs, and I reckon that if the Minister continues with this Bill, and he deprives people of certain rights which will oblige them to appear before the Select Committee, to have their casé put by advocates and attorneys, as it ought to be done, then it is the Minister’s duty to tell the House now that he will see to it that the Government pays the expenses of these people.

Is this the first hybrid Bill of its kind?

I am raising this matter now because we have a Minister with an expropriation complex. This is the third Bill which he is trying to pilot through Parliament during this Session, in this manner, and he is attacking private rights and putting these people to expense in submitting their case—he makes them pay and deprives them of their rights and he stipulates the compensation they will receive, but he does not refer to the expenses involved in the matter although he knows that private rights are taken away. There was the private Bill in connection with Durban, in respect of which one party has already had to disburse £6,000, and the Minister is placing the owners of these parts in exactly the same position, and the country ought to know that while the Government is busy with expropriation on such a big scale through this Minister, where the Minister is busy attacking private rights, that a halt should be called and that private rights of people should be protected. If such rights are attacked, the Government should pay the expense of affording these people a hearing in connection with their case, and I hope that cognisance will be taken of this point. But there is another aspect. This document which the Minister has branded as 99 per cent. false, is a document which was already some months ago sent to Members of Parliament. I think this document was in the possession of Members of Parliament 4 or 5 months ago, and the Minister comes here and simply says that it is false, but not in one respect has he indicated where it is false. Let us take this to be as the plea of these people. They hear that their rights will be taken away from them and they come to this House and circularise us as members of the House, the judges, with a document which is undersigned by prominent persons. Now the Minister must come and defend himself against this? What is his defence? “It is false.” That is all. How would he fare in a court of law? We are the highest court in connection with the matter. How would he look if a subpoena were served on him and he simply said it was false? He would have to stand the consequences, but that is not what he has done. These people come openly and put their case in public and submit it to Parliament, and the Minister could have refuted it point for point, but he did not do so. I will take one point, namely in connection with the traffic in these parts. It is a desert, but the desert has bus services. It is a desert with bus services! Buses run there and the buses are running to full capacity. They say here—

The Minister comes and declares everything to be false. Why did he not go to the Department of Railways to find out whether there were buses and whether they were running empty or full? They say here where the buses run and say that they are full. He has left this House in ignorance about the whole matter. I do not know whether it was done on purpose but how dare he say that it is a bag of lies if he has not found out what the truth is? The Minister of Transport is sitting over there. He can find out from him whether the statement is false. He has not done so. He has failed in his duties and he must not take it amiss if we say that we do not attach the least value to anything which he has said.

And he still remains on as Minister!

I am coming to another point. On page 5, paragraph 3 an accusation is made. The history of the case is more or less given—

Here they come to the history of the case. A botanical reserve was established here and we know nothing about it. And so you can take the document, page for page, and ask the Minister what his defence is. I will read, for example, from page 7—

The Minister could have discovered these facts. He could have gone to the creamery in Messina to find out whether cream comes from those parts. He could have found out whether at the public sales cattle were sold from the area. This very document tells of 68,000 head of cattle in those parts.

Tn the reserve?

In the area, yes.

That is a lie.

You say they are lies. But what is your proof? If you brand them as lies, you must prove it. Where are the proofs? The Minister could have appointed an official when he received the document to investigate the data. He could have asked the Minister of Agriculture to draw up a statement of the livestock in this area.

I have had a list compiled. There were less than 7,000 head of cattle in August, 1944.

Where do you get that from?

Again a lie?

The Minister is very cocksure. That is not the question.

68,000 and there are only 7,000.

Let a Select Committee investigate as to what is true before the second reading.

It is an important matter. It does not help merely to say that everything is a bundle of lies. Let us look at page 7 of the document. An extract is given there of the verbatim report of a matter. The Minister has certainly not read it. Dr. Pole Evans gave evidence in a matter which was heard at Messina in connection with the passing on of unalienated crown land. Questions were put and answers given in the magistrate’s court by Dr. Pole Evans: —

Legally?—I do not know anything about the legal position.

Have any steps been taken to convert this into a wild life sanctuary?—Legal steps are in process of being taken. They have not been taken yet.

It is certainly this Bill: —

These are farmers who are outside the reserve, and they go and look for grazing for their cattle in the reserve. Dr. Pole Evans says however, in reply to the questions, that for all he cares the farmers can go bankrupt. He is more concerned about the wild animals. I want to continue reading the questions and answers—

He wants the land for the animals and not for the people. I will continue—

There are Members of Parliament here who travelled round there and saw the cattle. The questioning goes further—

The Veterinary Department says that there are 68,000 head of cattle there and now the Minister of Lands comes and tells us that there are only 7,000.

That is still a mistake.

There is a discrepancy between the Department of Veterinary Research and the Department of Lands. This is not a statement which was made by ordinary people, but by officials of the department of the Government—

Just as the Minister of Lands, he is not interested in the settlers. He is busy ruining the settlers, and may heaven provide that we get rid of him as soon as possible. The settlers in the country will turn him out.

They will kick you out.

No, I represent a seat, but the Minister has still not succeeded in getting a seat. Notwithstanding all his attempts to kick me out in Gordonia, he did not succeed. He incited the coloureds there and now he cannot show his face there for he made promises to them which he cannot carry out. He handed out blankets there, and now he is sitting over on the other side. He is the most irresponsible Minister, and here one of his officials comes along and he says together with him—

His whole actions show this very clearly.

He has nothing to do with settlers.

He has Something to do with them for he is taking their ground away from them.

No, he is not taking it away.

He is using you for that purpose.

Then there is another interesting point—

That is what this House wants to know. We have a National Parks Board and why are they not interested in this matter? The Minister of Lands has not yet told us and we would very much like to know. The interrogation went further—

This is evidence which was given in a court case, and it is a revelation to the country. The Minister and his officials thought that this thing was taking place on the borders of North Transvaal and that it should not be referred to in this House. But this indicates to us what is taking place behind the scenes. We are dealing there with pioneers who cleared and cleaned up the land. I only want to say if the present Minister of Lands had been Minister of Lands in the years 1924, 1925 and 1926, then the greatest portion of Gordonia and Kuruman would certainly also have been game reserves. But thanks be to God we had a Piet Grobler who foresaw the possibilities of those parts. There we had an area of land where the people were not 30 miles from the nearest doctor but 180 miles away. But our young Voortrekkers went to those parts and reclaimed the land there. You come across people here today with large herds of cattle, from 600 to 2,000 head of cattle. The Minister said himself that these are some of the best parts for cattle in the world. There was, however, no water, and the State had to step in to assist the people in reclaiming the land. I repeat that if the present Minister of Lands had been Minister of Lands in those years we would never have had that large expansion. That portion of the country would then not have been reclaimed. The Minister would have sat there helplessly and said: No, we will rather make a game reserve of those parts; and that while there were thousands of farmers’ sons who yet had the penetrative power to brave the elements and together with their parents they became pioneers there and developed the land. The Minister is not giving those people a chance now. And so I could go on quoting further about this matter. I could read this plea out to the Minister in full. He has failed to answer any of these questions. He cannot tell the country that all these things are false. It is one of the most far-reaching things which a Minister ever can do. We must regard these men who have undersigned this document as honest men. They are men who occupy important positions, but the Minister pushes them aside as if they were of no moment. However, I want to continue reading this to him, for there is a further quotation here which this House and the country in general ought to know. I refer the Minister to par. 4 on page 12. There we find the following—

But if the Minister will still not believe it let him then go to Zoutpansberg and he can go to the secretary of the show. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) is sitting there and is he going to say that these people who obtained prizes for their cattle at that show and for the products which they have delivered, are telling lies when they say that they did obtain those prizes? Why does he not come with proofs in connection with this matter to refute what the secretary of the show and others have said here? He cannot come here and simply repudiate all these quotations in the report in connection with the prizes at the show with a statement that they are all untrue.

At 6.40 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on the 25th January, 1945, and Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned, to be resumed on 5th April.