The Adjutant-General has instructions to make available for publication the names of all ex-prisoners of war immediately they are received.

No information concerning the release of U.D.F. prisoners of war referred to had been received by the Government up till 8.30 this morning.

The information which is being published was received by the Press through their representatives in the United Kingdom.

When the debate was adjourned yesterday I was busy dealing with this brochure distributed amongst members and I had quoted certain portions of it. I asked the Minister of Lands why, if he had any defence to the facts mentioned in this brochure, he did not tell the House what his defence was. I asked him why he did not deal with these points in this brochure and show the House which of them were true or false. I should like to turn now to the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers). I think he is acquainted with this brochure and certainly with the people who drew it up. He had it in his hands. He told us that he is acquainted with the position and that he would tell us the truth—that he would give us the facts. I now want to ask him this question, as a person who is interested in the matter and who has first-hand knowledge in connection with it, why he did not, if the Minister of Lands was not able to do so, make a study of this brochure and of all the facts contained in it? If he found things in it which were false, then it was his duty to lay them before the House. I just want to ask the hon. member one question with reference to the motor buses running in that area. It is said in this brochure that those buses are so full that they cannot transport anything else. It says here—

If they say that buses run in that area, it is false.

They are biltong farmers.

If the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) has firsthand information, let him then get up in the House and deal with this brochure point by point and show us where it is false. I adopt the point of view that we are here as judges and that this document has been laid before us. We must come to a decision on it.

It is an ex parte statement.

Good, let it be an ex parte statement. Then it is the duty of hon. members who support this Bill to controvert the document. Why did they not do it by means of sworn affidavits? They simply just get up, from the Minister to the hon. member for Middelburg (Dr. Eksteen) and simply say that this document is false. I am a legal man and one who daily has to deal with this kind of case, and I know that one cannot just say that a document is false without proving it. The Minister of Lands should have taken this document point for point and brought proof. He could have got data from the Minister of Transport, from the Minister of Agriculture, from the Agricultural Societies there, and then he could have proved which of these statements is false. If he had done that we could have said that these people have no case. But as the matter stands now we have no data before us.

Do you say that the buses run there?

It says so here and they say that they are full.

You can accept it from me that no buses run there.

I must believe it until it is disproved.

Ask the Minister of Railways.

That is just my point. This Bill has been brought before the House in an ill-considered manner. If the Minister of Lands had laid the matter before the House thoroughly we would have had all the data before us.

I will give that to you in my reply.

This whole debate would have been avoided if the Minister had done that. The Minister simply threw this document aside and said that it was false from A to Z, that 99 per cent. of it was untrue, and he tried to bring those people who drew up this document into discredit. The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) then asked him to tell us in which respect the document is false. He did not do so. The Minister cannot tackle any matter in that way. I quoted here from the notes of a case in a court of law concerning the number of cattle there are. It was stated there that there were 68,000 cattle north of the Zoutpansberg.

You said in that area.

I quoted from the report of the case in which it says that there are 68,000 cattle north of the Zoutpansberg.

I asked whether it was in that area and you said yes.

I was quoting from this document. The Minister said that there were 6,000 or 7,000. We do not know whether that was the number before the farmers trekked away to other grazing. Sometimes there are more cattle and sometimes less.

I gave you the figures.

He did not say whether that was the number when the other farmers were there or when they had gone away.

I said that the return had been made in 1944, in August. You obviously did not listen well.

We want to have all these facts available but the Minister has kept the whole matter dark. We should like to know why 127 farms must be expropriated. What are the reasons for that? The Minister has as yet given us no reason, but now he says that he will do so in his reply. That is not the way in which to bring such a Bill before the House. The Minister of Finance ought to lecture the Minister of Lands about the manner in which he brought this Bill before the House. There is another point too. The Minister of Lands spoke about cattle smuggling. He could have investigated that further also. He could have examined the criminal records of the Magistrate’s Courts in those parts for the past two, three or five years to discover what the position was and how many cases there were of cattle smuggling. The Minister did not think of doing that either. All he did is to make a general statement that there is smuggling and that as a result this area should be turned into a Reserve. There are parts of Bechuanaland, Vryburg and Kuruman, where smuggling in cattle also takes place, and will the Minister now tell us that farms in those areas must be expropriated to form a sort of buffer in order that smuggling may be prevented? Then there is another matter, namely the prospects in regard to mineral wealth. Can there be further development? This document mentions that there is a chance of developing minerals in those parts. The Minister did not deal with that aspect of the matter at all. It is alleged that minerals are to be found in appreciable quantities and that the Department of Mines has the data available. The Minister did not enlighten us in connection with that matter.

Did you read the Bill?

Yes, I did. But the Minister of Lands ought to tell us definitely what the data are which are available to him. No, I must say that if ever a Bill was dealt with in a superficial manner in this House then it happened in connection with this Bill. The Minister further said that the soil is being eroded there on an enormous scale. He laid stress on that, and for that reason that area must now become a Reserve. If the Minister wants to encourage soil reclamation, he has my support. But now I wish to point to another aspect of the matter and the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) will be interested in this. Dr. Bennett told us that the portion of the Western Province where erosion is worst of all, where it is in progress in the very worst degree, is the district of Caledon. He told us that there is no other part of the Western. Province where there is so much erosion as in Caledon. Will the Minister of Lands declare Caledon to be a Reserve also?

What sort of argument is that?

It is the puerile argument used by the Minister of Lands, and if we put it that way everyone can see how childish it is. It is very easy to defeat such an argument. No, the Minister must take the House into his confidence and members like the hon. member for Middelburg must not speak about a matter like this so glibly. They must go to the roots of the matter, but that they did not do. It was tragic to see how the hon. member for Zoutpansberg sat there. He seemed to be sick. We really pitied him. He spoke here about sentiment, and eventually he concluded his speech with sentiment by saying: That is the Empire and as long as he lives he will stand by the Empire and will see to it that soldiers are not sent there. I say that there are many young men in our country who, if there is a benevolent Government who will help them, will make a success of farming there. I was not there myself, but in my constituency there was also a desert to a large degree. I know that that is the area where today we get the best beef. But we had a Government which drilled boreholes there and put up windmills and gave the people facilities. Today one finds a settled community there. No, I say that the Minister of Lands is without any vision. He is too old and he can no longer see what the country requires. He is a large ground owner. He has 400 morgen under irrigation under a State scheme. He must retire in the near future and in the meantime the future of South Africa does not worry him.

I enter into this debate with a certain amount of trepidation coming from an area entirely different from that under discussion. I come from the Transkei a wonderful country with a wonderful rainfall, and I am in the unfortunate position of representing a body of farmers, approximately 30 in number, who acquired that land before British occupation, most of them Afrikaans farmers; but under the policy enunciated some years back by this House and supported by the Opposition, the segregation policy, these farms have to be acquired for native occupation. These 30 farmers who have all valuable farms are now faced with the position that in order that this national policy may be carried out, and as I said before it was adumbrated by the other side, they have been asked by the Government to agree to the sale of their farms, and although many of them have been born there and have lived all their lives there, they realise what the national policy is.

Did you agree to that policy?

I am one of the owners of those farms it is all I have, but realising it is a national policy in the interests of the country, I am prepared to fall into line with the policy not originally of this Government but of Gen. Hertzog, and I have agreed to allow my farm to go. The only stipulation these farmers are making is that they may be allowed to acquire a farm elsewhere; otherwise they are willing to let their farms go. Last year we had an interesting discussion on the physical condition of the country as a whole. It was generally agreed that this country is being eroded and is going to the sea, and hon. members on all sides agreed that drastic steps will have to be taken if we are to conserve the soil of this country. This is one of the first steps to be taken in this direction and it has been met with political opposition from the other side.

It is not for political reasons. One of the chief objectors is the chairman of the S.A.P.

I can only gauge the position from what I have seen and heard here. Yesterday when the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) was speaking, it was very clear from the jeers that were directed against him, and from the observations that interrupted his remarks, that there was quite a lot of politics in this matter. I want to go further. The hon. member who has just spoken referred to Caledon. Last year we evacuated 5,000 natives from a soil-eroded area in the Kokstad district, the Mkoba ward. Hon. members will recall the discussion that took place in the House; I did not hear a single word of objection against the evacuation of those 5,000 natives who had been living there for 60 years.

You supported it.

I supported it; it was the policy of the Government. We know that Dr. Bennett came here and gave a most damning account of the physical condition of the country and stated that unless we took immediate action our soil would be carried to the sea. That is why I am taking part in this debate today. We know that in one area in the Cape, the Vlekpoort area, a great deal of money has been expended in this connection and no objection has been taken there. But they must go further. Dr. Bennett has recommended that in the Drakensberg an area occupied by tens of thousands of natives may have to be evacuated in order that one of the water sheds of the country should be preserved. I speak as a member of the Native Affairs Commission and it may be my unfortunate duty to go to these natives and influence them to carry out the policy of the Government, which is also the policy of the Opposition. To save the water shed that large area will have to be evacuated, and the natives may have to go somewhere else. But here under this Bill we want to save a small area, and because the interests of a few farmers are affected we have this outcry from the other side of the House. Sir, I want to go further. We know that we are probably going to introduce big irrigation schemes in this country to make use of the Orange River. I say before we start with such a scheme, one of the first essentials will be to protect the water sheds of the Drakensbergen in Basutoland itself. It is useless to go in for a scheme like that without preserving these water sheds. Some years ago General Hertzog proposed to make a grant of, I think, £30,000 to be given to the Basutoland Government in order to assist them in preserving and protecting these water sheds. I say that one of these days, when the big scheme is started, one of the first things will be to go to Basutoland and ask them to assist us in protecting the water sheds there. Here again native interests must be considered. In this case there may be large numbers of natives who may have to be evacuated. I want the House to look at it from this point of view. As a member of the commission, in order to safeguard the interests of the country, I have to go to the natives and meet deputations and point out why things are done. Mr. Speaker, everywhere we have soil erosion in the Transvaal and we have had it pointed out by farmers’ associations and by individual farmers that there are strips of country along the water sheds occupied by natives, and they ask us to remove the natives to protect the rivers. If this is an example of what hon. members opposite are going to do when the interests of a few white farmers are at stake, they are going to encourage the natives to adopt a similar attitude when they are affected. Those natives will use all the same arguments used by hon. members opposite to oppose schemes of reclamation in the native areas. I think that in national matters of this kind the individual interests of large companies or small farmer’s must go by the board. As I said before, our farmers agree, although very reluctantly, but when we face national interests …

What national interests?

The reclamation of the land. From all the evidence we have this area is almost a desert. I only hope that if in future we have to eject natives we will have the same unanimous support from the other side as they show today. We will have to take drastic measures when we come to our big national schemes. In Natal alone, in a certain area in Natal, I have read, a whole district may have to be evacuated by the natives. These natives have lived there for centuries. Will hon. members object to their removal? No. I think that the Government has made a start in reclamation measures in South Africa and I think it is extremely unfortunate that the whole matter has devolved, as it has done, into a political argument from the other side.

Mr. Speaker I want to look at this question objectively, from the point of view of one without any party bias or party political affiliations, and dissociated from any vested interests involved in this discussion. I want to view the matter from what I believe is the point of view of the average citizen, particularly in the large urban centres. Now, what is the background today of the thinking of the average man and woman? The average man is very seriously concerned about his standard of living, knowing that it is imperilled by scarcity of food and other essentials and by high prices. He is also very seriously concerned about the future welfare of his dependants who are fighting for this country; for he is dissatisfied with the preparations this country is making to receive them back into civilian life. Now, it is against that background that this measure must be evaluated. The average man is amazed at what he learnt from the Minister’s speech yesterday, that something like 240,000 morgen comprising 123 farms are to be taken out of production and incorporated into a wild life sanctuary. He is not satisfied with the Minister’s reasons for that step. These were the Minister’s reasons: He said that the primary object was to reclaim land that had never been suited to human settlement and had been abused by such settlement. The aim was to create a national sanctuary rather than a national park; and for a number of years at any rate tourists would be kept away, until the land could be rescued from the devastated condition into which it had fallen. The sanctuary would be a place where problems of natural history could be studied without interference from man. Such an argument as that, coming from a Minister of the Crown, must surely in these times sound strange in the ears of those citizens who now sit in the gallery and listen to the debates in this House. They must be surprised that the South African Parliament, in the throes of a total war, and the country faced with the emergencies of the peace, desperately needing houses, social services, industrial development and agricultural security, instead of legislating for these things, wastes time in an acrimonious debate on a measure which could well be held over for a few years to come, until the piping times of peace arrive.

We proposed a delay of six months.

To introduce the measure at this stage is a psychological blunder. We must remember that the urban population in 1944 went through a minor food famine. We are going to be faced in a few months with what might well be a very severe food famine. The people know that we are importing meat in considerable quantities from Australia, and milk from other parts of the world; and, considering that the vast majority of the people are not acquainted with the terms of this Bill, there must be astonishment in the country at a proposal to put so many farms out of production, even if their productivity was not very high. This Bill will give the country the impression that the Government is making the food position still more confounded. Further, many of us who have been able to get some information as to what our neighbour State over the Limpopo is doing appraise the magnificent plans which are being made there to provide land for soldiers in Rhodesia. Rhodesia is giving us an excellent lead in this respect. Last year this House learnt with a good deal of satisfaction of the steps taken by the Minister of Lands in promoting settlements for our returning fighting men. The House looked forward to the report of the Special Committee which was set up by him to investigate the matter. We want a Bill to promote land settlement for our soldiers without delay. We cannot afford to be less interested in this important requirement, than Rhodesia. But we get a measure—this will be the impression in the country—not for better homes for our population, and rural settlements for our veterans; but for homes and security for wild animals, which in Zululand have recently been shot in large quantities; in order, it is said, to protect the farmers. Now, in considering this Bill, we must further ask ourselves whether the settlers concerned have had the right of self-determination in regard to this proposal.

Most of us believe in democracy. If the settlers have not been consulted—and there is abundant proof that they have not been properly consulted—then this House today is considering a measure very far removed from the traditions of a freedom-loving South Africa. This Bill—I say it with deliberation—reminds us of another form of Government of which the main characteristic—and condemnation—is that it abolished private rights and forcibly uprooted people from their homes and farms. We cannot afford to help Fascism in South Africa even in a token way. This Bill, in my opinion, means just that; if we are going to continue introducing measures of this kind, in this period of national crisis, we risk being considered as a lot of old men hovering between two worlds, one of which is dying and the other not yet born. Finally the average citizen will ask: What did the Dongola settlers themselves do in their own self-defence? What has been their reaction to this Bill? They have gone to the limit of protestation available to them under our democratic system. They will petition this House. Some 50 of them, representing a group of farmers, have signed one petition. Moreover, their cause has been espoused by the South African Agricultural Union and by the Transvaal Agricultural Union.

Hear, hear!

And with a high sense of public duty these representative bodies will also petition this House against this Bill. Now, what is the case that such authoritative bodies are making against this Bill? This is the case they make: They object to a wild life sanctuary absorbing 75 miles of the Limpopo frontage, and including 123 farms, which they assert have produced dairy and other products for over 20 years. They point out that on the southern boundary of the proposed reserve there are a further 199 farms which will be threatened with veld destruction and disease by animals from the game sanctuary. Therefore 322 farms in all will be affected seriously in productive capacity at a time when there is a serious shortage of food in the Union. If a sanctuary is made there it will prevent an irrigation scheme based on the Limpopo and covering 30,000 morgen. They complain that many employees of the Messina copper mine who have bought farms out of their savings and stocked the farms and developed them will lose all this when the Bill becomes law. They say that the proposed Bill will augment the dangers of foot and mouth disease and the spread of the menace of tsetse fly. Those are the principal pleas put forward to this House by responsible men with a long record of public service in the country.

Who are they?

Major Hunt.

The people of South Africa will take heed of the opinions of these men. This House must give the fullest consideration to them. I know which side the member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) will be on at the final issue in this debate. The case put forward by them is that the matter should be investigated by a committee of this House. I hope that the Minister will take his courage in both hands and withdraw this Bill. In the light of what we have been able to learn of conditions in the areas affected by the Bill, in the light of the manner in which this Bill was promoted, there is only one conclusion to which an unbiassed man can come, and it is this: that the introduction of this Bill at this time of national crisis, is a psychological blunder, an economic folly and a political monstrosity. As such every democrat in this House must oppose the Bill.

One is surprised, after hearing the arguments about the matter on both sides, at the Minister still proceeding with the matter. But I want to put a direct question to the Minister, namely whether he personally has gone through that area. The Minister answers No. He does not even nod his head to say yes. Then we must accept that the Minister knows as little as I do about that area. The House has to decide. A number of members were there while others were not, and if one listens to the arguments and one sees the attitude of the Ministér, one comes to the conclusion that something is hidden. Somebody once gave the following advice: if you have a bad case you must always give just one reply, “it is not true”. Ever since yesterday morning we have had that attitude on the part of the Minister, “it is not true,” without him bringing any proof. But there is something else which surprises me. We sometimes come to Ministers with certain matters and then they ask us: “What do your farmers’ association say? Go and organise your farmers’ association and let them speak”. The other day only I was concerned with a case, and the Minister of Native Affairs told me: “Let the farmers’ associations press the matter and I will consider it.” But the Minister of Lands takes no notice of the farmers’ associations. I now ask what the considered opinion of the Cabinet is about the matter. How do they regard the farmers’ associations? The information I have obtained about this area is that it is a bushy area, and we know that where there are many bushes one does not find erosion on a large scale, because the bushes prevent it. My information further is that the thorn bushes grow in such increasing numbers that the cattle can hardly graze, and the people who go and live there, instead of being in a bare country, as the Minister put it, must chop out the bushes in order to be able to cultivate lands so as to make a living. I now ask what the position is. I want to ask the Minister whether he has investigated the possibility of sinking boreholes, if there is a shortage of water, as he says. The Minister said that the country is not suitable for irrigation because the Limpopo overflows its banks twice a year. Is it not a fact that the Orange River and the Vaal River and the Wilge River also overflow their banks? No, we have a suspicion that there is something else behind it all. These arguments which are being used to defend the Bill are not convincing and will convince nobody. We know the Minister. A friend to the lesser privileged people in South Africa he decidedly is not. His policy is to push people off the ground. That is the only strong policy he has. Here we again have the same phenomenon. Those people started to tame the country as pioneers, and for the sake of a few plants and the protection of wild animals, which one day are shot and the other protected, they must now vacate the area. I have calculated that if the area of 240,000 morgen is divided up and each settler is awarded 1,200 morgen, one can settle 200 families in that area. I now want to ask: Numbers of families have been removed from their farms in the Union and have no room to lay their heads. There are thousands and thousands of the lesser privileged who are lessees of ground and squatters and who have no place to go to, and now the Minister comes and he wants to take this enormous area and leave it for the wild animals, and jackals, wolves and lions, while our own blood go under in their misery and have no place to lay their heads in their own fatherland. We often hear talk about the influx of immigrants. I ask the Minister first to see to our own people. I cannot do otherwise but protest strongly against this measure, because it is unsound from the national point of view. First take care of your own Europeans, of your own-blood, and then of the animals and the plants. We believe that a lover of plants hides behind this Bill, one in the Cabinet, who especially is interested in plants. We should like his love of plants to be extended to love of the poorer Afrikaners whom this Minister of Lands is constantly busy plundering and exterminating. We saw it last year. In my constituency the Minister, for example, put four settlers off the ground in August and these people had to sell their cattle at £4 a head. What will happen to the people whom he now wishes to put off the ground? Will they receive compensation or will they have to sell their cattle at £2 10s. a head? But these things obviously do not concern the Minister. He proceeds in his reckless manner and does not worry about the results. But a day of retribution will come. He will have to justify his deeds, not only here, but also in the hereafter. I say it in all seriousness. That is the sort of man of whom the Writ says: “I was thirsty and you gave me not to drink; I was hungry and you gave me no succour”. Those are the people referred to by the Writ who, like the Minister, push people off the ground and do not care what happens to them. We would be neglecting our duty if we did not protest as strongly as possible against such a policy.

Mr. Speaker, I intervene in this debate not because of the vituperation which has emanated from the hon. members who sit opposite the hon. the Minister of Lands, but because the hon. member for Berea (Mr. Sullivan) has thought fit to suggest that the policy proposed by this Bill is one which runs in conflict with the settlement of soldiers upon the land in this country.

Do you want me to put soldiers there?

I know this land very well and the people who originally lived upon it, and all their traditions which are being raked up and unearthed from the stones and gravel over which this area runs.

Since when do you know it?

I read the literature and not only the literature disseminated by hon. members opposite. Let there be no mistake about this. This whole Bill will go to a Select Committee in which every interested person will have the right to be represented after the second reading.

Why not before the second reading?

I know the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) runs into every debate, if only to save his own Party when they get into difficulties as they did a few weeks ago.

I am not worried about my party, but about the Bill.

I do not propose to hold a discussion with the hon. member on the floor of the House.

You know that after a second reading the principle Of a Bill is accepted.

You do not know anything. Keep quiet.

There is no doubt that the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) knows the rules of this House and knows that it will be an impossibility for the Minister to do anything more than to conform with the rules of the House and to send this Bill, as it is drafted to a Select Committee, and that it will be impossible to have all the interested parties represented here before the second reading. Before the second reading it will be the hon. member for Mossel Bay, the hon. member for Boshof and the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) who fire the propaganda. After the second reading the rules of the House require that it go to a Select Committee, in order, not that hon. members may make propaganda either as the result of the poor farmer crying on the doorstep of the Government to take him off the land and to find him better land, and if not to relieve him of his debts …

What a heartless thing to say.

Let him go to the farmers of this country and see, as I did ….

Have you seen it?

Yes.

You were never there.

What a caddish and mean thing to say.

On a point of order, when I put the question whether the hon. member for Green Point (Mr. Bowen) saw it, I never in the least had the intention to refer to the fact that he is blind. Any decent person would have understood it that way. I only wanted to know where he got his information, because he has never been there. You. Mr. Speaker, understood me that way.

Sit down.

Of the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow), who has not the least sense of decency, I take no notice at all. But now I come to the point of order. The hon. Minister of Lands by way of an interjection made a remark to the effect that what I said is “caddish and mean”. I ask for your protection, Mr. Speaker. Is the hon. Minister entitled to say that?

The hon. Minister must withdraw those words.

I said it is “caddish and mean”. The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) twice in succession asked “did you see it?” What else is the meaning of those words?

I again say—and I say it with great earnestness—that what I am accused of here is unworthy of the Minister. The hon. member for Green Point said he had seen it. I then asked him where he had seen it, because he was never there. I asked your protection and that the Minister should withdraw those words.

I did withdraw them.

I must ask the hon. Minister to withdraw those words.

I withdraw them for the second time.

One is capable of appreciating things through other means than sight. I know the conditions up there. I knew them before the Minister introduced the Bill. Let me say again that when the second reading is accepted the people who are really interested in that area and whose rights are being affected by this Bill, will have an opportunity of stating their case before a Select Committee.

After the act of spoliation has been completed.

You are an actor; you should keep quiet.

The hon. member knows what the rules of the House require, and they would not require this procedure if it were not designed for the moré effective and beneficial safeguarding of the rights of the individuals concerned. We are listening here to the propaganda of people who are politically interested. My intervention in this debate is because I too am interested, because those people who are pulling strings behind the Dorsland Farmers’ Association, the hon. members who are making such an attack on the Minister of Lands have attempted to put it as one of the cardinal reasons why this area should not be made a sanctuary for wild animals, is that it affords an excellent opportunity for settling the ex-soldier on the land, on that land. So active and so sincere are the people really interested in the re-settlement of ex-soldiers—the hon. member for Berea (Mr. Sullivan) is also interested in this—that three Sons of England lodges comprised of prominent individuals in Messina, Louis Trichardt and Pietersburg, who are all interested in the settlement of ex-soldiers, have all passed resolutions to the effect that the Demobilisation Department should do everything in its power to oppose any attempt on the part of the Government or on the part of anybody else to settle soldiers on this particular land. These resolutions will go to the Minister of Demobilisation asking him not to listen to the propaganda that this land can be used for settlement. I was surprised at the observation made by the hon. member for Berea. Surely the hon. member does not expect ex-soldiers to be placed on land which has consistently proved to be a failure for farming?

Quite right.

The hon. member does not want soldiers to be settled on such land. He used this stick as an argument. If you make any portion of South Africa a sanctuary for wild animals you will have so much the less of South Africa to settle ex-soldiers on. Surely a more fatuous argument has not yet been heard from the hon. member for Berea. He is a man we expect to maintain a high standard of independence in debate, where he can use his independence, but surely he cannot say that because a few farmers are going to be displaced, because fourteen real settlers are to be affected and twenty-five other people who are there at times for holiday and shooting purposes, this scheme should not go through. I want the Minister to say at the earliest moment that whatever else is done, this land will never be used to settle ex-soldiers.

How many settlers have been settled already?

None have been settled on that land, and I hope to goodness none ever will be. The resolutions I have referred to have been passed by people who are concerned with the rehabilitation of ex-soldiers, people who know the land and who live there, not in constituencies far removed from that area, as is the case with some hon. members who are opposing this measure.

What about the Farmers’ Association?

The hon. member knows the Dorsland Farmers’ Association. I suggest he will be wise to keep out of this debate. His interest in the soldiers is too well founded to permit him to be interested in their settlement in that area. The members of the Dorsland Farmers’ Association, who are behind this propaganda—I do not suggest who they are—never bought their land at 12s. 6d. a morgen; those interests were not concerned with a reduction in the price of the holdings from 12s. 6d. to 5s. and subsequently to less than 3s. a morgen. Those interests behind this opposition originally bought the land plus stock, such as it was for less than 3s. a morgen. An admirable film which depicts this area as it is and not as hon. members have been led to believe it is, was produced and is ready for exhibition; it would have been exhibited to hon. members, who would have taken a keen and intelligent interest in it, an interest equal to that shown in the Van Rensburg film, but the hon. Minister of Lands has seen fit not to permit hon. members to view that film. That film would convince members of this House that that land is not fit for the settlement, and certainly not for irrigation purposes or for the rehabilitation of ex-soldiers. I hope this House will say most emphatically it is not going to permit any settlement on that particular land, but that it will accept that land as a sanctuary for wild animals; and that the Bill will subsequently go to a Select Committee for the rights of individuals affected to be given consideration. I hope that we shall have no further attempt to suggest that this Bill in any way runs counter to the Government’s determination to do everything in its power to re-settle the ex-soldier upon land upon which he may make a living.

I quite agree with the last speaker that I am the last man who would be willing to agree that ground for settlement should be awarded in that area, not only for returned soldiers but for any settler in South Africa. If one looks at the map of South Africa one will see that we are quite entitled to say that settlement in the past, geographically speaking, has gone in a totally wrong direction in South Africa. In recent years there has been a tendency to push all settlers to the west, while we know that in the east of Africa—I refer now to the Lebombo Plain—lie the best parts of South Africa. I understand that there are more than 100,000 morgen belonging to the State. It is some of the most fertile soil, and there one has the best water South Africa can produce, and there is the best opportunity for people to earn a living, and not only to earn a living, but a good living. I say that is in direct contradiction of the tendency we have had here for the last 20 years of driving everything that breathes to the west. In former years things went well. Look for example at the Vryburg area. The people who in former years had ground there rapidly prospered, but just as soon as people started settling there in appreciable numbers, the ground became too small and now they are once again becoming poor whites. We find that as a result of the tendency of bringing everything to the west. Whenever land scarcity is spoken of I wish to associate myself at once with the idea expressed by the hon. member that we should not try to place people oh that ground, but that we should drive them to the east where they can earn a better living. The tendency was to preserve those fertile portions for the animals. Hence those alarming figures we heard here in the House, that it cost the country so much to form settlements and the people there are still poor. Reference was made to the agricultural show held at Louis Trichardt in order to create the impression that that area is so prosperous. Hon. members know as well as I do that it is a tremendously large district and in the immediate vicinity of Louis Trichardt, in the eastern portion thereof, there are definitely the best parts, and it is from there that the agricultural show of which such a success was made was supported. To the west of Louis Trichardt we have Mara, which is still far from the area concerned. It is true that there are a few good cattle farms. I think the best Afrikaner cattle in the country and the best cross-bred cattle graze in the veld near Mara; but, as I have said, that is very far from this area, although it also falls within the Louis Trichardt district. I think that nothing better can happen than that this Bill should go to a Select Committee so that we can analyse these matters and see whether there really are people who will suffer damage if this area is turned into a reserve, and I think the Minister will be doing the country a service if he states in his reply that the 40 settlers who are there will receive a measure of preference in the New Belgium Block in the Potgietersrust district. In that area there is also approximately 100,000 morgen of Government ground where many of those people can be placed.

But the soldiers will receive preference.

The hon. member knows that the soldiers will not receive all the ground. Other people are also entitled to it.

But they receive preference.

Wait a moment.

They get preference. It is not a question of “wait a moment"; it is so.

Let us investigate the matter thoroughly. I say that in the first place my sympathies go out to those people, and I say that if the Minister gives the House and the country the assurance that those people will receive the necessary facilities to become settled either in the New Belgium Block or in the Lebombo Plains, then I will welcome it heartily.

The Bill provides that I can give ground in exchange.

That was my first difficulty, and the Minister solved it immediately. We then come to the other people who are not settlers.

They are rich people.

I think it would be fair towards the private people who own ground there that they will also receive those facilities under Section 11. I am thinking for example of one man whom I know personally. He and others who are in a similar position ought to be allowed to buy land under Section 11. When there are people who perhaps live in Johannesburg and who are not bona fide farmers according to the provisions of the Act ….

Any eitizen can apply under Section 11.

The Minister is quite correct when he says that. I just want to have a certain measure of certainty that those cases will be considered in that light, because these are people who do not leave of their own choice, but as a result of the adoption of this Bill. The hon. minister says that the people who have private ground there are rich. It does not necessarily follow that they are all rich people. But whether they are rich or not, I agree with my colleague the hon. member for Durban (North) (The Rev. Miles-Cadman) that there are also decent rich people in the world. I therefore want the House to treat them in a decent manner. I hope and trust that the Minister will give the House the assurance that those people will be treated in a reasonable way, although they do not live on the ground. They bought farms there as an investment for their money. I want to appeal to the Minister to make that statement in his reply. I then hope that there will be no further ground for objection against sending this Bill to a Select Committee so that those interested can plead their case fully and show how the Bill, if it should become law, will affect them. Then there will be an opportunity thoroughly to investigate many of the statements made in the House. The hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. J. G. W. van Niekerk) made certain statements here, and if they are correct the interests of those people should certainly be taken into consideration. He referred to one farm owner who settled there to farm with sheep, and he spoke about ewes who gave birth to four lambs in a year. I hope that the hon. Minister of Transport, who has enough trucks to be able to import dogs, will make room on the train for those ewes who lamb four times in a year. We ought to see those ewes here. We should like to see it. I do not doubt what the hon. member said, but that ewe deserves a medal. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) asked whether reasonable facilities would be given to those interested to give evidence before the Select Committee. I think it is a matter which rests with you, Mr. Speaker. I think it is a matter where you can decide who should pay the expenses, but I consider that it is no more than reasonable that those who are interested in the matter should receive facilities. If that is granted to interested parties, I hope that hon. members will not make that organised attack which they made in this House as if the end of the world had come. I am in favour of directing the policy of immigration in this country into a totally different direction. Where in the past it was to the west, I say we must now direct it to he east, and where in future we find it necessary to create a reserve, let us do so in those areas where the animals had their natural habitat and where the nature of the country is such that there is no good opportunity for humans to earn a living. Let us put our people, as the Englishman says, “on the eastern slopes of the Drakensberg”. We must not be motivated by the idea that there is a shortage of ground in South Africa. It is just a question of the proper distribution of ground, and if we distribute the ground we have in the Eastern Transvaal properly, then there is no reason why no man who would like to farm should not be able to acquire an economic piece of ground. But when I press for it that ground should be given to every man who wants to farm, at the same time I want to insist that the valuable portions of the country should be occupied as soon as possible and not held in reserve. I am practically more in favour of a reserve in that area than in the Portuguese territory. I know that one cannot touch the Kruger National Park today, because it will be more than one’s life is worth. But we should rather take a larger area along the Limpopo. What is the Kruger National Park at the moment? I know you will not permit me to expand on that but the Kruger National Park ….

The hon. member is now going into that matter.

The farmers who farm to the west of it suffer tremendous losses as the result of the damage done by the wild animals. The animals we have there penetrate to the Portuguese territory where they are simply killed and skinned. They are killed there not only by hunters from the Portuguese territory but by hunters from the Union who have gone over the border. They receive a permit and then shoot our own animals. I do not believe this Bill justifies the measure of opposition hurled against it, and I believe that if circumstances in 50 or 100 years justify it, when there is a land scarcity, the time will have dawned to reduce the large game reserves, which we really need the ground. But that is not the position today. I can of course understand the attitude of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) because it is his constituency. He does not want the value of his ground in his constituency to be affected by the creation of a reserve in that area. But I do not believe that such will be the case, because I think that as soon as one goes in a southerly direction from Blouberg, one finds a totally different topography; one finds large strips which are very fertile, where those lovely tomatoes and oranges of which the hon. member for Wakkerstroom spoke, grow.

You were not there.

The hon. member says I was not there. I was there, and I will not tell you everything I did there either. As soon as one goes south from Blouberg one finds that area of which the hon. member for Waterberg can rightly be proud. I do not believe that the value of the ground in the Waterberg district will be affected if that reserve is created at the furthest corner of the northwest. I am serious when I say that I have often been in that territory. That part is really a paradise for Wild animals, and the congregation of animals there from Rhodesia and other parts of the North-western Transvaal, the fact that they gather together there, shows one that it is an area where the animals feel at home, and where they like to graze. That has always been the biltong country, and I want to tell the hon. member for Lichtenburg (Mr. Ludick): It has not only been the biltong country for that area, but for the whole of South Africa, with the result that the game has been exterminated in thousands. The man without a sense of responsibility takes his donkey-cart and carts all the wildebeeSte away. There I, together with two other people, saw a man kill 28 wildebeeste, and he did not even take the trouble to take away any of the meat. He simply skinned them and sold the skins, but he left the meat lying there. I say that that part is a paradise for the game, and I take it that if we can again create such a paradise there all the animals will once more, in the course of years, gather there, and we will then have a reserve there which will suit its purpose better than the Kruger Game Reserve which we have in the Eastern Transvaal. I appeal to hon. members not to direct those serious, concentrated attacks against this Bill, because all reasonable objections will be raised before the Select Committee, and all interested parties who will suffer damage as the result of the adoption of the Bill will be able to lay their case before the Select Committee, and it is then for the Select Committee to make the necessary recommendations so that the Minister can let right and justice be done to the people who have interests in that area. But I do not want anybody longer to have the idea that we should regard the North-western Transvaal as an area where we can effectively pursue a policy of land settlements. I can show you farms in the Eastern Transvaal where people settled on the land at the same time and where today they are prosperous and still going ahead, and where there is still space for other people to make a living; so that the argument of a policy of land settlement is not valid in this case. If the ground had not been vacant in the Eastern Transvaal, if the Lebombo plains were not there, we would have had a case more or less, but it is the last cry we should raise to say that there is a scarcity of land in South Africa. I do not want hon. members to say that I alleged that nobody can make a living in that area. There are spots where people can make a living.

Do you then agree with the Minister?

*Mr. VAN DEN BERG? There are spots where people can make a living, if one has a fertile spot and one has one continuous piece of ground. But I want to ask hon. members whether there are farmers in that area who have 12,000 or 14,000 morgen of ground. No, that is not the case. One finds that the majority of the people there are fairly poor and are becoming poorer.

And why are they then thrown on the road?

No, it is not the case that they are put on the road. As I said before, they can be settled in the New Belgium Block or on the Lebombo plains. The third category amongst them can buy ground in the rest of the Union under Article 11. If there is one man in this House who can object, it is I, because that was my little hunting ground. I do not often go; only once in a few years. We must all make our sacrifices. I am convinced that the hon. member for Wakkerstroom will not pay £1 10s. for that ground. I am not referring to the ground near Waterpoort and Blouberg and those parts there. But in that area itself he will not pay £1 10s. for ground. He has too much knowledge of ground to do that. But all the difficulties can be submitted to the Select Committee. They can investigate and analyse it properly and refer the matter back to us. In the light of the information submitted to it, the Select Committee can make a recommendation. For that reason I hope that hon. members will cease the organised attack they are making on this Bill.

In rising to associate myself with the point of view of this side of the House and to voice my serious objection against this measure, I wish to mention two reasons why I am against the Bill. The first is that the Minister intends, if this Bill is passed, to expropriate the ground of farmers. If they are not satisfied to exchange or to sell their ground, the Bill provides that it can be expropriated. In the second place I object to the Bill because the farmers in that area produce meat. Already there is a shortage of meat in the country. We see how people must queue up in order to obtain a little bit of meat, and if the Minister is now going to chase off these farmers it means that they will not be able to continue delivering the meat which they are producing there at the moment. The Minister said that the reason why he wants to turn that large area into a game reserve is because the wind blows so strongly there that all the soil is blown away and only stones are left behind. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) also said that the wind blows so strongly that his dam has practically been filled up with sand. We on this side are always being accused, whenever we raise a matter like this, that we do so in order to make political capital and political propaganda. That was also said about us in connection with our objections against this measure. This, however, is not the case. We see that the farmers’ associations which consist of members of the various parties and not only of members of one party, also object to the change proposed by the Minister. The trouble with the Minister and the hon. member for Zoutpansberg is that the wind blows in the wrong direction for them there. It has already blown so hard that it blew the provincial seat away from the Government. The hon. member is very frightened that the wind will blow so strongly that his seat will also be blown away.

You need not worry about that; I will see to that.

The hon. member says that I should not worry about that. I can clearly remember that when the by-election was in progress there, the hon. member told us that we would never take that seat, because he would go there and prevent it. After the election he had to sing a different tune; and after the next election he will have to sing still a different tune. The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) referred to Vryburg. He said that formerly, when those farms were still large, farmers farmed well and made a good living. But later the farms became smaller and now they have to go away because they cannot earn a living. The hon. member completely misses the ball. I am acquainted with those parts of Vryburg. I know that the grounds formerly were open and were regarded purely as a hunting ground. It was said that no farmer could make a living there and that no-one could live there. But what is the position today? It is just because there is a scarcity of ground that the farmers sought sanctuary there and bought up the farms. Now there are some of the best cattle farms in the country. But is it the opinion of the Minister that because parts of Vryburg are also sandy and because many animals graze there, a game reserve is to be created there? I can remember that the Minister on a former occasion stated that some of our best cattle farms are situated in those parts and that the Government would help the farmers with boreholes and windmills to develop their farms. But there is also much game, and if it is the policy to take farmers away from their farms and to make provision for wild animals, I fear that the Minister will also remove the farmers from a large area of Vryburg and change it into a game reserve, so that we shall have grazing there for blue wildebeeste and other animals. But we further object to this Bill because the Minister of Lands systematically drives farmers from their farms. He piloted measures through the House this year driving thousands of farmers from leased ground, where they were busy earning a living and producing food. I asked the Minister how many farmers he had notified to vacate the ground, and his reply was that he could not give me the figures because there is a shortage of personnel. I now say that if the Minister every time takes measures preventing farmers from producing food and other products, it is necessary that we on this side should object, and that we should feel anxious about the position. We cannot say that we have a large country with much ground as the hon. member for Krugersdorp said. The size of the country remains the same, but the population increases, and there will be an increasing demand for farms and for ground. If the Minister now says that he wants to expropriate those farms so that he can improve them with the object of later having increased production on that ground, there would still be a reason for it. If he had said that he wants to expropriate the ground in order to place settlers there, that would have been another argument. But what justification can there be for expropriating that ground from the farmers who are there and to let it lie idle for baboons, jackals, snakes and such things? It is a wrong system. The farmers living on that ground are attached to their farms. The proof of that has been given over and over. Those people did everything in their power to prevent the Minister taking their farms from them. They went to the farmers’ associations and they laid facts before the members of Parliament and proved that those farms are valuable to them. They also sent deputations to the Minister but unfortunately were met by a closed door. The Minister refused to meet them; he locked the door in their faces and said they had to wait until after the second reading. Well, if the second reading has once been disposed of it will be too late and no remedy remains. Then there is another point. My opinion is that when people see that the farms are going to be expropriated and they wish to interview the relevant Minister about the matter, then that Minister should receive them and should not refuse to listen to them. If he refuses to discuss the matter with them, that is entirely wrong. I am sorry that the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) is not here. He tried to defend the Minister and said that as far as the private owners are concerned, he has no interest in them. He does not care what happens to them. But it is our duty to think about those people. That is why I rise to speak here. Those people send members of Parliament here to protect their interests, and we must defend them if their interests are being affected. If we refuse to lend an ear to the appeals directed to us, why are we here? The Minister stated that the rainfall in that area was very low. That is another reason why people there cannot make a living and why he wants to expropriate the ground. Now I want to ask the Minister what the rainfall in Vryburg is? Is not the rainfall in Vryburg just as low and lower than the rainfall in this area? And we find the best cattle farms in those portions of Vryburg with a low rainfall. The position is that there are bushes which the animals eat if there is no grass; then the animals graze on the bushes. We cannot get away from that. Formerly one could buy that ground at 2s. a morgen. But today some of those farms are being sold at £3 a morgen. The other day a farmer bought ground there at £3 a morgen. The position is that the farms have been developed and the people only now see that those farms are of much value to them. Therefore I feel that if the Minister will change these areas into a game reserve it will certainly not be to the benefit of the country in general. If we watch the tendency of the Minister to be anxious about animals, and if he systematically expropriates the land of farmers with that object, we shall later not know what to expect from him. The Minister interferes with private rights and I cannot consent to that. If the Minister wants to expropriate my farm, I know how I will feel about it; and if I can do nothing to prevent it, I shall feel embittered. I can realise how these farmers feel about the matter. Then I want to put another question to the Minister of Lands. Has provision already been made for these farmers who will be put off the ground; and what about the large number of farmers who have already been put off leased ground? Has provision been made for those people? The hon. member for Krugersdorp said that the Government Should give preference to those people. It now seems that everybody should have preference. The soldiers must receive preference; these people whose ground is being expropriated must receive preference, and what will then happen to the poor lessees of ground who receive notice? Must they always be at the shortest end of the stick?

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

When proceedings were adjourned I was saying that I thought the hon. Minister was on the wrong road in chasing away the farmers as he is doing. The hon. Minister made a statement here in connection with the brochure which was circulated amongst members of Parliament and other people, and he said that everything contained in the document is false and untrue. We are being encouraged to form farmers’ associations and other organisations to protect our interests, the idea being that if one acts through such an organisation the Minister will listen to one’s representations. Here we have people who by means of their association bring the matter to the attention of the House and the Government and they point out that the Government is on the wrong road, but yet the Minister says that he will take no notice of them. Everything they say is untrue. He even mentioned the name of Major Hunt. We know that. Major Hunt is an honourable man, that he has already done much for the farmers and that in the past he played an important rôle in protecting the interests of the farmers. The Minister says that what this man says is untrue. I cannot accept that. I believe that Major Hunt and the farmers’ associations have thoroughly investigated the matter and I believe that they know what they are talking about and that the facts they set forth are correct. For that reason one should listen to their opinion. The Minister is making a very grave mistake by representing the actions of Major Hunt in such a light. Major Hunt has already played an important rôle. I can remember when he was a member of this House and had the courage to resign from the old South African Party and to take his place on the Independent benches, and he contributed much towards the fall of the old South African Party, and it is often said that he will again contribute to relieving the country of the United Party.

Won’t you be glad.

I shall, and not only I, but I think the whole nation outside will be glad, because they are tired of the methods of operation of the Government and long for the fall of the Government. It is always being said that we should busy ourselves with the problems of great interest, that the country is at war and that we cannot occupy our minds with all sorts of trivial matters. I now want to ask the Minister whether it was necessary to introduce this Bill What is the hurry and urgency in introducing this Bill and taking up the time of the House with it at this period? There are other great national problems awaiting solution which are much more serious than to create a reserve for a lot of baboons and wolves and other animals. I was always of the opinion that matters of interest should be brought up by organisations, and I now want to ask whether it will be the attitude of the Minister in future to ignore farmers’ associations? What will he put in their place? Or is it that in this case the farmers’ association made a mistake in making such a statement? I think that the Minister has no ground for making such a statement. He has adduced no proof to support his statement, and I believe that he made a great mistake in saying that the document was false and untrue. I do not wish to detain the House any longer but just want to say that I heartily support the amendment of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp). I believe that this measure should stand 6ver until later, so that we can first consider it better and introduce a better Bill. This Bill proceeds in the wrong direction.

I do not suppose that anyone will blame me when I say that I listened to the tirade of the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) with the greatest surprise. After having listened to that tirade I can come to only one conclusion, which is that the hon. member has no case at all. On former occasions he has shown that when he goes on like that in the House he has no case. I will indicate how that happened on various previous occasions, when later it was proved that he had no case. But when the hon. member could not get his own way, in his bitterness against the Minister, he thought it well to drag me into the debate by making a despicable attack on my constituency. I say “despicable” because if he compares the constituency of Caledon with Dongola, it is nothing less than showing contempt, and an insult. In the one case one is dealing with ground worth some shillings per morgen, while in Caledon one deals with ground which at its cheapest is worth from £15 to more than £100.

And you allow it to erode.

The hon. member knows what the value of ground is there. If he does not know it he has never been in Caledon.

Were you ever in Caledon?

There we have an exhibition of the same flippancy in connection with a matter about which they exhibit so much seriousness. The hon. member had such a weak case that he had to compare Caledon with Dongola. Then he alleges that Caledon is the worst eroded place in the Union of South Africa.

I said “in the Western Province”.

The hon. member did not say “in the Western Province”. But as usual he is on the run. He definitely stated that I should be interested in the debate because Caledon is the worst eroded portion of the Union.

Of the Western Province.

I will admit that the district of Caledon is eroded. But let me add that when Dr. Bennett saw Caledon it was at a time when in eight days as much rain had fallen as we usually have in six months. After those tremendous washaways it is true that there was such erosion as one finds after floods, and at that time we had not yet had the opportunity of repairing the damage. We are conscious of the erosion which there was and that we have to repair it. But to compare the fertile soil of Caledon, its intensively cultivated soil, with ground which has been written down to 1s. 11d. per morgen, I say again and with emphasis, is insulting and despicable. I reject it with the contempt it deserves, and I can come to only one conclusion, namely that the hon. member who used that argument was bankrupt of arguments to prove his statements. In any case, what does he know about soil erosion and soil conservation? What does he know of soil itself? If he knows anything about soil, his words still sound very clear in my ears when he tried to defend Kakamas and put propositions here which he said were the correct ones in connection with Kakamas.

I will prove it again.

What was proved? Whose arguments were correct? If my hon. friend would rather confine himself to his profession, of which he probably has knowledge, it will be much better than to confine himself here to the value of ground, a subject of which he knows nothing. He proceeds to complain bitterly that the Minister did not give a clear exposition of the Bill. We know how members opposite carried on, so that you, Mr. Speaker, had to interfere to protect the Minister of Lands because he could not speak when he proposed this little Bill. They were so flippant and irresponsible that they did not listen to what he said. They were not concerned with this matter. It made no difference to them, because the national interest to them is probably of less importance than this opportunity they received for making party political propaganda. No, Mr. Speaker, they definitely created the impression in this House that they are not concerned about the interests of the country, but more about an opportunity to make party political propaganda. Let me take the House back to the days when the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) was Minister of Lands, and when he in this House introduced an Expropriation Bill by means of which people who had subdivided their farms into portions of ground for each child or heir, which was given to them, and which was uneconomic, were placed in the position that their ground could be expropriated under that Act; and yesterday we heard in this debate how that hon. member carried on and how the welkin rang about the old people who would be put off their ground and how the sanctity of property rights was being violated by this Bill which the Minister of Lands has introduced in the House. At that time I supported the hon. member for Wolmaransstad when he introduced that Expropriation Bill, although my cohstituency was hit hard by it, because I really considered it to be in the national interest. Is the hon. member for Wolmaransstad too petty to admit in this House that at that time he also took away property rights, that he, as Minister of Lands, also violated the holy sanctity of property rights in that manner? Let us at least remain logical and be consequential when we occupy a responsible post such as he occupied when he was Minister of Lands. And when somebody has the respect of the country and of certain people, as the hon. member at that time when he was Minister of Lands had my respect, I do not want him now to destroy that respect by exhibiting this pettiness towards the present Minister of Lands. How many of the Opposition members who on this occasion spoke about this Bill have any knowledge of Dongola?

What knowledge have you?

No, I do not have any knowledge of it, but I allow myself to be led by people who do have knowledge.

Then why do you speak on the subject?

Because I was challenged and because I have as much right to speak about it as members opposite who know nothing about it. If they are unacquainted with Dongola, as they have already shown and as they have honestly admitted, on what grounds do they oppose the Minister of Lands in regard to this Bill? If it is not for party political propaganda, on what grounds do they do so? Or is it on the same grounds as those on which they opposed the ex-Minister of Lands in regard to his Expropriation Bill? Those who opposed the ex-Minister of Lands are at least logical; but those who at that time supported him are definitely not acting consequentially when they oppose this Bill. I should like to know on what the opposition against Dongola is based.

On what is your defence of Dongola based?

There is only one person in this House who takes any notice of the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) and that is he himself, and nobody else. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad introduced into his speech the amendment of the irrigation laws, the amendment of the Land Settlement Act and all sorts of things to assist him to attack the Minister of Lands in a bitter manner. But what was his argument? I listened to him for forty minutes and came to one conclusion only, namely that the ex-Minister of Lands said nothing at all. We speak about soil erosion. We speak about ground being trodden out and we speak about soil deterioration. Why is this Bill being introduced? Is it not for the protection of the soil? An attempt was made to bluff the House and the country that that area will be a sanctuary for wild animals, of baboons and all the animals mentioned here—I do not know what else was mentioned here. It is said that Dongola is being put aside for those animals. Is Dongola being put aside for wild animals, or is it being put aside so that it can recover after being almost completely destroyed?

And when it has recovered, what will be done with it?

In other words, it amounts to nothing else but that the members of the Opposition are discussing soil erosion for party political propaganda reasons, while they pretend that they are in favour of soil conservation. We spoke much about jackal-proof fencing as an aid to conserving the fertility of our soil. We were told that we should not do this or that because it destroys the soil. Here we have to do with the condition as painted by the Minister of Lands which caused our hair to raise when we listened to him, and the Minister now asks for an opportunity to let that groud recover, but we see what the attitude of the Opposition is. Can we take it that those people are serious, when we find that writings-off have taken place repeatedly as regards that ground, until the price has eventually been brought down to 1s. 11d. per morgen? What do we find further? Notwithstanding the fact that the ground is valued at 1s. 11d. per morgen, the total number of settlers decreased from 40 to 14. That is a fact which was clearly and repeatedly put here, and what facts can speak more clearly than that? Can there be any reason for any person with common sense who wants to protect the national interest with an open mind to attack this Bill? What prospects are there, not only for settlers, but for any person who wants to make use of those parts? But it seems to me as if the Minister of Lands did not have to introduce this Bill. Dongola is in a process of emptying itself. If it were not necessary for the Minister to introduce the Bill to prevent lovers of shooting killing the game there on a large scale, it would hardly have been necessary to introduce the Bill. What struck me as being particularly reprehensible is that a tremendous attack is being made in this debate on one of the officials whose mouth is shut and who cannot defend himself here. I want to say here today that Dr. Pole Evans, as far as my knowledge of him goes, has done more to promote the planting of grass and to protect the fertility of our ground than all the members of the Opposition who attacked him, put together.

Did he plant grass in Caledon?

It was said that Dr. Pole Evans persuaded the Minister of Lands to introduce this Bill in the House. I in my turn wish to say that if he managed to persuade the Minister of Lands to introduce this Bill, he accomplished more than the whole of the Opposition can accomplish. But if the Minister of Lands is so easily persuaded, why could the Opposition not persuade him in connection with Kakamas?

He hoisted the white flag.

He might have hoisted the white flag but you suffered defeat.

You know nothing about the matter.

My hon. friend makes me laugh. He wants me to allow him to make my speech, and I cannot do that. I say that the attack on Dr. Pole Evans in this House is reprehensible, and I want today to proceed from this point of view that Dr. Pole Evans’ services to the country will be recorded and that if Dr. Pole Evans persuaded the Minister to take this step to proceed with this Bill, I take off my hat to him, even apart from the services he has already rendered to the country. No, Mr. Speaker, my hon. friends opposite are less concerned about this Bill than with an opportunity which they got by means of this Bill to air their bitterness against the Minister of Lands. It was such an attack on the Minister of Lands that the Bill in many cases was completely pushed into the background and the poor Minister of Lands was attacked on this occasion in order to vent their grudges against him. This sharpness was so characteristic that it made me wonder whether it was the reaction to Kakamas and the Broederbond, or whether it was really against this Bill. Who in this House is better qualified to give us the necessary information in regard to this Bill than the hon. member in whose constituency Dongola lies? What was the point of view of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers)?

He retreated.

That is cheap politics from my friends in the Opposition. It is a matter of the most important national interest on the part of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg. No, I am prepared to let myself be led by people who have a sober view of the matter, and when I say that, I allow myself to be led by people like the Minister of Lands who investigated this matter. He is one for whom I have the greatest respect, and he will not proceed to put people off the ground simply for the sake of chasing them away, because he knows that he will have to see to it that they become rehabilitated once more. He is someone who through thick and thin proved that he is sympathetic towards those people in his policy and point of view. It was said here yesterday that the Minister wanted Dongola to be turned into a reserve in order to immortalise himself. Let me tell this House that the Minister of Lands does not have to create Dongola in order to immortalise himself, because his actions will follow him and stand out as a monument in the country long after he has gone. Listen to the hon. member, for Zoutpansberg and to the hon. member for Middelburg (Dr. Eksteen), to their sound and sober view of the matter, which the Opposition did not like and which they tried to minimise, but it makes no difference because those two hon. members mentioned hard and cold facts. Mention was made here of 200 cattle on 6,000 morgen. Just imagine. Where must it end; and then those cattle do not graze only on the 6,000 morgen; they graze all over, also on other ground adjoining these farms. That is the country painted by the Opposition as the Land of Canaan and a paradise. On the other hand we find that people who are concerned in the matter, like the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, the hon. member for Middelburg and the Minister, to whom one can pay attention, painted a picture here showing that that area is practically uninhabitable. We have this difference in the points of view. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg adopts that attitude in the interests of the country. He is prepared to make the necessary sacrifices if the national interest demands it. While one finds that petty contrary attitude on the part of the Opposition towards the hon. member for Zoutpansberg we have an attitude of magnanimity on the part of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg. He is prepared to sacrifice himself in the best interests of the country, to promote the interests of the public. I should like to know from the Minister—and I want him to state it to the House clearlv—seeing that this area will of course become a national reserve—whether the animals are the primarv consideration or whether the Minister’s intention is to let the ground recover because the soil in the circumstances under which it was used is of no value at all and is no asset to the country. I want the Minister in his reply please to clarify this matter, because the main argument of the Opposition was that this Bill has nothing to do with the recovery of the soil. Up to this stage they stated in the debate that it, deals exclusively with driving people off the ground, around on which food can be produced and that it is being expropriated in order that it may be left to wild animals.

I am convinced that the acting Prime Minister has sent up many silent prayers to be saved from his friend the Minister of Lands. By this time he must realise that the Minister of Lands has not only rendered the country a disservice but also his party. Here we have been taking up the time of the House for the past two days in connection with a matter in regard to which there is no haste and which should not have been introduced at this stage Just as the acting Prime Minister must feel that the Minister of Lands rendered his party and the Government a disservice, so I believe the country also feels that it should send up a prayer that the country should be saved from this Government which occupies its time with matters of this kind at a serious time like this. When the sitting commenced, it was generally felt in the country that this Government should be given an opportunity to render the country a service, to do things which would be of permanent value, and that it would pass legislation to solve our problems. The People especially looked forward to this sitting in view of the supposed social security which was promised to the people. This sitting was to have been the sitting during which measures would be adopted to guarantee the people of South Africa social security. But the social security we now get is social security for wild animals. The country will bear that in mind. Since the Minister of Lands is introducing this legislation in order to expro priate a large part of the country, not with a view to the requirements of the inhabitants, but for other purposes, it is the duty of the Minister to make out a very strong case to justify his withdrawal of a large part of the country from useful occupation by the people. What arguments did he advance? Could the Minister make out a case? We do not really know whether the Minister wants this reserve for a wild life sanctuary or for a game reserve. In the preamble of the Bill both are contemplated. Let us first take a wild life sanctuary and ask ourselves whether there is any need for a wild life sanctuary, and then again whether there is any need for another game reserve in South Africa. In the first place we ask ourselves whether such a wild life sanctuary is needed in that particular part. In order to get a reply to that question, I listened to what the Minister said himself. He argued in the first place, that it was a desert which is not fit for human habitation. Why then does he want a wild life sanctuary in a desert which is not fit for human habitation? Surely we cannot convert a desert into a wild life sanctuary. The whole idea is given the lie by the argument which the Minister advanced. Then the Minister of Lands went on to tell us that in that part of the country which he proposes to expropriate, there are practically no cattle. Against what does he want to protect that part, if there are no cattle, and what causes the damage to nature if there are no cattle? For that reason I find it strange that the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) and other members on the other side emphasised that we ought to co-operate with the Government in order to carry out schemes for soil conservation and the reclamation of soil in this country. I cannot see how we are going to help to achieve that object by agreeing to the proposed undertaking. I say therefore that the arguments which the Minister of Lands advanced do not convince us at all that it is necessary to expropriate this land to create a wild life sanctuary there. The question is whether that land is suitable for a game reserve, because that is the second purpose for which the Minister wants to use it. Apparently the object is that wild animals are to breed there, so that the area can be converted into a game reserve. I have no objection to the establishment of game reserves in the country, but thé question is whether we need another game reserve in this country. Have we not already granted a very large and fertile part of the country and declared it a game reserve? Are we to have more game reserves? If the Minister of Lands has convinced himself that that part is not fit for human habitation, and that it is necessary to establish a game reserve there, he could have decreased the size of the other game reserves, where there are fertile areas on which the people are able to make a living. In that case he could have made a game reserve of this part and he could have opened up a part of the fertile areas, where there are game reserves at present, for human habitation. The Minister would then have been able to make out a case for this legislation, and we would have been in favour of converting a part of the country, which is not habitable, into a game reserve, while another part could then have been made available for habitation. But the Minister now proposes to enlarge the game reserves in the country. I want to ask the Minister whether we in South Africa are going to convert this country into a large game reserve, or do we want to make South Africa fit for human habitation? The whole struggle of the Voortrekkers was a struggle against the wilderness and against wild animals. They made the country habitable. In Australia the people struggled against forests. They had to fight the forest in order to make the country fit for human habitation. In the same way the European in South Africa rid the country of wild animals and made it habitable. Does this Government now propose to return to those days? Is it the intention of the Government not to make more land habitable in the future and not to place more people on the land? The Minister of Lands must realise that if he converts this part into a game reserve, he will not only make that area uninhabitable, but he will also reduce the value of the adjoining parts to such an extent that they will practically become uninhabitable. The Minister knows what happens in the case of the existing game reserves. The farms adjoining those game reserves experience great difficulties with the wild animals which come from the reserves and cause destruction on the farms. Not only is the Minister extending the game reserves in this manner, but he is also making a greater part uninhabitable, and the habitable part of the country is therefore being still further decreased. If that is the case, and since this country does not need greater game reserves, I want to ask the Minister why he is introducing a Bill of this kind at this stage. I want to make a serious appeal to the Acting Prime Minister to regard this matter objectively and to consider whether, in view of the position which exists in this country, it is reasonable to waste days of our time on a Bill such as this. Is there not more important legislation to which we can devote our attention? I ask the Government to abandon this legislation. The Minister sees what is happening during the second reading debate. I can give you the assurance that at the Committee Stage it will probably be even worse. Why should we devote so much of the time of this Sitting to make provision for wild animals? The period in which we live demands that we give all our attention to essential matters, to social security for our people and matters of that kind, and it is therefore foolish on the part of the Government to devotes its time at this stage to legislation of this kind. I said that the Minister had not made out a case to convince me that it is necessary to declare this reserve. He was not able to convince the House; his arguments were not strong enough to convince us. All he did was to humiliate those persons who submitted their arguments to us by way of a circular letter. He mentioned the names of certain individuals and he also referred to the agricultural unions and farmers’ associations which made representations to us, and instead of trying to refute their arguments, he besmirched them and referred to them as fools. In spite of the Minister’s good opinion of himself, I want to tell him that I am also prepared to listen to these people whom he humiliated. I am willing to listen to Major Hunt, to Mr. Ryder, to Mr. Lombard, and I am willing to listen to the advice of the agricultural union. I know from experience that these people do not lightly pass resolutions or allow themselves to be influenced by motives other than the interests of agriculture. They do not allow themselves to be used for political motives. These are not political organisations; these are not persons who want to make political propaganda for a party; they are supporters of both sides of the House, and when they make representations to this House, they are indeed convinced that the step which the Minister proposes to take is not in the interests of agriculture. In spite of what the Minister said, I am still prepared to listen to them. I am convinced that they make these representations to us in the interest of the country as a whole. Another argument which was advanced by the other side, and by the Minister, is that the reports in connection with the area which will now be expropriated, were so unfavourable that it could not be regarded as an area which can be made habitable, and that the farmers there do not make a wonderful living. It is remarkable that these people who are said not to be able to make a living there, are opposed to expropration. If they find it so difficult to make a living, it will be a good thing if their land is expropriated, but they object to this expropriation, and that proves to me that they are anxious to remain there and that they see their way clear to make a success of farming. In the second place I want to say that we know from experience how frequently unfavourable reports are made in regard to certain parts of the country, and it is proved subsequently that those reports were entirely incorrect. An opinion is expressed at the outset in regard to an area of land, and later it appears to be altogether wrong. To go back a long way in the history, we know that when Australia was discovered, the first people who landed there, reported to the East Indian Company in Holland that the country was uninhabitable. That was one of the main reasons why the East Indian Company did not occupy Australia. As far as the Cape is concerned too, there was a time when the reports to the English Government in connection with the Cape were so unfavourable, that the English Government considered the question of giving up the Cape at one stage. Today these two countries are regarded as being the best parts of the world. We had the same experience in our country. We know what unfavourable reports there were at the beginning in connection with areas like Namaqualand, the Kalahari and South-West Africa. They were regarded as uninhabitable and worthless. Give them away; let the wild animals live there. Later on Europeans entered the country and made those parts habitable and fertile parts of the country. In the case in question we have a large area situated along one of the greatest rivers, the Limpopo, and the Minister is willing to give up the banks of the Limpopo to wild animals. We have very few useful and large rivers in South Africa, and we must conserve and make our riparian land habitable. It may later transpire that the opinion in regard to those parts was entirely wrong, as happened in the case of other areas. The Minister made a point of the fact that the land was sold very cheaply, and that for that reason it was worth nothing and it could therefore be expropriated. Does he know that land in Namaqualand was originally granted and sold at 6d. per morgen? Does he know that the same thing happened as far as the Kalahari and Bechuanaland are concerned, and that in Vryburg, for example, today one of the best parts, land was sol’d only recently at 1s. per morgen. That argument does not hold water. Our experience is that when the value and the possibilities of the land are discovered and it is usefully occupied and cultivated, one often gets a completely different picture of the value of the land. As I have said, if the Minister had other land which is better—and he has—and he wanted to exchange it for what he now regards as poorer land, he would have made out a case, but it is foolish to extend the game reserves in South Africa and to reduce land settlement, and I cannot agree with that. I do not think the country will be grateful to the Minister. The hope expressed by the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) that the country would erect a monument to the Minister of Lands, because he undertook the Dongola scheme, is an idle hope.

It is not necessary to erect a monument for him. The monument is already there.

No, instead of that future generations will regard him not as a far-seeing man, but as a fool who gave South Africa to the wild animals instead of to the people.

As a member of the National Parks Board I heartily support the Minister in respect of this Bill to provide for a wild life sanctuary at Dongola. I have only recently become a member of the board ….

[Inaudible.]

But I do not think it is necessary to take any notice of that interjection.

Why not?

If the hon. member asks it again I may be able to answer, but I did not catch it fully. I know that the members of the National Parks Board desired to visit this area in company with the hon. Minister of Lands at some time, but through some unfortunate circumstance that visit did not take place. I heartily support the Minister in this Bill and I am surprised that there has not even been a semblance of substance in the arguments advanced by the opposite side against this measure. I certainly have hot heard anything which warrants their assumption that they are going to dislodge the member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) from his seat, which I think has been the true objective of hon. members opposite. I have visited this area and I have visited the Government farm near Messina, which adjoins this reserve, and I formed my impressions of this area without any knowledge that the hon. Minister was projecting the establishment of a reserve there. The area was only frequented by hunters up to 1918 and the government of the day was ill-advised to establish white settlers there. The land values of today prove that. It is bush country. Where water was available and the farmers had goats no grass or leaves were left. If we destroy this wonderful bush that hon. members opposite lay such stress on we shall soon have an area of rolling sand, and desert conditions would threaten the whole area behind the Zoutpansberg. It is in areas of low rainfall where man can get water that one sees what destruction he can bring about. On the banks of the Orange River, in the district of the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) there are parts where there is no vegetation left. I should like to see a sanctuary established on the banks of the Orange River. Hon. members have said that in the Dongola bush is growing thicker; we expect that, because bush encroaches where grass disappears. But one can travel for miles there without seeing any sign of stock. I fully believe those members who tell us that the carrying capacity is one beast to 100 morgen; in fact the Government farm near Messina does not carry that amount of stock per morgen. Where animals do subsist depending not on grass but on leaves for feed, the rate of increasé is very slow, so the arguments we have heard to the effect that the policy of the hon. Minister is militating against production is absurd. If one believed the graphic descriptions given by hon. members of grape fruit and other tropical fruits being produced in that area one would imagine it to be the Garden of Eden. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) on the other hand, suggested the reserve would be for snakes and baboons. That gives a line on his idea of the potentialities of that area. He thinks it is an area only fit for snakes and baboons and jackals. There is no doubt South Africa requires more of these sanctuaries. I do not agree with the argument of hon. members who state we already have too many of these reserves. Man is the most destructive creature on earth, and if the Kalahari Desert had available water there would be no vegetation left by this time; man would have wiped it all out. I feel thankful that water has not been provided in the Dongola to any extent. If it had been that area would have been merely sand, and there would have been rolling sandhills away back behind the Zoutpansberg. We could then have said goodbye to that area. I should like to compliment the hon. Minister of Lands on his initiative in rendering a very great national service through this measure. We have heard hon. members arguing that if this reserve is created it will be a menace to the country in respect of foot and mouth disease. Foot and mouth disease has never been proved to be carried by game. Cattle have carried foot and mouth disease, but it has never been established that game has carried that disease.

Why did they shoot the game?

It is quite unnecessary for me to answer that interjection; it is a very senseless one.

I asked why they had shot the game; is that a senseless question?

It is quite senseless because you cannot find stock there on areas extending for miles and miles. There are farmers in this country who have the urge to shoot, who have made foot and mouth disease an excuse to destroy game. Last season there was more game destroyed in the Transvaal than ever before in its history, in spite of a shortage of rifles and ammunition.

And in spite of the petrol shortage.

Yes, and in spite of the petrol shortage the shooting has gone on to a deplorable extent. Hon. members opposite know it. If the hon. Minister’s only endeavour is to protect our wild life there, that alone would justify this Bill. I heartily support this Bill, and we are proud to think that in these times the hon. Minister has made this an issue in spite of the vociferous opposition from the other side of the House.

When we came to this House for the present Sitting, not only I but many members who have the true interests of South Africa at heart, expected something wonderful to happen during this Sitting; we expected great things in order to bring about post-war security; we expected that something would be done to rehabilitate the European population of the country, to place South Africa on a sound footing. But instead of that we come here and we have to deal with this Bill of the Minister of Lands, which, according to the opinion which has been expressed here, was simply and solely introduced in order to create a post for a person about whom they are so concerned. It is clear that the whole system in our country is in a chaotic state of confusion if the Government finds it necessary to create a post for a civil servant after the expiration of his term of office, and if the Government cannot take proper care of such a person in order to enable him, upon his discharge from the service, to lead a decent life. The Government does not deserve to be in power if that is the position. We expected the Government to come here with a new plan which everyone who really has the interests of our country at heart, would support, a new plan of upliftment to save our nation from the morass. In an attempt to save our country, we hoped that disputes and racialism would be wiped out, that we would no longer go into the question of who is in favour of the war effort and who is against it, but that the urgent problems of our country would be tackled. Instead of that we get a Minister of Lands who is expropriating land and who is establishing a baboon heaven.

We shall send the Nationalists there.

When we deal with such a serious matter, we always get interjections of that kind from the hon. member. I did not come here to waste time as we are doing now. We are called together to render a service to the country, but instead of that we come here and waste time on a useless measure such as this measure which the Minister has introduced. I want to ask the Minister in all seriousness, since he did not convince us of the necessity of such a reserve, since he adduced no proof, to withdraw this measure. The counter-evidence is much more convincing to me that the so-called evidence which the Minister adduced. I always thought he was a practical man, and if he can bring stronger evidence than the counter-evidence I would support him, but the Minister has submitted nothing to us. This is the Minister who tells us that he is not going to throw open further land for settlement purposes for applicants who are now applying, because this land has to be reserved for men who sacrificed their lives in this war. Instead of doing that, he is now establishing a wild life sanctuary for wild animals.

Would you like me to place the soldiers there?

The Minister can now spread those stories. Instead of ensuring that the settlers in South Africa obtain their rights and instead of uplifting them, he is making nothing but State beggars out of these people who are on the land. Last year I got up in this House and pleaded for the settlers in my constituency along the Wilger River who had lost their cattle as a result of poisoning in the river. If the Minister wants to do anything today, if he really wants to render the people of South Africa a service, he should spend as much money as possible to fence off the river, to sink boreholes, to give the people catch-dams, as they are building in the native reserves today; if that had been done the people would not have suffered damages to the extent of thousands of pounds. But the Minister, as the indications would seem to prove, is creating a post for Dr. Pole Evans. I say in all seriousness that where an official has rendered faithful service to the country, it should not be necessary to create a post for him in this manner; there should be machinery which will take proper care of him. We are called upon to render service to the country, but instead of that the Minister is • rendering a disservice to the country in asking for this expropriation. All sorts of remarks were made by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) who represents that constituency. He got the fright of his life because one of the members on this side sent a note to him asking him to come, and defend Zoutpansberg. He thought the note came from the Minister of Lands and he immediately started to make notes, and suddenly he jumped up and put his foot into the trap. Zoutpansberg will never return him again. Zoutpansberg, never knew him as well as I know him. I do not want to be personal. I made sufficient interjections to make the hon. member understand that Zoutpansberg will know where he stands. I want to make an appeal to the Acting Prime Minister to use his influence to have this Bill withdrawn. The matter will not end here. We shall stand here for weeks and discuss this Bill; we shall not give in; we shall fight to the bitter end, because we want to see that justice is maintained in our country. We are called upon to make provision for post-war security, to tackle these great and difficult problems and not to waste our time with this unnecessary type of legislation. I cannot give my support to that.

Having listened to the arguments of the supporters of the Minister, I suppose he is praying to be saved from his friends, because the arguments in favour of this measure, which is designed to provide social security to beasts of prey and reptiles, are so unconvincing that they cannot convince an impartial person. The main argument of the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) was that there is sufficient land in South Africa today to justify the Minister in declaring this area a reserve. I must say that I was surprised to see that the leader of the Labour Party dared to get up in this House and say that there is sufficient land in South Africa. He always professes to be the champion of poor people, and here he says that there is sufficient land in South Africa, The Labourites ought to take notice of that, and I am convinced that the Labourites will call their Parliamentary leader to account in the next election. We must remember that temporary tenant farmers were given notice a short-while ago that they are to leave their farms during the course of this year, even before the winter. If there is sufficient land for our poor people, as the hon. member for Krugersdorp says, why does the Minister drive so many people off the land to make room for others? It is a disgrace and it is no credit to the Labour Party to have such a leader who adopts such a contemptuous attitude towards the interests of the poor people. The hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) also stated here that the opposition to this Bill flowed from political motives. It seems that there are people in this country who are so politically drunk that they cannot see the other side of the picture, but always look at the matter through political spectacles. Thereafter the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Sullivan) got up. He is an Independent member, and no one can accuse him of wanting to make Nationalist politics out of this matter, and that independent member, that impartial member, went into the merits and stated that at this sage there was no necessity to establish a game reserve. Do hon. members want to accuse that member of wishing to make political capital out of this matter?

He is only ignorant; he knew nothing about the matter.

The hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) admitted that he had not been there. It does not become the hon. member who knows nothing about the matter to say of another member that he knows nothing about it. The most serious of all is this, that the hon. member for Green Point (Mr. Bowen) got up this morning and in order to defend the Minister, he mentioned two authorities who say that’ the land in that area is poor. Who do you think he mentioned? Two members of the Sons of England. Just imagine, in 1945 we still have this position that a member gets up in this Parliament and discards the opinion of men like Major Hunt and Mr. Campbell, who are not Nationalists, but who have a life long experience of farming, in favour of authorities who are unknown but who happen to be Sons of England, who live in South Africa and who have never loved South Africa sufficiently to become “sons of South Africa”, They are the authorities, but Major Hunt and Mr. Campbell and others who have a life long experience of farming, know nothing. But worst of all, the hon. member was applauded on the other side when he advanced that foolish argument. It makes every man in South Africa who has any self-respect ashamed to think that so many representatives of the Sap Party compare men like Major Hunt with a few unknown Sons of England. I think the hon. member for Green Point ought to be ashamed of himself for using that argument, and the other hon. members ought to be ashamed of the fact that they ápplauded it. I think in dealing with such a matter we ought not to take notice of the opinion of people whose minds are still overseas. Even the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) who has not got a single hair on his head ….

The hon. member must not be personal.

It was interesting; the hon. member said that the description which the Minister gave yesterday made his hair stand on end. I must admit that the description of the Minister was such that even if I had not had hair, it would have caused my hair to stand on end. But what I found most represensible is that even the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) supported the Minister in that terrible description which he gave of Dongola. I want to ask the hon. member for Zoutpansberg whether he would dare to get up and say that Dongola is such a desert as the Minister described it.

In any case you believe nothing; go and look at the place; I shall pay your expenses.

I am not asking the hon. member to come forward with evasions. Does he admit it and will he get up and say that there is no grass and that there are no trees in the Dongola Reserve?

He did not say that there were no trees.

He said that the trees had been devoured.

I must really sympathise with the poor Minister that his own side does not want to defend those arguments which he advanced; and if the Minister is not protected by the members on his own side—even the hon. member for Zoutpansberg is afraid to speak—are we to believe the Minister then? On the contrary, we have had the evidence in this House of men who say it is a thickly wooded area, and even the hon. member for Zoutpansberg refuses to say that the Minister is right. No, when we get that type of argument from the supporters of the Minister he must not hold it against us if we do not believe those stories of his. It is put on too thickly for any right-thinking person to believe it. I must also admit and testify that the arguments Of the hon. Minister were not convincing enough to influence me to cast my vote for the transformation of that piece of land into a game reserve. One of the arguments of the Minister was this: He said that practically all the cattle there were smuggled in. I expected the hon. member for Zoutpansberg to defend his constituents in this House. Here the Minister calls his constituents a lot of cattle smugglers.

He did not say that at all.

I am convinced that the voters of Zoutpansberg will take their member to task.

On a point of order, I say that the Minister did not say that at all.

That is not a point of order. Let the Minister speak for himself.

I can only tell the hon. member for Zoutpansberg that that is not the last faux pas which he will make. Nor is it the first. I think the first faux pas he made was when he left the Nationalist Party and joined the Sap Party. Here we find a Minister of the Crown making such sweeping statements, and the man who represents the voters of Zoutpansberg in this House remains dumb. I say I feel sorry for the voters of Zoutpansberg for having such a representative. I do not want to repeat arguments which have already been advanced, but I just want to come back for a moment and point out to the Minister that this is not the only place in our country where smuggling takes place, and if smugling does take place, it still does not justify the Minister in getting up and saying that that is a reason why this area must now be declared a game reserve. That argument of the Minister does not hold water. In the same way we can rebut the other arguments advanced by the Minister. He says we must declare this area a reserve because it is dry. If we have to convert that area info a reserve because it is dry, then I am afraid we must also make a game reserve of the constituency of the Minister, because that land also lies in dry parts. That argument does not become a Minister of the Crown. Another argument advanced by the Minister was that that part should be declared a reserve because the price of land is low. It has been shown here that there are many other parts in the country where the price of land is equally low. That argument does not hold water either therefore. He stated that this area was being converted into a game reserve in order to protect the soil against further erosion; for that reason we must convert it into a reserve. That argument too, does not entirely hold water, because I think there are other methods of protecting soil against erosion than by converting it into a game reserve. One of the reasons why I feel that we cannot convert that land into a game reserve is that we have too little land in South Africa as it is.

We have too much land.

There are thousands of people on the platteland who would like to have a piece of land to enable them to make a living, but the Minister says there is no land. There is a great land hunger in South Africa, and yet the Minister says there is no land. That is why he is driving so many temporary tenant farmers off their farms, in order to make room for the returned soldiers. Hon. members on that side are again trying to beat the war drums by saying that they want to place the soldiers on that land. No one on this side has ever stated that we want to place the soldiers on that reserve. We are pleading for the people who are there and who say that they are perfectly happy, that they do not want to go away; we are pleading with the people in the area who are asking that those people should be left where they are and that that land should be conserved for South Africa. If it is necessary to create a game reserve, why do we create it in that part of the Transvaal where we already have the Kruger National Park? Why cannot we create a game reserve at Hutchinson, for example?

With one blue-buck?

But in that case the water cannot be sold to the Railway Administration.

My hon. friend here says that if we create a game reserve there, the water cannot be sold to the Railway Administration, but the land could then be expropriated. The question is not how many persons are today living on that piece of land in Dongola. The question is what are the possibilities of that land for the future. Our experience is that all land in South Africa has great possibilities, and as civilisation advances and as science develops, so one can make more and more use of poor land. Even deserts will later be converted into fertile areas. A short while ago we had a picture from America which showed how they converted a desert into rich lands. Why cannot we do that in South Africa, especially since we have the Limpopo River where we have the water and from which water can be extracted at a later date? No, I must say that this argument of the Minister’s does not go far enough to convince me. But worst of all is this; what I find most reprehensible is the manner in which the Minister attacked the organised farmers of the Transvaal. The Minister makes an attack on men who cannot defend themselves in this House. He says that what they said is untrue and that one cannot believe 99.9 per cent. of their story. Then I again want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the men who are responsible for the drafting of this brochure are not Nationalists. I have here a pictorial representation of what is produced there, and this was issued by the local farmers’ association.

And you believe it?

I believe it. I have no reason to disbelieve it. If the Minister can tell me that Major Hunt and Mr. Campbell and the organised farmers of the Transvaal are all Nationalists, he may have some sort of argument from his point of view, but he knows that those organised farmers in the Transvaal, in the first instance, are not under the leadership of Natiohalists, and if the hon. Minister has become so sceptical that he no longer believes the farmers’ associations, then I can give the House the assurance that I have the fullest confidence in my farmers’ associations, even though they are S.A.P.’s. Here we see that cattle and sheep are produced in that area, and we notice, inter alia, that watermelons are produced there. We know what beautiful and luscious watermelons are produced near the Cape in sandy soil. Last year I had the privilege of visiting the Waterberg constituency. In that low veld we also find sandy parts. Today those parts are reckoned amongst the best wheat areas, but not only that. I was shown that on a small piece of sandy soil one man made £200 out of watermelons in one year. The farmers are close to the Pretoria market and they send the watermelons which are grown on this land to the Pretoria and Johannesburg market. Today Pretoria is no longer dependent on watermelons which come from the Cape only. As science develops, so we can increase the carrying capacity of the land and we can make the soil more productive. Here we have a product of the leaders of the farmers’ organisations of the Transvaal. They describe what has already been done there, and now the Minister says he does not believe those people; everything they say is untrue; it is practically a pack of lies. If what the Minister says is true, then I must say that I never thought that the Transvaal had such poor farmers, people who do not speak the truth, people who cannot be believed. The Minister has not only done an injustice to those people—I am now referring to the organised farmers’ association, and especially to Major Hunt and Mr. Campbell because they are S.A.P.’s and do not belong to our party—for that reason I strongly deprecate the fact that he makes such an attack on his own supporters; and if hon. members on the other side do not want to defend their own supporters, we on this side will do so. But not only are we raising our voices to defend the honour of those men, but we are also defending our farmers’ organisations. We cannot sufficiently emphasise the fact that it is absolutely wrong for a Minister of the Crown to attack those farmers’ organisations in such a way. If the hon. Minister also belongs to a farmers’ organisation, as I do, and most of us on this side, he will realise how difficult it is sometimes to establish farmers’ associations and to maintain them. And after the farmers have sacrificed so much to call into being an organisation which has to protect their interests, and they are now told by the highest circles of the Government that those men are unreliable, can we then hold it against the farmers of the Transvaal if in the future they resign from the farmers’ organisations and if they destroy everything they have set up? No, I think if the farmers of the Transvaal had to believe the Minister and attach any importance to the statements of the Minister they would in the future destroy all their farmers’ associations. But I want to make an appeal to farmers’ associations in the Transvaal— to whichever political party they may belong —not to pay any attention to such stories of a Minister of the Crown who comes to this Parliament and destroys with one sweep of the hand all the good work they have done.

I want to start with the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet). He spoke of a monument and of immortalisation. I do not know whether it is being correctly interpreted, but there are rumours in the Lobby ….

I did not speak of a monument; I spoke of monuments which have already been erected.

It is said in the Lobby that the motive behind this Bill, to a certain extent, is that the Minister contemplates immortalising himself by means of the Dongola reserve. It is said, inter alia, that in that part we have the beautiful Zoutpansberg range, and that a monument might possibly be erected there in the future. Rhodes also set aside a site for a monument for himself on such a hill. I do not know whether the Zoutpansberg will only be reserved for the Minister of Lands or whether it will not perhaps be reserved for a trio of men. We understand that the Prime Minister is also very fond of botany and that he too is behind this Bill. We understand that there was some difficulty in the caucus and that he had to use his influence to have the Bill accepted. We understand that there are three men behind this Bill, namely the hon. Minister of Lands, the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister and Dr. Pole Evans. We know that three men lie on the Matoppos, namely Rhodes, Jameson and Willoughby. Perhaps we have a repetition of history in this case. I should also like to bring a few other matters to the notice of the House. It has been said by the hon. member for Caledon that the number of farms in that area have now been reduced from 40 to 14. What else can we expect under the present Minister of Lands? At first there were nine farms in the botanical reserve. The farmers were all driven off those farms. The hon. Minister said that the great idea was to protect the plants and to determine what they were worth. I just want to say that the farmers of Zoutpansberg know of no type of grass in that area which Dr. Pole Evans has laid down as a suitable type of grass for that area. The hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Sullivan) referred to a political monstrosity. There I heartily agree with him. For practically two days we have been discussing a Bill which should never have been brought before the House. We know that every day that Parliament sits costs the country thousands of pounds. Money is therefore being spent on an insignificant Bill. We regard it as nothing but a waste of money. Precious time is being wasted. We are wasting time and money; we are wasting our energies, and at a later date this Bill will in any event be repealed. I do not want to go into that now. I just want to say that from a political point of view this Bill is a political monstrosity, because the Minister has never consulted the people concerned. He even refused to see a deputation. That is not the type of conduct which one expects from a Minister of the Crown. I want to go into another point, and here I should like to have the attention of the hon. Minister. There was another reserve in the past with which the Minister was also concerned. In Natal there was a reserve at that time which the Minister condemned. The Minister stated that it was a reserve on which only kaffirs could make a living. I think the Minister knows to which reserve I am referring. He said that only kaffirs could make a living there, but the country took no notice of him. A Commission of Enquiry was appointed and the finding of that commission was that it was a very suitable area for land settlement and the result was that the Pongola settlement was established there, and today the Pongola settlement is specially being reserved for returned soldiers. The Minister might possibly make the same mistake here that he made at Pongola at that time. I now want to come to the Bill itself as it stands. I read through this Bill carefully. In the first instance, it is not explained to us anywhere what a wild life sanctuary is. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux) asked what the Minister meant by a wild life sanctuary. The Minister stated here that he wanted to conserve this land for the future. Let us look at the definition of “animal” which is given in this Bill. “Animal” is defined as follows in the definition—

I know the animal world very well. I made a study of it. Of all the invertebrate animals, the Minister only chose the bee. I wonder whether Dr. Pole Evans is also behind this. Why not the mosquito; why not the fly? Why not the commando worm? Does Dr. Pole Evans want the bees for the continuation of his botanical research?. In Clause 19 we read that any person who captures or injures or kills one of these animals, is liable to a fine of not less than £25. In other words, if you enter the reserve and a wasp stings you and you kill it, you may be fined £25. The fine for damaging plants is only £10. It is true that provision is made that when a lion endangers one’s life, one is entitled to kill it. It is mentioned here that rest places will be established. The Minister says it is not intended for travellers going through the reserve. In that case, what is the object of establishing rest places? Is it perhaps for sundowner parties or is it to be resting places for the monkeys? There are all sorts of funny things in this Bill which leads me to suspect that there is an ulterior motive here, I do not want to enlarge on the motive of self-immortalisation on the mountain top. The Minister may not be acquainted with the contents of this brochure which I have in my hand. I think the brochure which was generally quoted in the House is the bigger and more bulky brochure I should like to quote a few passages from this. I am fairly well acquainted with the Dongola Reserve. I was there last year for a fortnight’s picnic, not at the Minister’s; I picnicked there for 14 days amongst the constituents of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers). We were even at Messina, and there we tested the feelings of the people and heard their opinion of the reserve, and we heard nothing but favourable remarks concerning the reserve. It seemed to me to be a country where one could retire at some future date. It is even more attractive than Rustenburg.

What foolishness is that?

I say it is even more attractive than Rustenburg. Now I want to ask the Minister what the costs are going to be in connection with the purchase of that land. He did not mention any figure. It is fairly important that the House should know what the cost is going to be. I should like to deal with this brochure a little further. According to this brochure there are 123 farms. The Minister admits that too. Surely a desert is never divided into farms. But they say that not only 123 farms are going to be prejuduced; there are also 199 farms in the neighbourhood. We know that when a reserve is created where game breeds, the surrounding parts are also endangered. Those lions do not remain within a fixed area. We know that a lion travels up to 20 miles during one night. We know that it is not safe in the immediate vicinity of 100 miles. The lions are also going to get at the fat cattle in that neighbourhood. There are therefore a further 199 farms which will also be adversely affected if this area is converted into a game reserve. Altogether there are 322 (123 plus 199) farms which will now practically be thrown out of production and this is just the time when we need a lot of food. We notice that 80,000 carcases are being imported from Australia. The other day the Prime Minister told us that a million carcases were being imported from Rhodesia. I thought he meant pounds.

Pounds.

322 farms are now being thrown out of production. I personally visited those farms. That great productivity will now be lost to the country. It does not become a Minister of the Crown to bring such a Bill before the House. We know what zebras and gnu do. Is the Minister going to fence off the reserve? Is he going to get wire and poles, and if a fence is put up, is it going to stop gnu, zebras and lions? The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) says there are also elephants. They have no respect for fences, even if the Minister were to put up a notice there. The animals will breed in hundreds and thousands and they will simply flock to the surrounding farms, whether there is a fence or not. We do not know where it is going to lead to. Here we have a block of land of 240,000 morgen which is being thrown out of production. It will not only be this 240,000 morgen but according to the calculations which were made here, it will be approximately 700,000 morgen which will practically become lost to the country. It will no longer be put under production as was done previously. At the town Ratho on the Limpopo, in this area, there is a beautiful place for a dam, and it is estimated that approximately 30,000 morgen of this area can be brought under irrigation. We know that at Vaal-Hartz with 30 morgen under irrigation, the people make a fortune. That means that we can convert this area into approximately 1,000 holdings. In other words, there are not only 123 farms but a further 1,000 holdings. I do not only want returned soldiers to be placed there, but all those people who want to become settlers. If the returned soldiers do not want to live there, there will be many other people who will gladly do so. I am convinced that if the Minister invited applications, he would get twice as many applications as there are farms. The question still remains whether it is a suitable area for a wild life sanctuary. There are no spruits and running water, and according to the statement of people who know this part, there are no animals like eland, hippopotami, buffalo, giraffe, antelope, gemsbuck red hartebeest, bushbuck, springbok, and a large number of other animals which are found in the Kruger Game Reserve. We have heard from the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) that there are owls. There are approximately 40 workers of Messina who have invested their savings in the reserve. The Government advised them to buy farms there and to develop them, and now the Government is proceeding to expropriate that land. This action on the part of the Government is inconsistent. The Minister also refrained from saying a single word in regard to the mineral riches of those parts. It is said that there is a good deal of coal and that the soil contains a fair quantity of phosphate—not phosphate which can be extracted and exported but phosphate which is necessary for the vegetation—with the result that there is no splenic fever and diseases of that kind. The Minister and his supporters said that one required 50 morgen to rear one head of cattle. Some members even spoke of 100 morgen per head. It is stated in this brochure that approximately 12 morgen are needed. It is stated here that if the veld is properly fenced and if water is supplied, one requires five to six morgen per head. Let us take the 250,000 morgen on the basis of six morgen per head, then it means that there is grazing for 40,000 head of cattle. The Minister of. Lands laughs at this statement.

Do you believe that?

That is what the farmers in that part say. It is stated in this brochure, and I am inclined to take their word rather than that of the Minister. One night has passed since the Minister introduced this Bill. The Minister heard what we had to say in regard to this Bill, and I think by this time he must have come to the conclusion that this matter ought to be further examined before the second reading. Let him go in to the history of this area thoroughly and see what inconvenience those people will have to suffer if they are required to leave. Let him examine the irrigation possibilities. The Minister simply stated that he did not believe all the data which has been furnished in regard to that area. Well, we know that the Minister did not believe the data in regard to Pongola either, and today it is one of the best sugar cane producing areas in Natal. Let him investigate the position there; let his experts make investigations and then acquaint us with the result, and then we shall be able to test the statements which have been made here. At the moment I believe these people. I do believe that to a certain extent the Minister is rendering the country a service. The Minister will put through this Bill with the majority behind him, and the reserve will then be cleared of human beings, with the result that this area of 240,000 morgen will then belong to the State. I want to give the Minister this assurance that if the Nationalist Party gets into power, we are going to put an end to that reserve in this sense that we shall fence off the farms; and we shall also fence off the holdings once an irrigation scheme has been constructed. We shall call for applications for that land, and at some future date the Minister will find that it is an area which carries anything from 10,000 to 15,000 Europeans. If the returned soldiers do not want to go there, there will be many farmers who would be keen to go there. The Minister also stated that he wanted to remove the people from Pongola, and look at the position there today. We ourselves will have due regard—more so than is the case today—to the laws in connection with wild game and we shall create a very fine area there. If the Minister allows this Bill to go through, we shall at some future date be able to carry out this scheme.

Stop talking nonsense.

The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) can also come and see what the Nationalist Party did for the development of South Africa. If you come to the Vaal-Hartz, you will see what we have already made of a desert. We showed in this House last year that some of the returned soldiers did not want to live in those sandy parts; other people went there, however, and this part is becoming a beautiful area. However, I do not want to take further notice of that hon. member. He reminds me of “Oom Kaspaas” who only thinks of the glorious past, but he forgets that it is the last picture which counts. I should like to tell the Minister that he must have this matter examined before the second reading. We need more information than we possess at present. We have given the Minister a good deal of information in regard to this mattér.

So far I have only heard what is stated in the brochure, and nothing else.

Have you got both?

There is nothing valuable in it.

This brochure was drawn up by the occupiers themselves, and it was signed, inter alia, by Mr. Campbell, the chairman of the Sap Party. It was also signed by Mr. Lombard, the chairman of the Nationalist Party, and by Mr. Gert Smit, one of the inhabitants. A special meeting was convened for that purpose. I am convinced that if the Minister lets these people come to Cape Town he will be convinced, when he hears the information they have to offer, that he is making a mistake. I want to ask the Minister to reconsider this matter; and if he did not become convinced last night, let him now become convinced that he ought not to proceed with this measure.

We all know that the Minister of Lands is a practical farmer. He is now putting a Bill of this kind before the House, and we are called upon to decide on it. We are to be the jurymen. The case has been put by two sides, and we have to decide. The Minister of Lands ought to be magnanimous instead of adopting the attitude that he has the power simply to use the steam roller to run over this side and to put the Bill through. A number of people are concerned in this matter. Farmers are concerned in the matter, people who stand to lose their land, and the Minister has not given the House the assurance nor has he given any indication that he is going to place those people elsewhere on better land. It is simply stated in this Bill that this land is to be expropriated and that the people are to leave that area. Why must the Minister be stubborn and refuse to give those people an opportunity to come and give evidence here, so that they will, have an opportunity to put their case? The Minister simply took this document and said that all the statements contained in it were untrue. He cannot deal with the representations of people in the way the Minister of Lands did here. How are we to know how we must decide this matter; how are we to know what is true and what is not true? We do hot know. The word of the people who live there is just as good as the word of the Minister. The Minister did not adduce any proof in support of his statement that those people are liars, and he did not suggest why they should come before us with a fabricated case. It is difficult for me to accept the word of the Minister against the word of those people. When the Minister throws a doubt upon the word of persons like Major Hunt, a man who for years took a leading part in the agricultural union and under whom I personally served for years on the Executive Committee of the South African Agricultural Union, I would be neglecting my duty if I did not get up to defend him. Mr. Lombard is in exactly the same position. The hon. member for Middelburg (Dr. Eksteen) sneeringly remarked that Mr. Lombard was a Nationalist. I should like to know from the Minister of Lands what Major Hunt is. Whose Party does he support; is he a Nationalist, and does he belong to the Nationalist Party? Are we to take it that because Mr. Lombard happens to be a Nationalist, this matter is a political matter? No, we cannot, because it is clear that other persons who are members of the other Party are also concerned in this matter. What is more are we to believe that this is a matter of politics and that these statements are untrue because Mr. Lombard is a Nationalist? No, in my opinion, the Minister is going a little too far. Major Hunt is a person who is held in high esteem by the farmers throughout the whole of South Africa, not only by the farmers of Dongola and Northern Transvaal. He was not only the chairman of the Transvaal Agricultural Union, but he was also chairman of the South African Agricultural Union. Mr. Lombard is a Nationalist but I know him personally and I know that he is a person who has never dragged political questions into agriculture and I am not prepared to believe that Mr. Lombard dragged Party politics into this matter. But why did the hon. member for Middelburg say nothing in regard to Mr. Campbell, the chairman of the United Party of that constituency? As far as he is concerned, they are silent as the grave because he is the chairman of the United Party. But because Mr. Lombard is a Nationalist, he is smelled out in this House. I want to tell the hon. member for Middelburg that if he had as much knowledge of agriculture in his head as Mr. Lombard has in the tips of his fingers, he would also know something about agriculture. We make an appeal to the Minister to look at this matter impartially. A statement was made here by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) and the Minister did not deny it. It is not quite clear, but it would seem that the Minister of Lands invited members of his Party to go to Dongola to inspect the place. But we heard nothing at all from the members who inspected that place. We do not know what their attitude is. If the Minister’s intentions are sincere in this matter, and if those members inspected the place, he should have informed us in this House what the nature of that investigation was and what the outcome of it was. We have not heard what the judgment of those members was. They are as silent as the grave in regard to the matter. It will not remain a secret; it will come out. In my opinion there is one course which is open to the Minister of Lands, and that is the golden course of trying to give satisfaction. Give the people an opportunity of coming here. Refer the matter to a Select Commitee so that those people can come and give evidence before members of this House and so that we can find out what is the truth and what is false. It seems to me to be very unfair on the part of the Minister to get up under the protection of this House and to make the statement that those people gave us false information in this brochure. I do not want to enlarge on this matter, but I want to make an appeal to the Minister of Lands to give those people an opportunity to put their case before us and then the House will know how to deal with this Bill.

I am sorry that it is necessary for me to have to express my disappointment at the attitude which Government members on the other side are adopting. Here we are dealing with the rights and interests of certain people who, in our opinion, are being done an injustice and then we are accused of dragging politics into the matter. I wonder whether they are also going to accuse the hon. member for Berea (Mr. Sullivan) of having dragged politics into the matter? The Minister of Lands gave us certain data yesterday in regard to this game reserve which he proposes to establish, and listening to him, one gains the impression that this is an impossible part of the country where no human being can exist. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) stated that he did not really want to plead for the reserve, but that he was going to vote for the Bill. If that part is as bad as the Minister of Lands described it here, it is the duty of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg to say quite frankly that he is going to advocate the establishment of the reserve and that the people should be taken away from it. But he does not do so. He supports the Bill half-heartedly. It is very clear to me there fore that that part of the country is not quite as bad as the Minister gave the House to understand. It came to light that that land was made available in 1918 at a price ranging from 3s. to 12s. 6d. per morgen. I want to compare that with land along the Malopo River. Land on the Malopo River was sold at that time for 2s. per morgen, and away from the river for 1s. per morgen. The people took occupation there and today that land is worth anything from £1 10s. to £2. It is said that the people ruin such land. That was not the case in Vryburg. The people sunk boreholes and developed the place, and land which was bought at that time for 1s. 6d. is now worth £2. That argument that habitation by man results in a deterioration of the soil, therefore, falls away completely. Evidence was submitted to us which emanates from the farmers’ associations, and those people were practically called liars. It was said outright by the Minister of Lands in this House that it was a chain of lies. I should like to know how we can be expected to have respect for our farmers’ associations if they are treated in this way. We tried to build up our farmers’ associations so that the farming population and the public could have respect for them. In that way we try to place our farmers’ organisations on a sound footing, and now the Minister of Lands says that the members of the farmers’ associations are a lot of liars. I leave it to those farmers to deal with the Minister of Lands. I should like to know this from the Minister of Lands. It was said here that the Minister of Lands visited that reserve last year with a number of members of Parliament belonging to his party. Why did he not say anything in his argument of that visit and in regard to their findings? Was it possibly a secret visit? If there were such a trip, I want to object to the fact that he did not invite members on this side to go along. He only took supporters of his own party, and we have not heard a word from them throughout this whole debate about their personal experience.

But you said that you knew those parts.

We have not got a lien on all wisdom, as the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow) has. He knows everything. He thinks he is so clever that he is qualified to express an opinion on everything. We would like to examine these things properly before we come to a decision. We should also like to know whether a deputation came from farmers who have a direct interest in the land in that area, whether such a deputation called on the Minister and whether he granted them an interview. I think the people incurred great expense in coming here, and if the Minister did not meet them, I feel that it is right that the State should bear the expenses of the deputation. The Minister did not say a single word in regard to that. These are the people whom he wants to remove from the land, and the country is perturbed at the action of the Minister of Lands. He drives the tenant farmers off the land; he expropriates land, and then the hon. member for Hospital says that there is a great deal of land, that a great deal of land is lying idle in this country. Why is the land which lies idle not given to people who yearn for land? Why must we wait until the returning soldiers come back? I am not suggesting that I begrudge them land, but if there is so much land then it is not necessary to wait. The Minister gave us to understand—at any rate I got that impression—that the farmers in that area were practically smugglers. That is a bad reflection on the people in that area.

Do not put different words into my mouth; do hot distort my remarks.

That is why I am putting this question. That is the impression we got. If the Minister did not refer to these people, who are the smugglers then? Where do they come from; where do they live? I have not inspected that area, but I shall vote against the Bill because it is the wish of the people who live on that land to remain there undisturbed. Although I do not precisely know what the quality of the land is, I know that that is their wish, and for the sake of the people who protest against the land being taken away from them, I shall vote against the Bill.

I feel very worried about the whole matter. We are living in a serious and worrying period, and there are great súbjects to which the House ought to give consideration. We have had no really important legislation presented to us. The Session has lasted more than two months, and now the Minister comes with this thorny though trivial matter for which no necessity exists. He could scarcely have chosen a more inopportune time to bring this matter before the House.

And you have been busy on the matter for three days.

I want to add that he could scarcely have had more unsuitable supporters. We are vexed that the Government can bring nothing more important before the country. It realises what opposition there is to it. Naturally it can count on the slavish majority behind it. It can push any measure through with that slavish majority. But we have not yet had any legislation before us in connection with the big problems of the day, such for instance as housing, social security, legislation to promote the happiness of the people, but we have legislation to protect reptiles and animals and goggas. It is really almost incredible that in a period such as this the Goverfnment should accord preference to such a measure.

That is the story that I have heard for the last 40 years.

If the hon. member wants to speak let him have the courage to stand up. He sits there and cackles and he has not the courage to stand up and support this measure. This measure is not only being combated by us but by the Government’s own supporters. The Minister cannot say that it is a racial question or that we are Nazis or that we are opposed to the war, or that it is just the Nationalist Party that is fighting the measure. His own supporters are fighting it the hardest. There sits Mr. Empire and I should like to know where he is going to land if he loses the support of his people. It is all up with his party in his constituency.

All your courting will not help you.

We met the hon. member in his constituency on the occasion of the provincial election. He was then full of confidence, but he sustained a severe defeat. The people are dissatisfied at the way in which they are being represented in the. Provincial Council and in Parliament.

What has that to do with the Bill?

I think the hon. member should return to the Bill.

The important point is that the people who are interested in this measure should have the right to be heard by the Minister of Lands. He wants to take away their living, their possessions, their land, so they should have the opportunity to present their case to him. Who is he that he will not see them? If he at least had been reasonable enough to meet these people and to hear about the matter from their own mouths, he could have told them to their face that what they said was untrue. He did not do that, but he sat here and said that what they stated was untrue. We have already heard from him so much we find very doubtful. I feel that it is extremely improper and unreasonable on the part of the Minister to refuse to see these people who have developed this land in this way by their labour and the sweat of their brow.

It would be good if YOU sweated a little.

They sweated, something that the hon. member has never done. He lives on his wits.

If you lived on your wits you would starve.

I choose not to live on my wits but by using my commonsense and not by trading in all sorts of trickery here in the House. The people who protest are not led by Nationalists but by the Minister’s own supporters. What is more, his own newspaper that he purchased in the Zoutpansberg has been in strong opposition to it. I want to warn him. This measure will yet cost him dear. He has already had considerable annoyance over his pranks in the Zoutpansberg. He knows what I am talking about, how deeply the thing has gone, how deeply the Zoutpansberg has already affected him, and this injustice towards these people will rankle, and injure him and his sattelite who is sitting so pale behind him. We are going to meet them in the Zoutpansberg in connection with this measure during the next election. The Minister has told us that the value of the land is still fixed at 1s. 11d. a morgen. It is not a rare thing to fix the value of land at 1s. 11d. I know of land that went at 6d. a morgen not so long ago and that the Government subsequently repurchased it at 12s. a morgen. Land has only to be properly worked. I know those parts, and to me they are very attractive parts. I was there not years ago but last year, and I wanted to buy a farm there myself, and they told me that the current price was £1 10s. a morgen for any reasonable farm.

Will you buy at £1 10s.?

I am willing to take the Minister at his word and to accept as much land as he will part with at 1s. 11d. a morgen, and even twice 1s. 11d., or even three times 1s. 11d., for just as much land as he will offer. The preamble to the Bill says in English “Wild life sanctuary Bill” but in Afrikaans “Natuurreserwe”.

That embraces both, animals and vegetation.

Does the Minister expect that there will be considerable game in the reserve? It appears regrettable to me that the Minister should have chosen such a time as this to come before the House with such a Bill. We are willing to protect the game of the country, of which we are proud,, and to adopt measures for their protection, and we want to preserve our vegetation and our various sorts of trees. We are very anxious to do this, and we shall go so far as to support him and to assist in any reasonable measures, but this measure at this period at this place with the worst of motives cannot be accorded our support. The whole idea is a putrid idea from beginning to end. I cannot support the measure; on the contrary I shall do everything in my power to fight it, tooth and nail, so long as I possibly can.

I am not a Transvaaler but I have been through those parts a few times.

Were you present at the cocktail party?

I did not hear very clearly what the hon. member was saying, but I have listened to speeches by members on the other side who know as much about these parts as the crow about religion. They know nothing about these parts and they know very little about farming. I have been through those parts two or three times, and it is certainly not the English who gave the name Dorsland to that part, but the inhabitants of the district gave it that name years ago. “Dorsland” means more or less a desert. If one looks at the facts, what does one find? We have been told that years ago in 1918 there were 32 settlers, between 30 and 40 settlers. They disappeared and in 1945 there are only 14, and, in addition 12 private owners went there. How the private owners farm I do not know. They were of course people who worked in the copper mines and bought farms there. In any case there was a handful of people there, and half of them were evacuated from those areas at the cost to the State of £180,000, apart from a further writing off of £100,000. Now hon. members on the other side ask whether it is a good proposition. Would they go in for such a proposition? Where you have a handful of people on 250,000 morgen of land and they cannot make a living, it is no proposition at all and the Inspector of Lands has informed us that the carrying capacity of the area is about one head of cattle to 30, 40 or 50 morgen. Is that a proposition? Will any farmer on the other side go in for such a proposition?

You do not believe it?

It comes from the Inspector of Lands. If I do not believe him who am I to believe?

How does the report compare with what you yourself have seen?

The man who wrote the report has much more experience than I have, and I believe what the report states. I also believe that we made a mistake when we settled some of the less privileged people on this sort of land where they could not make a living. They are failing there, and they will again have to be assisted and again they will come to grief, and their life will end in failure, because they are settled on land on which they cannot make a living. I think it is a part that we should give oyer to the animals. Europeans can certainly not make a living there, and I believe that the people who have moved in there moved out as poor whites, and if we again settle people there the same thing will happen.

We have had many speeches on this reserve from the other side of the House from members who almost without exception have told us that they do not know the territory. Well, if you have no knowledge of the territory it is obviously the best thing to rely on reports, on the opinion of the agricultural unions, on the opinion of people who live there. But that is not what hon. members on the other side do. They neglect that. The hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn), who usually talks very sensibly on native affairs, has unfortunately gone completely off the rails this morning. He gave a lecture on erosion in the Transkei. But the Transkei has a rainfall of 40 inches a year, and the Minister has stated that Dongola is practically a desert, dry and thirsty. A comparison between Dongola and the Transkei does not therefore hold good. Up in the Northern Transvaal on the Limpopo you encounter entirely different conditions to those in the Transkei. I must say that if we are going to solve the problem of erosion in South Africa in this manner—if this is the beginning of tackling the problem of soil erosion, then I am sorry for South Africa. We have seen Mr. van Rensburg’s film in which he took us all over the Union, but not one place that he showed us was in this area; he did not show us a single portion of this area to illustrate soil erosion. We cannot regard the combating of erosion so light-heartedly and say that we are now going to tackle it in this way. If we want to heighten the production of South Africa through, amongst other ways by stopping erosion in the Northern Transvaal and letting wild animals roam about there, it is going to be a hopeless failure. The hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Sullivan) has stated that we cannot afford at this period to cut out and leave unproductive any area that is capable of producing or where the production of food can be increased. I cannot help agreeing with him. It has been stated that there are 6,000 cattle in this area and double this, number of small stock. The fact that must be borne in mind is that the area can carry many more cattle, especially if water is obtained in the backveld far from the river. Evidence has been furnished in the adjoining area, especially immediately to the north of it where there is little difference in the rainfall. Today stock farming is being carried on successfully there, and the farmers there have continuously been raising the standard of their cattle until today they have a good type of Afrikander. As soon as an adequate water supply has been developed, and the people have gained an adequate knowledge of the land, production in those areas will mount appreciably. We have seen in the papers today that 80,000 carcases have been imported from overseas. When we have to import meat from overseas, is it the time to close these areas that are adapted to ranching. We are told that the land there cannot be cultivated because there is no water. I know the great rivers of the Union comparatively well, and I can give the assurance—I think it is with little exception—that over a long period the Limpopo at all seasons of the year is in stream, or in any case there are deep water holes in it that the farmers pump from. There is a big chain of irrigation pumps along the Limpopo, and some of the finest products are grown. It is a matter that deserves our serious attention and consequently before the second reading we should give those persons who are interested in the area the opportunity to express their views to the Select Committee. Now it is stated that we are going to afford further protection to the beautiful fauna and flora of South Africa. We have today fine game reserves and if expansion is contemplated the right place is the Kruger Game Reserve. Last year I stood up and asked the Minister why they were shooting thousands and thousands of wildebeest in the Zululand reserve, though they did not know whether the animals conveyed nagana. When the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. van den Berg) spoke about the reckless way in which the wildebeest were shot, I thought that he had been to a little party in Zululand and that he had observed how the Minister was permitting the extermination of wildebeest in the reserve. Is the purpose to create another reserve here where later on wild animals can be wiped out? There is a considerable number of reserves. The Kruger Game Reserve extends north nearly up to Lourenco Marques, and if the Minister wants to expand the areas available for wildebeest this is the proper place. The Minister stated yesterday that a certain lady had conferred a great service on the country by purchasing more farms and presenting them to the Kruger National Park. If it is such an asset, more farms could be purchased at the Kruger Park. I know that where the Groot Letaba enters the game reserve there is a ranch of 30,000 morgen. A big capitalist from Johannesburg bought it from the Government. That land could be expropriated or bought or incorporated in the Kruger National Park if the Government believes that we need larger game reserves. Other enormous ranches are also situated there beloning to big capitalists in Johannesburg, and these could be incorporated in the Kruger National Park if we want a larger game reserve. It has been stated here that the land in the Dongola is stony and gravelly. I know of large areas in the Letaba that are also stony, and there the Government has a lovely opportunity to buy those big ranches on which there are no stock, only game, in order to add them to the game reserve, if the Government wants to have a larger game reserve. The hon. member for Krugersdorp stated here this morning, in his wisdom, how the settlers should be transferred from the west to the east. He told us about areas in the Western Transvaal that are absolutely unfitted for farming. If those areas are unfitted for settlement then it does not mean that they are unfitted for cattle farming by private people. With the knowledge and experience that I have acquired of that territory I know that they are actually very well suited to farming especially with big stock. If that policy has to be carried out then the Government can purchase the big lands alongside the Kruger National Park and make them available to private farmers to engage in cattle-farming there. In connection with this transfer from west to east I should like to know how that is to be reconciled with the policy that the Minister has carried out in connection with Pongola. He said that Pongola was totally unsuited for Europeans and that only natives could live there. He shifted some of these people to Loskop, and areas in the west, and this is entirely in conflict with the principles of the hon. member for Krugersdorp that our people should be transferred from the west to the east. It appears to me as if the argument of the hon. member for Krugersdorp is that we should also give over for game reserve those parts on the western side. But the hon. member for Krugersdorp is rather fond of standing up in the House and theorising. He repeats it himself so often that he believes in it, and then he is surprised that no one else will accept his theories. The hon. member for Green Point (Mr. Bowen) said this morning that he had seen those areas but he did not say when he had seen them.

If the hon. member will permit me to interrupt in order to say when I saw that area, I will tell the hon. member that in 1910 to 1913 and afterwards I was the Paymaster of the Construction gangs on the railways between Pietersburg and Bandolierkop, and that for over three months I went over the whole of that area, in conjunction with the engineers, and that for the best part of two years I was responsible for paying all the workmen on the construction works of the railways from Komatipoort to Tzaneen, and that I travelled right through from Tzaneen to Pietersburg, areas which many hon. mem bers probably know nothing about. Those were the days when I could still see, and I walked through there and even shot there.

I am glad that the hon. member has been good enough to give an explanation. He is referring to ancient history, to the period of 1910 to 1912, and none of the places that he mentions falls within this projected reserve. The hon. member said this morning that that area is nothing else than stone. I know that part and I know very well that the soil varies from place to place. He wants to tell us about the appearance of that area, and now it appears that he has not set foot inside it. The hon. member apparently regarded that area through the spectacles of the Sons of England that is not interested in the affairs of South Africa, but only in the welfare of the Empire.

Order, order. That matter has nothing to do with this debate.

The hon. member has stated that we on this side are dragging the matter into politics. If we are dragging it into politics how is it that the chairman of the United Party in that district and the Agricultural Union of the Transvaal accept the same standpoint as we do. Do they also drag the matter into politics when they endeavour with us to look after the interests of these people? No, the hon. members on the other side realise’ that they have a weak case and as soon as they have a weak case they fall back on their only argument, that we are dragging this matter into politics. Then I come to the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers). He has told us that he is an authority on that area, that he wanted to present the true facts to the House, and that he wished to remove all the misconceptions about it. I listened attentively to his speech, and the hon. member did not have a word to say on whether he supported this Bill or did not support it. He gave us no indication whether he was in favour of this reserve. Even to a friendly question he gave no answer whether he was supporting this reserve or not. We cannot refrain from smiling when a person on the other side who says that he is an authority on this matter has so little reliance on himself that he will not even tell us what his attitude is. I am afraid that the Minister of Lands has been placed in a position of having to hold someone else’s baby. If that was not the case then the Minister with his experience of farming and with his knowledge of land throughout the Union of South Africa would not have brought this Bill before the House, There was no stronger speech than that of the Minister himself in condemnation of this reserve. He is a person with experience of farming and he knows what the carrying capacity of the veld is. He ought to know that when we have a strip of land alongside a river and which must have considerable inner veld then with comparatively little development the carrying capacity of the land can be considerably increased. We feel that this whole matter requires much more thorough investigation than it has hitherto received. The hon. member for Green Point (Mr. Bowen) stated here that another film would be shown of erosion in these parts. It is very easy to make a film to illustrate terrible erosion at any place. I can give you the assurance that it is only a small portion in that region that has been eroded. It is an absolute minimum. Along the water course where the game has tramped out footpaths we of course do get erosion. We know that happens everywhere. But if that part was so badly eroded, why did Mr. Van Rensburg not show something of it in his film? If cattle farming is so impossible there, why does Dr. Pole Evans only photograph six lean cattle and let those in good condition alone? This is not the sort of evidence that we want in this House, and in the circumstances I cannot support the Bill.

For two days we have been occupied with this very important question. After two days’ debate members on both sides of the House are still rising to speak, and if they express themselves sincerely they will have to admit that although they have searched for the reason why the Minister has at this stage presented this measure to the House, it still remains a dark secret to them as far as the statement of the Minister is concerned. A great thinker once observed that it is not the results of our actions which determines their value, but the thing that determines their value is the motive that has inspired it. It is the motive that has urged us on that determines the value of them. The Minister of Lands has been charged until this afternoon with not being in a position to offer any good reason why the House should accept this Bill. The Minister claims that he is a calm man, that he is a kind-hearted man, but we know that the Minister is not a kind-hearted man when he has a bad case, and he ought to try to retain some of his calmness even now. But with all the Minister’s calmness and with all his kindness, I must nevertheless say that he has given us a very poor explanation of this Bill. The Bill is a “hybrid”. I do not know whether the Minister of Lands has misunderstood the Bill. He wanted to introduce it last year in fact, but he bumped up against the Standing Orders. He was advised that it is a hybrid Bill and that a special procedure has been laid down and has to be followed. The Minister apparently understood the position to be that when he introduced such a Bill he must give a hybrid speech. He blew hot and then he blew cold. He depicted the matter first in light colours and then in dark colours. Never has a speech been delivered in this House that has been so self-contradictory as that delivered by the Minister. He told us many things, but he did not tell us what is the motive concealed behind this measure. I think it is necessary for us to investigate the reasons given by the Minister one by one from the beginning. But before doing that I want to warn the House that we should be very careful in this House with the Minister of Lands. He may be a calm and soft-hearted man, but he is also capable of going into ecstasies. He has also spoken in this House in the past in this way. He was then not prevented from speaking. He could speak as long as he wanted to, and he had the opportunity to speak on all sorts of things whether he knew anything about them or not. But on one occasion in the past the Minister also went into raptures. It is not the first time that this has happened. It has happened in the past, and no doubt it will occur in the future. I want to warn the House that when the Minister falls into raptures in this way then we must be careful in respect of the explanations that roll from his tongue like water over the wall of a dam. I want to give an illustration. In 1942 there was a discussion in this House in connection with Pongola— that is Pongola with a P. The Minister was then in ecstasies over Pongola with a P. and he told this House that it was the greatest failure ever recorded in the history of irrigation in South Africa. He charged the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) with having constructed that irrigation scheme, and he also found fault with him for having planted people there. He said that he had been obliged to shift those Europeans from there, because no Europeans could exist there.’ On the 2nd March, 1942, he said in this House that he had to remove these people from Pongola because they could not make a living there. That was the picture of Pongola that the Minister placed before us. But an enquiry was instituted. A Government commission was appointed on which the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. van den Berg) served.

Judge van den Berg.

Yes, it is presumably him. He served on this commission appointed by the Minister, and they made an enquiry into Pongola with a P. to see whether the Minister was right in his statement that no white man could make a living there. That commission reported in 1944, and I should like to communicate to the House what the recommendations of that Pongola commission were. We find them on page 6 of the commission’s report. The recommendations were as follows [Re-translation]—

1. (1) That the Pongola Irrigation scheme is being fully used for the purposes of closer settlement.

This is a settlement regarding which the Minister of Lands stated that no white man could exist there—

1. (2) That the scheme should be sub-divided into holdings, each of 30 morgen, under irrigation.

Then the third recommendation was that the houses that had to be built there for the settlers should be approved by the Department of Social Welfare and that those houses should be built on each holding before it was granted. The holdings were, in the opinion of the commission, so good that decent houses should be erected on them. The fourth recommendation is that the health of the settlers should be supervised and that in general the recommendations of Dr. Annecke should be carried into effect. It is also recommended that the scheme should at its inception be a probationary lessee’s scheme. The fifth recommendation is that in selecting a superintendent it must be remembered that he should live there long enough to be able to carry out any programme of development that is embarked upon. In the sixth place, it is recommended that the type of farming that should be followed at the moment is mixed farming, and reference is made to winter potatoes, etc. We know that the Minister of Lands came here and boasted about the Pongola potatoes. The recommendation goes further and states that wheat must be cultivated as well as mealies and the principal crops. It is further recommended that the people should farm with slaughter stock, and on a small scale with dairy cattle. That indicates what this commission of enquiry thought of the Pongola settlement, a settlement regarding which the Minister of Lands stated in this House that it was of no value and that no white man could make a living there. I just want to warn the House against the statements of the Minister of Lands when he falls into ecstasies. Let us examine briefly the arguments produced by the Minister. He says in the first place that his object with this Bill is to place him in a position to protect the soil there. If the Minister is so exercised about the the maintenance of the soil he does not require special legislation. What is there to prevent him making funds available to these people to combat erosion under the soil erosion scheme? There are legislative provisions which would enable him to combat soil erosion there and to incur expenditure where necessary. If he is concerned about the erosion and washing away of the soil that is taking place there, he has the power to combat that soil erosion both in respect of private land and Crown lands. But in spite of the soil erosion that is occurring on a large scale in the rest of the Union the Minister of Lands states that he is less concerned about soil erosion in the rest of South Africa, which is proceeding at an unabated pace and that he wants to devote his attention specially to that region. On the estimates provision is made for the sum of £20,000 to combat soil erosion in the whole of the Union. But the Minister is so worried about soil erosion in that one little area that he is coming along with this Bill. Has the Bill been drawn up in that way, or has the Minister not understood it properly? In the preamble we have a whole series of “whereas”. We have this “whereas”—

It is not expedient, but the Minister has not informed us why it is not expedient. The Minister has 35,000 morgen in that area which he could use for a nature reserve. He comes here and he paints a picture of that region as if nothing on earth could live there and he has stated that only 7,000 cattle can live on those farms. I do not know whether it is the department or the Minister who has made that calculation.

On a point of explanation, the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) stated here that there are 68,000 cattle in that area.

No, he said on the other side of the mountain.

I am making an explanation, and now hon. members opposite are interrupting me. He clearly stated here that there are 68,000 cattle in that area.

That is not so.

May I make an explanation?

Hon. members should give the Minister an opportunity to make his explanation.

He solemnly stated here that there are 68,000 cattle in that area. I then made an interjection asking whether they were in that reserve, and he replied “yes”. Then I said it was a falsehood. He in turn then asked what the number was, and I said that it is 7,000.

Now all who have ears to hear have heard what the Minister has stated. He has asserted that there are only 7,000 cattle. The Minister had enquiries made and it was stated that only 7,000 cattle could be maintained, and it is a reasonable conclusion that there are only 7,000. I asked the Minister if there were only 7,000 and his reply was “How does it concern you”?

This Bill is being introduced into this House, and whenever a member seeks information on it and puts a question on it to the Minister, the reply he gets is “How does it concern you”? The Minister cannot even vote in connection with this matter. He has to depend on arguments, and it is certainly not an argument to ask a member what concern it is of his. I should like to tell the Minister that this Bill concerns the farmers in those parts, and it concerns all of us who have to do with the matters in this House. It concerns us how the Minister arrives at his 7,000 cattle; it concerns us when the Minister obtains a figure of 7,000. He has told us that the return was compiled in August last year. There are seasons when if we should compile a return in respect of the Minister’s own farms at Hutchinson, in times of drought, it would show that there are precious few stock on those farms, seasons when there is perhaps only the water that the Minister pumps for the railways. There will be times when there is also very little vegetation, and when according to the argument employed by the Minister we should convert his farms into a game reserve. Then it is a matter which will of course concern him. This matter is of importance. Let me remind the House that when we are dealing with a hybrid Bill special responsibilities rest on any government and on any Minister, and if the Minister is not aware what his obligations are, I should like to tell him. A hybrid Bill is a Bill that on the one hand affects the interests of the Government, but which on the other hand encroaches on the private interests of individuals, and because this is so the Standing Orders prescribe a special procedure in connection with such Bills, because the principle is that this House will not act precipitately in respect of the interests of private individuals. The Minister is in this case impinging recklessly on private interests. I put the question bluntly to him whether he has learned from the Department of Statistics what the carrying capacity is of that region in order to ascertain what is the number of stock that can be maintained on those farms on the average. It may be that the Minister is correct in regard to his statement about the carrying capacity, and may be that he is wrong. In the circumstances it is only right that the Minister should afford these people the opportunity to put their case. But the Minister can tell us now whether he consulted the Department of Statistics in order to asecrtain whether 7,000 cattle represents the average carrying capacity of those farms. I want to go further, but I should like first to propose this amendment. The hon. member is hoping that he will now obtain a little diversion, but it is an important amendment, and I hope that he will understand the amendment better than he does the Bill.

I propose the following further amendment—

1. (a) travelling expenses and subsistence for themselves, witnesses and legal advisers, and
2. (b) the legal fees and costs of attorneys and advocates,

I am very earnest in respect of this proposal. The hon. Minister, as I endeavoured to explain a moment ago should remember that here he is touching the interests of private individuals, and the Minister has now come and in his argument he has stated that since he commenced with this Bill a great deal of propaganda has been made by those people who wish to contest this Bill. He went further and he stated considerable expense had been incurred by the people who are opposing this Bill in order to present their case; and the hon. Minister is quite right. He will perhaps be surprised, but there is one respect in which he is correct. Those people have been involved in expense; but do you know what the position is? On the other side perhaps greater expenditure has been incurred by the Minister. But the difference is this, that these people whose property is being affected have been put to expense out of their own pocket for the protection of their property, while the Minister has been incurring expenditure and holding parties, as is alleged, out of the taxpayers’ pocket; that is the difference.

Would you also like to have been there?

I do not know how much meat they had at these little parties, they could have asked the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter) to smuggle in some meat for them. I am putting this amendment because I maintain that the rights of these individuals are being very deeply affected, and I maintain that the Minister has neglected his moral responsibility to afford these people a proper opportunity before bringing this matter into the House. It has been stated on his side of the House by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) that these people came here, that they travelled the whole distance from Zoutpansberg to Cape Town; they came here to interview the Minister and to place their case before him, and what was the answer that the Minister gave?

How does it concern you?

The hon. member for Springs is quite right; the Minister’s reply was tantamount to “what concern is it of yours what I am doing?”

I expected this.

What did the Minister do, according to the hon. member for Zoutpansberg? He said he was prepared to see them as soon as he was convinced that they had something important to place before him; in other words he, as judge, was only prepared to hear their case when they could convince him that their case was just. He refused to see them. I put the question again to him: Did he see these people and hear their case, or was he just as afraid of that deputation as he was of the Kakamas Commission when they asked him to give evidence? It is a very important matter, because the rights of private people are here being tampered with. I understand that in Pretoria he also did not see them, and as this is so I think there is every justification for my amendment, which is that those individuals who have been affecteed by the Bill should receive a proper opportunity to place their case before the Select Committee. The Bill has now to go to the Select Committee after the second reading. The amendment asks that those people should not be placed at a disadvantage, because they cannot bear the costs involved in laying their case before the Select Committee to enable the Select Committee to give a proper and just decision in the matter. I want to say this: The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) has stated that the Minister, when he is no longer with us will not be known as Conroy of Kakamas but as Conroy of Dongola. The public will remember him as the most rapacious Minister that this country has ever known. On every occasion there is a Government muddle because the Minister of Lands who is a wealthy man, who buys land just where he wants, who buys land in the schemes that fall under his jurisdiction— he bought it in the open market—I see that he now feels relieved …

I have never bought an inch of land from the settlers.

I do not resent the Minister ….

I resent your making such a false statement.

I see the Minister has felt entirely what I mean. I do not resent his understanding what I meant, but of course a man who is involved in such a thing ought to understand what one means. He has purchased in the open market, and I do not find fault with him for this, but where the Minister goes and acquires property just where he wants to, why does he right through his career reveal a disposition to rob others of what is their own? It is very necessary that the people should have an opportunity to put their case before a decision is made that will injure them. The hon. Minister talked in his speech about public-spiritedness. It is really a wonderful euphonious word that he has now discovered, and he has stated that the thing that has moved him, the thing that has touched his heart, the thing that has contributed to introducing this Bill was the public-spiritedness of the people who made the gifts, and he not only bestowed praise for the public-spiritedness of those people, but he has inveighed against what he has described as the public-spiritedness of the people who are opposing the measure. I should like to test the Minister’s public spiritedness. He is the man who is piloting this Bill through the House. Will he make a sum of money available for the purchase of a farm and donate it to that reserve? I would like to suggest that it will only require the equivalent of the revenue he derived during the course of one year from the Government for the water he supplies at Hutchinson to purchase a farm on that reserve. Here is an opportunity for him to prove his sincerity. I want to give the Minister another chance. One is moved to sympathy for the Minister. I want to tell the Minister that right through this debate there has been a great measure of speculation; as far as his side of the House has been concerned the whole thing has been obscure and he does not want to enlighten us. But the people have begun to guess. The people do not know whether they are guessing rightly or whether they are guessing wrongly. The public are saying that what is behind the scheme is a plan to create a post for one of the officials, namely Dr. Pole Evans. That is what the public are guessing. I do not know whether they have guessed correctly or whether they have guessed wrongly. But suppose they have guessed correctly. What will be the condition of affairs in South Africa if this happens? And to relieve the Minister of that blame that will rest on him if they are guessing correctly, I ask: is he prepared to state that Dr. Pole Evans will not be a member of that Board of Curators that will be appointed, and if he cannot say that, then they will perhaps have guessed aright.

Guess again.

I think the hon. Minister is in a position that should he stand before the mirror and talk about his Bill he will also say “Guess again” because he does not know himself what is in the Bill. But the rights of private individuals are being impinged on, and as the Minister is in default in furnishing good reasons for the measure, and as even hon. members on this side of the House believe it is untimely to bring such a measure before the House, I think it is time that we protected the rights of people whose interests are being affected, and to protect those rights as they ought to be protected. Accordingly I move the amendment as has been read out by me.

I wish to second the amendment. In doing so I should like to reply particularly to two speeches that have been made in the House today by the hon. member for Green Point (Mr. Bowen) and the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) and I should like to address myself to them particularly. I have often heard in this House about fair play—British fair play. I have been told that that is a real thing. I have been told that it is a tradition that no English-speaking person would easily flout. There is an acid test that I would like to use today. It is a fundamental rule of law, of Government and of fair play, that no citizen shall be dispossessed of his rights or of his property without having been given a fair hearing. I think that is an axiom, a principle, to which everyone in this House will agree, that no person shall be dispossessed of his rights or of his property without a fair hearing. Now, Sir, here we are dealing with a number of people who ventured into a malaria-stricken part of the country to carve out a home and a future for themselves. How many people exactly are involved in this matter is really not relevant to the issue. There may be a dozen; there may be more than a dozen. My point is this; if the number is small, then the responsibility of Parliament as the custodian of the rights of citizens is bigger even than when the number is large. The strong can always take care of themselves, the strong have always got money at their command; they may have a Press to support them. But Parliament has to be particularly careful when the rights of a few, of the weak, are being assailed. And now, Sir, I want to ask hon. members this question. Have these people been given a fair hearing? We heard this morning from the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Cilliers) that these people repeatedly asked him to try and arrange an interview with the Minister of Lands to enable them to put their case before him.

That is not so.

If that is not so, will the hon. member kindly tell the House what he actually did say. I am prepared to give way to him on a point of explanation.

May I say that I emphatically deny what the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) has just said. I did not say that the members of the Dorsland Farmers’ Association repeatedly asked me to intervene and to ask the Minister to allow them to present their case. I emphatically stated yesterday that certain representations were made to me, but not by the Dorsland Farmers’ Association. I said that certain people had asked me to see the Minister and they wrote a letter. The Minister said at the time that there was nothing before the House, that he did not know what he could discuss with the people; that was eignteen months ago.

Who were the people?

They were all people who did not represent the Dorsland Farmers’ Association. The hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) must not try to put words into my mouth. The hon. member must not think, because he is a solicitor, that he can teach me what to say.

Order, order.

Order, order. The hon. member is limited purely to a personal explanation.

May I say this then that I emphatically stated yesterday that the Minister said he would see these people whenever there was anything before the House.

And he has not seen them.

Instead of that a wire came from Pretoria, stating that they were proceeding to Cape Town and that they will see the Minister in any case.

The hon. member for Zoutpansberg failed to continue his story and to tell us whether the Minister was willing to see them. Yesterday the hon. member told us that the hon. Minister had refused to see them. That they had to go away without being heard, that they had to go away without having been given an opportunity to state their case. I appeal to you, Sir; we have it on evidence now that these people tried on two occasions to put their case to the Minister.

May I give a word of explanation?

Is the hon. member willing to allow the Minister to make a personal explanation?

I am quite agreeable.

Certain correspondence passed between those people and my office. Those letters were written by a man named Chamberlain. They were most offensive and insolent letters. They were such offensive and insolent letters that I ultimately wrote stating that I would not reply to his correspondence. The next thing I heard was that they had telegraphed the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers), informing him that they were coming to Cape Town to see me, and I said there was nothing to see me about. They wrote that they were coming and asked the hon. member for Zoutpansberg to make an appointment with me, and I refused to see them and I did not see them.

We have it on record now and the Minister has admitted it. These people came all the way from Zoutpansberg to try to plead their cause.

Do you know Mr. Chamberlain?

They came all the way to try and plead with the Minister to allow them to keep the homes which they have built up after a grim struggle.

These are facts.

We have got that on record. These people asked to see the Minister; they asked the Minister to be heard before he dispossessed them. They came all the way from Zoutpansberg.

At their own expense.

And they were refused a hearing, and they had to go back all the way without having been allowed to plead their case. All I ask is that these people be given fair play.

They are getting it.

That is all I ask.

Of course, they are getting it.

You talk about British fair play. Let us give them fair play.

Hear, hear.

It has been a hard struggle for these people of Zoutpansberg to build their homes there, to carve out a future for themselves, and after a hard, grim struggle, they are now required to leave their homes. One does not like to part with one’s home in these circumstances. We are the custodians of the rights of these people; we have got to protect their rights. And yet it is proposed that their rights should be taken away from them without a hearing. Now the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) comes along and asks that if these people wish to come and put their case before the Select Committee—they have been here before on a fruitless mission—will the Government be prepared to pay their expenses? What is the hon. Minister going to reply to that? I want to ask everyone in this House with a sense of fair play whether that is an unreasonable request. Is it unreasonable of those people to ask for a hearing.

Do they not know that they must get a hearing before the Select Committee?

They were here to plead their cause and it was a fruitless mission.

They were told so before they came.

All we ask now is this: Let us give these people the assurance that when they come here they will be welcomed, and that the Government is prepared to pay their expenses, and that it is prepared to listen to them. They are not rich people; we have heard that. All we ask now is that these people be given the assurance that they will be welcomed, that the Government will at the last minute listen to them and give them a hearing. That is all we ask. I only ask that fair play be given to these people. And now I would like to address myself for a few moments to the hon. member for Tembuland. He has invoked the sacred cause of soil conservation to try and justify this cruel act towards these people, and in order to do it he has drawn a comparison between the sacrifices that are asked of these people and the sacrifices which he and others in the reserve areas had to make in the cause of another matter of national importance, namely the segregation of the natives in their own area. I want to ask the hon. member for Tembuland just this one question: Does he think it is possible to draw a comparison between the way the Government is acting in this matter, and the way in which Parliament acted in the case of the native reserves and the policy of segregation? When it was contemplated to take away from Europeans in the native areas farms that they have built up, what did Parliament do; what did the Government of the country do? They sent commission after commission touring the whole country, visiting every area, giving every farmer on the spot an opportunity of pleading his cause. Is that happening today? Can a comparison be drawn between a hasty, ill-considered, arbitrary act like this and a long continuing policy ….

It is valueless ground.

It makes no difference; even if it is valueless; these people have succeeded in carving out the homes they have there; they love their homes all the more, because they built them up after a grim struggle. I want to say that Parliament is the custodian of the rights of citizens and Parliament should not take away from a citizen any right without that citizen having been given a fair and just hearing. Not many weeks ago a Bill was before the House to deprive some people of rights which they enjoyed; and how the rafters of this House echoed with the protests of certain members. I refused to vote for that, because there Parliament was threatening to deprive citizens of the country of their rights. I refused to vote for the measure. On that same principle I am pleading the cause of these people on that principle and on that principle alone.

But for that reason they are going to have a Select Committee.

These people are poor. They have been here once and the Minister refused to see them.

There is a rich man behind them; they represent rich men.

I say these people are poor. They are very far away; they are at the other extremity of South Africa. All they ask is to be heard. They have been here to plead their cause and the Minister refused to welcome them. Tell them now that you will welcome them and give them a hearing. Is that asking too much? I hope the hon. member for Tembuland will not try and draw an analogy again between what is happening now and what happened in the case of the native reserves.

I am sure you won’t expect the natives to come down here every time they protest.

Every farmer who was dispossessed was given a hearing.

And every native too.

If that had been done in this case, there might be something to say for the Bill, but it has not happened. Here we are infringing one of the most elementary principles of right and justice and fair play and on account of that I heartily support the amendment of the hon. member for Boshof.

I want to associate myself with the protests that have been made by the two previous speakers that the hon. Minister should take everything into consideration and agree to the representations that have been made. It is no fun for these people to cover the distance from Zoutpansberg to Cape Town at their own expense. It is a distance of 1,300 miles by rail. Everyone of us knows what costs are connected with such a trip, and we on this side of the House want to continue directing our representations to the Minister in the hope that eventually we may achieve some success. If he will not reveal the real object with which he has presented this Bill to us, we hope that he at least will place those people who have actually an interest in that land in the first instance, in a position to come here and submit their case before the Select Committee that will be appointed by this House, so that that select Committee can obtain first-hand information. Two pictures have been hung before us; the one depicted by some speakers shows an absolute desert; but on the other hand we have been told that this is not such a bad part of the country. Those of us in this House who have not had the good fortune to visit those parts or to have been members of the party that accompanied the Minister there—and it seems to me even those who were on those parties are not aware of what the actual facts of the case are, because not one of them has risen and provided us with information of any real value. The hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) has stated here in reference to the remonstrances of the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) “but no injustice is being done to these people; they will be compensated”. We can imagine what sort of compensation those people will receive after listening to the hon. Minister of Lands. Is he not the man who stood up in the House and told us that that is an absolutely worthless region. We can imagine what sort of compensation these people will get after having listened to the Minister of Lands. From his place in this House he has told us that this land has no value whatever. He has brought us under the impression that the land is not worth more than 1s. a morgen.

Will the Minister sell his land along the Crocodile River for 1s. a morgen?

If the Minister in advance lowered the value of these people’s property so much, before the expropriation, then we know in advance what the so-called compensation is going to be that these people will receive. The whole business is obscure to me. The Minister presents a Bill, but he does not state what are going to be the financial implications under the Bill. He expects us to vote blindly for heavens knows what. We do not know whether this is going to be a reserve for plants, whether it is actually land that has to be reclaimed, but the Minister says “Vote blindly”. After that they will have to come again and ask for the requisite funds. Is this logical? The Minister ought first to say what are going to be the costs of this wild scheme. The title of the Bill states that it will be a nature reserve for wild animals and plants, and it makes provision for matters incidental thereto. In regard to the protection of animals I think that after the information we have had we know that all those animals in that neighbourhood are present in large numbers in other game reserves in the country. What then is the necessity of giving protection to the few species of animals that are there? Is it necessary to preserve and to cultivate the wild plants in the neighbourhood? The Minister has stated that this is a desert. I formed the impression when he spoke that there was nothing else there but sand because he said that everything that still stood there had died. We have in that quarter already got a botanical reserve, or as we describe it in other parts of the country, a Karoo Garden. Now the question arises that the existing reserve has been there for 20 years already. Has that reserve showed any results? Is there any part of the Transvaal in the immediate vicinity of the reserve, or more remote, that has derived any benefit from the reserve? One would have expected if this is one of the big reasons for the Minister wanting to expropriate further land that the Minister would have argued that people in the neighbourhood, farmers in that vicinity, would gain some advantage from it, and that the farmers in that area are already being benefited by the existing botanical reserve. We should have expected the Minister to rise in his place and say “These and these results have been achieved”. In other parts of the country we have had reserves where plants have been grown which have communicated benefits to the immediate neighbourhood or those more remote, but the Minister has mentioned no benefit as having flowed from the existing reserve that has been established for 20 years. It would be interesting as a guide if the Minister would make available to the House the information contained in the files, files which none of the public know anything about. Do they contain nothing of any value? If there is nothing of value and the reserve that has been in existence there for 20 years has not been of any value, why does the Minister want to create a greater reserve which would also lie idle for 20 years? Is there any necessity for such a reserve in that quarter of the country? If there is a reason I should like to know from the Minister why he did not tell us the reason for the National Parks Board having refused to take this reserve under it. Why? Here we have the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) who is a member of the National parks Board. He stood up and danced about, but he did not tell us why the board would not touch this thing. Neither he nor the Minister have come and told us what is going on behind the scenes. Any impartial person who listened to this debate can come to no other conclusion than that there is something obscure behind it. What is the reason? The Minister is a man who if he wants to say a thing says it. But he is acting in a way that is strange to us in this instance. He has come here with a long speech on the matter. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, what your opinion is when the Bill says that this, is going to be a nature reserve for wild plants and animals, while the Minister stands up and states that he has repeated ad nauseam that the great object with the Bill is to reclaim the land. Just imagine. Why is it the Minister comes and advances as a reason something that is not even mentioned in the Bill? In the long title there is no word about reclamation of the land. If I were an older member of the House and knew more about procedure, I should not be surprised if you, Mr. Speaker, would not rule the Bill out of order. If this is the real reason why has it not been so stated in the Bill? The Minister declares that he wants to reclaim the land. He maintains that this is a territory that falls under the 1 per cent. If this is the reason he will have to create a reserve not only, along the Limpopo but in tens of other places throughout the country. But the Minister does not himself believe in the argument, because I know that the Minister has seen parts of the North-West that he himself has characterised as amongst the best in the country for cattle farming, and they all fall under the 1 per cent. Thus the Minister does not believe it himself. Why is the Bill before the House? A second reason that the Minister gave is that he says the ground is of no value. He has brought us under the impression that you can buy the land for 1s. per morgen. But it is peculiar that the people who are still there are prepared to pay much more in order to retain the land. Just imagine it for the Minister to come here and to advance as a big reason that these people must be saved from themselves because they cannot make a living there. Then he states that when they are ill they have to drive 30 miles for a doctor. Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous? Any of the farms that the Minister has throughout the length and breadth of South Africa is more than 30 miles from a doctor, and there are many parts where they have to drive 100 or 150 miles to get to the nearest doctor. I am convinced that the Minister himself does not believe in his own arguments. What is the reason for the Bill? Why can he not tell us plainly? There are other reasons lurking in the background. In connection with the value or uselessness of the Bill, we have heard that it has been stated before the court on oath that there are 68,000 cattle in that area. This is not what the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) has stated, but it has been stated under oath in the court by the Veterinary Department. They referred therê to the region to the north of the mountains. I would not say that they are alj cattle; perhaps it includes other stock. But while we have this information the Minister says there are only 7,000 cattle. We have made efforts to learn from the Minister when he had the return prepared and how he arrives at the 7,000. As the Minister knows, and as has frequently been stated here, if one for instance made a return in respect of the Minister’s own farm at Hutchinson there are seasons when there is nothing at all on a farm in consequence of drought, but on the other hand there are times when there is a great number of cattle. But apart from that you have in some of the most progressive parts of the country people who at certain periods of the year do not keep their stock on their farms. I know that in parts of the Northern Free State the stock is sent away to Natal in certain seasons of the year. I have had an experience of the same thing on my own land. I have a certain camp the carrying capacity of which is from four to five sheep per morgen, but that is only in respect of a certain part of the year. In the winter I cannot let my sheep run on the grass veld there, and then one might say that the land has no carrying capacity because there are no stock on it. It is consequently a very important point to know when the return was compiled. But I want to go further. We have asked the Minister why he has not informed us of the reason why the National Parks Board will have nothing to do with the Bill. I should like to ask further whether the Department of Agriculture recommends the Bill. The Minister does not reply because he knows that we know that the Agricultural Department are opposed to the Bill. His position is simply untenable. Another motive lies behind the Bill which the Minister has not told us of. There is some other idea in the Minister’s head or in the Department’s head or in an official’s head we do not know. It is here claimed that the reserve has a threefold object, namely to reclaim the land, in the second place to breed wild animals, and in the third place to protect plant life. I think we can leave the point about the animals out of our calculations. I do not believe that the Minister still adheres to that. In the long speech that he gave that was not one of his arguments, nor was that an argument used by any of the members who reluctantly supported the Bill, that the animals in that region have to be protected. Accordingly, there are only two reasons left, namely soil conservation and the protection of plant life. I want to put a third question, and I hope that the Minister will answer yes or no: If it is his real object to protect the soil and to protect plant life, why is he coming with this Bill? Why does not he achieve his object through existing legislation? Again the Minister is as silent as the grave. He does not want to let the cat out of the bag. To me that affords the clearest proof that other motives are concealed behind the measure apart from soil protection and plant life protection. I have before me the Act under which the Minister can accomplish this, namely, Act No. 13 of 1941. In Section 4 I read—

Then the section states further—

That is almost precisely the wording that the Minister himself has used. Then I read in Section 5—

Whether the Minister knows it or not or whether it is because his Department has not reminded him of it it is clear proof that the arguments that the Minister has employed are not intended in all sincerity to support the Bill. But this is what Section 8 has to say—

The Minister used almost precisely the same words in his speech. Now I ask in all reasonableness: In heaven’s name what is the need for this Bill, why this expense to the State, why this unnecessary expense to these poor people, when this law is already in existence? Does he want to place an Act on the Statute Book unnecessarily? This envisages exactly the same objects as the other Act. If the Minister has the power already, why have this Bill? If the Minister really intends to undertake soil conservation I shall heartily support him, but he does not want to conserve the soil. He cannot say he does, because that is not to be found in the Bill. Why does he occupy us for days and days with such an unnecessary Bill? He does not want to conserve the soil but he has something else in view. This will not benefit him, this course that he is following will hot raise him in the estimation of the public; they will think less and less of him if he takes this line. He has come here with a shallow pretext in the form of soil conservation and veld protection in order to hide the real purpose.

Behind the Mopani tree.

Yes, behind the trees that are all being felled there. I cannot support this measure. If the Minister, with his faithful supporters, wants to force this Bill on the House without first giving the people who are affected an opportunity of presenting their case to us, it will be a crying injustice, and the Minister will be faced with strong opposition.

I cannot really understand Why there should be any hurry with this Bill. Neither the Minister nor any of the members on the other side who have spoken have advanced any reason for the haste. If you are dealing with a piece of land that was unoccupied or where only a few people were living, and if most of the land belonged to the State one could have understood if the Government said “I want to use this land to make a nature sanctuary”. But where you are dealing as here with 240,000 morgen of land and there are today about 40 private owners and about 15 settlers on the land, I cannot understand how the Government can go so far as to compel the people to surrender the land, nor why it should be converted into a game reserve. The Minister may have a very poor opinion of the land and there may be members who do not believe that the land has much value, that it cannot be worked productively and occupied, but the man on the land has undoubtedly a love of the land; he has been living there for years, and he would like to remain there. As the Government comes with such a Bill while there is other legislation on the Order Paper that has to go through, and we are kept occupied for days and days with this Bill to expropriate people, I think we must call a halt and stop the Government carrying on in this manner and expropriating people. The hon. mem ber for Albany (Mr. Bowker) spoke here, and he said that this is a piece of ground that is virtually a desert. He was there himself. There is no grass and only a few trees standing there. If the ground is so poor as has been represented, I cannot understand why the people there should have set afoot such a formidable agitation against the Minister’s plan to convert this piece of land into a game reserve. I understand that the Minister stated that the land is worth 1s. a morgen. Why should the people launch an agitation of this character for land that is so poor? And it is not as if the people belonged to only one political party, they are attached to both political parties. These people for the sake of the land which has no value, have had a large book published and circulated to all members of Parliament as well as other persons. Why? There are the public bodies in the Transvaal who are ranging themselves against the Minister, the agricultural associations, the people who are living in that area, they are all addressing letters requesting members of Parliament and the public to oppose the measure. I listened when the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. A. Cilliers) spoke, and when he was finished I did not know whether he was for the Bill or against it. He did not want to come out clearly with his attitude in respect of the measure. But let us get closer to it. The hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. J. G. W. van Niekerk) stated that three years ago he wanted to purchase some of this land that the Minister says is worth 1s. a morgen. He wanted to buy a farm, not on the river, but 12 miles away from the river, and the owner wanted £1 7s. 6d. per morgen.

He thanks heaven every day that he did not buy it.

That may be so, but what I want to point out is how much the owner of the land thought of it. It is not what the Minister thinks about the land, but what the owners think of it.

Would he pay that price?

No, he thought it too high but if he could have got it for £1 or £1 2s. 6d. he would have taken it.

And if it was 1s. 11d.?

If it was anything from 1s. 11d. to 5s. per morgen people would stream in to buy.

Is the Minister prepared to sell the Government land for 1s. per morgen?

Is the Government prepared to sell at 10s. a morgen? That argument of the Minister’s that the land is of so little value, that they want to buy it up for that reason, is not well grounded. Now I say that when the Minister comes here with a view to chasing a set of people off their land—I believe about 60 people, of whom 40 are private owners and the others settlers—if the Minister wants to expropriate these people’s land, he is doing something in regard to which we shoúld be very cautious, and I maintain that it is high time that the Government puts an end to the adoption of laws in this way and the exercise of its powers in this way to deprive people of their property. We should protect those people. What is the position now? These 60 people will be bought out. The price of the land will be fixed by arbitration, and if they are not satisfied with the price it will be expropriated at that figure. Now I should like to know from the Minister where these people will obtain land? These days it is very difficult to purchase land. You have to pay an enormous price for it.

Many of them are living in Johannesburg or Parys.

That may be so, but then we have still the settlers and the other people who really live there. I am asking the Minister whether he will let them have land at reasonable prices that they can pay. If that land is expropriated will these people just be chased on to the road? I am not referring to the professional men who have farms there, but to the people who are farming there. The hon. member for Wakkerstroom stated here that there are 6,000 cattle in that area and some 20,000 small stock. We know that when stock are taken to a new district many of them die to start off with. But when the lambs and the calves arrive the new generation fare better, and they can thrive fairly well. But I feel that if there are 20,000 small stock and 6,000 large stock there the land cannot be so bad.

Who has told you that there are 20,000 small stock?

The hon. member for Wakkerstroom said that, and he went to look at the land in those parts. No one is going to tell me that he would want to sell his land in Bethal and then go and look for land in the poorest area in the Transvaal. This is the position in which those people at present on the land will be driven. Let us go further. I understand that the Kruger Game Reserve covers an area of about 350,000 morgen. Here we are going to set aside another 240,000 morgen, so that we shall actually have 600,000 morgen together.

They are not together.

I understood that they were next to each other, but in any case they are near each other. This means that in the Transvaal we will Have some 600,000 morgen of land for a game reserve. It means that all that ground will be withdrawn from farming. We find now that people like Major Hunt and other members of the Agricultural Association object to this step. These are people who have sympathy with farming. They are not people who regard the matter from a political angle. They are people who study agriculture and who look to what can be done to promote farming in this country. We cannot say that we should not take any notice of these people, because they have no ulterior motives. I do not know whether Major Hunt has any land there, but if he has land there and he does not want to get rid of it it shows that he attaches value to it. I say that this way of doing things, of the Government coming along so readily to ask Parliament for power to expropriate land and to deprive private owners of their rights, should once and for all be put an end to. People’s property is being confiscated, and if the Government wants to do that it should have a very strong case and it should be able to show that it is in the interests of South Africa. Is it in the interests of South Africa to declare this 240,000 morgen a game reserve? Now I come to the amendment that asks that if the Government is proceeding with this measure it should afford the opponents of the Bill an opportunity to submit their objections and their evidence before the Select Committee. We have had experience of Select Committees in connection with a hybrid Bill. That is a Bill that affects the interests of the private people as well, and there are big difficulties connected with the treatment of such a Bill. People are being deprived of what is their own, and we ought to place them in a position to enable them in any case to put their case fully before the Select Committee. There ought to be no objection to that. The Government should really help these people to come here to give the necessary evidence. We find, often that people in such cases come here to give evidence, and after the Select Committee has deliberated and taken the evidence the committee has the right in certain cases to refund the costs of these people. In many cases these people’s costs cannot be covered, and they have to pay the costs out of their own pocket should they want to object to a Bill such as this. I ask the Minister whether that is fair and whether it is just. When we take from people property that belongs to them, that they have bought, or that they have received by way of bequest from someone else, property for which they have a love, then we should not set about things in this way [Quorum.]

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 6th April.