May I again put to the Acting Prime Minister the question which I put to him yesterday on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition.

I wish to express my regret for not having been able to reply to the question yesterday. The hon. Leader of the Opposition gave me notice of it on Monday night, but I could not be here yesterday in order to reply to it. Perhaps it is as well that I should repeat the question now. The first question put to me was whether I, in view of the necessary arrangements members have to make, would indicate on what date the end of the Session could be expected. I wish to say that I can only express my personal opinion. In view of the fact that the Government is prepared to let several Bills which are still on the Order Paper stand over and not to proceed with them, I am of opinion that it would be possible to conclude the Session on 9th June. That of course depends also on the actions and interests of hon. members themselves. He further asked me what work we still have to deal with. It will be good if hon. members would look at today’s Order Paper. I will give an indication of what Bills and orders on the Order Paper we still intend finishing before the end of the Session. Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 must be concluded, and in connection with No. 5 the usual Appropriation Bill will of course follow. Then there is No. 6. As regards the Silicosis Bill I have already stated that we will not place that on the Statute Book this year. It will per haps be necessary for the Minister of Mines to make a statement in connection with that, which may perhaps lead to a certain amount of discussion; but we will not go as far as to have the second reading. We are proceeding with Number 8. With numbers 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 we will not proceed; nor with number 16. Then there is the usual Finance Bill, the so-called Omnibus Bill which is passed every year, and also a small amendment Bill in connection with the Native Urban Areas Act. We could not submit that earlier because the Consolidation Bill had not yet been approved of by both Houses. We could not incorporate the amendment in the Consolidating Bill. But there is an urgent amendment which must be made on a temporary basis. It probably will not take much time. Possibly we will submit Bills amending the Wine and Spirits Control Act and to provide for the taking over of the officials or the Dairy Board by the Department of Social Welfare in connection with the milk and butter scheme. Those two Bills, although they are desirable, are not essential and will only be proceeded with if there is evidence that the House is unanimous. I have already said that there will be a Bill in connection with the control over wine and spirits. The other is in regard to the taking over of the officials of the Dairy Board by the Department of Social Welfare in connection with the execution of the milk and butter scheme. Then there is number 29, the private Bill in connection with the incorporation of the Law Society of Natal. I have been given the assurance that all parties in the House are agreed that the further stages thereof shall be taken and that it will not take more than a few minutes. If that is so, I am prepared to allow time for it, but only on that condition. Then there are certain reports of the Select Committees which must be dealt with. There is the report of the Pensions Committee, and the Bill arising from it, which is on the Order Paper for tomorrow. That is the most important. Then there is the report of the Select Committee on Crown Lands, number 17 on today’s paper, which is usually dealt with. Then we have the report of the Select Committee on Public Accounts in connection with the war accounts. I do not know whether this report will be printed in time for it to be discussed. Then we have the first report of the Select Committee on Native Affairs (No. 19). As far as I know it is not necessary to discuss the third report. Then there will possibly be submitted the report of the Select Committee on Bretton Woods. But that has not been submitted yet. Then there is still Notice of Motion No. 1 on page 832 of the Order Paper, and I think also the usual suggestions in connection with trade agreements which we usually get towards the end of the Session. The main activities still remaining are items 1 to 5 on the Order Paper of today and the Pensions Report. I do not think there is anything further which will occupy much time.

What about Dongola?

No report has yet been submitted. It seems as if the Select Committee is still busily engaged on the Bill.

Are you continuing with the Bill?

Unless we have the report we cannot continue with it.

But if you do receive the report?

It has not yet been submitted and it seems as if it will still last some time.

I move—

In asking the House to assent to this Bill, the Government is giving expression to its conviction that the housing problem in South Africa constitutes a national emergency, and that it is prepared to accept full responsibility for attempting to solve it. This is the second time, within the space of twelve months, that I have had to come to Parliament to ask for an amendment of the law relating to housing. Hon. members will, I have no doubt, realise that only the most compelling of reasons would have induced the Government, after barely a year’s experience with its national housing policy, to depart from the principles already laid down, and to embark upon a far-reaching plan of national control of house-building in the widest sense, with the State taking over the direct responsibility for the erection of houses. By the force of circumstances the Government has been driven to concede the existence of such compelling reasons, and to change its course. The nature of those circumstances I shall deal with briefly. The deductions to be drawn from them may form the subject of controversy. But, as to their existence, there can be no dispute. During the 1944 Session of Parliament the Housing Amendment Act was passed, providing for the substitution of the existing Central Housing Board by a National Housing and Planning Commission, a body more representative and enjoying wider powers than its predecessor. Although the commission was given the statutory power to construct houses in terms of the Housing Act, the main responsibility for the actual building of houses was, by Parliament, left with local authorities, while the commission was entrusted with the task of stimulating building, providing the necessary finance, and generally taking such steps as were necessary to plan a progressive programme of housing to meet the needs of the people. From the outset it was realised that such planning should be divided into two categories, namely, a long-range programme embracing the next five to ten years; and an immediate programme of building, subject to the availability of building materials, to meet the urgent and pressing needs of the moment. Shortly after the National Housing and Planning Commission began to function, various negotiations with national bodies, representing local authorities, took place for the purpose of discussing and removing difficulties in the way of an immediate housing drive. As a consequence agreement was reached on the question of the respective losses to be borne on sub-economic housing schemes by the Government and local authorities—a matter which at that stage was stated to be the most serious obstacle. With the financial hurdle out of the way, the highest hopes were held by my technical advisers in regard to a concerted effort by local authorities throughout the country. Certainly at that stage no warning was given to me about difficulties in carrying out the immediate programme, other than those resulting from the limitation of building materials. In June, 1944, local authorities were asked to furnish the commission with their housing programmes for the year ending June, 1945, and were eventually allocated schemes including approximately 12,500 houses (to the limit of available materials), which they undertook to commence within this period. Subsequently these local authorities were asked whether they could carry out their undertakings and, with negligible exceptions, confirmed that the programme would be completed. That was the position as put to me in November, 1944. And, in those circumstances, I am convinced that hon. members will agree that the Government was justified in believing that it could face the New Year with a measure of equanimity, in so far as its immediate housing programme was concerned. The national housing programme involved the building of 12,000 houses by June, 1945. The construction of national houses, however, is not the only means of meeting the housing shortage, and in addition provision at that time had been made by the Building Controller for the issue of some 600 permits per month for private building. Every house completed, whether it be a national house or whether it is built by private enterprise, helps to diminish the housing shortage. And it was with this knowledge that the then Director of Housing, Dr. Hamlin, in no spirit of undue optimism announced in November, 1944, at Bloemfontein, that some 26,000 houses would be completed during the Parliamentary year. It has, I regret to say, become increasingly clear that for various reasons this will not be the case; in other words, that the programme in so far as national houses are, concerned will not nearly be completed. I am not in a position today to give accurate* figures, but, if 4,000 of the 12,000 national houses anticipated are available for occupation, we shall be fortunate. After full enquiry the newly appointed Director of Housing, Major Collings—who has had wide experience in the erection of Defence buildings during a period of emergency—gives the following grounds for this failure:

1. (a) Difficulty in acquiring land;
2. (b) Difficulty in securing labour;
3. (c) Difficulty in securing suitable tenders;
4. (d) Time taken by applications passing to various authorities; and
5. (e) Apathy.

I think this is a just and reasonable estimate of the sum total of causes which have hindered the construction of national houses. I shall certainly not attempt to take the matter further today, as no possible service could be rendered by doing so. That some local authorities have had their difficulties has always been admitted, just as it is common knowledge that some have, through apathy or other causes, allowed apparent difficulties to assume too formidable a complexion. What is important, and what over-rides all other considerations, is that we are now faced with a national emergency and that, to overcome that emergency, special measures are necessary. This Bill, which I now ask the House to grant a second reading, contains such special measures, measures which, in the opinion of the Government, are essential to enable it to cope with the temporary situation which has arisen. In effect, I am asking Parliament to give me a blank cheque during a limited period. That cheque will ultimately have to be met—and Parliament will be the final judge whether it should be honoured or not. Before coming to deal with the actual provisions of the Bill, I should like briefly to indicate to hon. members the lines along which I am now attempting to approach the problem. I think it has become abundantly clear that the present system of relying mainly on the initiative of local authorities for the construction of houses, coupled with the existing unsatisfactory methods of training skilled building craftsmen, will not only fail to meet the housing shortage, but will also have disastrous results for’ the country as a whole. This being so, the Government has decided that it should itself embark on a policy of constructing national houses where responsible local and other authorities, either through apathy or owing to circumstances beyond their control, have not provided or are unlikely to provide for the needs of the people. To give effect to this policy, it will be necessary to utilise to the full both the powers already given to the commission by existing legislation, and to provide additional powers not contained in existing legislation. The National Housing and Planning Commission already has the right to erect dwellings, to purchase building materials for housing schemes, and to undertake research. It does not as yet possess powers of expropriation—powers which, in terms of Section 2 of the Bill, will be made available to it. When the ’ provisions of the Bill become operative, the commission will be authorised to act for the Government; to commence building operations without delay wherever necessary; to acquire in bulk the building materials necessary for national housing; and to undertake experimental building, possibly by utilising trainees, for the purpose of testing the most suitable houses for the country’s needs. There are four essential factors in the building of houses, namely, land, materials, labour, and construction costs. Land: With the best will in the world, no one can build a single house without land on which to place the structure—unless of course, one resigns oneself to the stimulating, though unprofitable pastime, of building castles in the air. Land necessary for housing will naturally have to be acquired by purchase, wherever possible. But expropriation is inevitable. Expropriation for housing purposes can at present be achieved under Section 11 of the Housing Act. But there are innumerable delays and frustrations, and the whole process is ringed round with conditions and restrictions which tend to make the process a slow and lingering one. In terms of Section 2 (1), (b) of the Bill, regulations may be made by the Governor-General regarding the expropriation, with the written consent of the Minister, of land for the construction of dwellings. It is contemplated that these regulations will provide for a much quicker process of expropriation by the commission, or by local authorities. I would emphasise that in taking these powers the Government is seeking to give them not only to the commission but also where necessary to local authorities; the commission will always be willing and ready to exercise such powers itself on behalf of local authorities. What I here have in view is the type of procedure adopted by the Defence Department—when Defence buildings were urgently necessary— of requisitioning land on, say, 30 days’ notice, without the need for following the lengthy procedure necessary under normal expropriation proceedings. In future, the commission or local authorities will be able to take possession and start building at once; they can talk about compensation later. It should be emphasised, of course, that all expropriation is subject to Ministerial consent, whether it is carried out by the commission of local authorities or by a provincial housing board established under Clause 4. In dealing with land one must inevitably deal with the question of the cost of the land. The object the Government has in view in this Bill is the provision of houses which can be leased or sold at reasonable prices. If the price of the land is exorbitantly high, this object will be defeated. The Bill accordingly, in terms of the provisions of Section 3 prescribes certain limitations upon the amount which may be paid by way of compensation for land expropriated. Briefly the provisions contained in Section 3 provides as follows, that the owner of land may be compensated by being given an amount equal to the latest municipal valuation plus 30 per cent., or the price paid by the owner plus 6 per cent. on the said amount for the period as from the date of acquisition to the date of expropriation. There are these alternatives, and it is incumbent upon the official who makes the award to grant the lesser of these two alternatives. Section 3 also takes into account the position of improvements made upon the land expropriated, and the appropriate provisions are contained in the section to meet such a case. Section 3 (3) provides for the case where there has been a speculative dealing and where the land has been purchased at more than the normal price for speculative purposes. In terms of that section—

And in that case compensation will be based upon the purchase price paid by the last owner, plus 6 per cent., another means of computing compensation still coming into operation. I go on next to deal with materials. Materials for national and private housing are being reserved by the Building Controller. The Deputy Building Controller is a member of the National and Planning Commission, and is in close touch both with the Director of Housing and the Chairman of the Commission. It is my intention to appoint a Housing Executive Board on which the Deputy Building Controller will be represented. In dealing with housing a number of departments may be affected from time to time. There is the Building Control Department, the Department of Public Works, Commerce and Industries, and the Labour Department, and in order to ensure the fullest co-operation in carrying out the Government’s housing plans it has been thougt advisable to have such a board on which the heads of the departments may sit. For assistance must and will be given to make building materials available both for national housing and for construction by private enterprise of houses necessary to meet immediate needs. But once again the cost feature enters into the picture and in that regard I refer hon. members to Section 2 (1) (t) which deals with the control of materials used in the construction of buildings and the control of the prices of such materials. These powers will be exercised. It is the Government’s intention to use these powers, but no separate section will be set up in the division of housing, but we will naturally use the existing machinery for fixing prices, namely the machinery already in existence in the office of the Price Controller. We shall probably have to import materials in bulk although every effort will be made to stimulate local production. In suitable cases I contemplate allowing contractors to import stocks which they can hold on behalf of the commission.

And what will you pay the contractors?

I will come to that in a moment. The next matter is labour. In dealing with the question of labour I have always tried to draw a distinction between our immediate and our long-range building programme. If we are to carry out an adequate building programme over the next five or ten years, it is clear that we shall have to increase very materially our building labour force. It has been suggested that there is not sufficient labour to carry out even the immediate programme. Whether that is correct or not it is certain that the best use is not being made of the available material. It is for this reason that provision is made in Section 2 (1) (s) (vii) of the Bill—

It is the intention to concentrate all available building artisans on essential housing construction. But we cannot live only in the present. We must look to the years ahead, to the housing needs which face us in the post-war era and we must plan accordingly. If we take the long view, then it must be obvious that the present serious shortage of skilled building artisans cannot be overcome without adopting extraordinary methods. If satisfactory progress is to be made with the national housing schemes, large numbers of additional operatives will be required to be placed on skilled building work with the least possible delay. Unlike other skilled trades, such as engineering, furniture making and printing, in which are employed large numbers of operatives, in addition to the journeymen, apprentices and labourers, in the building trades no operatives are employed. The position has, in addition, been made worse by the failure of the employers in the building industry to engage a reasonable number of apprentices. This will be apparent when it is stated that there are only 2,209 apprentices to 19,554 journeymen; a ratio of one apprentice to 8.8 journeymen, whereas in the engineering industry the ratio is one apprentice to 2.3 journeymen. As labour costs in the erection of houses constitute approximately 40 per cent. of the total cost, it will not suffice to deal merely with this aspect of the problem, particularly as the ratio of skilled to unskilled labour costs is, say, 65 to 35. Before they can be expected to co-operate in any scheme which, on the face of it, can be regarded as flooding the labour market, members of building trade unions will naturally expect the following: Effective safeguards against their being displaced from employment by newcomers, and against exploitation of any scheme by private persons for gain; guaranteed employment at agreement wages over a period of years; the engagement of adequate numbers of apprentrices; assurances that the Government will take the necessary steps to ensure that advantages, secured in consequence of the scheme decided upon, will not be dissipated by failure to deal effectively with prices of materials and inflated profits on sales of land for building sites; and excess profits to contractors. I have already referred to those provisions of the Bill which deal specifically with profits on the sale of land, and which enable the Governor-General to promulgate regulations in respect of the prices and control of building materials. Having regard to what is stated above—in other words, to the justice of giving building artisans a quid pro quo—provision has also been made, in 2 (1) (r) of the Bill, for the limitation of contractors’ profits—

The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) will see that this provision deals with the point raised by way of interjection earlier, but this is not a form of cost plus system. Here the cost is to be calculated in advance, or a method or calculating it must be prescribed in advance, and when that has been done 6 per cent. may be added to such cost.

Is it possible to make such a calculation?

The Director of Housing for example has under consideration the question of erecting a number of test cottages, 10 or 20, costing them down to the last screw and then fixing the price and allowing the contractors that price plus 6 per cent.

How long will the test take?

The Director has interested himself in the so-called “rumble” house and contrary to prior reports given to me he is very interested in it. It will be speeded up.

We will not wait as long then äs for your 50,000 houses?

One hopes to improve as one goes along. And, as a result of negotiations which have taken place between the Secretary for Labour and the Building Trade Unions, I am confident that the Government will now have the full support and co-operation of the members of these Unions. I am deeply indebted to these unions for their ready and willing support; and I am equally indebted to the representatives of the Master Builders, who have indicated in clear, and unambiguous terms that they will co-operate with the Government to the fullest extent in its determined effort to come to grips with the housing emergency. In terms of paragraph 2 of the Bill, the Governor-General is empowered to make regulations providing for the registration of competent building artisans, and giving guarantees of stable employment for a fixed period; for the fixing of wages in specific areas, with due regard to Industrial Council agreements or other wage awards; for the diversion of building labour to national housing schemes; for making unlawful the employment of labour at wages higher than agreement wages; for the introduction of measures of intensive training, so as to render available additional labour, and to protect such labour; for compelling employers to employ such additional apprentices as may be necessary to ensure that adequate building craftsmen are available, and for the regulation of the employment in different areas of artisans, learners or apprentices of different races. While the proposals, which I have outlined, are designed to meet the abnormal conditions obtaining at present, they will, I earnestly hope, in many ways pave the way for comprehensive long-range planning, as well as assist in solving the problem of the employment. The following training schemes are visualised in the immediate future: The Cott system of intensive training which has proved successful, not only in the Union, but elsewhere among the Allied Nations for the training of engineering operatives for skilled work, should be used to train some 5,000 demobilised volunteers as bricklayers, plasterers, carpenters, electrical wiremen and plumbers over a period of 16 weeks. These trainees should remain on Defence pay-roll or receive payment on the Cott basis while being instructed. Upon satisfactorily completing the course, these trainees should be placed in the building industry, preferably on Government, provincial, National Housing and Planning Commision, or municipal works. It should be emphasised that the closed-shop provisions of any Industrial Council agreement must not be allowed to prevent the employment of any such trainees. In areas where housing facilities for non-Europeans are being provided, building work intended for use only by non-Europeans should be exempted from Industrial Council agreements, or other wage instruments. Provision will have to be made for such buildings to be erected mainly by non-European dilutees, working in the ratio, say, of four dilutees to one registered artisan. These dilutees—I contemplate non-European ex-volunteers—should be afforded intensive training for a period of approximately 10 weeks, before proceeding to specific employment; during this period I anticipate that they will either be retained on the army pay-roll, or otherwise be assisted by the Directorate of Demobilisation. I am informed by my technical advisers that an appropriate wage for the dilutees, after satisfactory completion of their training course, would be 1s. 6d. per hour for the first six months’ experience, thereafter rising by 3d. per hour to 3s. per hour. I have now dealt with the main reasons for Sections 3 and 4. Before touching on some of the remaining clauses I should explain why the Bill was so drafted as to enable regulations to be promulgated in terms of Section 2. It was originally the intention of the Government to place before the House a Bill in which all the powers sought would be set out in terms of the Bill itself. A Bill along these lines was drafted, but a practical and mechanical defect intervened and the law advisers said that if we do that another month would elapse and it will be impossible to introduce this legislation during this Session. For these reasons it is that I now come to Parliament to ask for these extraordinary powers, for what virtually is a blank cheque. I appreciate that Parliament does not lightly grant powers such as this. It is not the normal procedure to allow Ministers such powers except in exceptional circumstances. We have had an example of it during the last five and a half years, namely the War Measures Act, in terms of which emergency regulations could be promulgated. That Act was justified by the fact that the country was at war. I would earnestly ask hon. members to deal with this Bill on the basis of this being another national emergency, and ask the House to allow me to have these powers. Let me deal briefly with some of the remaining sections. Section 4 deals with the Government’s decision to allow Natal to establish a Provincial Housing Board. That will be an interesting experiment. The Administrator of Natal had full discussions with the Government and placed before the Government his proposals for housing in Natal. The Bill provides that the commission will have parallel powers in Natal, but in terms of the agreement with the Administrator the commission will not exercise any of its powers until such time that the Government is satisfied that housing is not dealt with adequately.

What reason is there for the differentiation between Natal and the other provinces?

The other provinces could have done the same if they wished to. I emphasise that as far as the expropriation of land is concerned in Natal, as elsewhere, there can be no expropriation without the consent of the Minister. Section 6 provides for the appointment of an additional member of the commission. I intend to appoint a woman, following on representations by the National Council of Women. Section 7 will enable me to appoint to the National Advisory Council on Housing a representative of utility companies, if the latter cannot agree upon a nominee. In terms of the present Act the utility companies have to nominate a representative. We have found that they cannot reach agreement, and provision is now made for the Minister to do so if they cannot agree. I have now attempted to deal with the reasons which have compelled the Government to ask Parliament for these special powers in regard to housing. In conclusion I wish to say this. The Government is no longer concerned with the erection of national houses only. It is concerned with the erection of houses of all types throughout the country and I am now looked upon as the Minister of Housing. We are faced with a shortage and difficulties which emerged from wartime conditions, shortage of materials, dislocation of movement of the population, and shortly we will be faced with the return of our men from the forces. In those circumstances it seems to me that the time has come when the Government must take a much wider perspective in relation to housing than previously. For this reason. I propose to appoint regional committees dealing with houses at Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria with a chairman, or a Local Regional Commissioner for Housing, who will be responsible for advising the Government on the housing position in all its aspects within the area of its jurisdiction. Regard will have to be had to the necessity to which I referred earlier for the closest co-operation between the Director of Building, the Housing Division, the Housing Commission and the Building Controller. That close contact already exists but there is no machinery at present for dealing with a number of matters which have not been dealt with in the past, and it is proposed now, in conjunction with the Building Controller to make such machinery available. In the new approach to housing I am most anxious to carry the local authorities with me. If they have difficulties I will try, through the powers given to me in this Bill to assist them. It is only when the local authorities cannot or will not carry out their housing obligations that the Government will intervene. In reviewing the position as a whole I am convinced that at rockbottom it is the multiplicity of authorities and the absence of one céntral authority which has in the past stood in the way of building development. That authority is now being given to the National Housing and Planning Commission which is being empowered to operate and to secure pieces of land, the labour and the material for building houses, peremptorily brushing aside all administrative red-tape and all obstructions from pressure groups. This Bill, Mr. Speaker, aims, in effect, at applying to the housing problem of South Africa the shock tactics that were used to equip South Africa for war in September, 1939. The parallel is a very close one. This Bill embodies an out-and-out attempt to destroy the enemies of slumdom, overcrowding and social degeneration that are bound up with the housing shortage. And it is a fight in which the honour of the country, and the legitimate claims of our serving men, are directly involved. I now look, Sir, to Parliament to give me and the Housing Commission the powers we need. I realise that these powers are drastic and exceptional. I ask them only, however, for a limited period, namely, for the three years provided in the Bill. And, Sir, if the House is prepared to entrust to me the blank cheque which I now, in these special circumstances, seek, I am prepared to give the undertaking that such powers will be exercised promptly, vigorously, and with only one interest in view, namely, the building of the missing homes that war exigencies have inevitably delayed.

On the same day it was said in the House that we should try to finish the work next week the Minister appears before us with a measure which in itself is so important and I may say so far-reaching that it would have taken days in the normal course of events to sift the matter, because here we are practically dealing with the introduction of a constitutional change in the whole Parliamentary system. Now the Minister comes at this stage and has many excuses. The Minister says he did not have time enough. Four years ago the Minister stated that he would build 10,000 houses, the following year it rose to 20,000 and the year after to 30,000, while the people who had knowledge of the matter knew that at that stage there was not enough material for even 5,000 houses. All these years the Minister had time to draw up a Bill to obtain power from Parliament to enable the Government to build the necessary houses. Not a single step was taken except that in the last month, after having delayed three years, the Minister, as he told us this morning, tried to draft a Bill. What really happened, I think, was that the Minister found that there was no time to draw up a Bill in such a way that Parliament could really grant these powers. We are aware of it that it is necessary to have powers to remove certain difficulties. Who is more conscious of it than we on this side of the House that the divided control amongst the various authorities about which the Minister spoke a moment ago makes it impossible to go ahead and to speed up the building of houses within a period which will not drag on for ever, perhaps for years. We know the powers are necessary and we are not against these powers being granted. I just wish to point out that as far as Public Health is concerned the Minister was willing to make divided control worse than it ever was before. But now he comes to the House and says that he cannot have divided control and has to have special powers to get past that. He wishes to eliminate divided control. The Minister could have drafted the Bill and laid it before this House which would have given him powers from the Parliament of the country, but because he himself does not know what he wants and because his officials do not know what they want, he comes before this House with a Bill to give him powers which he himself today does not know how to exercise. Even today he does not know what he is really asking for. As a result he cannot introduce a Bill which will grant him those powers. I am convinced of it, unfortunately convinced, that with the red tape which the Minister will create through this Bill and through his own regulations and proclamations he will tie himself up completely. That is unfortunately my conviction. We protest against this sort of legislation. We know that the Minister was impotent in the past, but we also know that a crisis exists and that these powers must be obtained in one way or another. We are not going to tell the Minister that we agree to his doing this sort of thing. All we can say is that we know that a crisis exists and that the best must be done that can be done.’ but we cannot see that that will happen through the actions of the Minister in this manner. Further than that we do not go. I am convinced thereof that not only for housing but for social welfare and creating employment for the whole population special measures will be required, but if you want to do that you must come to Parliament and receive those powers by legislation which gives the Government of the day the power to do those things. That the Minister could not do. He could not come here and by means of the Bill tell the country what he is really going to do and what restrictions he was going to place on the population of the country. He comes here with a practically planless Bill, with vague indications of what he will ask for, but the country, the local authorities and the private owners do not in the least know what awaits them. They must wait until the Government Gazette appears and I can already see that every week, after the Minister has got a bit involved in red tape, three or four proclamations will appear, the one repealing or amending the other, because there will be no Parliament to assist the Minister to do the right thing. He will have to act on his own initiative and he will have proclamations issued and recalled and amended every few years. He comes here with a planless Bill without detail. Why? Because he says there is a crisis. But we know very well that the crisis has been there for years; we know that the Minister had the time available and that he could make no plans. He frankly stated that he did nothing under these circumstances and that he was frustrated by this one or that one. He wants to assume the rôle of a legislator when Parliament does not sit, and he also wants to use those powers. I still think that if this were the beginning of the Session and not the end of it, the Minister would withdraw the Bill and he would introduce a Bill providing for every essential measure so that the country would know what awaits it. Now we come to the end of the Session. Was that done intentionally? What did we do for the rest of the Session? We spoke about Dongola. We had to listen to childish talk.

And gossip.

Yes, that also. And at the end of the Session the Minister introduces this Bill. He is practically holding a pistol to our heads and saying that there is a crisis and we must pass the Bill. The time has arrived that Minsters should do their work in the recess so that we can receive the Bills by November. The country today does not know what the position is, and members do not know what the position is, and at the last moment important legislation is foisted on to us. As regards the powers given to the commission, they are not actually powers which are granted, but they are powers which the Minister still has to define in his proclamation. We do not know what they are but we say that we can more or less have the tendency to give the commission the power to build dwellings, to prepare schemes and to build and to obtain the material and fittings required for that purpose. We were not told whether or not control would remain in existence, but now that the Minister has spoken we know what awaits us. His controllers are going to remain there. They will suppress private initiative to build a house of limited space—I am not talking about a luxurious house but about a limited house—throughout the country. If the Minister continues to control as he is doing today he will be making the building of houses more difficult and not easier. The Minister referred to red tape. We know what difficulties exist throughout the country when people want to build houses. The Minister did not tell us that he will make it simpler and easier, so that a man can walk in with his plans and say that he wants a permit because the building is within the limits laid down. Oh no. Will the speculative builders still have the opportunity to build numbers of houses while the private person who asks for a permit has difficulty in obtaining it? In all the years of difficulty in the Cape while there was building control we were never without houses which were being built in rows by speculative builders, not for persons who applied for houses because they had none in which to live, but houses built purely for speculative purposes. As soon as the first house had reached a certain height, they commenced building the second. A “for sale” notice was put up and as soon as the first one was sold they started building the third and so they went along the line. It is control which made it possible for misuse to be made of the control authorities. It was a scandal in South Africa and it remains a scandal.

Is it not a question of the use to which the house is put?

Not as long as the private individual who wishes to build cannot receive a permit while the speculator can receive a permit. Those houses were not simple houses. They were houses costing £2,500. Can we say that we must permit houses of £2,500 to receive preference while the man who wants to build a house of £1,200, or £1,500 or £1,800 cannot receive a permit? If under this Bill we must continue with that sort of control which puts powers into the hands of the controllers, if permits have to be issued under that system which is inexplicable to us, the country is lost and we are no better off. The Minister did not put into prospect that thousands of houses of a certain size and to a certain value could be built by any private person without his having to run round for months and months in order to get the approval of one or other controller. The Minister speaks about 12,000 houses which are absolutely essential.

That was the former plan, but I made no suggestion.

I say that private people will build thousands of houses provided things are made simple so that money is made available for individuals also and that initiative is not killed by the same sort of control as that which exists now. It is clear to me that the Minister is going to control all building material still more strictly than before. If he is going to control it in order to make use of it immediately I have no objection, but what happens under control? Under control they hold back the material. People have to come and plead; sometimes one has to do other things also in order to obtain a little material; sometimes one has to use other methods also. If the Minister can give us the assurance that all the material which he vaguely states he will take over for the building of houses will immediately be made available for building purposes, we say that it is at least an assurance on the part of the Minister that they will not keep back material and make it difficult for people to build. That is one of the most essential things. I cannot say that that should be inserted in the Bill, because this is no Bill. It is a Bill which asks powers for the Minister to do just what he wishes to. All we can do is to indicate to the Minister the impossible things he must not do. He has the power to do it; he can do with us just what he likes.

He is a little Hitler.

I am quite in favour of it that extraordinary powers should be obtained, but they must be obtained through Parliament and not by way of emergency regulations. It was a somewhat unfortunate remark by the Minister—and I myself made it yesterday during the discussion of the Bill—that it is only an extension of Emergency Regulations. He now empowers himself to continue by means of those methods in one sphere. We know that extraordinary powers ought to be obtained, but the Minister ought to obtain those powers through Parliament. The next matter with which I wish to deal is that of the expropriation of ground. The Minister may evidently, before we meet again, expropriate the ground of any private person by means of the powers he now asks for. He may chase a private person off the ground on which he now lives. If that had been laid down in the Bill and we knew under what circumstances people may be chased off the ground on which they live, we could criticise it, but today we do not know in the least under what circumstances expropriation may take place. The Minister will say that we must trust him. I would trust the Minister sooner if he were to say that he will expropriate no private ground. I do not think he will get very far with that. The population will not be satisfied with the manner in which he proposes to do it, because they will say that it is not being done by virtue of an Act of Parliament; it is only justified by an Act of Parliament. If the Minister should do things which interfere with private interests—and the private interests not of the big people but of the small man—the people will say that he is not doing so by virtue of the power he received through Parliament, but by virtue of an Act under which he assumes that power to himself. The goal at which the Minister aims is the goal we want to reach. I have not much to say about the compensation the Minister will pay for ground. I think his object is not to pay too much but to pay a fair price for the ground. Unfortunately we have had cases in the history of South Africa where Departments have been authorised to expropriate and to purchase certain grounds, cases where often there were other motives. We do not wish to be put into the position of coming to Parliament next year or the year after to ask why £12,000 was paid to a certain person while the ground was worth only £2,000. That person perhaps had influence and he had some reason why he did not wish to sell, with the result that perhaps he was paid too much. We will perhaps later find that certain influential companies received much more money than they ought to have had.

But the compensation is laid down in the Bill.

The basis of compensation is laid down in the Bill. But take this case. Supposing I bought my ground 20 years ago. Can I then charge 6 per cent. interest for 20 years on the price I paid, plus the purchase price?

It then falls under the other alternative, the last municipal valuation plus 30 per cent.

I take it that the Minister can regulate it by proclamation as he likes.

No, the provisions are now contained in the Bill.

Therefore I say again that we do not want disappointments later in the matter by discovering that things are done contrary to the provisions of the Bill. Another question we wish to touch upon is that of the apprenticeship of people in the building industry. The Minister said that he wishes to make provision to people of different races to be trained to build houses in the areas where that particular race lives. We on our side must accept that as a sound principle, but we want the assurance that the Minister will see to it that for instance the natives who are trained to be employed in housing schemes for natives will not later compete with European labourers, that they cannot compete in the same area with European workers and even with coloured workers when that period is passed.

I agree.

How are we going to safeguard the position? We should like to know how we can safeguard the position. We cannot bear to think that large numbers of natives will be trained as artisans in the building industry. We do not want those natives later to compete with European workers in the same area.

Do not the trade unions prohibit that?

If those people are trained on the same basis and are qualified and accepted as artisans, it is not prohibited.

But then you have to pay him the same wage.

We want the assurance that the artisans trained in this way will not compete with the European artisans and coloured artisans in their own areas and on their own terrain. We now come to the power taken by the Minister as regards local committees. The Minister takes this power to act in the case where a local committe does not want to execute a building scheme which is essential for its particular area and to have this done by the commission or through one or other company empowered by the commission. But now the Minister also assumes the power to prescribe what sort of local tax may be paid on that scheme. In other words, he can issue a Proclamation to say that the valuation placed by the Municipality on that scheme will not be the valuation on which they will pay rates. That is so. The Minister has the power to go over the head of the local committee and practically to fix the rate, and the reason why we want to discuss that is the following: When the local authority must provide services for the people living in that area, how can the Municipality provide services like water, light and health services if that municipality has no authority over the rates? I want to tell the Minister frankly that he has not put that very clearly, but then he put nothing clearly in the Bili. I think I am right when I say that the Minister has the power to impose differential rates on particular building schemes in any given municipality, and if that is so he must of course expect that sooner than have the assistance of the local committee he will have a local committee up in arms against him if he in any way indicates that he will use those powers, because the municipalities today already experience great difficulty in regard to Government properties which are situate in the municipal area. The municipality does not draw rates from those properties of the Government and finds it very difficult to keep its finances in order—very often because the Government has many properties there on which the municipalities cannot levy rates. If the schemes fall under that category, where the Government pays too little in rates in regard to Government property, it will create an impossible position for the local authority. Then we come to the advances of money. The commission will have the power to advance money to private persons and to building societies. When the Minister refers to building societies I do not know whether he includes under that other institutions which also provide money for the building of houses, not on the same basis on which the building societies do it, but in many cases on a much sounder basis. It is unfortunately the case that the building societies in recent times have been willing to advance money on houses to an amount which sometimes exceeded the real value of that house. Now the Minister is going to empower the commission to advance money to building societies to be lent to people who wish to build houses, and evidently the Government will provide the security for the further loan on the building. We must be very careful to see that this does not lead to people paying too much for their houses because too much money is offered to them. The Minister says that they will first try to discover by way of experiment what the contract price ought to be.

To fix on a reasonable price.

In the same way control will have to be exercised in connection with the money advanced by building societies and I hope that the Minister will tell us that he will provide the same facilities to other companies and societies who also advance money for the building of houses, and not only to building societies alone, because the other companies in many instances perform the same sort of function in the same way as the building societies. In the end the Minister must of course salve his conscience a little and bring the House under the impression that he is responsible to the House and he therefore proposes that all the proclamations and regulations should be laid on the Table of the House within a fortnight of the commencement of the Session, and obviously after millions of pounds have been spent he comes to Parliament, and one or other House of Parliament can decide that some or other regulation should be disapproved of. We want to know how we can vote money for the programme of the following year if the Minister does not give an indication of how much loan funds will be used in the course of the year.

There is £5,000,000 on the loan vote at the moment.

That £5,000,000 has then been voted and may of course not be exceeded, or if it is exceeded we must afterwards authorise it. Has the Minister already made provision in the Estimates for the current expenses he proposes to make in connection with the training of apprentices and in connection with the functions of the Boards; has he made provision for the finances required to put the Act into effect? We have no idea of what it will cost because the Minister himself does not know. All these are matters Parliament would have liked to know, but the Minister has made everything so involved that one practically has to move a special motion in the House in order to upset a regulation. If the Minister issues such a regulation, his side of the House can oppose that regulation, but will they vote against it? In the last few days we had the greatest trouble in getting three or four or five of the Minister’s side of the House to remain outside when the vote was taken which they disapprove of, but they did not really vote against the Government. There is much more we would like to say and which will be said from this side of the House because we feel that things are done in the matter contrary to the interests of Parliament; practically against the authority of Parliament powers are granted which derogate from the authority of Parliament. We shall have more to say about it from this side of the House without, of course, trying at this late stage to wreck the measure. We recognise the critical condition existing in the country, but we have recognised it for four years and spoken about it. We did everything in our power to try to avoid the crisis. The Minister tells us that the building industry does not take on enough apprentices, but the Minister connived in that. The Minister said that these people must wait until the soldiers return from the war. The interests of the country were played with, and the interest of the nation which needs houses, not to mention other matters, and the Minister today asks for powers which we recognise he ought to have but which he ought to have received through Parliament, and we say that if there were time the Minister should have withdrawn this Bill and really come before the House with the Housing Bill which the country requires, and we say that the Minister is given such powers here that it is dangerous to the interests of the population. In conclusion I wish to express the hope that if the Minister receives these powers he will use them in such a way that houses are actually built. An Act by itself does not build houses. It takes a sense of organisation and the ability to organise, and it is essential that the Minister shall keep a watchful eye open day and night to see that no single hour passes in which the organisation is not put to work and kept at work, and all we can say is that next year when we meet again we will expect the Minister to tell the country that he has not sat still during this time but that he kept the organisation busy day and night and really managed to do something to solve the housing need which exists. I hope that the Minister will see to it that next year we shall not come here and have to say that this measure and the powers now taken by the Minister also led to nothing and that the housing need is just as great as it was before. We do not want to hamper this measure because it is our policy to build houses for the people. But I should like to issue another warning to the Minister. We do not want to see the Minister building houses for natives in areas where they should not be and where there is no work for them. We do not want him to build houses in the Western Province for people for whom there is no work and who should not really be here just because there are scandalous conditions on the Cape Flats because 20,000 to 30,000 more natives streamed in here than can be employed. It is just as much the duty of the Minister to see to it that the Minister of Native Affairs obtains the necessary powers in the same way to prevent these people coming into areas where there is no work for them, because we cannot afford to build houses for people in areas where they should not be and where there is no work for them. I come then to another matter. We want the Minister to continue, where he builds houses for Europeans, coloureds and natives, to keep those areas separate as was the case in the past. There must be separate residential areas so that separate residential areas will one day be an accomplished fact in South Africa as regards coloured, natives and Europeans. We thus want to insist upon it that the Minister should see to it that these areas are kept entirely separate.

I rise to support very strongly the Minister in the powers he asks for. The only fault I find with this Bill is that it is rather overdue. I feel that when the Minister came to the House last year he should have asked for such powers in view of his previous experience and difficulties with local authorities. I also feel that in coming to the House last year he came with the gloves stuffed with cotton-wool instead of a horse-shoe in it to deal with certain local authorities. I do not think we should blame the Minister or the Housing Commission for not having delivered the goods so far, because his main difficulties have been with certain local authorities. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Gray) said: “Speak for Pretoria.” Well, he must not anticipate that I am going to blame Johannesburg on the question of local authorities being 100 per cent. to blame. I was, in fact, going to refer to Pretoria. I feel that even if local authorities like Pretoria have their difficulties, I am certain that the hon. member for Kensington is not going to blame the Minister. I feel that unless this House agrees to give the Minister the authority he is asking for, the most urgent need of the people of the country will not be met. I want to put before the House the position of Pretoria. Unless the Minister gets these powers, Pretoria, with its population of over 100,000, will not get the houses the people are crying out for. The Pretoria local authority has so far only agreed to build 100 sub-economic houses. Notwithstanding the Minister’s statement in this House on previous occasions and again this morning, after meeting the local authorities from all parts of South Africa and an agreement having eventually been arrived at that the Government would meet the losses on a basis of 2 to 1, the evidence is that if they are to proceed with the full housing scheme programme, their losses, which will have to be met by the ratepayers of Pretoria, would amount to at least £100,000 per annum, and the City Council of Pretoria is not in the financial position to meet it. The Minister, having come to an honourable agreement with the S.A. Municipal Association, I do feel that they as one of the team—and there may be other members of the team elsewhere in the country—are not playing cricket by holding the pistol to the Minister’s head. When it became known that the Minister intended asking for these powers, to get the Commission to build houses where the local authorities failed, a decision was taken by the Pretoria City Council that the Minister should get on with the job. That clearly proves that the local authorities are not prepared to meet their obligations.

They are not able to, in many cases.

If they are not able to, all I can say is that the terms of meeting the losses under the old scheme were very much less favourable than the ratio of losses which the Government is prepared to meet today. As an ex-Councillor I know that on the original sub-economic houses built before the war meant that the local authority had to meet a loss of at least 3½ per cent. per annum. Under this scheme it will be two to one, and I am satisfied that as the local authorities are allowed to raise assessment rates and get a certain rebate, on losses merely a book debt, they will be in a much better position. Unless they are prepared to venture on such a scheme, and after they agreed, following very protracted discussions with the Minister and his officials, I feel it is rather late, at this stage, for them to say the Minister must get on with the job, since they are now not prepared to face possible increased losses. In so far as this House is concerned, we are trying to see that every individual who needs a house should get one, but here again we find the local authority, the Pretoria City Council, not co-operative. According to a Council minute received, they state—

That the Council approach the South African Railways and Harbours Administration and the South African Iron and Steel Industrial Corporation, Limited with a view to ascertaining whether they would be prepared to enter into an agreement with the Council for the erection by the Council of sub-economic houses for their lower-paid employees upon the same basis as the, erection of the 50 sub-economic houses at Atteridgeville for non-European employees of the Railways Administration, viz., that the loss to the council be limited to ⅝ per cent. per annum.

When one knows that the employees of Iscor and the railways with their families represent a big proportion of the population of Pretoria, it is unfair that during the last six years they have not been considered by the Council. I think it is most unfair for ten or twelve thousand railwaymen and their families, some of whom are in dire need of houses, to find a local authority taking up the attitude that the railway administration must build the houses. Where? Do they want railway houses built round about the station and workshops? There is no ground for houses. It is up to the House to support the Minister, especially where the local authorities are not prepared to do the right thing to the people of this country. This is a matter which does not call for party politics. I feel that all parties in this House should give the Bill its fullest support. The Minister has made it very clear that he is asking for authority for the next three years, and I am satisfied that the housing problem is so serious that we should give him a blank cheque and so that all his eggs of difficulty are put into one basket. The question of labour and material for distribution to the various contractors should be dealt with by and through one body. It is only by such means that practical results will be achieved and not merely estimated figures which is all we have had for the last 12 months. The Minister cannot be blamed for the sins and omissions of the local authorities. Promises were given and in some cases sincere efforts were made to fulfil them, but there was the difficulty with the standpoint of trade unions, and I do not blame them, wanting some security for the future. That safeguard is provided for in the Bill and I am pleased to hear from the Minister that he has the fullest co-operation of the trade unions as well as of the building employers. In conclusion I want to appeal to the Minister for that very large section of the community in South Africa who are not provided for under this scheme, in so far as housing to be built by local authorities is concerned. I refer to the middleman. The local authorities’ housing schemes are intended for the sub-economic wage groups. I pointed this out to the Minister in Another Place, but since then many representations have been made to me by people vitally concerned and therefore I wish to raise it again. There is the artisan, the clerk and shop assistant who may be earning £30 to £45 a month. When houses are built, these individuals—and a big percentage of them are homeless today, staying in boarding houses or rooms—will not have houses allocated to them by the local authorities, for the reason that they are earning more than a sub-economic wage. Unless private enterprise helps them they will be left high and dry. I appeal to the Minister to see that something is done for that section of the people. It has been suggested that provision might be made to meet them through the building societies. Well, most of these people have no surplus money; but if generous conditions can be made to meet them I will be most grateful. Failing that, I ask the Minister, when it comes to the question of housing through local authorities, that the Housing Commission will not overlook these people who must be provided for, otherwise they will not have houses allocated to them under the present scheme.

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

This measure we are considering gives the Government, through the hon. Minister, very great authoritarian powers to conduct a war against squalor in South Africa. Only a grave national emergency can make it necessary for us to depart in this way from our democratic way of life. What simply is that emergency? During the next ten years we shall have to build half a million houses in this country; immediately, we need 120,000 for non-Europeans and 30,000 for Europeans. The Minister has in his speech in the House this morning admitted what Dr. Hamlin, previous Director of National Housing, admitted towards the end of last year that at our present rate of building we can build only 12,000 houses per annum. That happens to be just 8 per cent. of our housing needs. Eight per cent. That is the national emergency.

That is national houses, not the total number of houses.

That is the national emergency, with all it involves in poverty, ill-health and crime. We realised this position very definitely in 1944 when we passed the Housing Amendment Act. The Government failed to put that Act into operation. This Bill means, therefore, that from now on the Government is definitely on trial in South Africa. It dare not fail now to meet the desperate needs of our people for proper housing facilities. I want to confine my remarks mainly to one aspect of our housing problem, an aspect I consider most important. It is not explicitly stated in this Bill. The Minister did not refer to it at all this morning. It is not labour, not materials, not land. It is the interest rate. On that depends more than on any other factor the practicability of the scheme introduced to the House today. The interest rate is the key to our housing problem. It determines whether we are going to be able to build houses to be let or to be sold within the economic capacity of the vast majority of our people. Since 1920 high interest rates have caused the failure of our housing plans. All the successive Governments in the country have been equally parties to that failure. The 1920 Housing Act made the first attempt to provide local authorities with funds for housing. The market rates of interest applied, and that made it economically impossible to apply the Act for the housing of the coloured people and the native people. It was not a shortage of artisans, nor of materials, nor of land, nor was it a shortage of money. It was because the money power created a shortage of credit by high interest rates. In 1923 we passed the Urban Areas Act; that stipulated that employers and local authorities would be obliged to house their native workers. The Minister of Native Affairs had ample powers under that Act to enforce this provision. He failed to overcome the interest hurdle; and consequently the natives, out of their poverty, could not carry the economic burden of rent. The Slums Act in 1934 introduced sub-economic rates, and by 1936 the rate for the native had become ¾ per cent. The basic rate of interest, however, still applied, although it was camouflaged; so that and the local authorities and the State shared the losses. The old factors remained. That is to say, the natives, out of their poverty datum wages, could not possibly pay their way; and secondly the money power in the country got its full pound of flesh from the taxpayers and the ratepayers and the non-European occupants of the houses. The interest rate has been the governing factor in all our attempts at meeting the housing needs of our people. It has had a stultifying effect on housing development. The Minister admitted as much when he used these words last year—

That is true. Up to 1944 only 18,660 sub economic houses had been built. I submit that that is a sorry result after 25 years of planning and legislation and Government promises. That is the background to the Bill we are considering today with its implicit high interest rates. We cannot expect to build national houses with an interest rate that is to be 4 or more per cent; that is going to wreck this measure from the very start. I suggest it is not an insuperable difficulty. There is a way by which houses can be built within the economic capacity of the majority of our people to buy or hire. The first step—and this Bill does not give an explicit acceptance of that step—the first step is to accept the principle that for the lower income groups in this country housing must be almost entirely a social service. It can never be put on the usual economic basis. They are too poor to pay the orthodox costs. I again want to quote the Minister in that connection. He said—

Nor can the State or the local authorities on the basis of high interest rates, house the lower paid workers. It might build a native house for £300, but when the interest charge is added to that the rent becomes beyond the capacity of the native to pay. The State might sell him a house for £300 over 30 years. Because of the interest rate he will pay £500 at least for it. That is a burden which we ought to try to relieve in the housing programme. This is well illustrated by what is now known as the Manchester scandal. In 1944 the Manchester Corporation undertook to build a block of 150 working-class flats. The total cost was to be just over £67,000. In the Housing Revenue Account of the Corporation they had the money, and they wished to build these flats for cash. The British Ministry of Health intervened and refused them permission to pay in cash and obliged them to borrow the money at interest; they will have to repay not £67,000 but £170,000, involving an extra £113,000 which will have to be extracted from the ratepayers and the general taxpayers. Now, that same position can arise in connection with the housing programme we are considering today. I think we must courageously face the fact that we must have special financial arrangements, special financial machinery, to provide for the lower income groups, i.e.’ those who earn say, less than £20 a month. The housing schemes would of course be allocated to them according to their race groups and the national houses built under the scheme would vest in the Housing Commission. This is my point. For the construction of these houses the Commission should provide adequate funds at a maximum rate of interest of 1 per cent. The houses could be hired, or better still, purchased on a home-ownership plan over a period of say 30 years. The latter plan is highly desirable. It lessens the liability of the local authority and it promotes, as no other influence can, the social uplift of the people. Now the Minister will ask me where he will get this cheap money from, and my answer is this. He spoke about emergency measures. He spoke today about employing the extreme authority given to him under this Bill, and has asked the House to give him these powers, powers probably greater than any Minister has had in this country even during the war. When he asks where the money is coming from my reply is: Use the same authority over the money power in this country— and it is a very real power—as you propose to use in the case of land and artisans. Get loans from the Central Bank on the same basis, on the basis of the national credit, that is the productive capacity of the country, as the Minister of Finance now gets some millions of pounds for short periods at 1 per cent. Special financial arrangements of that nature can be made. In fact, the money can be created by the Central Bank in just the same way as the commercial banks are today creating extra purchasing power, on security, by means of overdrafts. In my view there is no fundamental difference at all between the two systems. We can get over a period of years a loan of £20,000,000 from the Central Bank. The interest charge to the country would be not more than £200,000 per annum and the capital debt would be repaid out of rents and out of the redemption payments over the period the debt becomes self-liquidating. I want to say that I do not think this measure, much as we want it to be a success, will be so unless we contrive to get our money either at 1 per cent. or free of interest for the lower income groups. Provided this cheap money is used only for national housing, there would be no competition with the ordinary money market or existing rates of interest. It is only on such an almost non-interest bearing basis that we can build the national houses we now require. Local authorities, utility companies and even the State could then get on with the building programme without incurring a heavy debt burden over a long period. Now there is also a special group for which provision is being made today by some of the municipalities, under their economic housing schemes, limited, I believe, to an average house valued at £2,000. For these people, and especially in this group come the ex-servicemen, the State should undertake to provide funds at not more than 2½ per cent. Spread the payment over 30 years; and the Government and the local bodies might well be expected to bear whatever losses are incurred. The deposit on the capital sum, as far as the ex-volunteer is concerned, could be arranged with the Directorate of Demobilisation to the extent of using the grant of £250 for that purpose. I believe that is being done. Side by side with this form of assistance the State can assist those who borrow from building societies by subsidising some portion of their deposit to enable the building societies to lend up to 90 per cent. of the house value. This loan would have to be limited to people whose salaries are not over £600 per annum. There would still remain, in addition to the housing facilities constructed under the special financial system of 1 per cent., and after these other two groups have been provided for, ample opportunity for houses to be built by building societies, insurance companies and by contractors carrying on on normal lines at market prices and market interest rates. My contention, in conclusion, is this, that if the provisions of this Bill which the country will welcome wholeheartedly are governed fundamentally by special interest rates on the lines I have set out, particularly for national housing, I believe that the intentions of the Government to provide houses for the people will have every chance of reasonable consummation. I assume also that the Government has the will and the resolution, in view of the Minister’s statement this morning, to build at least 50,000 houses during this year; and in that way make amends to the people for the long years of neglect.

We on this side of the House realise thoroughly the necessity for houses being built. We realise that the position is fairly critical, and we are prepared to extend extraordinary powers to any reliable person to adjust matters. That is perfectly clear. But, Mr. Speaker, although even before the war there was talk about housing this Minister has always felt indifferent about the matter. Eventually the criticism became so serious that the Minister was obliged to make promises to quieten the public, promises that he has not yet been able to carry out. Now the Minister comes here ten days before the end of the Session with a Bill which he himself admits is a blank cheque. This shortage of houses is not a thing of today. The first speech I made in this House was in connection with the question that the municipalities were not building sub-economic houses.

The first speech that I made in the House 16 years ago was also about that.

I am glad to hear that from the Minister. But my speech was in regard to what the Minister now undertakes to do. I said the municipalities had not the funds to build houses and that it was the duty of the State to do so. The Minister was not Minister then, it was Mr. Havenga.

The member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) was the Minister in 1929.

And what about it?

I am just telling him.

The Minister is trying to play the fool in connection with a serious matter. He can read my speech and he will find this. I said at that time that the State should build the houses and that the municipalities could not do so. I referred to the houses that had been built by the municipality of Smithfield, and which were standing empty. The municipality is only as rich as the poorest man in the community. It is the weak link in the chain. If the municipality has to pay for the deficit it means that the taxpayers of the municipality must do it. Last year it was admitted for the first time by the Minister that the municipalities could not do this work, and now he comes and asks us for a blank cheque. But what are his plans, and why does he not submit them to us? He simply tells us that the situation is critical. What does he regard as the number of houses he will be able to build in a year, and how many does he intend to build in three years’ time; how many aliens are there in the country, and how many of these aliens will have to leave the country in a short while? He must make clear to us what this critical situation is, and then he should describe to us what his plans are. It does not help matters for the Minister to come along and tell us that there is an adequate quantity of building material in the country; we know there is not enough. There are thousands of private people who wish to build their houses with their own money. They cannot get the material. In the second place, they are up against the mess that has been caused by the building controller, a mess so great that they cannot get permits. In addition to that, the people do not wish to build houses with this expensive material which would not be considered a payable proposition in normal times. We should not lose our balance. People talk about £150,000,000 having to be expended on housing, and such things. We have neither the men nor the material to do this. The Minister should tell us clearly what the prospects are of obtaining material and how much we have already in the country. Does he realise that even municipalities which have erected sub-economic houses have been thwarted by the building controller. Local authorities such as municipalities are simply unable to proceed with the work, and in regard to sub-economic houses they cannot utilise proper building material. There are no flooring boards in the houses, it is just cement and such stuff. There is no corrugated iron and thatch must be used for the roof. All sorts of substitute materials have to be used. The baths are of cement the stoves are very poor contraptions and they will not last long. All these things arise in connection with building schemes, and we should like the Minister to tell us clearly what the position is now. The Minister admits that these powers he is requesting are much larger than the powers any Minister has yet asked for. He wants us to vote for that. These are powers that one can give only to a reliable person. I would only give someone I trust well a blank cheque, and then he would have to give me the requisite justification. We say this about the Minister, that he should clarify his schemes, stating how many houses will be built, how many workers he has, what his plans are, and how many houses he intends to complete in a year. We want to know whether he has the building material and what his prospects are of getting it. He should not come along with these stories about 100,000 houses in a year. It all sounds very well, but we know these things are impossible. The Minister has been cogitating for long over this Bill, and I am at a loss to understand that he should have brought so little to light after hatching plans for so long. About three weeks ago we were informed that this Bill would comprise 50 pages, and that it would contain 150 clauses. Now we get this little Bill which simply says that the Minister is taking all the power into his hands, that he is empowered to break the law, that he may expropriate any land, and all these things. He merely wants to tell the municipalities that he is going to build the houses for the people but that they must understand that they will not be entitled to levy rates on those properties, but on the other hand they will be obliged to provide all the services that they give to the ratepayers. It is impossible for me to realise that the Minister should in this light-hearted way, without having any scheme before us, so that we can understand what line he is going to take, can expect that we should vote for such a Bill to give him this power to do what he likes. The hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) has already said that this Bill gives more power to the Minister than this House has ever previously conferred on the Minister. But instead of the Minister giving us a clear exposition of how he is going to use the powers that he desires, he does not submit any of the plans on which he is engaged, but he simply asks that we should adopt a Bill which gives him the power, by way of proclamation to assume powers which nullify all the laws that this Parliament has made in the past. He has told us that these matters will again come before Parliament and that Parliament will then have the regulations at its disposal to enable us to say whether they should rightly stand or not. Of what use is that? The Minister will use his majority in the United Party even if he has violated rights; and even if Parliament should decide that those powers should be rescinded it does not assist us because the schemes will be in progress. His people will be obliged to vote for him. The position is moreover this. This Government has always intimated that it is in favour of separate residential areas. Even the Minister of Finance has said that, though he added that we on this side wished to chase the people in the various camps while they wished to create separate residential areas by means of housing schemes. The Minister of Welfare knows the Cape Peninsula. He should go to Kalk Bay and see where the municipality has erected big blocks of flats, better flats than many Europeans have, for the coloured people. They built them in the best residential area of Kalk Bay amongst the Europeans. In this Bill there is no provision made that the schemes should follow the principle of separate residential areas. We have a municipality like Cape Town, where the coloureds and the Europeans ought to be apart, that is going to spend £1,000,000 on housing schemes, and it is building places where the coloureds will be living amongst the Europeans as they do in these particular places at Kalk Bay. They simply want to be there, although the municipality wish to give them a place nearer Cape Town. If we allow this sort of thing we are going to make this residential intermingling even worse, and what hope have we of getting these matters right in the future. I should like to know from the Minister whether when State money is used for housing he will lay down that there should be separate residential areas. He should tell us today if it is a serious matter to him and the Government, that there should be separate residential areas and whether he is going to apply it in connection with these housing schemes.

Do you mean under compulsion?

I should like to know whether the Government is going to encourage separate residential areas by carrying out separate housing schemes.

Do you mean by compulsion?

I did not say a word about compulsion. The Government has always stated it does not want compulsion in connection with separate residential areas, but that it must be achieved by separate housing schemes. Now I ask whether the Minister is going to follow that principle in connection with these schemes.

Yes, that has always been our principle.

I want to know whether we can definitely take that to be so.

Yes, certainly.

I wanted to know this because it has not been set down in the Bill. I want to know why it has been taken up in the Bill.

Because they say one thing and want to do the other.

I shall refer to the Bill and see whether it is necessary to propose an amendment, and that is why I asked whether the Minister was prepared to apply that principle. If he is prepared to do this I think we should make it clear in the Bill itself. The position is that we have received this Bill in the closing stages of the Session. We have had no opportunity to study the Bill properly. We have only been able to read it through a few times. The only impression we have gained so far is that the Minister is taking wide powers and that he can do anything in connection with this matter. I am not prepared to accept that where a housing scheme has been devised the municipality should be compelled to give all those people the usual services, and that it should not have the right to charge them with rates. If the State undertakes the construction of houses, and this is necessary as I have said, it should so build the houses that those people can pay for the services they enjoy, and we should not say that because the Government or one commission or another has built the houses it is not necessary for these people to pay rates. It is unreasonable to expect anything of that sort. It will mean that the poor man, who has already built his house, will have to pay rates to provide another poor man with services though he does not pay rates himself. We must take serious note of this matter. We shall, of course, have another opportunity in discussing the Bill to go further into it. I have already said that we should not lose our balance in connection with this matter. We are engaged here in launching schemes, and we must have the workers to carry out the schemes. The Minister has admitted that we have not sufficient workmen. He has also blamed the master builders for not having taken on sufficient apprentices. I do not want them to engage apprentices if we will not have work for them. We do not want half baked tradesmen either for whom there will be no work after three or four years. I understand that the Government is going to give a guarantee to the builders. They are not going to give the proper wage in connection with apprentices unless they receive compensation for that. We cannot expect a tradesman who has taken six months to learn his work to be able to compete with one who has taken three years to do so. This will later have repercussions on wages. I should like the Minister to tell us what the position is. I understand he has given these people a guarantee that the artisans will have employment for ten years. I should like to know from the Minister whether this is so or not. I should like to emphasise another aspect of the matter, and that is that in any scheme the Minister ought to make provision that the poorest person in the State will be in a position to become the owner of the house he has rented. However little the man can pay off we must put him in a position to do that, because I can give the Minister the assurance that for poor people home-ownership is a thing of great value. It has a very good reaction on their feelings as citizens of the country when they own their home. It is an excellent thing for every citizen to possess his own house. Even in the case of sub-economic houses the poor people should be given an opportunity to buy their own houses. This will teach them to save small amounts and to make provision against their old age. Eventually it will make them very useful citizens. I want again to ask the Minister whether it is the case that the tradesmen have a guarantee that work will be provided for them for ten years. The Minister does not reply, and I must therefore accept that this is the case.

I shall reply at the end of the debate. I am not under cross examination now.

I put a question politely to you and I thought that you would give a polite answer.

I shall answer politely.

At the moment you have not answered politely, but rather impolitely. The position is that the Minister gave a promise to the artisans or made an agreement with them, that they would be provided with work for ten years from the commencement of this Act or of any scheme that he plans with them. It has been stated that an agreement has been made, and I should like to know from the Minister whether he is going to have work for these people for ten years. Is his plan so worked out that there will be work for ten years, providing people with houses? I said at the outset, and I wish to repeat, because apparently the hon. Minister made no note of it, that the Minister should be so good as to tell us how many aliens there are in our country who will have to leave the country.

If they are builders we shall be able to use them.

I assume that the hon. member can use them, but I am not speaking about that. It is important, however, that a number of aliens will be leaving the country. You cannot go into an hotel where you do not find numbers of them, Russians and all sorts, from all parts of the world. I assume they will take their departure from the country, and that will mean that a considerable amount of accommodation will be made available. You find some of these people in practically every village. Even in a village such as I am living in there are a few houses in the occupation of aliens who will leave when the war is over. There are amongst others a number of child refugees from England, and I take it they will return to their parents. Then these houses will be vacant and it will help to alleviate the housing shortage. Has an estimate been made of the number of houses that will have to be built in all these circumstances. I should further like to ask whether any return has been prepared of the quantity of building material in the country? In a critical period such as this it would be a very good thing if the Government could obtain a return of all available building material in the country, and commandeer it and utilise it for houses, provided that the person who is in charge of distributing the building material does the work in a proper way, and does not allow it to be used for building a cinema, as happened at Kimberley, or in building a number of holiday houses at Hermanus, but for dwelling houses that are really required. I should also like to point out that the people who fare badly under all these housing schemes are those in receipt of from £15 to £25 a month. The very poor people are provided for with sub-economic houses. At Robertson some of these houses are rented at £1 16s. 0d. per month. They are nice houses with four to five rooms. They have, it is true, a thatched roof, but it is a fine roof. There are no flooring boards, but some composition, and the bath is an iron one. They are however nice dwelling houses. They say that the houses are not only comfortable but pleasant to live in, being neither too cold in the winter nor too warm in the summer, thanks to the thatched roof. I plead specially for the people who are in the Government service, customs officials, magistrates’ clerks and that sort of people. Most of them are married and they come into a town and cannot find accommodation, and are compelled to go to an hotel. Their income is not such that they can afford that and they have to make all sorts of plans to get accommodation. Can the Government not contrive a plan under this scheme to build houses in all the towns for public servants and workmen in the employ of the Government? The housing shortage will immediately be relieved to a certain extent because people like letting houses to this class of people as they have a fair salary, are good tenants and can pay. But now there are people who are willing to pay more and the officials are unable to find accommodation. In my village there have been two instances. An excise man had to obtain a farm house a mile or two outside the town as a residence, and an assistant magistrate had to send his wife and children to his parents’ farm because he could not find any other accommodation. Eventually he found a place but that meant that someone else who hoped to get it was without a house. This is the opportune time, now that there is a shortage of houses to build houses for these people, and in that way bring relief which will assist considerably in ensuring that people have houses. In conclusion I should just like to inform the Minister that I do not think—I may be wrong—that if we want to give anyone a blank cheque to handle any matter we should want to give it to him.

Let me say at the outset how much my Party welcomes this Bill. We welcome it particularly because it appears to be a measure which at long last is going to get some houses built and we welcome it with some pride on our part that after 30 years of propaganda on the part of the Labour Party the Government has at long last admitted that the responsibility of building houses is a responsibility that must be assumed by the Government itself. The admission of that principle is a great step forward in the actual building of the houses, because for so many years—and here I admire the temperateness of the Minister this morning—the buck has been passed from the municipalities to the provincial councils and from the provincial councils to the Government, and from the Government back to the various governing bodies whose duty it was to build houses in the past. I believe the Minister will have been entitled to have gone a little further and placed some strictures on the municipalities. It has not been my attitude in Parliament to gloss over the responsibilities held by certain individuals, and I am not sure, even at this late stage, that the Minister is taking the right course when he berates municipalities as little as he did this morning. I place the responsibility for the appalling slums more directly on the shoulders of the municipalities. The responsibility for the shortage of housing is complicated to a certain extent by the war conditions, but the responsibility for the most terrible slums found anywhere in the wide world does rest primarily, I might almost say purely and simply, on the shoulders of the municipalities. The municipalities of Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town cannot absolve themselves of the responsibility for the slum conditions that exist in those cities today, and I believe the Minister could possibly have made that a little more clear because even in the powers he now asks for he is going to allow the municipalities to exercise these powers up to a point, and only when they have failed to exercise these powers is he prepared to step in and exercise them himself. I am a little dubious whether that attitude will be sufficient to stir many of our municipalities out of their lethargy and apathy. In the five points given to the Minister by his new Director of Housing as being responsible for the position, apathy was placed No. 5; I should be inclined to place it No. 1 as far as the municipalities are concerned. I think it is a rather mild term, because in most instances it seems to me there has been something approaching a deliberate policy of sabotage. Incidentally I notice the new Director of Housing did not put in a single reason that might have been advanced, namely the interest of vested interests in many of the larger centres; both land interests and building interests have contributed in no small measure to the very difficult position at present.

Was not the director a mayor?

This is a rather alarming interjection, that the Director of Housing is an ex-mayor so he should know all about it.

No, he is not.

The point is vested interests have played a considerable part in the retarding of housing schemes. Vested interests in the shape of the large builders and the speculative builders have been anxious on many occasions to see municipal schemes have not been brought forward. Another form of vested interests in the shape of building societies have also played their part in the retarding of the housing of the people in so far as they have always fought, as witness the exhibition we have had in the last four Sessions with the Durban Municipal Banking Bill—against the grant of loan facilities apart from themselves, and they have fought to retain interest rates as high as they possibly can. The Minister has come before this House and asked this House to give him in this very difficult position very extensive, very extreme and very arbitrary powers. He justifies that because of the extreme peril of the present position, and asks us to trust him, to give him a blank cheque, and he promises if we do give him these powers he is prepared to use these powers almost, as the old Salvation Army preacher said “to the uttermost”. I am not so sure that there is any necessity for the Minister to make any apology of that description. We know Parliament has been disturbed in the last few Sessions at the extra-Parliamentary Government that has been growing up. We know Parliament has been becoming, and quite rightly, in the last few Sessions more jealous of Parliament’s own powers and place in the Government of the country, and during this Session on occasion the House has shown clearly to the Government we are getting a little tired of these extra governmental bodies that are growing up almost week by week during the Parliamentary Session. I believe I am expressing the temper of the House, unanimously, when I say the time has come when a halt should be called to these things and when the prerogatives of Parliament should be restored.

Are you reflecting on your own party?

I hardly think it necessary to discuss the point with the hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen). I suggest that the Minister has now an opportunity to combine the two things. There is no particular reason why the powers he now asks for in this Bill should be exercised, apart from any kind of Parliamentary control. Now, I believe, is the opportunity in a Bill of this description to bring into force a line of policy I have advocated many times in this House, and which I believe is subscribed to by a considerable number of members in this House, namely, that Parliamentary control or a measure of Parliamentary control should not necessarily cease when Parliament is prorogued at the end of the Session, that Parliamentary control should continue during the recess, and here is an opportunity where I believe the Minister can say truly to Parliament: I am asking you for these powers; these are powers I ask you as Parliament to delegate to me to be used; they are very strong and arbitrary powers, but during the process of using them I am still prepared if not to continue to have some kind of Parliamentary control at least to have some kind of Parliamentary advice. My first suggestion is that a Select Committee of this House should be appointed. The Minister asked for powers, so surely a Select Committee can also have additional powers. This committee should function during the recess for the specific purpose of studying the matter and being taken into the confidence of the Minister when the particular regulations are being framed. I have said so often, that all the Sessional Select Committees should continue to function during the recess, and one of their chief duties should be the scrutinising of regulations made under the various Bills we passed in connection with these various departments. The hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) showed very clearly in a speech he made some time ago in dealing with this particular subject that various countries have set up particular bodies which study the regulations made under a particular Bill. But I am only appealing now in connection with this one measure because the House has never before been asked to give the Minister a blank cheque of this description, which is carrying on the war-time Emergency Regulations in peace time. It is very necessary. I do not think there is any member in this House who does not think the powers should be exercised, but I believe as Democrats we are afraid of creating a precedent, and we are entitled to ask some kind of safeguard should be set up. I believe the Minister or the Government can find it possible to set up a Select Committee which shall have extended powers and be permitted to sit during the recess, and be permitted possibly to exercise a restraining influence in the exercise of these regulations. If that cannot be done I think at the very least the Minister ought to agree to the setting up of a Parliamentary advisory board or council or committee, which will have something to say not necessarily in the framing of the regulations but on the effect they will have. I am not particularly concerned as to how the Minister uses his powers in respect of limiting the profits to 6 per cent., but I am concerned as to how the Minister may use his powers in regard to the regulations which are going to give him overriding power over the employees in the building industry. Incidentally let me say that I believe this House has to pay a tribute to the building industry which has apparently been regarded to accept regulations of this kind. I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the present position of the artisans in the building industry is not something which has taken place in the last few weeks. Their conditions have not been gained out of the clouds but are the result of many years of bitter strife, and these men are entitled to the fullest possible protection in order to see that the conditions they have managed to gain for themselves through their own efforts and through their many bitter years of struggle should not be lightly taken away from them. I can say that if the regulations framed to deal with the labour side of the housing question are not administered in a reasonable manner quite a deal of trouble may result. The artisan does not take lightly to being ordered about. The engineering artisans during the war period have allowed themselves to be conscripted in the interests of the war effort. In fact the building artisans are going to allow themselves to be conscripted in the working out of what I might call the peace effort. Therefore they are entitled to the fullest protection. If the arbitrary powers are going to be used in an arbitrary fashion—I do not say it will happen but it is a possibility—if these powers granted to the commissioner are going to be used in a fashion where the commissoiner does not have the fullest possible sympathy with the workmen themselves—we are going to have difficulties. It is no pleasant matter for the Director of Housing to serve a notice on you that you must pack up your belongings and go to another town.

These powers will not be exercised by the Director or the Commissioner of Housing but by a proper authority in the Labour Department.

Supposing we say they will be used by the Director of Manpower, but they will be used all the same. It must be remembered that the Director of Manpower has during the war exercised his authority over the engineering industry not under the Minister of Labour but under the Minister of Defence. Labour has no control over Mr. Ivan Walker in his capacity as Controller of Manpower. I suppose as this Bill is under the aegis of the Minister of Welfare, although I hope Mr. Walker may exercise his control, I do not think he will come under the Minister of Labour but under the Minister of Welfare, who is responsible for housing, and quite rightly too. The Minister of Welfare is responsible and therefore he must have the power to direct the Controller of Manpower, who in turn looks after the distribution of labour. It may not seem an important point I am making. It is possible and it may be necessary for artisans at various times to be transferred at a few moments notice from one town where there is a surplus of labour to perhaps a smaller town where there is a shortage. As the Minister said, they proposed to use the manpower where it is most needed, and to the best purposes. That implies that more or less voluntarily the artisans concerned are more or less conscripted. They can be told to pack up and be sent from ohe town to another town. These regulations will therefore have to be handled very sympathetically. There is no use giving them to the Minister unless they are administered firmly, but there is all the possibility of trouble if they are not applied prudently. I believe the Minister has here a great opportunity not only to be firm and use his arbitrary powers in the direction of building houses, but at the same time to re-establish the authority of Parliament, even under a Bill of this description, by bringing into being either a select committee with extended powers to sit during the recess, or a Parliamentary advisory committee comprised of members of all sides of the House, who will be consulted on the framing of the regulations, or on their operation after they have been framed and who will be able to keep an eye on the administration of the regulations, to whom complaints can be made in the sure knowledge they will be conveyed to the proper quarter and impressed upon the proper authority. The Minister did not elaborate much on the scheme of trainees, and I should like him, in his reply, to do so. Both under the demobilisation proposals and under these proposals this vocational training scheme is beginning to get a little hazy in my mind. I understand the C.O.T.T. scheme has to be continued and has to be extended to the building industry. The Minister seems to be rather dubious as to who is going to train them. Under Demobilisation I understand the scheme is to have a general pool, and from that pool these men are to be paid allowances which I believe are already laid down. I should like to know if, at least in the first instance, as far as the returned soldiers are concerned, the scheme of training will originally not be a scheme under his department but purely under Demobilisation, which we have already provided for; and as far as I remember it was part of the policy of Demobilisation and it was a recommendation that no man would be put into any of these vocational training camps to undergo his original intensive training unless the directorate could guarantee him an apprenticeship when he had done his original training. That at least was the promise given to the ad hoc committee who framed the demobilisation plan, and that I understand is still the policy of the Directorate of Demobilisation. So I am a little hazy as to what precisely the Minister meant when he made a differentiation between apprentices and trainees, and rather suggested it was now proposed to anticipate the position by drafts into the building industry, whereas under the demobilisation plan it was understood that no men would go in for this vocational training and be intensively trained in an artisan occupation unless the directorate could guarantee him an apprenticeship when he had finished his intensive training. The Minister’s statement is that the first 4,000 or 5,000 men who will be trained in the building industry will be returned soldiers, and to those returning soldiers a promise has been given not that they will be trained and then become semi-skilled workers, but that they will receive intensive training and become skilled artisans. The idea is that we will reduce the period of apprenticeship from five years to possibly three years. Where the man has had vast experience in the engineering industry during the war, he will probably only need another 12 months to qualify. But at the moment we are dealing with housing and very few men in the army have had any experience in the course of their military duties in connection with housing, and so one can probably say that the period of apprenticeship will be three years. I would just like the Minister to clear up this point, because this is a Bill for which the country has been waiting. This is a point which is probably going to be greatly misunderstood. This is a Bill which, I am told, may not find such ready general acceptance outside the House as it does inside the House. We have had this housing question before us so long that we, I believe, as a House, are very firm in our conviction that nothing short of a Bill of this description could satisfactorily solve our problems. But people outside the House possibly do not know the provisions of the Bill as well as we do, and I think it would be wise if the Minister cleared up any possible misconception when he comes to make his reply.

I shall be glad to deal with that.

There is not very much more I want to say, but one very important point I wish to touch upon this this. I feel that now that these drastic powers are being given to the Minister that we should be a little more drastic and say to the Government that the time has arrived when this dual control of housing should be abolished. In other words, the time has arrived when we should take the office of building controller away from the Minister of Public Works, and place it in the hands of the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation, who is responsible for housing. Why in the name of goodness it should be necessary for one Minister with his technical advisers, and the Housing Commission to draw up plans for the building of houses, and then have to go along to another Minister who has the glorified title of Building Controller, I do not know.

Why call it a glorified title?

The Minister of Public Works is the only Minister who is a controller. He is the building controller, and I think building control is probably the worst we have had in the war, and that is saying a lot. We find that the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation, having got all his plans made, is dependent upon the material that is going to be released to him by the building controller. During his speech the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation said that the Housing Commission will have the power to buy and hold and stock or pile up reserves of building material. Are they going to be able to do that without the permission of the building controller, or is the building controller going to control stock? Surely we are placing ourselves in a ridiculous position, and what is the justification for having the Minister of Public Works the building controller? There is no justification for it at all. Surely it is the job of the Housing Commission under the Minister, to say whether or not we shall in this country build this magistrate’s court or post office; surely it should be the province of the Minister of Welfare to say: “No, you cannot have a new railway station, or you cannot have a new post office, or a new magistrate’s court, because we must build so many houses by such a time.” We can do without a new public building, but we cannot do without housing. As I gathered, the Minister of Public Works will make the decision for himself as to whether he will build a new gaol or a new magistrate’s court or a new post office without consulting, I understand, the Minister of Welfare who may urgently need the material which is going to be used for his new buildings in order to get on with his building scheme. So I think it is absolutely imperative that the position of building controller should be taken away from the Minister of Public Works and handed over to the Minister of Welfare. It must obviously make for more easy working. It must obviously do away with overlapping, and then, like everybody else, the Minister of Public Works can make his application to the Minister of Welfare and say that he wants so much material for public works, and if the Minister of Welfare says that it can be done, he will probably grant the material. I should imagine that if that was done the Minister of Welfare would probably get a good deal of his own back on the Minister of Public Works. This Bill will give the Minister of Welfare control of the workers; he will have control of the people who sell the building material, and the only thing of which he has not got control is the release of building material. He is subservient to the Minister of Public Works, who can say: “So much I can release, and so much I cannot release.” Actually when the commission put up their schemes from the various municipalities some time ago, the Controller of Building in the person of the Minister of Public Works, cut the whole programme by half by saying: “We can only give you sufficient material to build half these houses”. The fact that less than that was built in no way affects the argument. I gather we are going to make some experiments in building, that we are going to have some experimental houses. I am not referring to experiments in relation to cost, but I gather the Minister spoke of rumble houses. They will probably finish off by being rumble and tumble houses. I gather that the experience in England where they have made experiments in regard to various types of houses, have not been at all satisfactory, and it still remains a fact that the best kind of house is the kind of brick and motar house to which we have been accustomed, and I do not think that in this country the position is so deadly serious as would justify our making too many experiments with other kinds of materials, which in the long run may not be successful. After all, if we are going in for this housing programme in the Union of South Africa, we want to build those houses as well as we possibly can, because one knows that if houses are jerry built, if they are put up in a slip-shod fashion, or if the correct materials are not used, you are in effect only building something which will be a slum in a few years’ time. Houses are built to last, so I will impress upon the Minister not to be carried away by experimentalists in this country. We have been hearing a great deal about pre-fabricated houses, and of other kinds of houses, and I feel that unless it can be shown that those houses are in every way as good as our brick and mortar houses—even as good as our concrete flats—we should not embark upon them in this country because we do not want to build temporary houses in this country.

As a matter of policy we have decided not to build temporary houses.

I was going to elaborate on that, because in Great Britain one of the great points in issue is this question of the temporary house gradually being recognised as a permanent house, and so developing into slums in a very few years. These are a few points I would wish to commend to the Minister in connection with this Bill. I hope he will give serious attention to them, because we feel that this is a very great experiment. It could easily become a dangerous experiment, but with the determination on the part of the Minister to use his powers not only to the limit to which he finds it necessary to build houses, but to use them wisely, we are satisfied that the experiment will be a success, and I am rather inclined to think that if he will give us this form of Parliamentary control, I doubt if the House would be at all anxious to take these powers away from him at the end of three years.

The reception of this Bill by the House will give the country a clear indication that it is regarded as an allParty measure, and it will be so regarded for the reason that the House generally is determined that drastic action shall be taken in connection with the housing situation. It indicates an entirely new basis for domestic legislation and the success of such a measure will depend largely upon the public co-operation in regard to the housing position. I do not think that this is the time to endeavour to apportion blame for the existing unsatisfactory position in regard to houses, or to try and apportion a percentage to municipalities, to the provincial councils and to the Government. I think that would at this stage be an entire waste of our time. Rather should the House and the country be brought to realise not that we need housing but the extent to which at present we can implement the intentions expressed in this Bill. We read in our newspapers about plans being passed by various municipalities for numbers of houses, national houses and ordinary houses, until the public gains the impression that there is early extensive progress in housing in this country, whereas the reverse is the situation, according to the information I have. I say that it is necessary for the Minister to indicate at this stage what housing is likely to result from this measure during the next 12 months, and I would go further; not only should the Minister indicate to this House what is likely to come out of this measure during the next 12 months but, by means of a series of broadcasting articles, he should indicate to the public of South Africa their own responsibility for the better use of the houses that exist at the present time and also the necessity for practically every one of these extraordinary measures which the Government is taking to meet this unique situation. While we have been idealistic in regard to the broad conception of housing for South Africa, it is necessary that this House should retain a measure of balance and be realistic. Figures have been given to us by a committee in regard to the existing shortage of houses in South Africa, and a figure has been mentioned on various occasions of 150,000, 80 per cent. of which are for nonEuropeans. That is an appalling figure in the light of the material and the labour available for the purpose of constructing those houses. But those figures having been quoted, the public are entitled to know what proportion of those houses can be built within, say, a period of three years. The Minister may say that these figures may be regarded as an exaggeration of the actual position, but let us then take a figure of 100,000 instead of 150,000 as the present shortage. Even then the position is alarming, in view of the measures that are practical within the next two years. I would like to call attention to the proportion of the housing shortage in relation to the nonEuropean population, particularly in the urban areas, and I would urge the Minister and those who are responsible for carrying out this programme, to pay due regard to the relative proportions of the needs of the various sections in this country. If 80 per cent. of the shortage is in respect of the housing of non-Europeans—and we know and need no illustration as to the desperateness of the position—then I ask the Government to see to it that that proportion is maintained when making provision for the needs of the people, or at any rate that due significance is given to it. Assuming the figure of 100,000, i.e. two-thirds of the figure stated by the committee ….

That was at the beginning of 1944.

The Minister has indicated the number of houses built during the past 12 months.

About 15,000.

Well, that leaves 135,000. I asked the Minister what the prospects are for 1946 if the powers asked for under this Bill are given effect to. After all, we know that the Minister himself and his Department are governed by the labour and the position in regard to materials, and labour itself is governed by the amount of material available. The Minister of Public Works gave us figures in this House about a week ago in regard to the allocation of building permits for 1945-’46, and presumably those permits had been based upon the material available. He said that permits for all buildings to the value of £35,000,000 will be issued for next year. Of the £35,000,000, 64 per cent. or aproximately £22,000,000 would be devoted to the building of houses, and of the £22,000,000 he gave us a figure of £4,000,000 in respect of the national housing scheme, which I presume is the amount to be allocated for the provision of housing for the non-Europeans. In my opinion that is altogether too small a proportion in view of the existing needs. If one takes these figures and endeavours to ascertain the number of houses that can be built, one comes to the conclusion that the £4,000,000 for the national housing scheme, taking the figure of £300-£350 for a house that the hon. member for Kenington (Mr. Gray) has in mind, we shall have approximately 12,000 houses built, as a contribution towards the 80,000 houses’ actually required. These, I think, are figures that the Minister will confirm. In regard to the other houses, including flats, of a total of about £18,000,000, if one takes a rough figure, one finds that it is probable that equal to between 15,000 and 20,000 houses can be built under that vote. I want to ask the Minister how he proposes to meet the shortage or to what extent it is practicable to meet the shortage. He has made reference to the purchase of materials by the Housing Commission. If he has any information to convey to this House that the figure in regard to material upon which the Minister of Public Works based his statement does not correctly reflect the position, I hope he will make an announcement this afternoon, because even with all the powers provided for in the Bill and the housing possibilities as I have endeavoured to estimate them, I think the public will be disappointed. They will say: You have got all these powers; and you had committees and a commission going into the matter, including the Planning Council; you have had their reports and Parliament has dsicussed the matter ad infinitum, but you have not held out the early prospect of giving the country many houses. That is why I feel that we have to be realsitic. If we cannot do all we would like, let us tell the country what it is expected that the Government will be able to give to the community under this measure and the proportion for those people who relatively are most in need of housing. Then in regard to the new methods of building and the use of new materials, I am not a building expert, and I cannot therefore speak with authority, but I remember a few days ago, the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) presented to this House figures clearly indicating that the Municipality of Ermelo—no mean municipality at all—was building departmentally under the supervision of the town engineer a suitable house at a cost of something like £130. The hon. member showed the House a photograph of the house in question and gave details as to the construction. I would like to know whether the Minister has had a report from the Commission in regard to this House, because I am informed that in Johannesburg you cannot get a house like it under £300. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Gray) says that the house in Ermelo was built by natives.

For natives.

Well, then the comparison is correct. The house for approximately £300 in Johannesburg is built for natives, and the house in Ermelo for about £130 which is also built for natives. The hon. member for Ermelo also stated that a member of the Housing Commission has visited the house at Ermelo. I should like to know what the opinion of the Housing Commission is. Is the Minister prepared to make a statement in regard to that particular house? Because the Housing Commission has a serious responsibility and the Department concerned cannot be relieved of that responsibility. The country will want to know the reason for the prices of a suitable house for the non-European population in urban areas being £300 and something like £130 on the platteland.

What type of bricks were used for this house?

I do not know, but in any case I am asking the hon. Minister to reply and not the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow).

There is no reason for you to be rude.

It was not my intention to be rude or to be rude to anyone in this House, but the hon. member asks me what bricks were used and I do not know. I repeat that I would like the hon. Minister to tell the country through a series of broadcasts what the position is in regard to housing so that the people may unite with the local authorities in bringing about the great measure of success which the Minister had in mind when he introduced this Bill. Today there are houses in this country that are not occupied. There are houses that are partly occupied, and while the voluntary principle must be maintained in regard to houses that are partly occupied, where houses are standing empty in municipalities, steps should be taken to see that those houses are occupied.

Provision is made for that in the Bill.

I hope the Minister will implement that in the near future. I hope the Minister has these regulations ready and that we will not have to wait for a month or two before they are introduced. I would like the Minister to give the House some indication as to whether these regulations will come into force in the near future.

Most of them are already drafted.

Naturally it is the wish of this Parliament and of the country that at the very earliest moment full provision should be made for our returning soldiers, and we all press for that, but at the same time, I think it would be the wish of the returning soldiers that the needs of the distressed section of the community should be given special consideration to improve their housing position. I refer to the nonEuropeans in some of the urban areas. The House and I am sure, the country will welcome this Bill. The Bill gives the Minister and the Government great powers, but accompanied by those powers is a great responsibility, and we in this Parliament will accept our share of that responsibility and do our utmost to bring this measure to full fruition.

When Parliament is asked, as announced by the Minister, to spend an enormous amount of money on a project of this nature, and when in those circumstances Parliament is asked to pass a measure of this kind, an extraordinary measure in which excessive powers are granted to the Minister concerned, then, in my opinion, Parliament is entitled and very much entitled to receive full information in regard to certain aspects of the matter, and in order to enable Parliament to obtain that information I want to move the following amendment—

1. (a) to make provision in the proposed housing scheme for separate residential areas for Europeans and nonEuropeans; and
2. (b) to restrict such provision to the requirements of Union nationals.”.

In the course of my speech I shall come back to the various points raised in the amendment, and, as the House will notice, these are points of special interest and we are entitled to have a full explanation of what the position in regard thereto is. To begin with I want to say that this side of the House is just as keen and just as anxious, if not keener and more anxious, that the Government should take some steps in connection with remedying the housing position and the state of emergency in the country, remedies which the Government promised us long ago. In recent years we have become more or less accustomed to the Government painting a rosy picture of the special measures that will be taken and of the panacea that will be found as soon as the war is over. We are prepared to support a measure which will make provision for the erection of houses in order to remedy the serious housing shortage which exists in this country at the present time. When, however, we are going to provide the means therefor, we also want to see that this will be done in such a manner that the whole scheme will be based on a sound foundation. If the measure which has now been put before us were a Bill in the ordinary sense of the word, one could still try to effect improvements during the course of the Bill’s progress through the various stages. The hon. Minister himself knows from experience that a Bill which is introduced into this House by a Minister, often looks quite different after it has been passed here than it looked when originally introduced. In such a case we could have enlisted the assistance and enthusiasm of members of Parliament representing all sections of the population for a measure such as the one now introduced by the Minister, and that assistance could have been used to improve the measure. There is the other axiom that the fullest possible use should be made of the experience of people who are daily dealing with these matters in order to get a proper insight into the problems of this country; although during the present Session more use has been made of the Select Committee system than in the past, I want to point out that a measure of this kind could especially be improved by sending it to a Select Committee before second reading, where the representatives of all Parties and sections could discuss the Bill in a calm atmosphere and could consider its pros and cons; such a committee would be able to eliminate many of the things which will give rise to discussion and conflict in this House. This being the position we could not have anticipated that the Minister would come along with this measure at this stage of the Session, seeing that we are nearing the end. We would have expected it much earlier. We could not have expected him to put a measure of this nature before us at the present moment. During his speech the Minister apologised to the House for the way in which the Bill was introduced. My impression of his speech was that it consisted largely of apologetic remarks for introducing this particular measure instead of a proper Housing Bill. His principal excuse in this connection was that he had not had the time to draft a proper Housing Bill. I specially want to emphasise once more that particularly in regard to a measure such as this, which affects the whole country and in which every constituency is interested because a state of emergency exists among our population as far as housing is concerned, because everybody who has not a roof over his head is in a precarious position today, it was most essential that the Minister should have made the fullest possible use of all the opportunities which this House can afford for obtaining the advice and co-operation of at least all the members of Parliament. May I say this to the Minister? He stated here that a state of emergency exists in the country and then he said that he did not have the time to draft a proper Bill in view of the state of emergency which exists. Surely this state of emergency did not arise overnight, we did not suddenly wake up one morning to find a state of emergency. This is a state of emergency which has increased in severity from year to year since the beginning of the war, and nobody was better informed about it than the Government itself. During these war years the Government itself stated that the position in regard to housing was very serious and that it would even be more acute during the years immediately following the cessation of hostilities. It is something which every man with a bit of common sense could have realised and it therefore is all the more peculiar that the Minister tries to create the impression that this position suddenly descended on the Government and that he did not have the time to properly draft a Bill for submission to this House. That was the Minister’s excuse. If a man wants to build a house there are certain things he has to do first. The Minister mentioned several of these things. He said that if a man wants to build a house, he must have money, he must have the material and he must have the labour available. Now the Minister comes here and asks for these extraordinary and excessive powers under this Bill in order to make provision for all these things. When a man wants to build a house there is, however, one absolutely vital matter he must attend to first; he has to have a building plan. If a builder simply starts building and wants to draw up the plan while he is building, he is a very poor builder indeed. The same principle can be applied to a national housing programme. If the Minister wants to establish a national housing programme, he must first draw up a plan. It is essential that, before a new building programme is tackled and before the powers are demanded to execute such a building programme, there should be a building plan for such a programme so that we may know what plan is to be executed. The hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) quite rightly said that the Minister asked for these extraordinary and excessive powers because he does not know himself what his plans are. He is still without a plan; he has no detailed scheme; he has no properly defined plan which can give him an idea of the shape of things once he has finished with the programme, and for that reason he takes these excessive powers in order to make provision for all possible contingencies which may crop up. This measure is in the form of what the Minister calls “emergency regulations”. The state of emergency exists. My contention is that there has been ample time to draw up a proper national building programme, so that a plan might have been submitted to this House, on the basis of which we might have been able to proceed. We expected that from the Minister, and not only we, but also members on the other side were waiting for the announcement of the scheme of the national building programme by the Government, but even in this Bill we have not yet got that building programme. All that is asked for in this Bill is that the Minister should be given powers to carry out things which he afterwards may approve or disapprove of. In talking about the Bill now before us, I must say that I do not know whether ever in the history of this House we have had a Bill which is so excessive and which gives such extreme powers to a Minister. This is a Bill which compares very strangely with the Bills to which we are accustomed in this House. The Bill consists of 13 pages. Nine of those contain one clause, viz. Clause 2. The purpose of Clause 2 is merely to give extraordinary and excessive powers to the Minister. As I said just now this is a Bill of 13 pages, but Clause 2, which gives the Minister those extraordinary powers, does not reveal any proper plan, although it takes up nine pages of the 13 pages of the Bill. The powers which the Minister takes unto himself are more radical than any measure ever before accepted in the history of our legislation. The powers which the Minister will obtain under this Bill have hardly ever before been asked for by any Minister in our country, not even during war-time. It is a radical measure. What is more, it is an involved measure, and this House cannot but blame the Minister for having tarried with this Bill so long, with the result that it can only come before us now, right at the end of the Session. The Minister who has no plans and who, if he did not have the time to draw up a plan, should have found the time to do so, now comes to the House and simply states that we should, instead of approving a detailed plan, give him a blank cheque and that he shall do with it as he likes and with that blank cheque will carry out anything he wants. It is a very poor builder who simply tells us that we should give him a blank cheque and that we shall see afterwards what sort of a building he is going to erect, because he is going to evolve his building plan gradually as he goes along. He expects, however, the best results once the house is finished! That is what the Minister is doing and I also want to tell him that I gathered from his speech that he contended that we had been kept waiting all this time for a national building programme because we passed a law giving local authorities powers to build houses. We made a sub-economic housing scheme possible under the Housing Act; we were prepared to provide the local authorities with funds. But a state of emergency arose because the local authorities did not make provision under that Housing Act for the building of houses. They did not make use of the opportunities offered to them by the law. If it were true what the Minister said here, I would tell him that it would have been a simple matter for him to tell us in this House that the local authorities failed to carry out a housing programme under the existing law of the country; if in his opinion they failed to do so, I want to ask him why the Government did not proceed to carry out that programme under the Housing Act and why it did not introduce a proper amending Bill to that effect? In that case it should have been possible for the Government to carry out a housing scheme under the existing legislation which was put on the Statute Book for the benefit of the local authorities, and if necessary, it could have amended such legislation. Instead of doing that the Minister comes here with what he calls an emergency measure. He makes use of other powers than were available to the local authorities in order to carry out his programme. I just want to tell the Minister that it is extremely difficult to suggest improvements on something which is not before us. We simply do not have the Minister’s programme and plans before us. If he had come here with a detailed housing Bill, we could have discussed his plans and proposals and suggested improvements. Now, however, it is very difficult to do so. In the circumstances we can only do one thing and that is to peg the Minister down in regard to a few important points. The first one is that it is the duty of the State to make provision for remedying the housing scarcity from which the citizens of the country are suffering. The position in South Africa demands that steps shall be taken to make provision in regard to the existing housing scarcity, and if provision is made for that, we also want to lay down the principle that such provision should be made where there is an actual shortage of houses. In other words, there should be co-ordination between the existing housing shortage and the provision which is going to be made in terms of this Act. The Minister will have the figures and the Department will have the figures. From what he said here, however, I came to the conclusion that he is going to start expending an amount of £5,000,000 per annum and that this will be used during the current financial year. We tried to make an estimate, and I think the Minister will agree with me that approximately 4,000 houses can be built on the basis of £5,000,000 per annum taking into consideration administration and other expenditure. The position is that there is a most serious housing shortage in the country and therefore we have to ask him whether those 4,000 houses will in the first instance cause some amelioration in the pressing need for houses in this country. The people in general would rather have seen the Minister submit a detailed scheme for a certain number of years, and that thereafter he should have had legislation passed to make provision for the carrying out of such a scheme. This Bill, however, only makes provision for the next three or four years. During the first year 4,000 houses are to be built and circumstances may even prevent that. During the second year a slightly larger number will be built and during the third year perhaps still a few more. Is that the time-table of the Minister and are those his plans to make provision for coping with the state of emergency in the country? Does he think that he will be able to meet all requirements in that way? I want to emphasise again that provision should be made first where the position is most acute. That should be done in regard to the building of houses, etc. We should not leave cases standing over where the need is greatest, whilst in other cases preference is given where the need is not so extreme. From a Bill of this kind it is not quite clear to me what the intentions of the Government are in regard to the distribution of building material. I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that under this Bill the Minister will have the right of commandeering building material and to control it in such a way that no building material will be made available except through one channel. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to a condition which might easily arise. In our country we have a group of small independent building contractors. Every smaller and larger town has one or more building contractors living there and working as master builders. Under normal conditions they were able to provide the building requirements of those towns. During the war period those small contractors were however, seriously hampered in their activities. They experienced a tremendous set-back during the war years because they could not obtain the necessary material. Many of those small building contractors could not continue with their full programme during the war period. Owing to a shortage of building materials they could not execute the necessary work. Now I should like to hear from the Minister what he intends doing in regard to this class of builder as far as the supply of the required building material is concerned and in view of the housing shortage existing in the country. The state of emergency in regard to dwelling houses is definitely very serious, because those people were greatly hampered in their building work during the war years. If we are going to carry out a national building programme in the country, we should not thereby crush the initiative of people who can assist in providing the required houses and we should not cut short their activities. We do not know what the intentions are and whether the Minister is going to use his powers in such a manner as to assist those people in the building of houses in this country or whether he is going to hamper them as they were hampered during the war years, so that they cannot contribute their share in providing dwelling houses for our population.

We want to assist them to build houses.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the following. He knows just as well as I do, as far as this is concerned—I shall give an example—that the farmers have often with their own labour or with the labour they could obtain elsewhere contributed in making provision for the housing of the people on their farms. That process also came to a stop during the war. The Minister will remember that at one time the State granted subsidies to these people for the erection of dwelling houses in order to make provision for their bywoners so that the latter could obtain proper housing facilities in cases where the farmers were not financially strong enough to do so unaided. That assistance fell away after some time. Many farmers, however, out of their own initiative and their own means made provision for the housing of their employees on the farms. If, however, there is to be the same control of building material as we had during the war, the farmers will not be able to build those houses and if they will not be able to procure the necessary building material because a national housing programmers being carried out, they will also not be able to contribute their share to the solution of the problem. We should like to hear from the Minister what his intentions in regard thereto are. The Minister will not resent the fact that in view of the provisions of the Bill which is now before us, a thousand and one questions loom up in our thoughts. In Clause 2 we find a large number of excessive powers to be laid in the hands of an excessive Minister. Sometimes he can be so excessive; as this is the case, obviously all kinds of questions present themselves: What is going to happen in this case; how is the Minister going to carry out this or that; here he gets a blank cheque, and can he now do just as he jolly well likes? I do not know whether those questions present themselves to us on this side of House only, but I believe that those questions also loom up in the minds of members on the other side of the House and even in the mind of the Minister himself. I do not think that anybody on the other side can imagine—or as the Minister prefers it “can visualise”—how this measure is going to work in practice. We have no idea of what the position is going to look like after the Minister has finished with it. We are very keen to carry out a buildingprogramme, but at the moment neither the Minister nor we have any conception of how it is going to turn out. I do not think the Minister has such a conception and as this is the case, the Minister must assume that we shall of course put quite a number of questions to him in the course of this debate. I have already put a few to him, but there are still more particulars of the Bill on which we have to put questions to him. I still want to ask the Minister the following. State money is to be provided here in order to remedy the housing shortage. Other measures have been taken under which preference is being given to returned soldiers as compared to those who stayed behind. Other measures have been passed in this House and no secret was made of the fact that preference would be given to returned soldiers. Those were measures under which the State granted substantial financial assistance, but preference was given to returned soldiers. Take for instance the Riet River scheme in my own constituency. A building programme was carried out there. Plots were fenced in and the houses were completed. But the general public cannot get in there. It is being reserved exclusively for returned soldiers. Seeing that this is the case and as the need for housing in our country is extremely great, not only in respect of the returned soldiers, not only in regard to those people who worked on the home front and were transferred to other places, but where today it affects every section of the people, this becomes a very serious matter and we want to know from the Minister whether he is going to give preference and if so, to whom. Is he first going to provide houses for the returned soldiers and is he thereafter going to give attention to the civilian population of the country? That would be quite wrong. From his reply to such a question it depends whether we can give our blessing to a measure of this nature or not. But we do not receive a single reply from the Minister to these questions. He only tells us that he is going to do certain things, but he himself does not yet know what he is going to carry out. I want to ask him a further question. This is a question relating to the first part of my amendment. Lately we have noticed a tendency here in the House, when members on this side get up to speak about separate residential areas, that members on the other side and even Ministers, also get up and state that they are also in favour of separateness. I remember that even the Prime Minister said so in this House to his own surprise. It is the first time he said so during his lifetime, and he is already an old man. He has been in this House for many years and during the present Session he said so for the first time. I believe he was himself surprised about it. The Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation on the other side also said so. I think that particularly he must have been surprised when he said so. I want to advise him to go and stand in front of the mirror when he gets home and repeat it. I believe it will be very interesting to him to get an impression of himself when he says a thing like that. Lately we have heard from members and Ministers on the other side that they also want it. All these years they have been opposed to it. Public opinion, however, has changed completely during the last few years. Public opinion now demands the principle of separateness, and during the last few years this demand has become so insistent, not only among the supporters of members on this side, but also among supporters of members on the other side, that they were compelled to take notice of the section of the electorate which feels strongly in this matter. We on this side have advocated the principle for many years, and they now feel that they should also say something about it. We are now witnessing the remarkable spectacle that although after all these years they are at last starting to repeat something we have been advocating all along but which they never associated themselves with, they on no occasion were prepared to incorporate such a provision in the legislation which they introduced in this House. To me this is a very serious matter. If they are also in favour of this principle, why are they not prepared to incorporate it also in our legislation? If they are in favour of that principle they should also incorporate and entrench it in our legislation so that any Government of the future would know what the position is and that this is the policy laid down by the Government, entrenched and enshrined in the laws of the land. That, however, they are not prepared to do. No, it appears as if the position they want to occupy is that of a person trying to sit on two chairs. They will now be able to tell the one section of their supporters that they are also in favour of separteness, but on the other hand they will be able to whisper into the ears of the other section: No, in actual fact we are not in favour of it, for we have not incorporated it in our legislation. The day will come, however, when just as they have now been forced into the position that they have to declare in this House that they are in favour of separateness, they will also be forced into the position that they will have to be prepared to entrench it in our legislation, so that once and for all we shall have a clear and distinct national policy. In order to give them an opportunity to show their mettle, and to bring proof that they actually want it, we have moved this amendment, and we shall move it again in future. Furthermore there is a very important matter which is embodied in the second part of my amendment. The housing scarcity in our country is very serious …. I do not know whether the hon. memebr for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) is at the moment busy preparing his speech with the assistance of the Minister.

Carry on, Serfie.

I cannot carry on if I have to carry that hon. member as well. I still want to ask the Minister the following question. It is a generally admitted fact today that the housing position in our country is very serious. The position is extremely serious, but we should also take into consideration the factors which have contributed to the creation of this housing shortage. In devising a scheme for the solution of the housing problem and for the provision of houses for people who cannot find accommodation, we should take in consideration the factors which caused that position, and the Minister will agree with me that during this war South Africa became a haven of refuge for people from other countries, for refugees and foreigners, on a scale never experienced in the past. They came here and they filled the accommodation that was still available. Many of them went to live in boarding houses, and they took up all kinds of accommodation. We are therefore faced with a serious position which has been brought about by people who were able to compete with our own people. Foreigners and refugees from other countries who were able to pay more and better than our own people, took up the accommodation. Our people got out and they got in. This is a very important factor and now I should like to hear from the Minister what his attitude is in regard thereto. If the Minister should carry out his scheme, if he should build his national houses—it is not actually a scheme, but still he is making provision for something of the sort—if the Government proposes making that provision, it is essential that we should ask whether, when provision is made by the State with the money of the taxpayer, provision will also be made for those who are residing here temporarily. We should like to know what the position is going to be of those people, whether they will leave again or whether they are going to stay here; people who today are taking up the housing of the citizens of the Union. I should like to hear from the Minister whether he is prepared to accept the princple, as outlined in this amendment, namely that when he comes to this Parliament and asks for money in order to provide a remedy against the housing scarcity in our country, he will in the first instance make that provision in respect of our own people. This is a very serious matter as far as we are concerned. Any Government in South Africa which is worth its salt and which possesses any sense of responsibility, will in taking steps of this nature attend in the first instance to the requirements of our own people, and I should like to hear from the Minister what the position is going to be. Is he going to allow these foreigners to stay here and allow others to come in to compete against our own citizens for those houses which are to be built with State money to alleviate the housing shortage? This is a frank and serious question to which we should like to receive an answer. I think the Minister should give his earnest attention to the matter and we expect an unequivocal reply from him as far as this question is concerned. I furthermore want to mention another factor, which in my opinion is a factor which could have been controlled by the Government and which has also contributed to the creation of the State of emergency in regard to housing. I just want to tell the Minister once more that when provision is made by the State in regard to the housing problem, provision should be made for the people who are really in need and who are in need as a result of the condition in which they find themselves, but not for those who are moving about arbitrarily. There are cases where people have created a state of emergency through their own actions and who, when they are allowed to create such a state of emergency, come along and ask that provision be made for them. In regard to this matter I want to be quite frank. During another debate I quoted some figures and I shall do so again. I want to say something about the migration of natives from the rural areas to the urban areas. In the Cape Peninsula the position has become such that quite recently a deputation representing the Cape Town Municipality, the Divisional Council and other public bodies interviewed the Minister of Native Affairs. They raised strong objections against the influx of natives to the urban areas, and the figures I am now going to quote are the figures which were submitted to the Minister of Native Affairs by the deputation, namely that under normal circumstances provision can only be made for employment for 26,000 natives. At the time when the deputation saw the Minister, however, the influx had already assumed a total of 80,000 natives. Those are not my figures, but the figures submitted by the deputation to the Minister of Native Affairs. As this is the case, it is obvious that you are here faced with the problem of a large number of people coming in, who by their influx have created a state of emergency. I want to say quite definitely that we shall certainly raise objection against the money to be spent under this legislation, being used for making provision for reception depôts for the natives coming here and who are not required as labourers. The Prime Minister stated and the Minister of Native Affairs admitted it, that a state of emergency has arisen in this connection and that the position is very serious; the Minister of Native Affairs, however, at his wits’ end, said: “I know that the position is serious, but how can I control it?” The Government failed to exercise a proper control. The excuse of the Minister of Native Affairs was that they could not exercise control in the Cape because there is no pass system in the Cape and because the pass laws do not apply to the Cape Province. The pass laws are applicable, however, in the Transvaal, but on the Reef and in Pretoria you have the same position. Why is that not being controlled? There they have the powers, but the Minister throws up his hands in despair and says that we can do nothing but to let the matter run its course and that we cannot stop it. The urban areas now have to become the bottleneck in which the surplus labour has to be canalised and depôts have to be built to receive them. We seriously object, because the Government failed to prevent the influx of excess labour. We do not want the money which will be available for these schemes to be used for making provision for those superfluous natives because the Government failed to exercise control. Our point of view is that when work can be found for those people you still cannot allow them to start a mass migration on their own without any control and to come here and create a very serious problem, and thereafter to expect that the taxpayers, that is the European taxpayers, for they themselves do not pay a single sixpence towards it, will make provision to remedy their housing position. It is necessary, it has been necessary for a long time and it will still be necessary, especially in view of the building projects of the Government, to put a stop to the superfluous influx of natives and to take care that, when the building programmes are carried out—if they are carried out—provision will be made only for those who are really in need, and not for people who, like the natives, have created the problem themselves. Provision should be made for the citizens of the country, especially for the workers who have been housed in very bad conditions. I do hope that the plans will be carried to fruition—and the Government will have to carry out the plans for the pressure of the public will demand from any government in South Africa that the plans be carried out—and I hope that the plans will be carried out efficiently. Every citizen of this country should have the opportunity of living under his own roof. If you want to build up a nation you can only build it up from the various units which make up the cells of your national structure, that is to say the separate families of the people. If you want to promote a healthy home life, you have to promote it under a proper roof. I hope that the time will come when that ideal will become reality, that the time will come when every citizen of the country shall have his own roof above his head, so that a sound national structure may arise, constructed from healthy cells. I now move my amendment.

I have great pleasure in seconding the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein). The words of warning expressed by this side of the House and even from members of the other side of the House to the Minister in respect of the housing question in South Africa, have today become real. This housing question has indeed been acute during the past years. The crisis has existed at least for the past two years and it is not that the question has only recently developed into a crisis as the Minister would have us believe. Every member in this House knows how pressure has from time to time been exercised on the Minister during the past few years to make provision for the necessity of housing for the people. But every time he was attacked on the matter he simply rose and brought the people outside under the impression that the Government has the matter in hand, and is taking steps for meeting the position. I would like to quote to the Minister his own words of a year back. What did he say on the 28th April of last year? He stated—

Then he goes further. He pushes out his chest and states—

Twelve months ago the Minister spoke as seriously as that. Now he comes along today and collapses and declares openly: “I admit we are now faced with a national emergency.” He now acknowledges, as we expected would happen, that there is an emergency. After all the pressure exercised by us on the Minister he is unable even to point to one thing that he has done. But when the Minister saw that the people outside were becoming perturbed and that he was no longer able to quiet them with pretty words, he suddenly started holding public meetings. And what did he try to do there? He tried to evade his responsibility, and on the public platform he tore the municipalities to shreds and pieces. I do not say that municipalities have complied with their commitments, but the hon. Minister knows that there were matters, difficulties in the way which prevented the municipalities from making a success of any plans which they may have had. The Minister knows that municipalities did not have sufficient facilities, in many cases, to proceed with the schemes. The municipalities do not have the powers and facilities which the Minister now intends providing for them. When municipalities started hitting back, the Minister had to find another scapegoat. He had promised so much that he had to find a way out. Then he stated that it was not his fault. He discovered another scapegoat and he placed all the blame upon Dr. Hamlin and stated that he had misled him, the Minister, and the people. It is no argument for a responsible Minister to use in a responsible debate such as this. Did the Minister not keep his eye on that? I want to put a question to the Minister. I may be wrong, but I learned outside, that Dr. Hamlin almost had no staff, that he did not even have a typist at one time. Is that true? But whatever the position may be the Minister cannot so easily divest himself of his responsibility. When the war started and when the Minister spoke about a new South Africa, he did not say that the municipalities had to make provision for housing, he did not then say that Dr. Hamlin was the man, but he stated that the Government would provide housing. Now we see where we have been landed. He now comes and what does he ask? He told us at the commencement of the Session that he intended introducing legislation shortly. After we had drawn attention to the position he stated that he intended introducing legislation. Where is the Bill? We did not get it. At the end of the Session he comes along and puts us before a fait accompli. By means of a large number of regulations he wants to obtain power over different matters. I want to enumerate a few. In the first place he asks the House to give him a blank cheque. I want to say to the Minister that as far as I personally am concerned, if I bear in mind his conduct in the past in connection with the housing question, that I am not prepared to give him a blank cheque.

We shall give it to him.

I will not entrust a blank cheque to him. He asks for dictatorial power to exercise control over all building materials. He wants full control over the expropriation of land, Crown land as well as private land. He comes along with a bit of Conroy legislation and he also wants power to chase people off the land. He rises and he states that it is a first requirement that he should have power to expropriate land. Pay is a secondary matter. That may be made after expropriation has taken place. Then only could the matter be discussed. We realise that there is a state of emergency but my difficulty and objection is, that the state of emergency was not prevented by the Minister. If he had taken action as he has from time to time promised to do, then the state of emergency could have been obviated partly, if not wholly. The Minister comes along in fact and asks for full power over municipalities. I now want to ask him his real intention in connection with rates. I find the following clause in the Bill—

To me it is incomprehensible that the Minister wants to say to municipalities by way of regulation, what rates they should levy on properties and whether rates may be levied in respect of properties. The Minister may even provide that they shall vary. What is going to be the position of a city council? My one objection is that the more houses are constructed in a city the more electricity is used and the more water, for example, with the result that if hundreds of buildings are erected and they are perhaps exempted from rates as the Minister may provide, as I have seen in the Press that he also contemplates doing. Only one alternative remains and that is that a city council will be compelled to levy an extra charge upon present consumers. Then we come to the position that the man who has had his property there for years, and who perhaps has a small income, will have to pay for electricity and water for persons who will be occupying the houses which the Minister now intends erecting. It is an unheard of matter and I trust that the Minister does not intend applying such a regulation. I can give the Minister an assurance, as has been done by one of the hon. members here, that if he were to do that he would be putting his head into a hornets’ nest as far as the municipalities and the inhabitants of the different urban areas are concerned. The. Minister goes even further. I do not know what is happening but it appears to me that he also wants to obtain control over the Minister of Labour.

Perhaps it will be a good thing.

Yes, perhaps. It seems to me that the Minister is preparing himself to move the portfolio to his side because he sees that labour is going to break away. I want to ask the Minister to state clearly whether he intends doing it. By way of regulation he even wants to determine the training of artisans. How is he going to do that? We want to know. He should explain it. What about wage determinations? He is taking the work away from the apprenticeship committees. He appropriates all powers to himself and we must know how the Minister intends arranging such matters. It is most necessary. But the Minister wants even greater powers. He comes along and says: “These regulations may conflict with any law in force in South Africa”. Owing to negligence in not taking timely action, notwithstanding our warnings, and the warnings of his own supporters as regards the state of emergency, we now find ourselves in the position that the Minister has in fact to ask for full authority for governing South Africa. For that reason I say, were it not for the imperative necessity outside, we on this side, would not have given unlimited powers to the Minister. Why should the Minister govern by means of a number of regulations? Why can he not approach us with a properly drafted Bill, a Bill divided into different parts as a good Bill should be? In such a Bill the Minister could for example fix the constitution of the board or boards, the duties of such boards. Tn the Bill it could be stated how far he wants to go in respect of the expropriation of land. He could state to what extent he is going to restrict building materials. As far as the other clauses are concerned, which we find in this. Bill, is the Minister in a position to state to what extent he intends compelling other building contractors to co-operate in the erection of houses for the Government. I am concerned about the position. The Minister is here asking for powers for himself which will make it possible for him to bring private building operations to a standstill, if he so desires. That is his power. That is left to him in this Bill. I think the Minister is obliged to inform us to what extent he intends taking action in the matter. We desired a Bill in which the Minister would prescribe and define the training of the workers required. We want to see how far he goes. That is the important point. We desired a Bill containing provisions regarding the powers which will be granted to local authorities. That is also an important point. I now come to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein). I want to make a few remarks in connection with houses for natives. I do not want to say that we must not build houses for natives. That will not be my plea. There are parts, as I have stated previously, where the housing position of natives is desperate and it should be improved. I have in mind a place such as Alexandra in Johannesburg. We have criticised the Minister in connection with the conditions prevailing there. There was an outbreak of smallpox in that area. It adjoins the European area and the position was so serious that there were 14 cases of death and 30 cases were taken to hospital. Where a reserve is near a city it is in the interests of the Europeans to have a good reserve there and to see that it is kept as clean as possible. But that does not remove the duty of providing for Europeans. When reference is made to priority No. 1 and priority No. 2 in connection with the building of houses, then we do not say that the Minister should not proceed with the construction of houses for natives but we point out that there are thousands of Europeans who live in hovels and then we say that houses for Europeans should be priority No. 1. We appreciate the position of the natives, but on the other hand we appreciate fully that every penny with which houses will have to be erected comes out of the pockets of the Europeans and not out of the pockets of natives.

Still the old story.

Yes, the old story. I desire to state here that where the financial responsibility has to be borne by Europeans preference must be given to houses for Europeans in each case and should be priority No. 1. That is all I ask of the Minister. Continue with the erection of houses for natives but first make provision for Europeans. The housing need is great, especially in the cities, and the Minister is aware of it. And when we refer to the erection of houses for Europeans then I join with the hon. member for Boshof in asking for whom such houses will be erected. Is the Minister in a position to give an assurance that where the housing need exists, he will take steps to ensure that no single house is erected except for Union nationals? That surely is an assurance that must be given us and there I fully agree with the hon. member for Boshof, and I hope that the Minister will at all events accept that portion of our amendment. Then I revert to the erection of houses for natives. That is contained in the other portion of this amendment. As I have stated the City Council of Johannesburg has already unanimously adopted a resolution, or with one dissentient, for separation, complete separation of European and non-European. But the Minister cannot today say that the municipality should not carry it out. I want to point out that in most areas municipalities have not the right and power to put it into execution. For example, there is the Gold Law of 1907 which has to be taken into account, and account has to be taken of the Natives Urban Areas Act which has been consolidated and account must be taken of the Slums Act and all the other laws. Therefore the passing of special legislation, seems to me to be necessary in order to grant city councils powers to carry out such a scheme. I refer to that incidentally. As regards native suburbs, after adopting the resolution, the city council has to date purchased large areas of land for the housing of natives, Asiatics and coloured persons separately. I now merely want to ask the Minister in goodness name not to have a single native house erected in the western area of Johannesburg. In principle, separation has been accepted by the City Council of Johannesburg.

Were the natives there first?

I want to ask the Minister to have absolute separation in mind. It is in the interests of natives and of Europeans. It is in the interests of coloured persons and Asiatics.

What is the test for separation? How far must they be apart?

How far?

You are referring to Johannesburg West. How far must they go?

Originally it was the idea that the city council should clear the area there gradually and would provide decent dwellings for natives near Orlando or where they have at present purchased. It is the purpose to get natives separate. We want to make it more convenient for natives.

The natives were there first.

At present the natives are faced with great difficulties in respect of housing. We desire to improve the position and we would then be able to contract a railway for the natives, a side-line, and make provision for fast and convenient transport.

They will not believe you. They will believe that you will go there again as soon as they are there.

The city council has adopted the resolution in favour of separation. We have had race conflicts in the Western area. I think it was the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) who stated that the natives were there first. I admit that. That is actually the position but sight should not be lost of the quick development along the Witwatersrand which implied entry by Europeans.

That is no excuse.

The European population has extended up to the locations and that is the position at present. The hon. member is right in saying that the natives were there first but as the position is, as it is, we cannot close our eyes further to the facts. We shall have racial conflicts on the Rand until such time as separation has been carried through. That is why I appeal to the Minister te meet us in this respect. The hon. member for Boshof now asks that the principle of separation should be incorporated and defined in this Bill. I know what the Minister’s reply will be. I do not think that he will accept it because it has become the practice lately, that if we on this side refer to separation, a Minister opposite rises and states that they are also in favour of it and then they add that it is not necessary to incorporate it in legislation because the building will not be mixed. It is our difficulty on this side that the Government keeps on creating the impression that they are in favour of separation while they are not. We have made numbers of proposals on this side and also expressed ourselves in favour of separation on other occasions when the Minister agreed with us. But when we come to the test, when we have to vote for the incorporation in legislation they vote it down. A colossal amount is being asked for in this Bill. We do not know what the Minister is going to ask for in the end and that is why we feel that it is necessary to incorporate this amendment in the Bill. I want the Minister to follow me clearly. I am criticising but I am not opposed to the principle of the erection of houses. That must go through. I support that. We must build houses for the people in the country, for Europeans as well as for non-Europeans. But with this proviso however that preference should be given in respect of Europeans. That is the principle from which we set out. I regret the Minister approaching us with a Bill which does not enable us to know what his plans are. The Minister must bear in mind that we leave here and that we go to our constituents. They will put questions to us about this Bill and in regard to the housing plans of the Minister. We will then have to inform them that we do not know whether the cost will be £5,000,000 or £50,000,000, but that we have granted that to the Minister. We are not opposed to granting the funds for the erection of houses. We are today compelled by necessity to give the Minister a blank cheque. We have no choice. We are compelled to give it to him because there is a state of emergency which has to be met.

I was wondering why the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) had moved the amendment to introduce the application of the principle of racial separation into this particular Bill, because as he well knows, that is laid down in the case of the African in the Urban Areas Act and adhered to by the municipalities in relation to other races in then building programmes; they always provide separate townships, and that has always been the case. But the hon. member for Westdene (Mr. Mentz) has made clear what exactly “separation” means in the view of his Party. It means first of all discrimination in fulfilling the housing needs of the various races. We know that in relation to the immediate needs there is a shortage of 120,000 houses for non-Europeans as against 30,000 for Europeans. Those figures alone tell whose need is the most desperate.

What percentage is it?

I am not asking for any priorities. We are asking that the needs of the population should be met in this matter “pari passu”, and according to the principles of justice. According to the member for Westdene separation means first of all discrimination, and it would also appear that it means, from the latter portion of his speech, the pushing out of non-Europeans and natives from localities where at present they have a roof over their heads. For goodness sake let use build houses for those who have not got them over their heads before we talk in these terms.

I only asked that they should not build these houses there now. I did not ask that the houses should be removed.

I am glad to hear that, and I hope that that interjection will go on record.

I said not now. I said the council has decided on that.

Then there is again the practical application of the principle of separation as seen by those hon. members. You have the western townships which were originally well away from the places where Europeans live, but the Europeans themselves have deliberately gone to live there, and they now demand the removal of these people. The same consideration applies to the example given by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren). He mentioned Kalk Bay, which I have known for many years, and he said that the local authority put up sub-economic flats for the coloured people there right in the middle of the European area. The facts of the matter are these. I can remember a time when Kalk Bay was a coloured fishing village. There were hardly any European houses there except on the high level road and a few near the harbour. Apart from that Kalk Bay was mostly inhabited by Malay fishermen. They have gradually been got out of there, and the site of the sub-economic flats the hon. member referred to is all that remains of an area which was originally entirely non-European. The removal of that block is what he calls the application of the principle of separation. No one has objected to people of different races having proper provision made for each race, but what we do object to—and I hope the Minister will take note of this—is the use of the word “separation” as a cover for the application of the principle of discrimination and extrusion. This Bill is to my mind incomparably the most important Bill introduced this Session. Its importance derives from the desperate character of the need which it seeks to meet. The vast majority of the population of this country are deficient in all the necessities of life. They are malnourished to the point of starvation. There are famine conditions prevailing in some parts of the country. The clothing position of the people in this country is miserable. Raggedness is widespread. But probably in no respect are basic needs so inadequate at present as that of shelter against the elements. In analysing the character of the need the Minister has divided it into the short-term and long-term aspects. That is in my opinion a sound distinction. We have communities who are actually living in our big urban centres who are overcrowded to an inconceivable degree in the slums of our great cities, like District Six, or are living in miserable hovels and shacks in the peri-urban areas. These are communities which have been drawn by the operation of natural economic forces to the great urban areas in response to the employment demand. I hear hon. members of the Opposition demanding that in the Cape provision should not be made for the communities of Africans who are now being forced to live in these hovels on the Cape Flats, on the ground, they say, that they have come here without there being employment available. I cannot emphasise this often enough, that the native population in Cape Town has been deliberately brought here in large numbers in 1941 and 1942. I have been in close touch with the labour position here and can assure the Minister that that is the position.

Who brought them here?

They were brought in response to the demand for their labour, more particularly in connection with the fortification works. I do not say they were recruited in the territories. I do not want the hon. member to understand that. The demand for labour was set up here. It could not be met locally and as soon as the news spread about they came here.

That is quite different from saying they were brought here deliberately. They were not brought here.

They were brought here through the operation of economic forces. That has always been so to some extent. The only solution of this problem is for the provision of accommodation for a sufficient unskilled labour force to meet local requirements. It has been the experience of this country that whenever you have sufficient accommodation for a nonEuropean labour force you do not get an influx. As long as any great urban area depends for the fulfilment of its labour requirements upon migratory labour from hundreds of miles away, there must be an influx, and the only question is one of degree from time to time. I think people like the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) can rest assured that there is no danger either of the City Council of Cape Town or of the Housing Commission building more houses for the Africans in the Cape than is necessary, because for years accommodation has lagged far behind what is necessary to house the labour force. That is a fact upon which I challenge contradiction by any hon. member, and if the hon. member for Stellenbosch or the hon. member for Boshof have a better knowledge than I have of how the City Council regard this matter, they will agree with me that there is no danger of their building too many houses. But the matter was not approached from that point of view. It is obviously another case of prejudice without having taken the trouble to acquaint themselves with the facts of the case. From the short-term point of view there is an enormous task both here in the Peninsula and elsewhere, in all the large urban centres, and in many of the areas of the small local authorities, for the provision of housing for the non-European working classes. From the long-term point of view also the Minister will, I hope, recognise that it is inevitable that there shall be some shifting of the population. The Government’s economic advisers, notably the Van Eck Commission, have pointed out that at present there is a maladjustment of population, particularly the native population, as between town and country, between industry and agriculture. But a higher national income per head of population demands that there shall be a still further movement of rural natives to the urban areas. That is an economic argument and I have never heard it authoritatively questioned. That sets up a still greater need for the housing of non-Europeans on a long-term basis. I now want to ask the Minister a question which I hope he will reply to. On what basis was the distinction made between the houses immediately required and those which will be required in the next ten years? According to Dr. Hamlin, I think it was 150,000 houses are immediately required and the balance, up to 440,000, will he required in the next ten years. In estimating that balance over and above the 150,000, was the necessity of the movement of population as well as the increase of population, taken into account? I think it was, otherwise the increase would be too large. The dimensions of the task which confronts the Government and which this Bill is designed to meet can be guaged from the mere mention of these figures. The resolution with which it will have to be tackled can also be gauged from the previous record of the construction of sub-economic houses in this country. Now, I do not know how many of these 440,000 houses are to be sub-economic, or national, houses, but 60 per cent. of them are for non-Europeans, and I take it that that 60 per cent. at all events will be sub-economic, and I have no doubt that a large number of national houses will be required for the European population also. Now the Minister said in Another Place what in effect came to this, that in a record of 15 years of building sub-economic houses only 24,000 houses were built by the local authorities, or 1,600 per annum, and if we are going to have anything like that rate in future, building at that rate, it would take 275 years to complete the programme of 440,000 houses. I am sure however that we will not build at that rate, and that, I presume, is the reason why this Bill has been introduced, but it means a very considerable speeding up from the past record of 1,600 per annum if the shortage is to be made up.

1,600 is the average.

Yes and I want to comment on that because it bears out the accuracy of the complaint made by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) earlier this afternoon as to the apathy of local authorities. 1,600 was the average but, that was speeded up during the war years.

There were as many houses built during the war years as in the previous nine years of peace.

Well that is a most damning indictment of the local authorities. What excuse was there for the local authorities to build at such a tortoise rate in the years before the war? And it is this accumulated shortage which causes this serious situation today.

You must except Port Elizabeth.

Yes, it has to a large extent done its duty but it is a very rare exception in this regard. Apart from the past prospects, the immediate future prospects are not too bright either. In 1944 the Minister got a promise from the local authorities that they would build if he made material available, 12,000 houses in a year, but towards the end of the year, they said that they could only build 2,000 houses—not much better than the previous average rate of 1,600. What we have to do, according to Dr. Hamlin is to build 440,000 in ten years. That is a colossal job and in my opinion it calls for the concession to the Government of the most drastic powers, and these powers are being asked for in this Bill and I think properly asked for. I welcome this Bill warmly. At an earlier stage in the Session I asked the Government to introduce legislation which would inter alia provide for the control of supply of building materials and increased powers for the expropriation of land, for the keeping down of land values and the acquisition of land at non-speculative values for housing purposes, and for the training of an additional labour force. All these are provided for in this Bill. I can therefore only express the hope that these powers will be used to the full. The Minister mentioned the apathy of local authorities. The figures I have quoted show just what that apathy can be. I have no doubt that the Minister has had great trouble with vested interests. He would not ask for these powers if they were not a menace. They have not found voices here during this debate, I am glad to say, but I have no doubt that they will start once the Bill is through. The most important portion of the Bill is the clause dealing with labour. I think I am right in saying that the reason why the local authorities could not get any where near the estimate of 12,000 houses was due to the drastic shortage of labour, and there is overwhelming evidence as to the shortage of the skilled labour force in the building industry in this country. The shortage has been put at 60 per cent. Dr. Hamlin, the ex-Director of Housing, in a public speech the other day made to a Parktown Women’s Association, estimated that there was a need for 80,000 skilled workers in the building industry if the Government’s programme is to be attained. Actually there are only 26,000 available including those in the army still, and 80,000 are required. It is for this reason that I particularly welcome the provision for emergency training and for the implied guarantee—I am going to ask in a moment that it shall be actually guaranteed as far as possible—that large numbers of nonEuropeans, natives, coloureds and Indians will be trained for building work, more particularly for employment in the construction of houses for members of their own race. And it is this housing which forms the vast majority of the houses required. I do however want to comment here on the significance of this shortage of skilled labour in the building industry and the circumstances that have led the Minister to ask for emergency powers to train native and coloured labour. We, the native representatives, have always contended that if any necessity of life for the people of this country were surveyed from the point of view of need, it would be found that the production would be drastically below what was needed and that the skilled labour force to speed up that production would be desperately short. We have always said that you cannot just disqualify four-fifths of the population from acquiring skill, which is the basis of all wealth, without most deleterious effects upon the economy as a whole. That has always been our case against the industrial colour bar, and this 60 per cent. shortage of artisans is the most devastating indictment of the industrial colour bar that I have ever seen. And I am quite sure it would be the same for every other necessity if it were surveyed, as well as housing. If a survey were made of production of food and clothing I feel certain that a drastic shortage of skilled labour would disclose itself there also. I was all the more sorry, therefore, to hear the hon. member for Stellenbosch, whose absence from the Chamber at this moment I regret, criticise this training scheme of the Minister’s on the ground that non-European trainees, particularly Africans, might compete with artisans of other races of the community. To put it in another way, what the hon. member said was this: In a situation where you have 26,000 artisans and need 80,000 you should cut out the 75 per cent. of the population from acquiring the necessary training and skill. In this connection I want to quote Dr. Hamlin again. In the same speech to which I referred a moment ago he is reported in the “Cape Times” of 5th May as having said—

I assume that the hon. member for Stellenbosch knew that that responsible estimate had been made and that when he spoke he had full knowledge of the facts. To say what he did is tantamount to saying that it is better for us to continue with this acute housing shortage than to make use of Africans. I want to ask the Minister a question in connection with the training scheme. He gave the terms of the wages and the length of the training of nonEuropeans under the scheme. I should be glad if the Minister could confirm in his reply that when he mentioned non-Europeans, he mentioned it in the wide sense to cover all non-Europeans—coloureds, Asiatics and Africans—that he was not using the term in the restrictive sense of coloured people only. I think the provisions for guaranteeing full employment for artisans in the building industry, in view of the provisions for dilution, are fully justified. I myself asked for that at an earlier stage in the Session, and I asked the Minister also to see to this: He is taking power in this Bill to limit profits and I take it that no contractor or employer will be allowed to make additional profit by reason of the fact that he is using diluted labour. Now I want to say something in relation to the scale of rent, and in this connection I want to support the suggestion which the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Sullivan) put forward this afternoon as to the rate of interest. At the present time even where houses are built a scale of rents is charged which the lower income groups, more particularly the native workers in the towns, simply cannot pay. The city council of Cape Town has a scheme which it has already started to enlarge its township at Langa. For these new houses it wants to charge a rent of 35s. for a two-roomed house, 37s. 6d. for a three-roomed house and £2 a month for a four-roomed house.

What do the houses cost?

The houses cost, including the land, about £780. The land represents about £110 of that. The hon. member knows that those are fantastic costs, and as a matter of fact, they are also fantastic rents. Anyone who knows the scale of wages for unskilled workers here, anyone who realises that the ordinary African worker is not employed all the time must know that few of these people can afford to pay these rents. A lot of this labour is casual labour in the building industry and on the docks. The man’s income is not even equal to the nominal rate of wages he draws. The Smit Committee estimated that the ordinary African worker in the town could not pay rent on more than £250 to £300, and here we have local authorities coming along and proposing schemes for building houses at a cost of £600 and £700.

Ridiculous.

The Minister says it is ridiculous but I can assure him that it is a fact.

I meant the cost.

Those costs have got to be brought down and whether the hon. Minister does it by means of the method suggested by the hon. member for Durban (Berea) or by some other means, it has to be done. The house rent should be within the means of the people for whom the houses are built. In this connection I want to ask the Minister another question as to whether he is not prepared to use the powers that this Parliament gave him last year, and apply the principle of differential rents in these townships for the poorer people, whether Europeans, coloured or African. I have heard various criticisms of differential rents, that there may be difficulties and inequalities in practice, but I can assure the hon. Minister that in most native townships the general level of poverty is so flat, the general means of the population is more or less the same, with few exceptions, that there ought to be no great difficulty in applying the principle of differential renting and laying down that a man should not be charged a higher rent than a certain percentage of his ordinary income. I want to repeat that I welcome this Bill. So far as this House can help the Government, it will come to its assistance in passing this Bill, and I hope that the Minister in administering it will do so in the spirit in which he referred to the Bill in his introductory speech. We have a national emergency, and I would suggest to the Minister that he should take no notice of the speeches made here saying that he must give priority to one section of the nation as against another. The need is a uniform need and should be met in a uniform way.

I welcome this Bill and I am sure the majority of the members in this House welcome the Bill. In the short time at my disposal I would like to give the House an outline of what East London is doing in connection with the housing problem. Before dealing with that, I want to ask whether the body which the Minister proposes to set up is going to have full power to see the scheme through or, like the Housing Commission set up by the Minister, call conferences as the Housing Commission has done with no result. East London is trying to do its utmost to keep the undertaking which it gave to erect a certain number of houses for ex-volunteers. The experience of East London has been that in spite of their endeavours they have been given no assistance by the Housing Commission and for that reason they have taken the matter into their own hands with the result that at present in one of the best suburbs they have erected no less than 25 houses, all of different designs, so that no two will look alike. If they are all alike they may perhaps in the near future not develop into slums but into undesirable places of residence, and therefore they are all of different designs and as attractive as possible. This is one of East London’s contributions to the men who have fought for us. On the question of ground, I think the municipality deserves praise for the manner in which they have come forward as far as ground is concerned. The plots which were made available were valued at anything up to £500 but in order to meet the need of these people, with the consent of the Provincial Administration, the plots have been made available at £1 per plot. This will go a long way in alleviating the position. In spite of that low price, at today’s prices the house will cost £1,600 to £1,700. Under the town sub-economic scheme for ex-volunteers owing to the high cost of material and labour a three-roomed house will cost approximately £1,000. Then I would like to draw the attention of the House to this economic housing scheme. I have an extensive memorandum here which I am not going to quote altogether, but I would like to quote two or three items from it which I am sure will be of considerable interest. The memorandum is divided into two parts, the first dealing with the benefits for ex-servicemen and women including those still on active service and prisoners-of-war, and the second part deals with applications for loans under the Government Housing Act No. 35 of 1920 as amended. I am not going to refer to the second portion, but I am going to refer briefly to the first part which is of wide interest to anyone concerned. There are two areas set aside for the building of these houses, number 1, which is one of the best areas in the city, comprising 85 residential erven and the second comprising 147 residential erven available in connection with this scheme. Both the townships are ideally situated in good localities and all amenities will be provided. First of all the council proposes to deal with these two townships as follows—and I want to read this in order not to make any errors—there are three conditions stipulated here—

1. (a) On a certain number of erven dwelling houses containing four and three living rooms respectively, together with kitchen, bathroom, lavatories, and servant’s room will be erected and sold on easy terms to approved applicants.
2. (b) A certain number of erven will be sold to approved applicants for the erection thereon of dwelling houses to their own design and at their own expense.
3. (c) A certain number of erven will be sold to approved applicants for the erection thereon of dwelling houses to their own design and at their own expense with assistance of loans made available by the Government through the council under the provisions of the Government Housing Act No. 35 of 1920 as amended.

Then there are certain conditions of which the applicant must satisfy the council, one being that neither the husband nor the wife is the owner of a dwelling house situate in the municipality of East London, suitable for occupation by himself or his family, and the condition of title will be that the owner by himself, or by his family, must personally occupy the property, etc. I do not want to read out all the conditions. But the latter portion of this is very important and I am informed that the council has available a number of plans and designs of houses containing four and three living rooms respectively, and an applicant may select anyone of those plans and request the council to erect the house according to such plan at the agreed price. The memorandum goes on to say—

Again it goes on to say—

That is for a period of 30 years. Then the memorandum goes on to describe what rents are anticipated from those houses, and the suggestion is that on an erf costing £1, the approximate cost of a four-roomed house, fenced, etc., will be £1,737 and that the monthly payment in redemption of capital and interest will be about £7 12s. 6d. per month, plus rates and taxes amounting to about £2 7s. 6d. per month, giving a total of £10 per month exclusive of electric light and water charges. In the case of a three-roomed house costing £1,642, the monthly payment will be about £7 4s. 2d. plus rates and taxes amounting to about £2 5s. 9d., making a total of £9 10s. 0d. exclusive of electric light and water charges. Those are the propostions of the East London Council and they are going on with it. The council hopes to erect and have ready for occupation by the end of the year no less than 100 of these houses. It will be seen that the Town Council of East London is doing its best to meet this housing emergency.

I do not think there are any members in the House who gladly endorse the great powers which are vested in the Minister, but in these abnormal times, I think the House will welcome it because there are at least expectations of something being done in connection with this great housing problem. I do not think that we have done so badly during the war period with housing; if you draw a comparison with the pre-war building of houses, I think we have done very well indeed, and if our expectations have not been fully realised there are good reasons for it. With the peace now being established and better conditions prevailing, I think that with the powers that are being granted here, real progress will be made. I am very much interested in the powers that have now been granted, and if they are rigorously and vigorously enforced, I think that good results will ensue. I am particularly glad to see that provision is made in the regulation for the compulsory letting for residential purposes of dwellings which are temporarily unoccupied. We have the position in the Cape Peninsula, more particuiarly at the seaside resorts, that many houses were not occupied at all. One family alone in Cape Town own no less than five big houses in Muizenberg, and none of them were beneficially occupied during the war and are standing empty today. There are many other people up country and in Cape Town who own two or three houses, one of which at least, is not occupied, and I hope that this Clause will be rigorously enforced, because it will relieve the situation immediately if these houses are available for letting. I do not want to exaggerate, but I know that in my own area alone, I can get 40 to 50 houses which will be available for tenants, but those houses have been closed up; they were not to be had, so I am particularly glad that that power is now being taken, and I only hope that it will be enforced without fear, favour or prejudice, and that those people who hold up these lock-up houses, will be brought to book and forced to let their houses. There is the question of rent which should be charged for these houses, more particularly at the seaside where fancy prices exist for the season, and I hope that the commission as such will see that the conditions of the Rent Board will apply to these houses whether they are at the seaside or anywhere else, so that these houses can be inhabited by those people with moderate incomes and who need these houses very badly. But I think that the powers which are being provided for are not even sufficient to deal, for instance, with the demolition of existing houses, because we find today that there are many dwelling houses which are situated in attractive positions; those houses are being bought with a view to demolition and with a view to turning them into business premises or with a view to using them for some profitable purpose other than mere letting. Under the Housing Act, the demolition of houses falls under the local authorities. The local authority can only deal with houses that were erected before 1920 and houses built since then do not come under the control even of the local authority. I do not like the control of the local authority. I have had experience where the local authority allowed the demolition of hotels and in these times that should never have been allowed. I feel that this right should be vested in the Housing Commission, so that they will see that no house is demolished which is suitable for habitation, and in that connection I will during the Committee Stage move a further addition to the relevant clause by placing some restriction on the right of local authorities or any other authority to demolish houses built or used for residential purposes, whether built before or after the passing of the Housing Act. I want to impress upon the Minister that it is very essential to include this provision. The Minister in introducing the Bill referred to three difficulties that he had in connection with the housing problem. The first difficulty to which he referred was the question of material. It is true that during the war a scarcity had been created because we depended to a large extent on the importation of material, but we did make our own bricks in this country. I want to say that during the last few years many brickfields in this town and elsewhere were closed down because these people had no opportunity of marketing their bricks and they could not finance it. Had a policy been adopted by which the brickfields had been encouraged during the last few years, I think we would have had sufficient bricks on hand to build any number of houses, and I feel that even at this stage, the brickfields should be encouraged to make bricks. If we do not do that, we will have a scarcity later on. Then there is the question of timber. The question of timber is a very important one because I feel it is a commodity in respect of which there is the greatest scarcity. I would like to know from the Minister whether he is making any arrangements to buy timber in Sweden, to be ready for shipment directly the shipping facilities are available. Sweden and Finland have heaps of timber available, but if we wait too long we shall find that it has been snapped up, and we ought to get that market now either by direct purchase or through the trade laying a claim on that timber and leaving it in those countries until shipping facilities are available. There is a third item to which I want to refer in connection with materials, and it is this. We find there is an enormous amount of building material which is frozen at the present time. There are padlocks, screws and other items in small shops, all frozen by the military authorities. I would like to see that that material which is frozen by the military authorities is taken over by the Housing Commission. It amounts to a great deal. Locks and all sorts of accessories have been frozen. Quite recently someone in this town required six feet of copper piping for his boiler. He could not get it anywhere. He had to have it and at last he got assistance through the military, and it was then discovered that the military had frozen 13½ miles of copper piping in Cape Town. This is an illustration of what is going on. If you go out to Pollsmoor, you will find rooms full of baths, rooms full of hot water installations and piping by the mile, being carried away and stolen all the time. But that does not belong to us, it belongs to the Imperial Government. There are rooms full of some of these accessories such as hot water installations and stoves. That belongs to the Imperial Government. I take it we have no control, but what I want to point out is there is a great deal of material available in this country of which we know very little, so this fear of not being able to provide fittings is, I think, unfounded. We will be able to find sufficient material and I do hope that some negotiations will be entered into immediately with the British Government to see that we take over what they have in the line of building appliances and material and I should like to see that we have a proper search made amongst our own war stores. There are cellars full of stocks. We should make a survey of all the available stock. That is as far as materials are concerned. Now I would like to refer to the second trouble to which the Minister referred, i.e. the question of labour. The Minister told us that labour comes under the Minister of Labour and the Controller of Manpower. I should like to know from the Minister of Labour why we cannot make use of the thousands of prisoners-of-war in this country who are skilled artisans. Farmers today who have any of these Italian prisoners-of-war have amongst them carpenters and masons and all sorts of tradesmen. I do not see any reason why we should not make a survey of the available artisans and grant them a temporary permit to reside here for two or three years in order to help us over the difficulty. I am sure we can get thousands of these men to stay here. They would definitely help us over the difficult period of the next three or four years. I impress on the Minister of Labour there is a reservoir of labour here which should not be ignored. The third difficulty is that the Minister wants land and he wishes to go to the limit in expropriating land when necessary. As far as this area is concerned I know that the municipalities have plenty of building land, more particularly round the constituency I represent. I trust that before any expropriation is attempted that that source will be properly investigated, and that before any other land is expropriated we should, if possible, use land owned by the local bodies. Furthermore, I should like to hear from the Minister how far the work has proceeded with the conversion of the military hutments at Pollsmoor and other military camps. I think there must be quite a number of houses ready there. I have seen some of the houses, and I must compliment the contractors on the very efficient way these military hutments have been converted into very suitable dwelling houses. With the resources available in the country and with the powers that are being conferred on the Minister I think we should soon surmount our difficulties. I offer my congratulations to the Minister in bringing forward this measure, and I express the sincere hope that it will be applied without fear, favour or prejudice.

I think the Minister understated the case when he declared this Bill is a blank cheque given to him, but there is no doubt the conditions under which it is being granted do indicate an emergency. The hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) pointed out that at the end of February, 1944, according to the report of the Van Eck Commission there was a shortage of 150,000 houses in the Union, 30,000 houses in respect of Europeans and 120,000 for non-Europeans. Since then it has been estimated that in order to keep pace with the position we shall have to construct, by 1955, no fewer than 450,000 houses in the Union in order to meet the increased requirements for accommodation in respect of the European and non-European population. If we take note of the fact that in the course of one year the maximum number of houses ever completed for all sections of the population amounted to under 5,000 we can at once appreciate the tremendous problem we are up against. It seems to me we are not going to solve that problem unless practically the whole of the South African population applies itself to the erection of houses. How the problem is going to be solved I do not know, and I am sure the Minister will find it very difficult to solve that problem. But in this Bill he is taking powers which will assist him to solve the problem if a solution is possible. He has pointed out it is an emergency Bill, and he has also pointed out that in a month’s time a proper Housing Bill will have been completed and he will thereafter be able to place it before Parliament. I would therefore ask the Minister not to take the powers of this Bill for more than a year, and then next year to come to this House for a proper Housing Act. It will then be ready for presentation to the House; and it is going very far to ask us to abrogate our functions, to hand them over to a committee of officials, and give them the right to legislate on the expropriation of land, on the amendment of title deeds, on the control and virtually the commandeering of manpower and other things for the purpose of building. That, I say, is going very far indeed. The Minister will say there are provisions in this Act which oblige him, within a period of two weeks of the opening of the Parliamentary Session, to lay on the Table of the House the measures promulgated in terms of the powers of this Bill, and it is within the powers of this House to introduce a resolution cancelling any such provision that it disapproves of. But we know perfectly well a provision of that kind is virtually worthless. It is a much more effective course on our part to be able to say to the Minister when he comes along next year and says he wants an extension of these powers for a further year, to debate the provisions which he has exercised during the past year, and which we object to. I say that is much more effective and much more democratic, and it seems to me it will not amount to what is virtually a complete abrogation of the powers of this House over a period of three years. What is more, it will oblige the Minister to bring before this House as soon as possible a complete and properly thought-out Housing Act which is practically ready. Therefore while I feel obliged to vote for the measure as it stands today I hope that the Minister will not try to take advantage of the fact we are standing behind him in this measure and insist on the three years, but that he will accept an amendment in the Committee stage, limiting it to one year. Another matter I wish to bring up is this. I want to emphasise and concur in the remarks made by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) when he stressed the necessity of buildingcontrol being under the same Minister as housing. Building control is almost a bottle neck in the housing position, and I think that is a matter the Minister must carefully consider, because we want better administration of building control and we want permits to be obtained much more readily and efficiently than they are today. There is another matter I think the Minister will have to pay very serious regard to, and that is we do not want South Africa to be covered with a multitude of stereotyped small houses. We do not want it to become simply a location, and if during the next 10 years we have to provide 450,000 houses in this country, the vast bulk of them having to be built mainly through official channels, we have to be very careful in regard to the consequences this may have for the country if these are stereotyped structures. Exactly the same problem arose in Great Britain, and there regard was had to the character of the houses, they were put in decent surroundings and sites and were so designed that the houses endeared themselves to the residents. We must try and do something on those lines here. The Minister has emphasised these are not temporary houses, but if he is not going to build temporary houses let him consider the type of house a man will want to live in, and want to keep and bring up his family in, with surroundings which will become dear to him, and it should not be the sort of place he will want to get away from as soon as possible. You can have the best Bill in the world, but if it is badly administered it is not of very much value, and you can have a very bad Bill which, if it is efficiently administered, may produce great benefits. I hope that this Bill will be properly administered, that it will be administered sympathetically and efficiently. I would remind the House of the lines—

I have great pleasure in being one of the signatories to this blank cheque the Minister has asked for, because I believe with him that drastic action is absolutely needed if we are to solve this housing problem. But I must say that I cannot agree with the Minister when he asserts that the municipalities have failed in regard to housing. As a member of a municipal council I can say on behalf of my colleagues in Johannesburg and on behalf of other local authorities as well, I am perfectly sure that is not the case. I would ask the Minister to think back to July of last year, when he had not yet decided as to what the financial basis of his building scheme would be. At that time he had not come to an agreement with the municipalities and I think it was October before a decision was made. Large municipalities like Johanneburg went back from the conference about April or May last year fully resolved to do all they could in connection with housing. Nor did they wait for the Minister’s decision. Johannesburg bought land and went in for building houses, and fast as they could. In Johannesburg we called for tenders for 1,250 houses. The only response was one tender, and we found that owing to labour difficulties the contractor could not do that work. We invited tenders again, but on this occasion in order to facilitate tendering we invited tenders in respect of 250 houses, 100 houses, 50 houses and 25 houses. In that way we tried to induce different builders to tender for the construction of these houses. Unfortunately the result was just the same; we got only one tender. There are difficulties that the municipalities have found impossible to surmount, and it is not the municipalities’ fault that projects have not made more substantial progress. I would further ask the Minister to bear in mind the special difficulties that confront some of the very small local authorities. They have to think twice before tackling any housing scheme. My experience in. Provincial Council and in this House has shown they are faced with difficulties in regard to the payment of their light and water responsibilities and it will be very difficult for them to go ahead with the building scheme until the financai aspect has been thoroughly cleared up. In regard to big towns like Johannesburg the position is this. We have bought the land. It has been a very expensive business. Here at Cape Town the municipality is more fortunate because near at hand you have a large extent of Crown land. In Johannesburg unfortunately we had to pay for every square foot and we had to spend nearly two million for land for housing in the last few years. So I think the Municipality of Johannesburg cannot be accused of apathy in regard to the housing scheme we have tried to carry out. I must say that today I have listened to theories in regard to finance and in regard to building that have rather surprised me. Some of these theories may embody very fine ideals, but practical means and methods are required to build houses. Let me give you a practical illustration. Take, for example, a house that costs £1,018. This is an ordinary house and the cost does not include sewerage or light or roads. In calculating what the charge to the tenant will be we put down 10 per cent. for depreciation; that is £101 16s. That would not be too high a figure for depreciation and maintenance. Then let us set down rent at 12s. 6d. per week; that would be £32 10s. per annum. The basic loss is therefore £69 6s. per annum. The proportion of loss that would be borne by the municipality would be £17 6s. 6d. and the Government loss would be £51 19s. 6d. If the Municipality of Johannesburg wants immediately to build 543 such three-roomed houses for the low-wage earner that scheme would work out to a loss of £40,000 to the Government and £13,334 to the municipality per annum. Small local authorities and big local authorities have to consider the financial side. After all is said and done, it does not matter whether the ratepayer pays or the Government pays, it all comes back ultimately to the taxpayer having to pay out. I was very disappointed when I heard the Minister say today that the new Assistant-Director of Housing had stated he was not entirely against new ideas for building houses such as the rumble house. Nor am I against any type of house if it is proved to be an improvement. But I ask him to consider seriously before he builds them. Johannesburg City Councillors went out to inspect a few and the result was that those who were in favour of new ideas are now definitely for brick houses. I would say this to him. Nothing yet has been found to take the place of bricks for building houses unless it is Aberdeen granite, and that is too expensive to bring out here. Bricks are the only things to build a house with. This little verse contains a lot of truth—it is by an English building expert.

I tell this tale, ’tis strictly true, Just by way of convincing you, How very little since things were made Things have altered in the building trade.

That is true today. I would ask the Assistant-Director to consider bricks only. The price of a sample house of two rooms built by the Council of Ermelo for £130 with bricks convinces me that no house can be built more cheaply than with bricks, taking everything into account, especially durability. In his task the Minister will find that neither material nor finance will prove his greatest difficulty. His greatest difficulty will be labour. I would like to read this out from the report of a conference held at Pretoria between the National Housing and Planning Commission and representatives of local authorities, soldiers’ organisations and trade unions. One of the committees quoted this extract from the report of the Cost-Plus Commission—

In regard to labour, information was given to the conference that we have 22,000 registered in the building industry, while the estimated number of building artisans in the forces is 4,000. The number of men in the forces who could receive intensive training is 4,000, making a total of 30,000. That is not half of what we need. But if there is inefficiency amongst them I suggest to the Minister to consider a system of paying a little more to those men who are willing to work a little harder, the ordinary trade unionist will not do his best at his work when he finds that his mate is paid the same wage for doing much less. I consider it is this inefficiency to be found in the trade unions that has a lot to do with what I may call the “ca’canny” strike of today. Certainly the labour question in regard to the housing problem is very difficult. I am glad the Minister envisages in his scheme that natives will be allowed to build houses under the supervision of white labour. I hope the Minister will say that we shall be able to have a system whereby houses may be built for the natives at prices they can afford to pay. They certainly will not be able to pay for houses built on a basis of labour that is not at its maximum efficiency but which costs 4s. an hour. It is impossible for the native to pay for a cottage of that price, at the wage he earns. The wages of the native artisans and of the labourers have been raised to a fairly good figure. At one time they were paid at a rate of approximately 18s. a week for various classes of work in the building industry. Today I am pleased to say the native gets a better rate of wage; he gets double what he used to a week, which is a big improvement. I hope that tendency will continue, and if the native was better trained in the building trade so that he could apply more intelligence to his work he would be worth more than he gets today and he would receive more money. It would be cheaper labour really even at an increased rate of pay, if he were more efficient. If he does good work and makes fewer mistakes he will soon justifly an increase in wages.

In the first place I want to avail myself of the opportunity of thanking the Minister for providing us with houses last year under the Department of Social Welfare. I want to thank him for the speed with which he rendered assistance for providing those houses immediately. But we now come to the matter of permanent houses there, and the public feeling is very strong in that regard. Where the Minister is now being given a blank cheque and while houses will be erected, I would like to see Christiana given priority in respect of the erection of houses. The need there is very great. I was there last Saturday and was surprised to see 200 people gathering in a few moments and they instructed me to request the Minister to render us assistance.

What is the number now required?

Approximately 50 houses. 86 collapsed but provisionally 50 will be of assistance. I further want to point out to the Minister that under the Department of Social Welfare a loss is at present sustained on those houses, because I think the Department of Social Welfare has to pay for those houses to the Department of Irrigation. As soon as the temporary houses are replaced the expense will disappear. The municipality there is desirous of meeting the Minister as much as possible and will make land available, and even the ground on which the houses stood could perhaps be used if a type of house is erected which will be capable of resisting a possible flood in future. I want to ask the Minister to give consideration to that immediately and I trust the houses will be erected within six months. The houses there at present are exceptionally warm in summer. They were constructed of asbestos, have no ceilings and are almost like ovens, and in winter time it is almost impossible for one to live there because they have mud floors and they are damp, the interiors have no linings and there are draughts. They have been constructed for hard workers on the schemes, but at present old people and women and children live in them It is a tragic position and that is why I desire the Minister as soon as possible to meet us. Give us the material. We will provide the land. There are many workers who could be obtained locally, people who are competent to build themselves. I have asked the Minister of Labour, but he is unable to render assistance and he has stated that he would do anything in his power to render assistance in so far as his Department was concerned. Assistance has been given by the Department and we were most grateful for it. Where the Minister of Labour has expressed his willingness I trust that the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation will add his assistance. We are faced with a great difficulty, apart from the assistance that we require. We contemplated tackling the matter ourselves but we were unable to obtain permits. I again received a letter today which I will pass on to the Minister. The writer states that he is able to build himself. He has the material ready on the spot but that he wrote two months ago and has as yet not obtained a permit.

Was that at Christiana?

Yes. I shall be pleased if the Minister himself would visit us. We would appreciate it very much. Or let him otherwise send a person authorised by his Depratment to discuss matters there with the municipality. He would then point out the land and they may start building operations forthwith. I express the hope that the people will be afforded an opportunity of purchasing those houses or will otherwise be enabled to hire them at a cheap rental. Under the sub-economic scheme we have tackled matters in the past and houses have been erected for which people pay £1 or £1 2s. 6d. per month, and there were approximately 20 applications for each house. The cost of the houses was approximately £250 each. Those houses are somewhat better than those occupied by the people originally. Houses could be erected there at a figure of from £250 to £400 and no house will be unoccupied. They will all be taken up. The people earnestly desire houses and I would appreciate the Minister giving his full attention to the matter. I merely rose to direct attention to the special position prevailing at Christiana and it is not my wish to make the matter more difficult but merely to ask the Minister for immediate relief. I would like to convey a message to my constituency and if the Minister is not in a position to reply I would appreciate if he would subsequently state in public, or say to me privately, when a start will be made. The people are getting a feeling of lack of confidence in me that I have so far been unable to persuade the Minister to visit us or because I have not as yet succeeded in obtaining houses for them.

I shall endeavour to solve your problem.

I shall pass on the lack of confidence to the Minister. I have performed my duty as far as the Minister of Irrigation, the Minister of Labour and this Minister is concerned, and it is not a case of my not having done my duty. I shall simply say that I have done my duty in respect of three Ministers and that it is the fault of the Government that no houses are provided. I now wish to propose that the debate be adjourned.

I am unable to accept it. We must carry on till seven o’clock.

That is all I wanted to say and I trust that the Minister will give consideration to the matter.

It must be evident to anyone who has followed the course of this housing question that this emergency measure is absolutely necessary. In ordinary circumstances an Act like the 1937 Act would have been able to meet the position, but the delay has been caused by various bodies and municipalities, and the Minister has been compelled to come forward with this extraordinary measure, as he calls it. It is a very peculiar thing that the Minister has been blamed, particularly by some of the Opposition members for the delay caused through not coming to finality in regard to the housing of our returned soldiers, but the Minister is not to blame, for several reasons. One of the reasons is that there have been a variety of private schemes. The present chairman of the commission had one of his own, other people have also had private housing schemes which delayed the measure. Four meetings of treasurers of municipalities were held in Pretoria to discuss housing for returned soldiers. They came to decisions and it was decided by the Minister of Demobilisation to appoint ten men on a Housing Commission with the City Engineer of Johannesburg as the Director of Housing. From what has been said it is clear that the Minister is not to blame for the lack of progress; a progress which he expected when he formed this body. After hearing several speakers today I want to say that the main point in this question has been missed except by the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Sullivan) and he himself missed the main point in one respect. The crux of this question is this, that so far as any arrangement has been made up to now, the great majority of returned soldiers can neither buy nor rent the expensive houses that have been suggested. If there is one thing we ought to do in this country now that hostilities have ceased in Europe it is to see that the men who have been fighting our battles and have allowed us to live in this country in comparative comfort, compared with other countries— men who were prepared to lay down then lives and who have suffered more than we who stayed at home can tell—have roofs over their heads when they come back. At a group meeting of our Party a military representative reported what he had seen up North when he was sent by the Party to discover what the men at the front were asking for and thinking about. His most important remark was: “What the men want when they come back is a roof over their heads”. I ask: What are we offering them? While I have to agree, as the Minister has had to agree, that the Defence regulations must be rigid in time of war, I feel nevertheless that if it is at all possible we must release now the men necessary for the building of houses. To my mind there is only one way of meeting the present position, and that has not been mentioned yet. I say definitely that this war will never be finished until the men who have been fighting for us have been properly housed. I particularly want to say to the Minister of Finance in this respect that in my opinion what ought to be done is this: We ought to take the price of a house in 1938 and its price today, and as a war measure the difference between these two prices should be paid to these soldiers to build their houses. These men who come back should at least return to the same conditions pertaining in regard to building houses as when they left. It is perhaps unfortunate that the Minister of Finance, who is a bachelor, does not realise the value of certain amenities as well as a married man, but if he only knew what the men think he would seriously consider what I am now saying. Without wishing to brag, it is a well-known fact that Port Elizabeth is recognised in this country as the leading municipality in regard to housing. As a matter of fact in recent years we have built no less than 6,514 houses. I will give you an idea of what is happening in Port Elizabeth today. We have called for tenders for 162 houses in a new township; houses of two bedrooms. One year ago these houses would have cost £740. (The member who spoke just now about a house costing £130 is just talking nonsense). Today such a house costs £1,000. I repeat a two bedroomed house a year ago—not in 1939 or 1940—cost £740. Today that house is costing £1,000. I represent a working-class community and I know just exactly where the scheme we have proposed is going to fail. A house of two bedrooms under the Government scheme at 4 per cent. costs in rent £8 13s. 4d. a month. I ask you what artisan can pay that? We in Port Elizabeth in our scheme are lending money at 31 per cent. For that same house and at that rate the rent is £6 19s. 5d. a month. The rent for instance of a four-roomed house under the Government scheme is £15 4s. 5d. a month. Will anyone say that the scheme the Government has brought forward can be successful at these prices? The two-bedroomed house cost £1,000 and the four-bedroomed house £1,750. I will give you the position which I think should operate if we are going to make a success of housing and prevent trouble arising in this country. Do not forget that the Government today can get money at 31 per cent. and has large post office savings funds on which it pays only 21 per cent. If you introduced a scheme of interest and redemption over a period of 30 years at 2½ per cent., a two-bedroomed house would cost £6 11s. 5d. as against £8 13s. 4d. a month, and a four-roomed house would cost £11 9s. 11d. as against £15 4s. 5d. a month.

Your municipal taxes are too high.

I want to speak of another matter which I consider is one of the most dangerous things which is happening in this country today. Because the Administrator of Natal visited the Minister, the Minister has promised Natal its own Housing Board. Why should Natal be nursed in this way? If there is one town in the Union which has been a delinquent about its housing it is Durban. What does Durban really want today? It has been offered since 1920 money at ¾ per cent. and it is not even amongst the nine principal municipalities in the country in providing housing. Yet they come along now and say that they want to be on their own in this matter. Why did the Minister give way to them? I like the Minister but he has fallen badly here.

Your fallen idol.

He is the most hardworking Minister in the Cabinet and I feel sorry for him. I had to defend him against a Johannesburg councillor who criticised him because his first Housing Bill had not been successful, and it now appears that their city engineer is principally to blame for this lack of success.

I would like to know what the member knows about Johannesburg.

Order, order.

I want to say this to the Minister. Port Elizabeth has done more for housing than any other city in the Union, but Port Elizabeth has paid very dearly for work that ought to have been done by the Government. I want to ask the Minister or any other fair-minded man here, whether he thinks that the crisis which has been caused by the war should be paid for by municipalities. Is it reasonable that any city should be rated for sub-economic houses instead of all of us being taxed by the Government for such houses? If any postwar housing scheme is introduced it should be based on a tax and not a rate, a tax which affects everyone, particularly some of our friends who have made so much money during the war in Johannesburg and elsewhere.

Why should I pay for houses in Port Elizabeth?

Because it is a national matter: Mr. Speaker I move the adjournment.

I suggest the hon. member should finish his speech first.

Well, I was asked to move the adjournment but I did not think you would accept it. There is another point I wish to bring forward. We are assuming that municipalities are not too willing to help the Government in regard to sub-economic and other housing schemes. I am not the least surprised at that when I consider that Port Elizabeth has lost many thousands of pounds on sub-economic schemes and are now being asked to lose more money. There are other bodies in this country who have been doing housing work and doing it well, namely the numerous building societies, and they all have the administrative staff necessary to carry on. They can, if they are encouraged to do so (as they did under the 1937 Act), help the Minister considerably in regard to housing, and do not forget that there are a large number of people who are not prepared to be associated with municipal schemes, but prefer to put up their own houses, because of that I want to know from the Minister under Clause 2 sub-section (v) exactly how he will employ building societies in this Act. I hope he will make a definite statement on this matter because building societies agree with this sub-section and are willing to help him. In conclusion I want to say that as regards native housing I once made an experiment in the Grey High School, Port Elizabeth. I got the boys there to build a tools room by one of the simplest methods of building, which requires only unskilled labour, the Pise De Terre method. Buildings erected in this manner have lasted for hundreds of years on the Continent. Perhaps it would not be a bad idea, as was stated in the “Cape Times” recently, if the Minister investigated, particularly for natives, whether they could not build houses by the Pise De Terre method. In conclusion I want to say that while this is a most extraordinary Bill it has been caused by extraordinary circumstances and I hope that the people of the country will realise that the Minister is really in earnest in regard to the building of houses for ex-service men. Yesterday I received a newspaper with banner headlines saying: “The Minister at Fault”. The Minister has not been at fault. He has done all he could do and I hope that when this Bill is in operation the people will realise that our first duty is to the fighting men who have protected us.

If the Acting Prime Minister is prepared to accept the motion then I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

Debate adjourned; to be resumed on 31st May.

I move—

To a large extent the proposals contained in this Bill have already been approved of by the House after discussion in Committee of Ways and Means or were foreshadowed in my Budget Speech and explained there. There is therefore not very much in this Bill which is entirely new to the House, and on that account I can be brief in introducing the Bill. We deal in this Bill, as we have dealt in special taxation Bills in previous years, with three taxes—excess profits duty (Clauses 1 and 2 have reference to that), personal and savings fund levy (Clauses 3 to 6 have reference to that) and the fixed property profits tax to which Clauses 7 to. 15 have reference. I shall deal separately with the three parts of the Bill. As far as the excess profits duty is concerned for the most part the Bill serves to give effect to two resolutions adopted after consideration in Committee of Ways and Means and explained by me in the speech in which I moved that we should go into Committee. The first of these resolutions dealt with the deduction from excess profits duty in respect of similar duty paid in other countries. The amendment, as hon. members will recall, was submitted with a view to clarification of the present position, and is contained in Clause 1 (1) (a) of this Bill. The second of the Committee of Ways and Means resolutions dealing with excess profits duty covered the question of the inclusion both in the pre-war standard and in the taxable income of certain payments received on the basis of lump sum payments accruing in the course of trade, and that is dealt with in Clause 2 (1) (a) of this Bill. Then there is a new proposal in this part of the Bill which is contained in Clause 1 (1) (b) and Clause 2 (1) (b); the two paragraphs are complementary to each other. What we contemplate here is a concession on similar lines to one which is also embodied in the Income Tax Bill. Under the law as it now stands if the period of assessment for a particular taxpayer is less than a full year then any abatementthat there may be is reduced proportionately. Now that leads to hardship in certain cases.

For instance, where a taxpayer dies during the year such hardship arises where the income is not spread proportionately over the year. The income may, for instance in the case of a farmer, come in in the first three months of the year; virtually the whole income might come in in the first three months of the year; and the taxpayer might die at the end of that first three-months period. If the abatement is then allowed for proportionately, there will be an obvious unfairness in respect of the remaining period of the year. A hardship of that kind might arise either in respect of the estate in regard to the part of the year during which the taxpayer is still alive, or it might arise as far as the widow is concerned in respect of the rest of the year. And so it is clear that there should, in fairness, be some means of dealing with these cases by being able to deviate from the rule for the proportionate allocation of the abatement. That is what we set out to do in Clause 1 (1) (b) of this Bill. The same kind of hardship also arises as far as the excess profits duty is concerned, insofar as similar circumstances to do with the pre-war standard has to be apportioned on a proportional basis. That, too, may lead to hardship, and it is proposed to meet that by the provisions of Clause 2 (1) (b) of the Bill. The next part of the Bill deals with the personal and savings fund levy. There, hon. members will be aware, I proposed in the Budget Speech, and this was subsequently confirmed after discussion in Committee of Ways and Means, that there should be new rates of basic tax, that while the position should remain unaltered in so far as the percentage in respect of normal income tax and supertax is concerned, the basic tax should be reduced from £7 10s. and £5 to £5 and £3, and the whole of it being regarded as tax. The £3 applies, or would apply, as the £5 has hitherto applied, i.e. in the case of married men between £250 and £300. This proposal was accepted in Committee of Ways and Means without discussion, but I have given further thought to the question, and I am prepared to propose when we come into Committee a further concession in this regard. We have reduced the £7 10s. to £5; and what I intend to propose is to reduce the £5 rate by £2 10s., which would bring it down to £2 10s. instead of £5 as at present. That is provided for, except of course that the amendment will have to be submitted in Committee. In Clause 3 (1) (b) of this Bill. In this connection I would refer to Clause 6 of the Bill, which gives effect to what I stated in the Budget speech there said that we proposed that the income taxpayer shall no longer have the right to withdraw the amount of his savings levy after six months. At the present moment any levy is withdrawable after six months; that was originally inserted from the point of view of the small taxpayer. Now that it is only the income taxpayer who will be liable for payment of levy it is proposed that he should no longer have that right to withdraw after six months. That is given effect to in paragraph 6 of the Bill, but only in regard to the future. The position in regard to the savings levy certificates now current will, of course, remain unchanged. Then in this part of the Bill there is also another new provision.

Six years is to long.

That is the period we have had hitherto, and I do not think that as far as the income taxpayer is concerned there need be any ground for qualms in that respect. The new provision is contained in Clause 3 (1) (a), to which Clauses 4 and 5 might be regarded as consequential. These clauses will deal with the position in regard to personal and savings fund levy as far as trusts and estates are concerned, and their effect will be to make it clear that trusts and estates are liable for the tax portion of this impost, but not for the levy portion of the impost. Then the remaining part of the Bill deals with the fixed property profits tax. The first clause, Clause 7, has been inserted in view of certain provisions inserted in the Instalment Sales of Land Act, but as that Bill is not being proceeded with this Session it will be necessary for me, in Committee, to move the deletion of Clause 7 of this Bill. Then the following clauses, 8 to 12 deal with the proposal already adopted as a result of the discussion in Committee of Ways and Means in regard to the taxation of the amounts payable to intermediaries or agents in excess of 5 per cent. I explained that it was necessary to make the changes here proposed in order to check a means of evasion of tax, and the provision is therefore made here; but it has in the consideration of these particular proposals emerged that the limitation in the present law to 5 per cent. of the tax-free portion of the agent’s commission may bear hardly in certain cases, especially in the case of an agent for the sale of a township in lots, who may have a good deal of expense which the ordinary broker does not have. That point was raised here, I think, while the taxation proposals were being considered in Committee of Ways and Means, and I promised to go into it. It was also’ discussed with me by a deputation from the Institute of Estate Agents and Auctioneers, who submitted a useful memorandum in this connection; and, as a result, I intend in Committee to propose in all such cases, that is cases where there is liability under the present law, and in cases where there will be liability under this Bill, there shall be added to the 5 per cent., which is tax-free, the reasonable expenses incurred by the agent in carrying out his duties as intermediary.

Does that apply only to the case of a township?

It will apply to any agent who incurs expenses, but it mainly arises in connection with townships. Section 14 of the Bill gives effect to a concession I referred to in the Budget speech in respect of purchases of land for housing purposes by a local authority, a uitility company or the Housing Commission. That leaves only one clause in this part of the Bill which is new, Clause 13, which purports to amend Section 34 of the Special Taxation Act, 1942. It substitutes for the existinng sub-ection (2) two new sub-sections. Of these sub-clauses, as here printed, (2) is really new, whereas (3) is the old subsection (2) with consequential amendments; and the object of the new sub-clause is to check evasion of the fixed property profits tax by the device of assigning an inflated value to some other obligation which is undertaken at the same time in the alienation of the property in order to reduce the price of the property itself. This is ’one of the devices that have been resorted to and this clause will give us a means of checking it. Most of the proposals contained in this Bill have been before the House in one form or another on a previous occasion. The new proposals are those in regard to the appointment of the abatement or the pre-war standard in regard to the excess profits duty, in regard to the personal and savings fund levy payable by trusts and estates, and in regard to the form of evasion of fixed property profits tax which is referred to in Clause 13 of the Bill. For the rest, as I have said, the matters dealt with have already been before the House, and I have therefore not gone into them in any great detail.

Those taxpayers in the Union who are particularly affected by the taxes for which this Bill makes provision have anxiously been awaiting the statement which the Minister was to make this morning in the expectation that since the war ended sooner than the Minister expected when he introduced his estimates, he might be prepared to make certain concessions today. The people who cherished those hopes will be bitterly disappointed this morning with the few words the Minister has uttered. All these taxes are war-time taxes which have been imposed for the purposes of the war. To all intents and purposes the war is over as far as South Africa is concerned, and although nobody expected all the war taxes to be lifted immediately—I say that nobody would expect the Minister to stand up here and say that ‘ all these taxes, would be lifted—there was at least the expectation that in view of the fact that the war came to an end so soon after the commencement of his financial year and that his expenditure would be affected by it, he would at least have been in a position to make a few concessions. We expected at least three concessions. In the first place, we expected an indication from the Minister that he was going to follow the example of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer in England, that is, to allow industry to deduct the expenses which they now have to bear in connection with research from the taxable income. When the Minister of Finance made his Budget speech he held out the prospect of something of the kind. He said, inter alia—

Then the Minister added—

That Bill has been adopted.

But the Board of Research has not yet been appointed.

The Minister has had an opportunity of consulting the person who has the greatest interest in the matter. It would have had a stimulating effect at this moment when South Africa needs such a stimulating measure. In this respect we get nothing from the Minister. We did not expect him to lift all the taxes but we did expect him at least to indicate a measure of relief today and to have been able to announce to the House that in view of the speedy termination of the war the greatest burdens would at least be removed this year. But not a single word about that. I think what the country could have expected from the Minister was that he could have given some indication today as to his future intentions in regard to these war taxes. What prospect can the Minister hold out and how long are we still to have these war taxes? But not a word do we hear from him. The attitude adopted by the Minister is the attitude he adopted when he made his Budget speech—he is still taking up an expectant attitude. Does the Minister not realise that if he takes up an expectant attitude, industry must also take up an expectant attitude; and now supposing that industry does follow his example and takes up an expectant attitude and that they too, are afraid of doing anything in view of the uncertain conditions, would that not be the greatest disservice that can be done to South Africa? What we need today is a gesture of goodwill from the Minister to show that now that the worst is past he is prepared to offer temporary assistance here and there. But no, he takes up an expectant attitude. It is a contageous disease, and to my mind it is the greatest disservice we can today show South Africa. If industry were to follow the example of the Minister we have not the least hope of securing a condition of full employment for the citizens of South Africa in the years that lie ahead. I deplore the bad example which the Minister is setting the industries of South Africa in that respect. In view of the importance of the matter—we feel that the future of South Africa largely depends on the attitude the Minister takes up—I would like to go into this matter a little deeper. I am quoting from the speech of the Minister of Economic Development before the Federated Chamber of Indutries last year when he said—

It is being realised that the rôle the taxation policy of the Minister plays can either encourage industrial development or discourage it, and we get nothing at all from the Minister. In view of that I would like to say explicitly how this side of the House feels about the matter. We realise that the Minister cannot immediately lift all the war taxes. The war is at an end but the soldiers have yet to return to South Africa and they have to be taken up in civilian life.

That is going to cost money. The country needs houses and we expect the Government to do something tangible in this respect during the next twelve months. At the same time the country expects that there will not be a repetition of what happened after the last war when the bottom collapsed from everything and thousands of people roamed about the streets of our country without employment. They are asking the Government to take timely steps to ensure a certain measure of social security for South Africa during the post-war period. We consider that the three great tasks in connection with the reconstruction upon which the Government should embark are: The establishment of the returned soldier in civilian life; the provision of houses; and thirdly, timely steps to ensure a large measure of social security to the citizens of the country during the post-war period. We realise it is going to cost money and we on this side are prepared to vote funds for that purpose. But at the same time I would say to the Minister—and I say so with all emphasis—that this side of the House declines to pass the war taxes in their present form this year. If the Minister is not prepared to remove the most pressing burdens, those provisions in his policy of taxation which really have a retarding effect on industrial development and expansion in South Africa, we take upon ourselves the responsibility of voting against the war taxes he is proposing here. If the Minister tells us that he has not had time to effect the necessary improvements to his excess profits tax and his other war taxes, then we say that there is still time to do so this year. The hon. member for Sunnyside (Mr. Pocock) has offered the suggestion that it might be possible to have a special Session of Parliament in September. If the Minister refuses to do so, if he refuses to give the assurance that he will improve the war-time taxes during this year with a view to removing the most pressing burdens, the most restrictive provisions, then we are not prepared to vote for the ’ war taxes today. In Committee of Ways and Means we clearly indicated in what respects the Minister could improve upon his war taxes. I would just like to summarise the attitude of this side of the House. In the first place, as regards the personal and savings fund levy the Minister has decided to abolish the savings fund part of the basic levy. Had the Minister been satisfied with that he would have done something worth while but it seems to me the Minister cannot do something worth while with the one hand without badly pinching the taxpayer with the other hand, with the result that what he takes away with the one hand he adds with the other and so we find that the Minister drops the savings fund part but he increases the taxation part of the levy, in one case from £2 10s. to £3, and in the other case from £3 15s. to £5. That does not merely apply to the taxpayer in the higher group but also to the taxpayer in the lower group.

I will allow the increase to £3 to drop.

It seems to me that at last there is a little crumb. I would just like to tell the Minister that he should do what Canada has done. Canada had exactly the same tax as the one the Minister still has and there the Minister of Finance decided to give relief. He abolished the savings fund part without increasing the taxation part. This side of the House is most certainly not going to be jointly responsible for the extra tax which is to be imposed on the lower income groups. As regards the excess profits tax—and that is the tax which is particularly noxious at this stage—unless the Minister improves on it, we suggested two respects in which the Minister should improve on the tax this year. I should like to repeat them. The first is that the Minister should decide to raise the standards: (a) the pre-war standard, (b) the minimum standard and (c) the basic percentage. We expected the Minister at least to raise the standards this year. We have very good reasons to ask that of the Minister; to mention two: the fixing of the standards and the fact that it was not on an adjusting scale, resulted in the Minister making no provision whatsoever for the natural increase in the income of a person or business firm. If a doctor or a dentist or an attorney is worth his salt his income is bound to increase as a result of his increased knowledge and experience. The Minister does not consider that in any way. In the second case, since the standards are fixed and inflexible, no account is taken of the increase in the costs of living which has taken place in this country. We know there has been an increase in the cost of living. A cost of living ‘allowance is allowed to every person in the country but the man who is subject to excess profits tax receives nothing, and to my mind that is an unfairness throughout the whole system of taxation. Take the salaried man. He need not pay excess profits tax. He receives cost of living allowances of 25 per cent. up to 30 per cent. The businessman, however, has to pay excess profits tax on everything above his standard. Not only is 15s. in the £ taken from that but the remaining 5s. is also taxed. I think we can safely assume that in South Africa the tax which the Minister is imposing on that part of a person’s income above his standard is not 15s. but at least 17s. to 17s. 6d. The Minister is shaking his head. I think we can assume that in South Africa a man pays very much more than 15s. on that part of his income which is in excess of his standard. He pays at least 17s. In South Africa he is allowed only 2s. 6d. in the £ on that score. The Minister takes almost everything above the standard and below that standard no account is taken of the natural expansion of a man’s business or his greater earning capacity. No account is taken of the increase in the cost of living. He alone, the man with the initiative in South Africa, is affected in this way. That is the first condition we imposed. Since we have had the debate in Committee of Supply I have received letters from all parts in South Africa to give us moral support in our struggle to persuade the Minister to improve his system of taxation. I would like to give just a few typical examples. I have here a letter from a Government supporter in Durban, Natal. I should just like to quote what he said—

The Minister advanced that as a reason why excess profits duty is being collected. But this person goes on to say—

And then he continues—

And then he concludes with these words—

Then he gives me his financial position during the war as follows. He says he has compared his assessment for 1938 with that of 1944, and then he says—

And he goes on to say—

That also applies to me as a salaried man. I also have much less remaining to me.

This man says that in 1938 he had to surrender 7.6 per cent. of his income to the State, leaving him 92 per cent.; today he hands over 45 per cent. to the State and keeps 55 per cent. That the Minister cannot say as a salaried man. Then he writes to say—I cannot vouch for the correctness—that he believes that in England they allow doctors £1,000 over and above their pre-war income. We in South Africa allow only £500. In conclusion he says that he was prepared to sacrifice during the war but now that the war is over “I have to start thinking of myself, my family and the future”. We want to say to the Minister that he should immediately raise his standards. Secondly, we made another suggestion in Committee of Supply, and that is that the Minister should allow industries to establish a 20 per cent. machinery fund so as to allow them not only to pay for new machinery from that fund, as the Minister wants them to do during the two years he mentioned in his Budget Speech, but also to enable them to write off machinery which many of them bought during the past few years, that is, during the war. They paid very high prices for the machinery. The Minister knows how expensive machinery was. In order to carry on certain industries—the public required their products—they bought machinery at very high prices but not good machinery. They simply bought the machinery to keep their factories running. As soon as the war is over new machinery will have to be substituted for the old machinery. No provision is made in the Minister’s system of taxation to assist the write-off of obsolete machinery. High prices were paid for this machinery. A machinery fund should be established, a fund of 20 per cent. which should not only apply to new machinery purchased during the two years mentioned by the Minister but also in the case of old machinery purchased during the war to keep the factories going for the time being. These people are asking for this concession to enable them to write off at least 50 per cent. of the costly machinery and to be in a position to buy new machinery so as to modernise their factories after the war. It is very important. If we are to take a stand against the strong competition we are going to get after the war we shall have to modernise our factories. The best new machinery procurable will have to be acquired and the Minister’s proposal as regards the two years does not go far enough. Here is a letter I received from a very well-known firm in Johannesburg from which I can quote. I should prefer not to mention the name. This is what they write—

It seems to me that it would be necessary to investigate whether the £20,000,000 is nominal or issued and paid-up capital. I know of cases where a nominal capital of £100,000 has been registered, only a few thousand being issued and paid up in consequence of the business not being in a position to expand until such time as an opportunity presents itself to import machinery and because no offer for further capital will be made until such time as the assurance is given that new machinery could be imported.

Then again we have the case, especially as regards South African undertakings, where large capital has been registered with the shares issued on payment of 10 per cent. and the balance subject to further calls.

It is generally felt by the public that the fig-leaf the Minister is trying on in regard to the £20,000,000 capital which has been registered is not a convincing argument and not sufficient reason for the Minister’s contention. Then he goes on to say—

This is a battery business in Johannesburg. He had to buy the machinery to be of assistance to the country. He has rendered South Africa a service. He admits that the machinery he bought for £450 has become obsolete and that he cannot go on with it after the war. The Minister is not giving him an opportunity to write off the £450 or half of it so that when the time arrives he could import machinery from outside and modernise his factory. Then I should like to read to the Minister an extract from the “Daily News” of Natal. I think it is of importance and I should like to read it because it reflects our attitude fairly clearly—

There may be some political objection to widening the benefits to industry in this country this year. There can be none for any other reason. If industrial progress is stultified by restrictive measures, the blame must lie with the State. Given opportunity private enterprise will do its job.

It is a great responsibility for the Minister to bear. Here you have a Government supporter who says that if our industries suffer a set-back after the war the Government will have to bear the blame and the responsibility for it. He says—

I hope the hon. Minister will make a statement today still. I have clearly indicated what we want the Minister to do. It is not much. It is a small amount, a mere drop in the ocean, and the Minister knows as well as I do that he always leaves a margin in his estimates large enough to make concessions without being the loser at the end of the year. The Minister is well aware of it and he always leaves a large margin in his estimates. Let us take last year’s figures. We know the Minister is inclined to underestimate his revenue. What was the position last year? That he under-estimated his revenue by approximately £4,000,000; under two revenue heads, both war-time taxes, viz., excess profits duty and the special duty on trading profits; on these two alone he under-estimated his revenue by more than £3,000,000. Thus he had a margin of £4,000,000 on his revenue alone. We also know that he over-estimates his expenditure. I am almost inclined to say that it has become a firm habit of his to over-estimate his expenditure. What was the position last year? Although the Minister came with two additional estimates after his main estimates amounting to approximately £3,400,000, he was nevertheless able to save £2,712,000 on expenditure. If we combine the underestimate on his revenue and the over-estimate on his expenditure he had a margin of £6,000,000; that is to say, on his revised estimates, and for the year 1943-’44 we found that even his revised estimates were out by £2,000,000. It might easily happen again this year that, as was the case last year, he had a margin of £8,000,000. If the Minister were to allow the industry these concessions, if the Minister were to offer industry a gesture of goodwill and he says: “Proceed; you have a benevolent Government to help you through the post-war years”, what price would the Minister then have to pay? Much less than the margin the Minister has kept for himself, and the Minister knows that in the year to come his revenue is also very buoyant. I think customs has again been underestimated. Leakages in the tax are stopped; leakages are being stopped which are going to ensure to him more revenue. There are still arrear levies which the Minister can recover. Last year the Minister told us there were arrear levies amounting to £2,000,000. Therefore we know we have the revenue. And the expenditure? The Minister is perfectly aware of the fact that he adjusted his expenditure this year to the top notch. He estimated his Defence expenditure at £82,500,000. He was expecting the war to continue but the war is over now. Surely that must mean something. Even if the Minister were to spend more on demobilisation and housing and other things, the saving on Defence expenditure is going to be greater than the additional expenditure he is going to have under other heads. Hence there is a margin. If only the Minister has the will to say to the industrialist during these times: “Proceed; you have our support”, it would have a magnificent effect on South Africa. We on this side of the House stand for one thing for the post-war period; we stand for greater production and the encouragement of industries. We want the gold mines to produce to full capacity and the Minister would do well to try to encourage the exploitation of the new goldmines in the Free State. We want secondary industries to be encouraged to produce 100 per cent., and the same applies to agriculture. I feel that the Minister should not take up an expectant attitude at this stage. It is fatal to initiative in South Africa. Today you want a Government to say to every producer in the country: “Continue with production; you have the Government behind you”, and then we would be creating conditions in South Africa which will ensure to us a new and brave South Africa. But what attitude is the Minister adopting? The attitude he is adopting is this: I am satisfied, I have my revenue. What I have I hold. It is a lazy way of governing South Africa. If everybody in South Africa were to be as lazy as the Minister as regards his taxation policy I wonder what is to become of the country. The Government dare not take up the attitude that it is too much trouble to revise the system of taxation. South Africa today requires an example. The Minister wants industrialists and producers to have courage and confidence in the future. Let him show that he has courage and confidence in the future. The Minister has everything in his favour; he can do it, and we say that if the Minister refuses to exert himself in the least to stimulate our primary and secondary industries during these times and to set an example and to offer encouragement, then we are prepared to accept the responsibility of voting against the Bill.

The speech delivered by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) may in some respects be quite thoughtprovoking, but from the point of view of the Minister of Finance I do not think he has helped him very much. After all, we had the fight on the Budget debate and with regard to the present taxation system the House has agreed to its continuance. I think the hon. member for George will agree it will be quite impossible for the Minister to make alterations, such as he indicated, in his financial machinery. I am perfectly sure if he were in the Minister’s place he would be the first to admit that was so. We have carried over our war taxation machine into this interim period, and, much as some of us regret this is so, the position has to be met. I think therefore even the hon. member for George will agree that the suggestions he makes, that the proposals he has outlined, are ’ quite impracticable at this stage. On the other hand, I hope it will sink into the minds of all the members of this hon. House that in South Africa we are in a very anomalous position, and a position we must face with a good deal of misgiving and perhaps anxiety. The war machine taxation has done good work. It has delivered the goods. In other words, you had the whole attention of the nation on taxation proposals concentrated on the war effort, and the results have been extremely satisfactory. But we have decided to carry on this war taxation system; the Minister did a couple of months ago, although actually the estimates themselves have actually not been passed. From the time the Budget speech was made until now the war in Europe has finished, and certainly none of us can realise or even predict what is likely to be the immediate result. In some ways the end of the war has come so suddenly that you might say the world is staggering at the surprise, particularly the collapse of the enemy and the completeness of it all. If it were possible for us through our taxation machine to focus our attention on post-war planning that would be ideal. I do not say that in the circumstances it was possible, but I am sure the Minister must realise the difficult position the country is in in retaining this war taxation machine for another year after the end of the war in Europe. We may perhaps in a much shorter period than some of us realise find also that the war with Japan has also collapsed with equal suddenness and completeness. In these circumstances a complete change in the whole economic state of the world takes place almost overnight. That is where misgivings on our position must arise, and I am sure the Minister, as well as all of us in this House, realises that is the position. The question has arisen whether this Parliament should meet again in September. That will be, of course, for the Government to decide. But I hope sincerely that Parliament will again meet in September, because just as we were faced suddenly in 1939 with a war situation so we are faced in 1945 almost as suddenly with a peace situation, a situation that will perhaps demand more from us even than the war effort, and that also in respect of our resources. I myself believe that in order to get the happier South Africa we believe we have been fighting for, it is going to cost us much more in money than the war itself has cost us. In these circumstances I sympathise with the Minister of Finance. We have been sitting here for months and every single appeal made to the Minister of Finance has had one or two implications. The first implication has always been: Spend more money, find us more money. We say: We want this scheme, we want that scheme and we want the other scheme. If anyone in this House had taken a note of it all and set down in terms of cash cost what was being demanded from the Minister of Finance we would be shocked. That is the position. Then we have the hon. member for George saying: Reduce taxation! Reduce taxation! How can it be done? Let us take this problem of demobilisation. What is that going to cost the country? I would like to have an estimate of that, and on generous terms. Then we have this question of housing. People will say that is a question of capital cost. They talk about £50,000,000 or £100,000,000 required and setting it down to capital cost. That money has to be found, presumably through loans. The question arises how much money have we got that we can put into houses, as loan money, when at the same time we consider the position of investments required say for industrial development. Is there a sufficient amount of capital available for all these things we are asking to be done? The Minister unfortunately gets no help from us on this question, in regard to the capital cost of housing for example. But I think most people today are worried about the high cost we have to pay for houses. You give a man a house that was worth £1,000 before the war, and today it costs £2,000. I think it was my hon. friend the member for Berea (Mr. Sullivan) who suggested yesterday that loans for housing schemes should not cost the people more than 1 per cent.

National houses.

For national houses. The hon. member suggests they should be given to them at 1 per cent. That again means more taxation.

No.

Well, if I lend my money to the country at 3 per cent. and the Government takes that money and gives it to somebody else at 1 per cent., who pays the difference? The taxpayers will have to pay the difference. All I should like to say is this, that the Bill before us now is screwing up the taxation machine, but it is the old war tax machine and it is a pity to have to make adjustments to it at this late stage. But I suppose the Minister is justified in doing so.

Some of these provisions are concessions.

Some of them may be concessions, but I am sure the Minister will not say that on balance there is a credit to the taxpayer.

On the balance we are giving more than we are getting in this Bill.

Oh no.

Well, the Minister gives us that assurance, and we accept it. If he is not through this measure trying to get more money, I am surprised. During this Session of Parliament, even the Minister has agreed to certain extra expenditure on his original estimates so I suppose he hopes to finance that expenditure from the surplus on his Budget. Otherwise I do not know where he is going to get his money from. He has been budgeting for another surplus, and before he can get that surplus the House has committed him to spend a very large amount of it. I think it is time that responsible members of this House should give some help to the Minister. If we could tell him that next year so much will be necessary for housing, so much on revenue account, and so much for other new services, and so much on loan in terms of our ability to finance things, that would help very considerably indeed, not now for this year it is how too late but for the year after this. The Minister today must be in a complete dilemma when he hears all the things that are asked for, and all the things that are expected from him. In the circumstances the only thing he can do is what my hon. friend suggests he is doing, hold on to what he has got and get a bit more if he can. I do not know whether this Session of Parliament will be held in September, but if it is I would suggest we do not bother about ordinary legislation at all but concentrate on a post-war scheme of development in terms of the country’s resources and needs. If we could give that lead my hon. friend has pleaded so eloquently for today to the industries of the country, if industry knew we have not so to say signed and sealed the fate of the country until next year, sometime in March or April, if the enterprising elements in our country could feel they will not have to wait until then and then perhaps get nothing, they will feel happier about things. I said earlier that these enterprising elements in our country expected this year they would get pointers but the Minister has seen fit not to give them that lead. Now they have to sit tight and wait another year; will they have another disappointment? Let us tell the country that we are coming back in September and we will deal with these matters. My hon. friend says that private enterprise will do the job. But is that the Opposition policy? It may be the policy of the hon. member for George.

I was reading that quotation.

But you must have endorsed it, surely.

I believe in private enterprise.

But does your Party believe in it?

Of course they do.

The position of the Government is this, we have to decide this matter.

Does your Party believe in it?

That is what I would like to know. That is one of the things we might decide in September. Because there is just that side of it; since the Government is not giving this encouragement to industry does it mean the Government wants to do the development itself? That is a question that might fairly be asked. Meanwhile we might do something new in South Africa, something certainly new in the politics of South Africa, if we could meet in September as Parliamentarians, in that spirit, not as Party men, to thrash out the post-war economic policy for the country. When I talk about economic policy I naturally include social services, and the maximum being done under our demobilisation scheme for our returned soldiers. I mean things like the solution of our housing problem, public health, and so on. If we were to consider these things in a special Session of Parliament and apply ourselves to these things, I think this country would get new hope. The mere fact of a decision of this kind being taken would in itself give an impetus to enterprise.

Hear, hear.

I am glad I am being supported. I want to impress upon the Minister that the country wants that lead. He cannot now alter his Budget or do those things in this Budget that the hon. member for George says he should.

I suggested a Session in September.

The hon. member also suggests a September Session. I did not think he was so specific. I will be satisfied if he tells us that we are merely dotting his i’s and crossing his t’s, as long as we get that Session. In these circumstances I should like to ask the Minister very seriously to consider this point, and give the country the satisfaction and give us the satisfaction of knowing that in September we shall come together and deal with nothing but these post-war economic problems; no other legislation should be allowed. If that decision is made we shall have a memorable Session of Parliament. In the circumstances we must do something unusual, we must do something extraordinary. This country cannot afford to let Parliament rise on Saturday week, and members to disperse, with these things left in the air. The situation in South Africa is far too serious and far too changing for us to go away and be silent and unheard for 12 months. In the circumstances I make that appeal to the Minister, that we should be called together in September to see what we can do jointly as Parliamentarians, unmindful of Party gain, to arrive at decisions on our post-war problems.

The idea expressed by the member who has just sat down of a Session in September dealing exclusively with post-war problems and industrial development, is of course an excellent idea, although it does not go quite as far as the suggestion of the Labour Party. We have felt all along that Parliament should be in Session all the year round. If the suggestion to have a Session in September is carried out, it may direct the attention of members in one course and keep it in that direction without continual interruptions. Perhaps it is a most excellent suggestion. Perhaps we will not have this type of Session again, which we have just had—a Session one could compare with a bazaar; when the bazaar is over we find that nobody has bought anything. One finds that one has only stood around and achieved absolutely nothing.

Will the hon. member return to the Bill?

I am merely replying to what the hon. member has said.

The hon. member has done that now and I trust he will not enlarge on it.

I do hope that I am entitled to say that the September Session will be an undiluted Session and not a Session like the one which is now nearing completion.

The hon. member has now made his point and he can therefore return to the Bill.

But ….

Order, order. The hon. member must not attempt to evade my ruling.

I am surely the last person who would evade your ruling. But I do think that I am entitled to say that when such a Session is held it will be a Session which will work beautifully and not a Session such as this one. I do not want to evade your ruling, not in the least. The hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) held forth here and it seems to me as if the Party opposite, as well as the Opposition, are not quite sure as to where they actually stand. I am not going to cross-question them. But what we are entitled to say is this: Where it is a question of private initiative or of State enterprise, and the Government’s laws or system of taxation is such that the position is made impossible for the private person with initiative, then it is the duty of the State to do something, to open another door. But we have not got that. More and more the door is being shut and it is becoming more and more difficult for the person with initiative to get anywhere. If the Government is closing the door to the private investor, then it should introduce State enterprise. But we are not getting that. The State does not do anything either. South Africa has reached a state of stagnation at the present moment. It does not move forward, neither does it move backward. It does not encourage private initiative, neither does it accept a policy of State enterprise. Is it surprising, therefore, that one of the most loyal and able members of the Government Party is saying that the time has arrived when we should at least know where we stand. What are we going to do? Are we going to destroy private enterprise altogether or are we going to adopt a policy of State enterprise? I agree with the hon. member that the time has arrived when we should know where we stand.

What do you suggest?

I suggest that the Government should state clearly whether it intends building up the country on the basis of private initiative or by means of State enterprise. But even the most enlightened member on that side of the House is just as much in the dark as I am.

Is there no middle course?

There is a middle course and I think that the middle course has often been pointed out, but are we following a middle course? The two courses which were open for us to follow, the one to the left and the other to the right, are now both closed. Now there is a middle course. [Laughter.] Judging from the attitude of some members in the House, I can only say that I feel sorry for South Africa if the development and the progress we are going to make depend upon those members. I have already told the Minister of Finance on various occasions that South Africa can and will never develop, along whichever course it may be, if we cannot obtain that primary means which every country must have for its development, namely machinery, on a reasonable and fair basis. The door is being shut for our people as a result of the system of taxation, in spite of the pleas we have so often made from this side of the House that the Government should facilitate the importation of machinery by reducing the high duties on the importation of machinery. It is not always the wealthy people who have to import machinery. In many instances it is the poor man who requires a machine of a few hundred pounds. That man works on a small scale: he is the capitalist and the labourer all in one. He needs a machine of a few hundred pounds or a few thousand pounds and the import duty is just enough to break his back and to destroy the whole undertaking. If we wish to break it, let us do so then. But I have so often asked the Minister in discussions of this nature when he intends removing or reducing that burden on small enterprise by reducing or removing the high import duties. You will remember that when the House was discussing another Bill last week, quite a few members spoke with great optimism on this question, because they said that scientific research would open up great possibilities to the country. But what could we undertake in South Africa for which we do not need machinery? The article is still in the laboratory when we are already in need of machinery. Every single discovery made requires machinery as soon as it is tested or used for some or other enterprise. South Africa’s policy has always been: penny wise, pound foolish. For the sake of a small sum of money, we are smothering the very spirit of enterprise. I am once more appealing to the Minister to remove or to reduce the duty on the importation of machinery and implements. Members opposite, such as the hon. member for Vasco (Mr. Mushet) say we must have the money. We know that the Government needs money, but there are other ways of obtaining the money and it is not necessary to do it in a manner which must necessarily destroy such enterprise in South Africa. I am asking the Minister in all seriousness, if he intends building up this country, to proceed to either reducing or removing this duty. If he intends forcing South Africa to remain a poor country and to destroying all initiative, then he should not remove these duties. But if he wants South Africa to develop and to stand on its own legs, then the first thing he should do is to see’ to it that we get our machinery as inexpensively and as easily as possible. I say that a tax such as this import duty on machinery utterly destroys any initiative. Unless we want to adopt the policy in South Africa that the country should remain poor and that commodities should always be imported in spite of the fact that those commodities could just as well be manufactured here, I cannot see how the country can continue with this policy.

There is no such policy.

The trouble is that there is no policy. Our country today finds itself in this position that we simply have to face these facts. As a result of the war we find that the position is that young men whose talents were not hidden but kept in the dark were discovered and in order to utilise those talents that were discovered in South Africa for the development of the country, in order to develop initiative in South Africa, we should afford those young men the opportunity of making a small beginning with the machinery required by them, so that later on they may develop their enterprises into something bigger and open the eyes to the South African nation as to how it may develop gradually and manufacture all those things which in the past were imported at high cost. Along those lines South Africa may develop and I would like to see who could give me another method by which our country could develop into a strong nation. There is no other method. If hon. members wish to suggest that there is any other method, I would be very glad to listen to them. We on this side of the House are very much concerned with what the position is going to be after the war. Without having to incur very large losses the Minister of Finance is now in the position of giving South Africa an opportunity. That is the appeal I am making to the Minister of Finance today. As the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) has said, he should provide an opportunitiy to initiative in South Africa. There is one further point I wish to raise. That is the question of the compulsory savings levy. I think the time has arrived for that levy to be abolished. It is more or less an unnecessary tax out of which the Minister does not derive a very large amount. His Department will tell him that it is one of the taxes which is not really worth while. It causes more annoyance than the revenue is really worth, and I think that the time has arrived for the Minister to remove that annoying tax. While the war was still on, we were prepared to tolerate anything, but the time has come when that is no longer the case. The Minister was fortunate enough to be in a position, when he delivered his Budget speech this year, to say that it would probably be his last war-time Budget speech. We congratulate all humanity and the Minister on the fact that his prediction proved to be correct. But he should now prove to the country that he is no longer suffering from that pessimistic war outlook and expecting the people to tolerate everything. Here he has an opportunity now of showing the country that he intends reducing the war taxes and to transfer them to other spheres from which he may derive the necessary funds for reconstruction in South Africa. We are in favour of getting the necessary money for reconstruction work in South Africa. The people will gladly pay taxes if they know that such taxes are necessary for the prosperity and economic advancement of South Africa and that it is not intended to be wasted on war. South Africa will gladly pay higher taxation if it has the prospect of economic progress.

In connection with the anticipated revision of taxation to meet post-war conditions and the abolition of the special war taxes I want to make this suggestion to the hon. Minister, that he should arrange for a special committee of members of this House who during the recess should investigate the whole matter. Taxation is unquestionably a most complex matter today. It is most difficult to understand the laws as they are drafted and the language used, and unfortunately when these particular Bills come before the House year after year they are rushed through, by force of circumstances at the very end of the Session, when the House is in a mood to rush things, and there is little time between the different stages of the Bills, and things generally proceed helter-skelter. It makes it in those circumstances extremely difficult to give to taxation the consideration which that subject calls for and merits, and it is in that light that I make this suggestion to the Minister that a committee of this House should investigate this matter during the forthcoming recess. We are now entering into a period where changes will be rapid and of great magnitude, and this recess would be an appropriate time for the sitting of such a committee. During the recess the committee will be able to deal with only the one problem, whereas members here are faced with many problems and are still sitting on Select Committees. We have now sat on the Public Accounts Committee for the 51st time this year, and all in all there is very little time. The Minister may say that he has a committee advising him, the one which he invited last year to consider taxation. But that committee is composed of persons other than members of this House. I am not aware that any member of this House sits on that Committee. I do not think there is one. As it is this House which has to pass the legislation and to deal with the intricacies of the problem, I think it is only right and proper that the members of this House should be given a full opportunity of going thoroughly into this whole problem and helping in a large measure to frame the post-war policy of the taxation for South Africa. If we were running back into a pre-war period we could expect to see the special war taxes expunged from the Statute Book and their complete elimination and repeal, but we are not going into those conditions. We are facing a period when it is quite obvious to everyone in this country that expenditure will be maintained at a high level, but no one knows just how high that level is going to be. No one appears to have any idea of that yet. We are busy travelling quite blindly into the future without anything being known as to what the policy of this country is going to be to meet those problems of the postwar years, the extent of its ability to pay and the effect of taxation on the post-war progress. In these circumstances I strongly feel that before this House meets next year to discuss the Budget for 1946, this matter should receive on the part of members of this House the most careful and earnest consideration. It is only in that way, when we meet in 1946, that we will be able to tackle this problem in a different light, in the light of what we are facing in the future and bring about a solution for the post-war years, which will be acceptable to this country, a solution which will help to eliminate from the present taxation a large number of anomalies and the extreme discriminations which exist, and so produce a system which is fair, which is simple and which is equitable in so far as it is possible for taxation to be. These are the factors which should guide us in future.

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

I had before the luncheon adjournment put forward the suggestion for the consideration of the Minister that during the recess a special committee of members of this House should sit to investigate the post-war position. I dealt with several of the problems members have been faced with in this House very late in the Session. The hon. member for Vasco (Mr. Mushet) some little while back mooted the idea of a separate Session of Parliament in September; the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) alluded to it later; and the hon. member for Vasco has again brought it up today. I think it would be an excellent idea for the House to meet and have a special financial Session, a Session divorced from the large number of legislative measures that confront us, and when the financial aspect can be considered in all its implications.

I hope the hon. member is not going to go too fully into that.

I really only want to add support. I would now like first of all to deal with Clause 2 (1) (a). We have a memorandum in explanation of this Bill, a White Paper, in which it is explained this amendment is intended to widen the scope of the present definition of “trade” so as to include within its terms certain forms of income, which it was originally intended should be included but which have been held to be outside the scope of the Act as at present defined. The position does not appear to be at all clear and this memorandum does not help us much further in so far as giving the House an idea of just what income is intended to be included and was found to fall outside the scope of the Act. Generally speaking, there is excluded from excess profits duty any emoluments arising from the holding of any office or employment. Apparently this new clause is intended to enlarge the scope of the definition of “trade”, and to bring within the incidence of excess profits duty a wider range of income, income that has formerly been excluded. The point that occurs to me is that this Act was brought into force in 1940, and it seems extraordinary that the amendment should only come before the House in 1945, at a time when we could more fittingly be engaged in easing this type of taxation than in creating further impositions. I understand that the medical men are very apprehensive, lest emoluments from semi-honorary positions should fall within the scope of excess profits duty. As I read it, it will appear that if a doctor is giving part-time service to a clinic or a university or some similar institution and he receives an honorarium of 100 guineas a year that would fall wtihin the scope of the amendment. I am not quite sure whether it is intended that directors’ fees and similar types of emoluments which up to now have been excluded should be included in future in terms of this amendment. I think that position ought to be made clear to the House, because I feel in principle a tax of this nature should never be levied upon the earnings of the individual. Originally excess profits duty was unquestionably a tax designed to tax at a very high rate profits from trade. I think the levying of excess profits duty in the first place on any services of individuals was a mistake, and that any increase now in the scope of this tax in that direction is also a mistake. It is wrong to tax earnings from services, whether those earnings be in the form of salaries or fees. I am sorry that the Minister at this late stage in the world war sees fit to bring an amendment before the House to add to the scope of the definition of “trade”. I should like to have seen the reverse process at work, whereunder earnings arising from any services would be excluded altogether. This is a very heavy tax. It is supposed to be 15s. in the £ but with various other taxes on the remaining 5s., and this means that this tax has risen in at least one case I know of to 18s. 4d. in the £.

It must have been a very good income.

I am not arguing whether it is a very big income, but that it is not a tax of 15s in the £. It can vary from 15s. to 18s. 4d.

You can be happy that it never gets to 21s.

I have never seen it reach 21s. To tax services in this manner is, I submit, quite wrong, and to seek to increase the scope of the definition of “trade” in order to bring further income from services into the ambit of this Act is also wrong. It would have been advisable to leave this out entirely in this Bill. There is one further matter I am sorry the Minister has not been able to embody in this Bill. I think it was in 1943 he envisaged allowances for the depreciation of fixed assets such as buildings. Two years have elapsed and the Minister has not evolved anything in that connection. It is a pity, because in the Income Tax Act no provision is made for the depreciation of buildings, buildings are specifically excluded. We all know that under war conditions there must inevitably be a substantial amount of depreciation of buildings which will affect industry in the post-war years. Many buildings erected for war purposes will be useless in the post-war period and will represent a substantial loss. In some cases probably their only value will be the break-up value, and in view of these circumstances I am sorry the Minister has not developed the thought he had in 1943. It would be a help. We do welcome here the suggestion of the increased depreciation allowance for purchases of machinery, etc., and in the same measure that that is allowed in the normal tax I take it it will also be allowed under the excess profits duty, but that depreciation is in respect of movable assets only. The point I am pressing is that there should also be a depreciation allowance in respect of fixed assets like a building. I think that if the Minister even at this late stage can evolve some clause for insertion in the Bill it will be welcomed in the country by industry as an earnest of the Minister’s endeavours to meet industry in the difficult period we are likely to face. There will be a difficult period although in the immediate post-war years conditions may be buoyant, but that buoyancy cannot be expected to last for ever, and it is time for something more concrete than the words uttered by the Minister in 1943. Apart from that I think this Bill is a good one. As the hon. member for Vasco (Mr. Mushet) said, we are not out of the war yet. We must support this measure, but we only ask this, that in the forthcoming recess serious consideration will be given to this question with a view to a far-reaching reform of taxation in the coming year.

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat proposed the appointment of a committee of this House to investigate the whole question of taxation during the recess. In that regard I merely want to say that it appears to me that there is an increasing tendency to shift the responsibility of the Government on to committees of this House. A matter such as a review of taxation is not a matter for a committee of this House but is a matter which rests with the Government which has to assume the responsibility. I am aware that a precedent was created last year when a committee of this House was appointed in connection with the question of social security, a committee which conducted investigations after a departmental committee had been engaged on the matter. I consider that it was a wrong step and if we are going to do as the hon. member has proposed then we can expect him to come forward with a proposal —and perhaps it would be a wise proposal in the circumstances—that a committee of the House should be appointed for drafting the estimates for the Minister.

That will be the next step.

I am pleased to find that the Minister agrees. It is a matter in which the Government has to assume responsibility and if necessary the blame for the cause of his action. But it is not a question in which cover should be sought behind a committee of this House. As far as the hon. member for Vasco (Mr. Mushet) is concerned, I want to say that I have much sympathy with that hon. member. He finds himself in a difficult position. Economically he is nationally minded but politically he is a Sap. The result is that he has a continuous inward struggle. He has a double personality—Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Which one is Mr. Hyde?

The Sap. The national part is the good part. He has delivered a speech today which it is somewhat difficult for us to understand. On the one hand he states: Yes, that is right; the Minister has drafted estimates; that is finished and there is no other alternative. He criticises the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) that he is not fair, because the Minister still finds himself in the position that there is a war. He stated that the Minister has acted correctly. But immediately after that he continued with remarks that the enterprising element who as far back as February of the current year expected an alteration and also in respect of taxation and were much disappointed. I take it that he agrees with that enterprising element otherwise he would not have referred to it as enterprising.

He is one of them.

I assume that he is one of them. He anticipated that the Minister would have done it in February but now he justifies it that the Minister did not so act in May. The Minister of Finance must appreciate that we on this side do not expect the impossible and the unfair. We do not desire to adopt an attitude that we are not prepared to vote funds and to make available means for payment in respect of demoblisation, housing and also social security. We have no objection to that, but at the same time we desire that if funds are appropriated due regard must be paid to the needs of the production machine of the country. Provision must be made that funds should be provided in future for those matters also and that we must not allow the geese laying the golden eggs to bleed to death. We must give them an opportunity to grow up so that they may lay bigger eggs in future. That is our complaint and our objection to the attitude adopted by the Minister. It is exceptional to expect the Minister of Finance to avail himself of an opportunity such as this to hold a miniature Budget Speech. But circumstances are very special. On 28th February when he delivered his Budget Speech he based his estimates on the basis of a War Budget because we were engaged in a war. But what has happened during the three months which have passed since 28th February? If one bears in mind all the conditions which have altered one would have thought that the Minister would have availed himself of this opportunity with the knowledge of the additional three months, to say to us in what respects his expectations have altered in the light of the experience of three months. He should have stated that he was prepared to take the country into his confidence and that he was going to do certain things. We know that he cannot now tear up his whole Budget and throw them into the waste paper basket; but we did have a reasonable and fair expectation, and I am sure that the country also had this expectation, that the Minister of Finance would rise in this House and say to us that he realised that the position had changed considerably since then and that he was now in a position to give some measure of relief and that he would give that relief where it was most needed. He did one thing. He has reduced the amount of £3 in the case of the lowest income group to £2 10s. We are grateful for that. It is a small concession but it is a concession which means much to the people who have to pay that tax. Three months ago we pleaded for that and we are glad that the Minister has given in. But why did he not carry that good work a little further and why did he not also in other respects, in the light of the changed position, show his willingness to afford relief? We submitted suggestions for his consideration when he moved for the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means. We stated: We do not desire a vast change; we ask for the removal of inequalities; that creases be ironed out somewhat so that the production machine could function more smoothly. What has happened in other countries? In America we found that immediately after the cessation of hostilities President Truman announced that relief in respect of taxation would be effected. That was the immediate reaction. In England Sir John Anderson stated that he appreciated that the position would have to alter. He delivered his budget speech a month ago, but he stated clearly, where he did not have time to review the estimates, that the budget had to be regarded as provisional and that he undertook to submit a revised Budget to the House of Commons in September. But here three months have elapsed, big changes have taken place, changes which are bound to have an effect on the Budget of the Minister introduced on 28th February; nevertheless the Minister is doing nothing he does not even make a statement. That is the reason for our dissatisfaction. These special war taxes involve an amount of approximately £25 millions taken out of the pockets of the taxpayer. War expenditure according to the Budget of three months back has been reduced from £102 millions to £82i millions. The portion of the war expenditure financed from revenue account has been reduced according to his estimate of three months back from £51,250,000 to £45,375,000. That means that the amount taken from revenue account for war purposes has been reduced by almost £6 millions according to the information of three months back. In spite of the fact that £6 millions less are asked for for war purposes on revenue account war taxation remains unchanged. We would still have been satisfied with that if the Minister could have pointed to all the other activities and services for which additional provision is now made. If he could have shown us what he intended doing with that money we would still have been in a position to accept it. But the Minister himself gave us to understand that the additional provision for social services would amount to approximately £2 millions.

No, there is other additional expenditure as well.

But the Minister gave a list of social services.

Yes, of social services.

Then we know that £2 millions more are devoted to social services. But now we notice that it is the social legislation which will drop this Session. The House does not agree with that. Let us turn to some other matters which the Minister yesterday indicated as measures which will not pass. We then notice that the little measure of social security, reduced by the Departmental Committee and subsequently further reduced by the Select Committee and again reduced further by the Minister—we notice that little of that goes into practice. The small measure for which prospects were held out, what happens to that? Here we have the Old Age Pensions Amendment Bill, the Disability Grants Bill, the Unemployment Insurance Bill; all those measures which possibly could have provided social services are measures which will drop this Session. If the funds collected from war taxation had been devoted to social services, for example, to carry out the report of the National Health Services Commission one could still be satisfied. But there is in fact nothing additional and yet the taxation remains the same. The points referred to by the hon. member for George and which we have brought to the notice of the Minister continuously; nothing becomes of them. The Minister is bound to reply that the hon. member for George wanted to alter the whole Budget and that that was impossible. That is not so. That is not what we desire. Just as the Minister himself was able to effect the change of reducing one tax from £3 to £2 10s. it was possible for him to effect a small change in the excess profits duty. I want to remind him of the fact that in Ireland the margin of profit has been raised from 9 per cent. to 10½ per cent. Here it remains at 8 per cent. That is another direction in which he could have made provision without leaving too much money to be spent in the country. The Minister is bound to say that we are pleading for reduction of taxation and that we will be complaining about inflation in the country tomorrow. It was not necessary for the Minister to return a single penny to be immediately spent. We proposed that 20 per cent. of the excess profits duty should be set aside as compulsory savings so that an amount would be available to be used by those businesses during the post-war years when there was most need for it. I know that the Minister will now say that it has been done in England but that we do have taxation of 20s. in the £ as is the case there. In England they have in that way set aside a reserve fund of £250 millions for their industries. What is the reserve fund for our industries? In the first case they paid 15s. in the £. But they also pay on the other 5s. The hon. member for Houghton has pointed out that the taxation in some cases amounts to 18s. 4d. in the £. They thus had left 1s. 8d. In England we have against that 4s. in the £ set aside as a nest egg for the future. However, we are dealing here with the principle, viz., that a reserve must be created in such times for our industries with a view to the future when they will need it most. This is the last opportunity for the Minister to do something like that. Let him still do it this year and then a fund may still be established during this year of approximately from £2 to £3 millions for our industries. It is to be regretted that that was not done years ago. But the Minister still has the chance this year to set aside 20 per cent. on £15,000,000 as a nest egg. That will be social security and it will be proof to this House and to the world outside that the Minister really made his statement seriously that he would like to see a new South Africa after the war. If we want to increase the national income the Minister must take these practical steps. That is our complaint against the Minister that where he had the opportunity of doing these things he took no action. We on our side are much more constructive than behoves an Opposition. We make proposals and we afford the Minister an opportunity of doing such things. It is not a function of the Opposition to do so. The function of an Opposition is that of a doctor who does not give a prescription for a remedy until he is called in. We feel that we have at present come to an important turning point in our industrial development and that we have to take extraordinary steps, that we have to come forward with constructive proposals so that the Minister may in any case have the benefit of what we think about the matter. But we do so without any success. Nothing is made of those proposals. The dripping of water has worn away a small corner of the rock but the rock remains as headstrong as ever. We are fighting unsuccessfuly to obtain this important proof that the Minister takes a serious view of the development of our country and of the people in the post-war world that we are going to meet. We do not ask for anything which is unfair. We do not ask for a change of the Minister’s whole Budget and the House has to realise precisely what we are asking for at this stage. What we ask is not impossible and impracticable. It can be done. À11 that is missing is goodwill. The Minister declines to help. We want the Minister to get the vision of what these things may mean for the industrial development of the country. There are a few other points which I want to touch upon. The first point relates to Section 2 (1). As I gathered from the Minister the effect thereof will be to increase the pre-war standard. Take in the first instance the position of a barrister who acted as lecturer and was paid a salary for his services. Has he to pay on that additional amount?

No, the educational work is not part of that.

But supposing that the other work is not educational work?

If it is part of his profession then he has to pay on it.

I do not have a specific instance in mind. He has to pay on the amount which forms part of his income. That means that the pre-war standard is increased by the same amount. But what is the position of somebody who at that time enjoyed that income and who has lost it in the meantime.

He would be better off.

It would then be to the advantage of that person? I wanted to be clear about that. Then we come to the savings fund. We have stated here in the past that the savings fund is a farce to a large extent because people are permitted to exchange their certificates within six months. Now the Minister is going to the other extreme. We considered previously that the people were being compelled to save and that they should not exchange their certificates before the war had come to an end when they would need the money. But what does the Minister propose now? For four years of war he makes it six months, and during the first year of peace he goes to the other extreme and he makes it six years. It seems somewhat ridiculous to me. If he had done that four years ago I would not have objected. It is the intention that that fund should be available to the people when they need it most. The question now is whether they would need those funds more after six years than after two years. If the Minister four years ago had made it six years then it would have been available to them two years after the war. I really think that the Minister is going too far in making it six years. I think I followed the Minister correctly in that they cannot now exchange those certificates till after six years.

Yes.

That is precisely my point. We are at present in the first peace year. If compulsory saving is necessary now why should a period of six years be fixed. Would it not be more reasonable to say that interest would accrue for six years but that the money could be called for after two years? That would mean that this fund might perhaps be available to the people when they need it most. I do not want to devote more time to that. I merely want to repeat that what he hon. member for George has asked for is reasonable, fair and practicable and if the Minister is not prepared to effect those reasonable, fair and practicable amendments then we are not prepared to agree to his taxation. He can’t have it both ways. If he shows no indulgence to meet us in connection with the points raised by us then we are not able to assist him. What we desire from the Minister at this stage and that is all we ask, and it is something which not only we ask from him but also the industralists outside, as well as all people who are concerned with production in this country, that he will show proof of goodwill and sincerity. I do not think that we are asking too much. We say to him that he should today give a guarantee to prove his sincerity when he says that he is deeply interested in the development of industryin South Africa and in building up the rational income. Those are small modifications for which we have been pleading in this House for a long time.

The hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) has to a large extent moderated the language and the demands of the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth), and in effect he tells us now in a moderate way that all he wants is to see that in respect of industry some provision should be made for the development of reserve funds for industry. Now the hon. member himself has answered that point by pointing out, in dealing with the excess profits duty, that while in Great Britain provision is made by which portion of the duty is set aside in order to have a reserve for the development or reconstruction of industry after the war, the excess profits duty there is 20s. in the £, and only portion of it is set aside.

Yes, but I answered that point also.

No, you only think you did.

And you only think you know Afrikaans.

The position is that, in effect, he comes along at this late stage and asks the Minister to alter his taxation arrangements. After all, we have had the Budget accepted in this House. We have had a discussion of these details in the Committee of Ways and Means, and the Bill which is now before the House is merely, in accordance with the rules of the House, giving effect to proposals already accepted by the House.

But the Minister is going to make an amendment.

A very small one only.

Then he can make this one also.

In those circumstances it is unfair to suggest to the Minister to make any substantial alteration in his financial proposals. But I go further. The hon. member very rightly said that we will have a great deal of expenditure on demobilisation and housing, and he complains, as I also do, that very little has been done on the subject of social security. In fact, at present with the exception of a few small matters, like old-age pensions, the social security scheme and programme that the country has visualised has so far not been given effect to. But that very argument indicates that at the present time the Minister would be very unwise to reduce taxation along the lines suggested by the hon. member. We do not know how much money will be required for demobilisation or for social security or how much more money than has been estimated under the various headings, like the establishment of health centres, the Government will have to spend. We do not know how much money will be required, and to come along and suggest there should be a reduction in taxation might result in the Minister finding himself in the position of not havng adequate means to meet demands in connection with demobilisation, housing and to some extent, at least, implementing the ideals of social security. That is quite apart from the general constitutional position. What would be the attitude of our friends opposite and of the country, if the Minister and the Government came along and said: On account of our having reduced taxation the money required for these very essential services and for demobilisation is not available. Regarded from that angle the suggestion made by the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) and the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) cannot be considered as reasonable or given effect to. The hon. member for George gave the impression that if his Party were in power they would embark on a policy of reduced taxation. He sought to convey to the public that the Nationalist Party would tax them less than the Government is doing at present. The country will have to realise firstly that we are at present in a state of transition from war expenditure to peace expenditure, that we must be prepared to find, the substantial sums of money that are required, that there can be no question at present of reduction in taxation, "and that before any alteration in taxation can be made the Minister will have to consider the question of what modifications he will introduce which while simplifying the incidence of taxation will have the effect of producng the funds necessary for peace reconstruction and peace requirements. For my part I think it fair to the public in South Africa not to keep on telling them we will require less or that we shall be able to tax them less. What we should tell them in fairness is that just as it was necessary to soak many of them to find the money to carry on the war, so it is necessary to have the funds to finance our demobilisation scheme to the fullest extent, to carry out our housing programme and to promote the cause of social security; and that far from reduction of taxation, taxation might even be heavier. For anyone to create an impression that we are over-taxed, or that reduced taxation can be anticipated is to do a disservice to the country. I say this without hesitation, because I think every member in this House will agree with me that now that the winning of the war, the destruction of Nazism, the elimination of the danger of domination has been accomplished, it must be followed by the winning of the peace, the elimination of poverty and slumdom and a state of society under which the privileged shall no longer exploit the underprivileged. You cannot do that without a considerable amount of taxation, and we should imbue the well-to-do and the privileged with the idea that they will have to make great sacrifices in future, possibly as great as during the war. From that angle I think the Minister is to be congratulated on the fact that he has not accepted the heavy responsibility involved in his task of revising taxation without a full analysis of the expenditure we will be involved in in our post-war reconstruction and that he will not revise taxation until he has the fullest information. Just as the Minister has already set up a committee to revise mining taxation I have no doubt he will give his fullest attention now to a revision of the taxation that will have to be applied to deal with our peace problems. I have no doubt that we shall abolish excess profits duty; that is a war measure. But even then we shall have to be prepared for a modification of our income tax proposals. We shall probably have a steeply graduated income tax and taxation should not be a question so much of what you pay but of what you are left with, and those in a better position may have to pay much more than at present. That is the position in which we are placed; and I am sure the Minister is giving consideration to these requirements and that his financial policy, when introduced, will be the result of full consideration. I pass to another point. The hon. member for George and the hon. member for Fauresmith are standing up in this House as the protagonists of private enterprise. All they are concerned with is the development of private enterprise. The hon. member for George goes to the length of saying that private enterprise will do the job. Give it the confidence, he says, and it will do the job. Although I stand for the principle that private enterprise should be given an opportunity where it is prepared to do the work of the community at a reasonable remuneration, I say that experience in this country and in the older countries has shown that private enterprise does not necessarily always do the job; that with private enterprise having profit as its motive power there are occasions when private enterprise does no do the job, and private enterprise will have to be supplemented by national enterprise and public utility corporations.

You are becoming a fascist.

That is a foolish remark. When you think of doing anything towards economic democracy you are immediately faced with the cry of Fascism. I want my hon. friend, the member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) to tell me whether he thinks our friends opposite are going to be the protagonists of private enterprise as he visualises it. I should like to know whether their idea of private enterprise is that visualised by the hon. member for Houghton, or whether in reality it is based on a policy of racial discrimination.

Have you been cured of your Socialism?

I am pursuing the same lines. The ex-member for Fordsburg only recently made a speech on the Witwatersrand in which he said that when they got into power they would get rid of “these foreign British political ideas”, and the executive would be all powerful ….

I am afraid the hon. member is getting right away from the subject.

I am replying to interjections.

Order, order. The hon. member must not allow himself to be diverted by interruptions.

I am only human. Only a few weeks ago an estate agency association was formed under the leadership of Mr. Ben Schoeman, the leader of the Nationalist Party on the Witwatersrand, and it is on an entirely racial basis. I refer to that point because I think the hon. member for Houghton and people outside must realise when they hear pleas advanced by our friends opposite that taxation should be arranged to encourage private enterprise, that it is necessary to understand what those hon. members’ conception of private enterprise is. I think we are entitled to know whether hon. members opposite mean normal private enterprise or Nationalist private enterprise. I am sure the Minister would be the last to suggest that he is a heaven-sent Minister of Finance, I think there has never been a heaven-sent Minister of Finance—Gladstone and all the others had their difficulties and were subject to criticism—but I say, without any hesitation, that he has brought our country through the war period so far as financial arrangements are concerned, and if he gets the opportunity of considering his financial policy in respect of the reconstruction period and the transition period, in the light of the needs in regard to demobilisation, housing and social security, he will definitely bring forward proposals which will enable the Government and the country to give effect to those policies to which we stand committed, although some of our friends are perhaps rather hesitant as to the extent to which those commitments should be given effect to. I welcome the suggestion about a committee being set up, a committee that will advise on what the financial policy should be. But I think I am correct in saying that the Minister has got such a committee. I think that Mr. Justice Blackwell was a member of a committee of that kind when he was a member of this House. I think all that would be needed is to have more Parliamentary representation on it than was the case in the past. This committee would be advisory and make suggestions. I also want to support the proposal that we should have a second Session of Parliament, not merely as a special Session, but I think we could definitely handle the work of the House better if it were divided into two Sessions, if we had a Session dealing with finance and a Session dealing with economic problems, especially social security. I agree we should consider the desirability of having a Session in September, or some date near to that, in order to deal fully with problems of social security with which this country is going to be faced.

What opposition there is to the Bill seems to be more because of what is left out than what it contains. That is significant. What has been left out is a provision that would deprive the Government of revenue it stands sorely in need of. The hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) suggested the Government’s attitude was that of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but it must be very apparent he was rather unwise in the use of the figure, because the Nationalist Party, to my mind, are definitely and totally Mr. Hyde; but one does at least see in the Government the suggestion of Dr. Jekyll. We also had a very portentous declaration by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth). He spoke to the House in very portentous tones arguing that it was inadvisable to tax industry in view of the necessity for industrial expansion, and said that if we did the responsibility for the stultifying of development of industry would lie with the State. It struck me that the opposite was also true. If people who are normally in the habit of paying taxes seek by every means they can find to evade this taxation the responsibility for stiultifying the necessary programme of public work lies at the door of those individuals. It is of course not true that the Minister of Finance has set out to stiultify industrial development. The suggestion that he has so set out is based on the ground that he refuses to include in this Bill the excision of the excess profits duty. If that was done the Minister of Finance would be faced with a serious loss of revenue. Is it not true that the very reason for the existence of the tax is a promise given by the Prime Minister, in the early days of the war to the people of this country; that as far as he was able to ensure it no one should make excessive profit out of the conduct of the war. We know, as reasonable people, that a promise of this sort is very difficult to implement in a positive way. So the next best way was sought and the excess profits duty was brought into being. Having to face the position that in spite of the promise those profits were being made the Minister of Finance proceeded to ensure that as the profits had been made the State would ask those who made them to pay them back. There is nothing unjust about that at all. Not only is that not unjust but as long as excess profits are made, surely those excess profits are subject to the same principle in time of peace as in time of war, particularly as we are all agreed that the peace emergency is at least equal to the war emergency. Some people reason that the excess profits duty should be taken off because in the period following the war free competition in the fields where excess is now obtained would reduce profits to normal levels, meaning apparently that in any case the revenue will eventually be lost. We cannot have our cake and eat it. Do we really mean it when we say that we want money to do the job? If we want the money how can we get it except by taking it from those people who have it? When the hon. member for Vasco (Mr. Mushet) tells us in all seriousness that he believes the peace emergency will cost us more than the wartime emergency I cannot subscribe to that view myself. Without wanting to give false hope to the people of the country, I still believe it need not cost as much; but the hon. member for Vasco believes that it will cost more. What is his contribution towards means for meeting the extra cost that will be involved. When the little argument develops between himself and the Minister of Finance I do not believe he is seeking to embarrass the Minister of Finance, but really wants to help him, and if he would indicate to us what he means I should be very pleased to hear his axplanation, not only of what is wrong with the Minister’s method of levying taxation at the present time but what alternatives he has in mind. The Minister’s job is, we are all agreed, going to be more difficult in peace-time than it was during the war. We have indicated from these bences what we believe is the tight approach, but we have in the circumstances no means of implementing our ideas. We have to accept the fact that we are in coalition with people who do not see our point of view; and who say they do not share it. They were challenged very effectively by the hon. member for Berea yesterday afternoon when he suggested a Reserve Bank credit issued at administrative cost only as an alternative means by which we might get the money needed. The hon. member for Vasco suggested that if he lent money to the Government at 3 per cent. the Minister could not afford to lend out money at 1 per cent. We do not suggest nor did the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Sullivan) suggest that we should go to the hon. member for Vasco for money. The hon. member for Vasco’s suggestion is bound up with the idea that always anybody who does anything either for winning the war or furthering the interests of peace should derive some private gain. Why should some people make a profit on money because that money is wanted for the good of the community? When we are meeting the emergency by national schemes there is still ample scope, as the hon. member for Berea said, for people who want to do so to earn money in the orthodox channels. There are means of obtaining what some call legitimate income by making profit and they will not be cut off from the means to do so. Reference has been made to a special Session in September. I also think it would be a good idea to get down to what we should do in that Session. We all profess to agree that the job has to be done and the money has to be found, and no person paying taxes at present should therefore expect that at this time he will pay less. If he does then his professions are lip service. It is not consistent to talk of blank cheques in order that a Minister may tackle a heavy task and do a good job of work and then proceed to cramp his style and limit him by all sorts of suggestions to the effect that he is asking people to pay too much. Let us be fair and agree that the Minister’s job if hard enough. I sympathise with him in his job. He has a very hard job indeed, but he said he could do it, and of course he will have to do it. I want’ him to hold what he has and stand firm against any suggestion that people who can afford to pay taxes shall be enabled by some devious method of reasoning to be excused from paying a certain portion of them in future. If in addition to that the Minister feels he must call upon all the people to pay in proportion something in direct taxation he will have my support in doing so. I realise as well as most the poverty of most of the people in this country, but I realise too their sense of fitness of things, and I say without fear of contradiction that the poor people of this country—or of any country—are prepared and more than prepared to pay for anything they get. If the arguments one hears in this House are to be taken at their face value it is true to say that they are more prepared to pay than the people who can be termed well off. I am sure the Minister will tackle his job with courage, and I want to strengthen his spirit and his determination, so that having put his hand to the plough he will not turn back and through his efforts we shall be assisted towards realising the picture of South Africa’s future that we have envisaged.

This debate has developed into a general debate on taxation and I trust that I shall be excused if I say that the speeches made here today were mostly a repetition of speeches made earlier in the Session. What was probably not realised by all members, was that the passing of this Bill would not lead to an increase but to a reduction of the burdens borne by taxpayers in South Africa. The provision in this Bill which will have the greatest financial effect is the provision in Clause 3 relating to the savings fund levy as a result of which an amount of £800,000 less will be collected during the current year from taxpayers, than was the case previously. As regards the further provisions contained in this Bill, some are by way of concession and some by way of tigtening up legislation, but most of the provisions will not have a comprehensive effect. One provision which will indeed have a vital effect, is the one to which I have referred. Therefore the passing of this Bill will lead not to an increase, but to a reduction of the burdens borne by taxpayers in general.

The savings fund was so small that it is of no assistance to maintain it.

I do not know whether hon. members who threatened to vote against the Bill realise that they will thereby do something which will not be to the benefit of taxpayers.

You forget the reason why we want to vote against it and that is that it does not go far enough.

I merely desire to point out that in general this Bill is something which is to the benefit of taxpayers and not to their disadvantage.

What about 2 (a)?

2 (a) will not have a very comprehensive effect, it is not comparable to the effect that 3 will have. A plea was made here that because the war in Europe has been concluded further concessions should be granted. The hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) said that the war was over for all practical purposes; the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) said that the position had changed since the presentation of the Budget. Yes, in a large measure that is correct. The war in Europe is indeed past but the expenditure connected with the war is not yet past. The hon. member for George said that the position has changed, but has the position in regard to the financial aspect thereof really altered so much? You see it is true that the war has come to an end but not quite sooner than we anticipated when we drafted the estimates. It is true that we made provision in the estimates for a decrease of approximately £20,000,000 in respect of our Defence expenditure. If there is indeed a possibility of a saving in respect of the direct war expenditure it will cause an increase in the expenditure in connection with demobilisation. To that must be added the fact that it appears that our expenditure in connection with repatriation of our troops will probably be higher than was originally anticipated. It would be wrong to expect that because the war is over we will see a larger decrease in our war expenditure on the basis on which we submitted our Budget. The hon. member for George says: “Yes, but there is a margin.” I can only say to him that I have not yet drafted my Budget in the expectation that there would be a margin. It is quite correct that during the past few years more revenue was collected than we anticipated as a result of the resiliency of the position in, the country but there will also be a change in that respect. There are now certain factors which will necessitate matters not running so smoothly as in the past and to that must be added the fact that since the presentation of the Budget, we have submitted supplementary estimates entailing expenditure of £3,500,000. £1,500,000 of that amount has in fact been provided in the estimates but that means that we already have an expenditure of £2,000,000 more to bear in mind than we expected when the Budget was drafted. Thus if the position has changed in one direction it has also changed in the other direction. If a saving did in fact result in respect of our war expenses account exceeding the additional amounts which we would have to find on other votes as a result of the termination of the war where must we account for that saving? You see our war expense account is financed from two sources, revenue account and loan account. If we did save a few million pounds on that sum of £82,000,000 which we have voted, which account must we credit with that £2,000,000? I would like to ascertain that from the hon. member for George. He has always advised us not to allow our debt to reach too high a figure. If there is a saving then it would be our duty to account for that saving in loan account. If that is the case what remains? There is some inconsistency in the attitude of the hon. members on the other side. On the one hand they say that we must not increase our debt, that we must keep our debt as low as possible ….

Within reasonable limits.

My hon. friend now qualifies it. They tell us that we have allowed our debt to increase considerably during the past years. Of course, the debt rose considerably, and we should do everything in our power to restrain the increase. If savings are effected in our war expenses account then it would be our duty to effect the savings on loan account. My hon. friends cannot in one breath accuse us of our loan account being too high and in the same breath tell us that the saving effected by us on Defence should be placed to revenue account to be utilised towards reduction of taxation and for building up a reserve fund. That would simply mean that you build up a reserve fund at the expense of your loan account.

That is an argument against any reduction of taxation as long as you have a national debt.

No, not in the least—as long as the national debt rises at a fast rate, undoubtedly, and our national debt is rising at a fast pace. My hon. friend says: “Create a reserve fund: sacrifice a part of your taxation and create a reserve fund.” That would simply mean that we would have to borrow more money for that reserve fund in the interests of industry. We do assist industry by means of loan account, through the industrial corporation for example, but the further proposal of the hon. member simply amounts to this, that we have to find additional funds for the promotion of our industries at the expense of our loan account. My hon. friend opposite correctly pointed out that we would have to spend a large amount on housing. We have made provision for £5,000,000. He would like to see us spend more in that regard. It is quite probable that we shall: if we develop the housing programme quickly enough we would quite probably have to find more funds. Would it not be a good thing to utilise it for that, if we effect savings on war expenses account? The hon. member for Vasco (Mr. Mushet) and other hon. members emphasised the fact that the general rate of expenditure and therefore that of revenue would after the war be more or less the same as today. If that is so— and here I repeat what was said by the hon. member for Vasco—would it then be sound financial policy to reduce taxation if you would probably have to increase it the following year? The question is its own answer. The financial policy advocated here by my hon. friends is of course not sound. Then we heard quite a lot about the effect of our taxation system upon industry. My hon. friend for George said that industry was afraid to do anything. Well, that is not borne out by the figures. I have repeatedly given figures in that regard. My hon. friend is not satisfied with the figures furnished by me in connection with the registration of companies. He says that all that capital has not been paid up. But that was always the case in the past. The figures given by me were comparative figures and the purpose was to prove that there is no change in regard to the willingness of the public to contribute funds.

Not to contribute but to promise.

To contribute and to promise.

What about investments?

My hon. friend now wants to deal with it on the basis of investment. He is aware that in every issue of shares at the present time much more money is available than is required. People are not afraid to put up money. I say again, as I have often said, the handicapping factor in connection with industrial development during the past few years has not been taxation, it was the difficulty experienced in respect of manpower and material, and I want to add that also in respect of the current year, acceptance of proposals as my hon. friend wants to put forward in connection with our taxation system will have no appreciable effect upon industrial development in South Africa. The other factor will prove much more powerful.

Say that to the industrialists.

They know that that is true and the facts are against them. Facts prove that the public has ready money and that the public is prepared to put up the required funds. It has been said to me that they wanted a gesture. I do not know what the gesture must be. I thought that the undertaking given by me in connection with new machinery would be considered a gesture, but apart from that I have on numerous occasions stated that I will review the whole taxation system, war taxation as well as normal taxation, and will then deal with the different difficulties in connection therewith, and also that I shall consult commerce and industry with regard to that question. What more do they desire as a gesture? They do not want a gesture: they want a reduction of a few million pounds in taxation. Gestures they have enough, if not from me then from the hon. member for George. I referred a few moments ago to the concession which we have promised in respect of machinery. I do not know whether the hon. member for Krugersdorp. (Mr. Van den Berg) is aware of this concession. I announced it in my Budget Speech.

I refer to the taxation on imported machinery.

We undertook to give a rebate for taxation purposes on new machinery.

But import duties on new machinery which is imported remains the same.

We are not now dealing with indirect taxation. A concession has been made by us. The hon. member for George read something comparing our proposals with those of Great Britain. He said that in Great Britain a concession of 20 per cent. has been promised. We only allow 15 per cent.: but in Great Britain, he stated, an allowance of 9 per cent. is added, which in some cases rises to 24 per cent. in connection with obsoleteness—depreciation—but the same is applicable here. We also make that allowance and the 15 per cent. which we are granting now is in addition to that allowance which we always grant in connection with obsoleteness. In our case it sometimes rises as high as 25 per cent. That is the only difference between the United Kingdom and us, viz. that the special allowance in their case is 20 per cent. and in ours 15 per cent. But if one takes into account the disruption of industry in England as a result of the war then it can be appreciated that they receive an allowance of 5 per cent. more.

Is it also allowed them on agricultural machinery?

Yes, I have already said so. Then there are a few specific points to which my hon. friend has referred; in the first place as regards the savings fund. I want to explain again that in so far as our proposals entail increased payment of taxation it will now, in view of the amendment which I intend moving, be wholly at the expense of the income taxpayer and the net amount payable by a person who is not an income taxpayer will remain unaltered. Therefore this alteration will be at the expense of the income taxpayer. My hon. friend has pleaded for the raising of standards in connection with excess profits duty. He even asked for a cost of living allowance for the person paying excess profits duty. I can imagine the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. Payne) who has made such an interesting speech welcoming anything like that, that we should now provide the person paying excess profits with a cost of living allowance. In the light of the remarks made by the hon. member for Germiston that is going too far. My hon. friend referred to a doctor in Durban who now has less left although he is earning more. Why not? That applies to many people. It applies in the case of the ordinary man earning a salary because the taxes are higher and it should be like that in wartime. My hon. friends often referred to inflation, but increased taxation is one of the means for combating inflation, and if that taxation is properly applied then you must expect in war-time that people who earn more will have less over. That argument therefore does not impress me much and I am as little impressed by the argument that because the war is over his friend should not pay excess profits. May I point out that the excess profits which he will have to pay during the current year will be payable on excess profits he has made during the war? It is a tax upon the income derived during the war. The hon. member for Fauresmith, following on that, has stated that as far as the revenue account is concerned there is a reduction of £6,000,000 on Defence. He asked: Why then not reduce taxation? He has stated that there was only an increase of £2,000,000 provided for social services. Let me assure him that that amount of £2,000 000 has nothing to do with the Bills introduced a few weeks ago. The social security legislation has been introduced for the future. And it is clear that our first duty is bringing the war to an end and our second duty is demobilisation and after that follow measures for social security. The fact that we are not proceeding with those measures during the current Session does not mean a delay in connection with that duty and it does not mean a saving of money. My hon. friend says there is a reduction of £6,000,000 on the Defence Vote, £2,000,000 more is set aside for social services and he wants to know whether the Government is not in a position to do something in connection with reduction of taxation. He has probably forgotten that an amount of £3,500,000 appears on revenue account for demobilisation. As soon as you reduce your Defence expenditure there results necessarily in the first instance an increase of the expenditure in respect of demobilisation. My hon. friend will also notice that there is provision for approximately £2,000,000 more for the provinces. Therefore that amount of £6,000,000 has long since disappeared.

Naturally, otherwise there would have been a surplus on the Budget.

My hon. friend asks why we are not able to reduce taxation. That is because the funds were required for other purposes. He put a question in connection with Clause 6, i.e., the provision that the amounts at present being paid into the savings fund will not be repayable within six months. Let me just explain the position to him. We have always put it like this: where anybody pays more than £20 into the savings fund then that amount is only repayable after six years. Only amounts under £20 are repayable after six months. As regards the person who does not pay income tax the savings fund part falls away. We considered that it would be best to treat all income taxpayers alike and to treat them on the same basis.

†Then I think there are just a few more points to refer to. The hon. member for Vasco (Mr. Mushet) and other hon. members referred to the question of holding a Session of this House in September. The question of whether this House is to be called together again this year is obviously not one on which any statement can be made at this stage. It is a matter in regard to which consultation will have to take place with the Prime Minister after his return and that decision will largely have to be determined in the light of world conditions and not merely in relation to the financial problems of South Africa. It is possible that as a result of world conferences, there may be work essential for us to do during what remains of this year.

You do not consider the financial problems of the members.

I think perhaps I have given some thought to that matter.

You mean half a thought.

Perhaps I should say that if there is a Session in September, or at any time before the end of the year, in the nature of things it would not be possible to limit it to discussions of finance, and it would hardly be passible to lay down a new basis of taxation as part of the Budget proposals which would be submitted next year. The hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) supplemented that suggestion still further by proposing the establishment of a subcommittee of members of Parliament to advise me in regard to taxation questions. I cannot help feeling that there is an increasing tendency to ask the Government to transfer its responsibilities to committees and to let committees take over the duties. of Ministers. They may do the job very much better than we do, but anyhow that is not the position contemplated in our Constitution. Our Constitution separates the legislative from the executive branch. Under that Constitution Ministers have certain responsibilities for which they can be brought to account. It is not correct therefore that those responsibilities should be transferred from Ministers to committees. In this case we have sought the advice of commerce and industry.

That is just the point. You seek advice from anywhere bar the House.

We get lots of advice here; there is no lack of advice here, we get advice here for six months. We have sought the advice of commerce and industry. Naturally the last word must lie with the Government but we are consulting with them and will continue to do so. There is of course no reason why the commercial and industrial organisations should not have invited members of this House who speak for them here to be members of that committee. That is their business. But I do not think it would be reasonable to duplicate that committee by appointing another committee from members of this House. Then the hon. member for Houghton also raised a point in regard to Section 2 (i) (a). He asked why, seeing that the Act came into force in 1940, the amendment was only made in 1945. I can only say that my Department always read this Act when made in 1940 in the terms in which it is now proposed to amend it. We always thought that it had the effect that where a professional man compounds his fees for a lump sum, that is part of the taxable income and part of his pre-war standard. We always assumed that, until a decision of the court cast doubt upon it, and in bringing about this amendment we are simply giving effect to what was our intention when we introduced this Act. The only other point that remains to be dealt with is one which was also raised by the hon. member for Houghton, namely the question of an allowance for the depreciation of buildings. I cannot recall any specific promise I made. Perhaps the hon. member can refresh my memory, but this point has been raised by the joint committee representing commerce and industry and it will be discussed with that committee as we proceed with the general examination of the taxation proposal.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee on the Bill on 1st June.

I move—

In my Budget Speech, I dealt fully with the Government’s proposals in connection with the proposed amendment of the financial relations between the Union and the provinces. This Bill is giving effect to those proposals. As, however, the original Financial Relations Act was passed as long ago as 1913, and has since been amended no less than thirteen times, it has appeared to be desirable not to tamper with the existing Act any longer by means of amendments, but to introduce an entirely new Act. This Bill is, therefore, to a large extent, a consolidating measure. It is for the most part a repetition of the provisions of the existing law. This Bill, is, therefore, very, much less formidable than it appears to be. I propose, therefore, in my introductory speech merely to draw attention to those sections of the Bill in which something new is proposed. I shall not take up the time of the House by referring to those clauses in the Bill which purely serve to embody the provisions of the existing legislation. The first section contains a few new definitions, but they are dependent upon ensuing sections and it is not necessary for me to dwell on them now. We really come to the first new section in this Bill when we come to Section 6 and that is one of the most important sections in the Bill. It provides for a new basis of subsidising the provinces. I have already dealt fairly comprehensively with this aspect of the matter in my Budget Speech and what I am going to say now will, to a large extent, be a repetition of what I said on that occasion. The existing system of financial relations between the Union and the provinces goes back to 1925. Although several amendments have been made since that time, the principle is still exactly the same as it was then. It amounts to this, that the provinces have three sources of revenue available. In the first place, there are the proceeds from the taxes imposed by them and in respect of which they have to act within the powers laid down by this Bill. In the second place, there are those sources of revenue allocated to them, in respect of which they do not pass the taxation laws themselves, but in respect of which they receive the proceeds from sources of taxation created by Union legislation or by legislation of the old Colonies. In this respect, we have items such as transfer duty, licence fees and native registration fees. The third source of provincial revenue is the subsidies which they receive from us and which are voted by this Parliament. The basis of this subsidy from the Union to the provinces is a per capita grant since 1925. This is the basis adopted after consideration of the so-called Baxter Report. The provinces receive their subsidy from us on the basis of a per capita grant which is calculated according to school attendance and according to the number of children of different groups attending the provincial schools. To that, in the course of time, were added, apart from special provision for national roads and native education, no less than seven types of special subsidies. The provinces accordingly receive their subsidy in the form of the par capita calculation in respect of school attendance and in addition to that they receive seven special subsidies, which appeared on different votes in our estimates. That system apparently had several defects. In the first place, it became more and more complicated particularly as a result of the addition of the special subsidy. We departed more and more from the fairly straightforward system recommended by the Baxter Commission. In the second place, there is, in connection with the present system, a danger from the point of view of the provinces, in that whereas the Union Government is granting these special subsidies, the Union Government will lay claim to the right of interfering in provincial matters. The third defect is perhaps the most important. That is, the lack of flexibility of the present system. The provinces have to deal with expanding services. Roads, hospitals, health services and education are continually expanding; but their sources of subsidy are not expanding. The subsidy comprises considerably more than half of the provincial revenue, but the subsidies do not expand in proportion to the needs. Take the Free State, for instance. There we have had in recent times, a decrease in the number of schoolgoing children. According to the system of 1925, therefore, there should have been a reduction of the subsidy payable to the Free State. Parliament realised that this would cause a lot of difficulty and a minimum subsidy over a number of years was therefore guaranteed to the Free State. That still means that the subsidy to the Free State remains unchanged whereas the requirements of the Free State do not remain the same. The fact that it has lost a few thousand schoolchildren has not resulted in an adjustment of the expenditure on education. Nor was that expected. The needs with regard to the other departments of the provincial system have steadily increased. Also, as far as the other provinces are concerned, the increase of the subsidy as a result of the expansion of school attendance, has not been in any proportion whatsoever to the expansion of the needs of those provinces with regard to the services they have to provide. These are the weaknesses of the present system. It has therefore been decided after consultation with the executive committee of the provinces to propose a new basis of financial relations, the purpose of which is, firstly, to simplify the present system. Secondly, we aim at an improvement of the financial position of the provinces especially with a view to the expansion of their services in the future. The proposal with regard to this new basis for subsidy amounts to this. In the first instance, the Union Government remains responsible for the provision for native education, including the school feeding system, and also for national roads, as well as for the subsidies under the Public Health Act. Secondly, the allocated sources of revenue for the provinces will fall away as well as all the other subsidies received by them at present, the special subsidies as well as the per capita subsidies under the 1925 Act. A new basis of subsidy will be introduced, namely, on 50 per cent, of the expenditure of the provinces in respect of their ordinary services. When we speak of the expenditure of the provinces, we include the expenditure of the Divisional Councils in the Cape Province, as well as similar bodies in the other provinces. This payment of a 50 per cent. subsidy is subject to the restriction that, whenever the provincial expenditure in any year exceeds that of the previous year by more than 5 per cent., then the subsidy on the amount of the excess, although only for that year, will not be a half, but only one-third. Then there is also the provision that, apart from the general subsidy, a special subsidy is granted to certain provinces. Firstly, £300,000 is granted to the Free State in view of the general position of that province with regard to sources of revenue. It will be clear to all concerned that the Free State is to a much larger extent than the other provinces, an agricultural province and that it has not to the same extent as the other provinces, large concentrations of urban populations for taxation purposes. We go further and we pay a special subsidy of £150,000 to the Cape Province in view of the fact that there is a large and, on the whole, poor coloured population. It is a special feature of this province, in comparison with other provinces; and this coloured population causes certain educational problems. I am glad to see that the Cape Province is finding it possible to take steps in the direction of compulsory education for coloured children. It is only a first step in that direction but they are finding it possible to make a beginning.

As far as accommodation allows.

Yes. What we are proposing here in connection with the special subsidy, will assist them in that connection. We further propose a special payment of £100,000 in the case of Natal, again in view of the composition of the population in that province. These amounts will be granted, if the proposal is agreed to, for a period of three years, after which they will be taken into review in the light of prevailing circumstances. The financial effect of these proposals will be as follows. According to the old basis, the provinces would have received, in the form of subsidies, on the Provincial Administrations’ Vote, an amount of £7,190,000. The subsidies on other votes would have amounted to £724,000. In addition to that, the allocated sources of revenue would have been approximately £3,000,000; altogether an amount of £10,940,000. According to the new basis, they will receive, as appears from the estimates, an amount of £12,800,000. That means an increase in the grant of £1,860,000. That is a large amount, but in view of the importance of the provincial services, it is not unreasonable to make that provision. As I have said before, the provision for the new basis of subsidy is made in Section 6. We now come to the taxation powers of the provinces and as far as that is concerned, we have to refer to Sections 8 to 10 of the Bill and also to the first schedule. In the first schedule, the sources from which the provincial councils may raise revenue are laid down. In the main these sections and schedules are confined to the existing position and I shall, therefore, merely refer to the changes proposed. The first is in relation to additional taxation powers. In view of the expansion of hospital services which the provinces are expected to provide in the direction of entirely free hospitilisation, it is proposed to empower them to collect a hospital contribution also from the natives, who will benefit from those services. It is further proposed that where the provinces have the power to impose an income tax in relation to the income tax payable to the Union Government, they will in addition, have the power to levy an income tax on natives, on the same basis. Provision for that is made in Section 10 (2). The hospital contribution is limited to 2s. 6d. per annum and it is proposed to collect it together with the native poll-tax. There is in addition, another new provision in the Bill in its present form, which appears in the first part of the schedule, namely, item 12, which provides for a levy or tax on advertisements. It does not mean, as I have read, that Parliament, in passing this Bill, will levy a tax on advertisements. It merely means that the provinces will be given the poweï to consider the levying of such a tax. The provinces have asked for that right and we have declared ourselves to be prepared as far as we are concerned, to relinquish that taxation power and to regard it as something which will belong to the provinces and for that reason this provision has been incorporated in the Bill. As a result, however, of further discussions on this matter, it has appeared that, from an administrative point of view, it would be very difficult to levy such a tax unless it was levied on the same basis in all the provinces. It would be very difficult if it were to be applied in one or two provinces only and it would also give rise to all sorts of difficulties if it was not applied in the same manner in all the provinces. For that reason, it has become clear that if this tax had to be levied, special Union legislation would have to be introduced. I have, therefore, decided to move at the Committee stage, that this item be omitted.

Has that anything to do with the telegrams?

The telegrams to which my honourable friend refers bore evidence that, in the majority of cases, they were not spontaneous. And when we have to deal with an agitation which is not spontaneous, we never attach much value to it. I propose to discuss this matter further with the provinces and to consult them as to the possibility of finding a general basis which will be available to all the provinces. If it appears that something of that nature is possible, then this Parliament will have to pass special legislation in that connection.

It will not be this year.

No, certainly not this year.

A tax on advertisements is enough to kill any Government.

Parliament will then have to consider it and the validity thereof will be subject to its special application by all the provinces, either by way of ordinances or by way of resolutions for which they will bear full responsibility. As far as this Bill is concerned, we do not propose proceeding with that particular provision of the schedule.

That only applies to item 12.

The other item in the schedule are powers they already possess. This is the only new one which now falls away. It is further proposed in Section 8, although it comprises in the main the present taxation powers of the provinces, to make certain amendments in order to remove the difficulties existing at present. In Section 8 (5), it is proposed to remove certain anomalies from the existing legislation with regard to the provincial tax on companies, in so far as it concerns companies operating in more than one province. Under the prevailing system the province is allowed to levy the minimum tax on companies which in certain cases is more than the income derived by the company concerned in that, province. A company may for the sake of convenience have an office in a certain province while its business may be carried on in another province. It is possible for the province to make it pay more than it actually collects in that province. This proposal is designed to change that. At the present moment a position exists which is rather anomalous in so far as it appears that although the provinces do have unrestricted powers in respect of the levying of provincial income tax, it is nevertheless calculated on 80 per cent. of the Union income tax. That means that the provinces are assessing a higher percentage than they would have, done if it had not been calculated on that basis. That is an anomaly and we propose to remove it. Full responsibility has been placed on the provinces and they will have to determine what they need.

That will be the position as it existed prior to 1942?

That will mean that in order to collect the same amount the provinces will have to accept a lower tariff. If they say that they are taking 20 per cent. on 80 per cent., and instead of calculating it on 80 per cent. they were to calculate it on 100 per cent. of the Union income tax, then it would not be 20 per cent. but only 16 per cent. in order to produce the same amount. Then there is another amendment in Section 8 (8), in connection with financial companies designed to bring the provincial taxation powers in this connection into line with the amendment of the definition of financial companies which took place since they received these powers in the first instance and also to restrict the provincial powers with regard to private companies the income of which is allotted to the shareholders and which is taxed as being in their possession. Then there is nothing new until we come to Section 28 in which a small amendment is proposed with a view to remedying administrative difficulties in the Cape Province. Sections 29 to 33 are all consequential upon the proposed removal of the allocated sources of taxation at present at the disposal of the provinces. There is one other new provision in the Bill, namely, at the end of the second schedule, the new item 10. The second schedule comprises matters in respect of which provincial legislation may be passed in terms of a proclemation by the Governor-General. The Natal Provincial Council last year passed an ordinance in connection with water schemes for local authorities. The opinion was expressed at the time that they did not have the power to do that. It is purely a local matter. It is desirable to take action in that direction and it is a matter which has often been raised in this House. It is desirable that the province should be able to take action in connection with a case of this nature where it means that a common water scheme will be provided for the benefit for a few small municipalities, each of whom is not in a position to undertake such a scheme on its own. In order to empower the provincial council definitely to be able to do that type of work, it is proposed to introduce this change. Those are the only new provisions in this Bill. Important changes, as I have mentioned, are proposed with regard to the subsidy. There are also small amendments relative to the taxation powers of the provinces. But on the whole, this is consolidating legislation. As far as the new system of subsidy is concerned, I have already dealt with that in my Budget speech. It has been accepted by the provinces, and I think that, having regard to all the circumstances, although it will cost us rather more, it will result in a considerable improvement in the relations between ourselves and the provinces and also as far as the carrying out of their functions by the provincial councils is concerned.

This is a most important piece of legislation. This Bill defines the services to be entrusted to the provinces and how money for those services will be found. The services include education and health.

No amendment is made in the constitution.

These are the two most important services which must be carried out in the country, and this House would like to conduct a very thorough discussion on the matter. For that reason I am sorry that the Minister has so suddenly decided to give this Bill priority on the agenda.

No.

In any case it fell under Income Tax and other important legislation, but suddenly the Minister has placed it high up on the Order Paper.

If you are prepared to proceed with other business, then I can move the adjournment until tomorrow.

Good, then with the Minister’s consent, I will move—

I second.

Agreed to.

Debate adjourned; to be resumed on 1st June.

I think that it was proved yesterday over and over again that the Minister has introduced a piece of legislation in the House which does not embody any plan. I will not go into that aspect of the matter again, although one feels that the country has every right to expect that the Minister should have introduced in the House, during this sitting, a well thought out Bill and should at least have tried to fulfil some of the promises which he has made from time to time in connection with housing. The Minister has failed to do this. He paid no heed when he was warned time and time again that a serious position existed in the country as regards housing. But all of a sudden, in the last few days of the sitting, the Minister has introduced an emergency measure. I think that it was one of the greatest disappointments to the nation to learn at this stage that yet another emergency measure was to be applied. If there is one thing to which the nation has looked forward and for which everybody in the country has yearned, it is the repeal of the emergency measures and an endeavour to return to normal times as soon as possible. To me it is clear that by accepting this legislation and granting these powers to the Minister, we are doing nothing else but assuring the country that for a further three years we will still be governed by emergency measures. What does this entail? It means that private initiative, that people on the platteland who have waited all these years for a building permit, will be told that they will have to wait at least another year or two before they can obtain a permit. We receive all these complaints from our constituencies. Even yesterday afternoon I found complaints about the controllers in my post box. And now the Minister comes along, and with these powers which he asks for, he gives us the assurance that for another three years he will retain a controller in connection with building. For another three years we will have to live under a controller. If the Minister had done his duty towards the country, if he had endeavoured to fulfil his promises, it would not have been necessary for him, proverbially speaking, to run away from himself. I do not say that the Minister is running away from himself, but he is running away from the cracking framework of the Party to which he belongs. He has been forced to do something. What are the motives? Is there an election in the offing? Is the Minister afraid that if there is an election one of these days, he will not be able to go to the country because houses have not been built?

He cannot go with this Bill.

Possibly he wants to hold this up as a framework. But how far does it really go? Is this what has been promised to the people? Not at all. The soldiers are returning and there has not yet been any provision made for them. Now they are beginning to get panicky and the public will have to suffer as a result. There are thousands and thousands of outstanding applications from people who are waiting to build and who cannot obtain a permit. The Minister will now come and say that he is going to build and that he is seizing all available material. Old outstanding cases which must of necessity be built, will have to wait and remain in abeyance. I accept what the Minister says that certain municipalities have not done their duty, but I also know of a municipality which applied for permits for 29 houses and only eight were granted. Those who were prepared to build were hampered because they could not obtain the necessary permits. The controller would not issue them with permits. We must take all these things into account. I as such am completely in favour of a big national housing scheme. It is one of the necessary things. But if the Minister had worked out his plan and introduced it in time, then he could have made provision in the normal way and it would not have been necessary at this stage to force yet another emergency measure on to the country. If the Minister were to go into the country, he would find, as we have found, that the public are tired of emergency measures and control. They expect an end to come to these things, that they will be repealed and that business and proceedings will take their normal course. Because this is so, and the Minister has come along and taken these powers, he must also realise fully that without these powers he could have said that he was not empowered to do this or that, but now where he is taking these far-reaching powers, he will also have to accept full responsibility. Tomorrow or the day after he will not be able to advance the excuse that he did not possess the powers to do this or that. Now the country will expect it of him that houses are built. I would like the Minister to give me a little more information. He is now getting the powers. Plans will be made to build. Does he intend to apply them chiefly only to urban areas? Is he going to extend them to the platteland? Is he going to extend them even to the farms on the platteland? Does he intend to extend them to the native population? Is he going to make provision on the platteland in order to enable the farmers to make use of them? I want to know what the policy of the Minister is going to be and how far he wants to apply this scheme. It is a national scheme, and when one refers to a national scheme, it is understood to be a scheme not only applying to certain districts or areas, but to be of general application. In his opinion what is it going to cost the country if this scheme is extended on such a scale?

The hon. Minister has, to use his own words, asked Parliament in this Bill for a “blank cheque”. The general impression I have gained from certain members and from Press reports is that members of Parliament welcome this emergency Bill. I wonder if that is true. On reflection I think it can be said members welcome the fact that something, at last, is to be done on the housing problem. But none of us, I am sure, welcomes the fact that it has to be done by way of delegating to the Minister in such a sweeping way our sovereign legislative rights. Very unwillingly we do it because we are faced here with rather desparate circumstances. But surely there are none amongst us so-called democrats here who would not have prof erred, had the exigencies of the occasion allowed, to have the whole matter dealt with in the proper Parliamentary way. Of course it is constitutional to do what we are doing. Parliament can delegate away its law-making powers. We can give the Minister power to do these things, but I do hope he realises, and that the Government realises that we do so with great reluctance, driven on by the urgent necessity that forces us. I do not think any of us want to be members of a body that passes laws in general principle and leaves the executive to fill in the legislative details. I hope all of us are resolved, here and now, to see this is not made a precedent. I hope we shall not be faced again (a) with such an emergency that has arisen; and (b) such a method of dealing with that emergency. We are conferring upon the Minister what are practically dictatorial powers. I think it remains the duty of us as Parliamentarians to see that in this Act there are sufficient safeguards against the possible abuse of those powers. Have we got in this Bill, which gives these powers, machinery to give the necessary Parliamentary safeguards? My conclusion is we have not. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) saw this danger and pointed it out to the House, and he made certain suggestions for a remedy. I gathered from what he said he would like the Minister ….

[Inaudible.]

I will accept the fact as the member says that they were tentative, but they were nevertheless suggestions, and if I can I shall outline the reasons now why even though they were tentative they should be discarded. He suggested setting up a recess sessional committee to scrutinise regulations and to act as a control over the Minister. They were tentative suggestions; he was vague, perhaps dangerously vague, as to how they would function. I take it he is aware of the fact that his suggestion was something which runs counter to our very democratic Constitution.

So is the Bill.

No, Sir! We are entitled at any time to delegate our powers. That is our constitutional right as you should know. What I am arguing is that we should introduce “safeguarding” machinery to see that our delegated powers are not abused. [Interruptions.] The hon. member for Fordsburg has suggested some sort of machinery, and I am endeavouring to prove his machinery is bad and unconstitutional. Does he not see such a committee should not and could not function during recess? Does he not realise that a Parliamentary committee functions under Parliament and under the Speaker of this House? Does he suggest this committee will ever have a right of veto over the Minister? He seemed to suggest this committee would act as some sort of control or brake on Ministerial regulation-making. He mentioned the very word “scrutinising”. I maintain that the thought of a Parliamentary committee acting out of the Session gives a dangerous impression both outside and inside the House. Such a committee could not as he seems to think be vested with any executive power. It could not have any power over the Minister, who is responsible to Parliament as a whole.

What about a Select Committee?

A Select Committee sits while the House is in Session. But this committee would sit while the House is not in Session. The Minister is responsible to this House which is the very basis of our democratic system. Even any scrutinising committee set up during the Session would merely have the power to call the attention of this House to anything in any regulation which the House should deal with; not to express an opinion but to act as scrutiniser for the convenience of this House. It could take no definite line on any of the regulations that might be passed. It seemed to me the hon. member was suggesting some new form of bureaucratic control and some new method of delegation. He was suggesting that we should delegate our powers to a “committee” which would not be directly responsible, constitutionally, to this House. For those reasons I think the establishment of a scrutinising recess committee would be impossible and should not be used. I hope I am not wronging the member in saying that these are ideas our impressions created by his speech, when he seemed to indicate that his committee would be one way of controlling the executive. I am here concerned with the necessity of controlling if possible, the legislative-making powers granted to the Minister in this Bill. I notice he has introduced in Clause 2 (4) and (5) machinery to control regulation-making. In Clause 2 (4) it states—

That, of course, is a reiteration of clauses in many previous Acts.

[Inaudible.]

I am trying to do something which the hon. member has failed to do; that is to deal with the delegation of powers concisely and in logical order. I am now dealing with safeguards the existence of which the hon. member for Fordsburg is apparently unconscious. Those regulations, sub-section (5) goes on to say, shall lapse if a resolution is passed “by either House of Parliament” disapproving of such regulations. It is one of the four ways which can be used, but it is not strong enough in this case. My suggestion to the Minister is this: that the essence of Parliamentary safeguard is that it should be easily invoked and automatic. Neither of these two essentials apply to the safeguarding clauses in the Bill. What chance have we got at Parliamentarians of bringing motions before this House in terms of these two clauses? The usual Parliamentary opportunities are totally inadequate. I do not propose to reiterate what I said before on a previous motion I moved before the House. I think it is quite definite we have not here got the necessary safeguards we need. Would the Government give us time to discuss these regulations on the floor of the House? I maintain in terms of this subsection we would find it very difficult to discuss any regulations. I think we could alter this paragraph in such a way as to force Parliament to consider these regulations. Would the Government agree to alter the clause to make it more positive; to decree that the regulations “shall lapse if not affirmed in a specified time”. In that case, if a regulation has to be affirmed, then it must become the subject of the business of this House and an opportunity must be given to us to debate it. I would like to have the Minister’s answer to this suggestion, that this clause should be altered in such a way as to cause any regulations to lapse if they are not confirmed in a specified time. I notice what is evidently a fault in the wording of sub-section (5). I am sure it is not the Government’s intention, but it says: “If a resolution is passed by ‘either’ House of Parliament disapproving of any such regulation ….” According to the wording of this clause it seems to me that even though this House might approve of a regulation, if in the Other Place, it was disapproved, then it could not become law.

The wording is quite right.

I think what is meant is “both” Houses. The Government surely means that the regulation must be approved by both Houses. This, I think is an error in wording; I think it is unintentional.

The position is if one limb of Parliament disapproves of a regulation that makes it lapse at once.

I had not presumed that was the intention of the Act. To the best of my knowledge all regulations are not usually subject to a clause like this. If that is so in this case I am very pleased. I was merely calling attention to what I thought was a mistake. The Government intends, it appears, that the Senate may veto something that this House approves.

The clause has been deliberately drafted in this way.

I shall now deal with the second part of the statement of the hon. member for Fordsburg. The Minister said the Bill was giving expression to his conviction that the housing problem constituted a national emergency, and the Government was prepared to accept full responsibility for attempting to solve the problem. I hope the public does not imagine that Government supporters have only just realised, now, that housing is a national emergency. Many of us have been saying that for over a year. We know, and have known for some time, it is a national emergency, and we are tackling it on that basis. We are prepared to give the Minister, reluctantly as Parliamentarians, arbitrary powers to deal with this situation. But I should like, if I may, to make a suggestion endorsing, strangely enough, in some respects the suggestion made by the hon. member for Fordsburg, that this extraordinary situation should be met by novel methods. I think, although we are entrusting the Minister with what he calls a “blank cheque”, it is a blank cheque that is drawn on our account. It is a blank cheque drawn on the United Party members of this House.

Are you afraid of it?

I am very glad to note the Opposition is going to help honour this cheque which then is endorsed by every single member of this House. I want to suggest, as the hon. member for Fordsburg has suggested, that, some extra unofficial Parliamentary assistance might be given to the Minister, in a purely advisory capacity in this period between Session and Session. I take it he will be given the necessary technical advice by his Housing Commission. He will have very important administrative decisions to make. The Cabinet, at the end of the war, will also have very important decisions to make, and they will be very busy with their own business and may not be able to help him as much as usual. I feel that as these extraordinary powers have been given, as we have been so reluctant to give them, and as all of us have a personal responsibility to see this “blank cheque” is honoured, we might claim some right to assist the Minister as far as we possibly can in the period between the Sessions. The Minister will at that time be deprived of the usual advice he gets during the Session from his Party, the help from his caucus, and the by-no-means-to-be-despised helping criticism from the Opposition benches. My suggestion is that in this time of emergency a team, or if I must use more conventional language, a committee, of all Parties if necessary, should sit permanently in Pretoria during the recess to assist and advise the Minister. I want to make it quite clear that he would be constitutionally under no obligation to take the advice of the committee. This committee would be unofficial and in no sense a “select” committee. It would not be a committee of this House, and the members would be unpaid. This committee might be chosen from members normally resident in the Transvaal and chosen from those who would find it convenient to attend regularly.

I have already appointed an advisory committee, and I am going to extend the offer to the Opposition as well.

I was unconscious of the fact that the Minister had decided that. Which brings me to another point that the Minister, although asking for very revolutionary powers, told us very little about what his plans are or what he has decided.

The Minister must have appointed the committee since his speech yesterday. [Interruptions.]

From the cross talk it would appear the Minister has agreed in principle to the suggestion I am throwing out now.

He will be glad to accept anything to get out of the trouble.

I think the Minister is quite right in this emergency to have asked for these powers. But I do wish that in asking for a “blank cheque” he had not presented us with a “blank plan”. I do not think he should ask us for practically dictatorial powers without telling us how he is going to use these powers. Perhaps my language, in talking of a “blank plan” is a little too strong and I will modify it by saying I am sure the Minister has plans, and by asking him to let us know these plans when he makes his reply to this House. I am sure that he visualised, perhaps in detail, the use he will make of the powers we are asked to confer upon him, but I think he has erred in not telling the House sooner, what his plans are. I am sure that before his commission came to him they said to him: “We cannot function efficiently; we cannot carry out the task of national housing unless we have emergency powers,” and they must have told the Minister what they would do if they possessed these powers. I am sure they knew and the Minister will tell us of it presently, that intense fact-finding, research and planning should have preceded this request for such powers. I presume they know, for example, what sort of houses are wanted; what prices people can afford, and what rents; how these houses should be divided between the different income groups and colour groups; how priorities shall be given; how many houses are unoccupied—and I hope they know about the six unoccupied houses belonging to Princess Labia; how many evacuees will move away; how many returned soldiers will need houses; what land is available for all this in town and country; what property is under the Custodian of Enemy Property and what will be done with it. I am sure the Minister and his commission,, before they told him they wanted powers, had all these details at their fingertips, and I am sure that the Minister will be in a position to tell us exactly what these details are. This whole House approves, perhaps somewhat unwillingly, of his desire and intention to expropriate land, for here, I think, a serious democratic principle is involved. We approve of his intention to cut through the red tape of control, of his intention to keep the price of materials down. We approve of his ideas for increasing the labour force and to provide employment for ex-soldiers of all colours. We approve of and appreciate the attitude of labour in co-operating as they have done, to train more artisans, to take on more apprentices and to cut down the period of training of apprentices. I hope agreement will be reached with the labour force employed to lay more than 400 bricks a day. That, I believe, is considered quite the average today, but 800 is quite within their reach, and if they do so it will double our output of houses. I am thankful to labour and to the Minister for deciding to let non Europeans build their own houses and for coming to the conclusion to dilute labour.

[Inaudible.]

But I do not like my speech being “diluted” by interjections by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside). I notice that profits will be limited and we are thankful to the Government for giving guarantees of employment to the trade unions and to labour, because they are giving up many advantages for which they fought for many hard years. There is much in the intention of this Bill that all of us approve of. It is possible that the experiment and the experience we will gain by it, if successfully carried out, will have permanent beneficial results in showing just how capital and labour, private enterprise and State enterprise, can work together in harness for the good of this land in what I might call an immense partnership. There is nothing this country wants more, at the moment, than strong leadership. It wants, applied to the problems of winning the victories of peace, the same optimistic, confident and above all co-operative effort from the whole nation that was needed to win the war. We have the opportunity—but please, Mr. Minister, will you tell us what your plans are, so that we can all join in and put our shoulders to the wheel to help in solving this national problem of national housing?

It is just about a year ago that the Minister concerned made a speech in this House about housing. He made a long speech which is on record and to which I shall refer in a few moments. I just want to say this: If the Government on the other side possesses any self-respect, it should get rid of that Minister as soon as possible. Last year he came here and made a long speech which had been written out. It was all properly documented. He wanted to make the House believe what he was going to do and also what had been done already. He held out the prospect of a wonderful organisation, an organisation which he, with the assistance of his young friend, the Minister of Economic Development, was going to set up. I maintain that if any other government had been sitting on the other side, it would have got rid of this Minister, in view of the fact that he failed so completely to carry out his duties. No government with any self-esteem would carry on for a single moment with such a Minister, if he had made such a failure of housing as that Minister made of it. Last year, in consequence of a motion and as a result of a feeling which arose in the country, he read out a statement in this House. Yesterday he read out another statement and I maintain that those statements were written out for him. He has not yet made a study of the difficulties in regard to housing. He allows himself to be guided by his Department. Here in the House he went so far as to give a testimonial to Dr. Hamlin. He gave him a glowing testimonial and afterwards he repudiated him.

Dr. Hamlin repudiated the Minister first.

We can read in his speech what he said last year about Dr. Hamlin and within twelve months he repudiated him. That goes to show that we can have no confidence in the people appointed by the Minister. Is that the work of a man to whom we can entrust legislation of this nature which will give him such extensive powers that Parliament will no longer have any control in the matter? Last year the Minister told us how many houses would be built, but those houses have not been built. From the Minister’s speech I will show that although he came here today and stated that we had a state of emergency, last year he already knew what the position was in regard to housing. This Session he wants to make us believe here that we suddenly find ourselves in a state of emergency, whereas last year he and we already knew what the position was. The Minister then told us what he was going to do and I say that he failed hopelessly with his whole scheme. One of the Bills which he would have liked to pass here is the Bill on Instalment Sales of Land. That is one of the most important Bills, because its purpose is to enable people to obtain land in a cheaper way. We now find that that Bill has been pushed in the background. I maintain that it was a part of the whole scheme. The Minister quite possibly would have come with another Bill too. He suddenly finds that all his promises have vanished into thin air and he now wants to have this Bill because ostensibly a state of emergency exists. Let us read what the Minister said a year ago.

You want to make propaganda now.

It is the truth but it hurts the hon. members over there. They have failed in their duty. They held a congress at Bloemfontein during which they gave a charter to the people of South Africa. Houses would be built and provision would be made for social security, but they have produced nothing of the sort. Last year the Minister said the following—

The Minister will remember that at that time they appointed a committee which afterwards submitted a report. He also said—

That was just over a year ago. Then he went on to say in connection with the report—

There the Minister had the whole housing question before him. Last year a state of emergency already existed. He had 14 months in which to draw up a Bill and to consider the matter in its entirety, and he failed to do so. I ask the Minister where he gets the idea that now all of a sudden a state of emergency has arisen which entitles him to come here with such a Bill in which he asks the House to give him full powers? He announced that a wonderful committee had been appointed which would go into the whole housing problem. Last year during the second reading of the Housing Amendment Bill he said as follows—

He introduced that Bill, but never made use of it. As we noticed here he said that machinery would be created to provide in all our requirements. He said that the machinery which he had created would be sufficient in regard to the serious position in which the country found itself and also in regard to the future. In his speech he announced that he had appointed a committee. He also said that £7,931,000 had already been allotted to local authorities in regard to sub-economic housing and he said that the whole amount would run into £23,000,000. He maintained that the amount in regard to sub-economic housing had been increased continually in spite of the extent of pre-war obligations, until it reached the figure of £23,000,000. Then the Minister went on and gave us a whole series of figures of how much had been spent or allocated to various towns and cities. He gave amounts in regard to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Germiston, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth, Springs and Bloemfontein. Hon. members on the other side will remember how they were beside themselves with joy over the speech of the Minister. They referred to what had already been done and they said that they had a Minister who was going to tackle the problem. But he did not do so. If the reason is that they overload the Minister with work, then it is the Minister’s duty to turn round and say that he cannot fulfil his obligations and that they should relieve him of his obligations. He cannot continue trying to carry those obligations if he is not capable of fulfilling them. He is trifling with the future of the country as far as housing is concerned and by this time he should already be convinced that he cannot fulfil his obligations. Furthermore he said in his speech—

He was going to tackle the housing problem and in his speech he announced that he had appointed Dr. Hamlin to the post of Director of Housing.

I also said how many houses had been built during the war period Read that out to the House.

The Minister said as follows—

That is what the Minister himself said. I know that hon. members on the other side become fidgety when they hear this because they want to defend a Minister who failed to do his duty. Furthermore he gave a description of how the schemes would be proceeded with. He said that an architect and other experts would be appointed. Thereafter he referred to the fact that the Government had obtained the services of Dr. Hamlin, the City Engineer of Johannesburg. To him the Minister referred as follows—

When we read this speech it really looks as if the Minister has bitten off more than he can chew. Now we have to come here and receive from him a Bill which is an emergency measure in which the Minister takes unto himself extraordinary powers under which he wants to do as he likes. We are a democratic country and the Minister always waxed so eloquent in regard thereto This Bill is the exact opposite of that. But I want to go further. The Minister also waxed eloquent about Dr. Hamlin. Dr. Hamlin was the deus ex machina of the Minister who had to put everything in order. He would effect all the miracles. What does that same Dr. Hamlin say now?—

The Minister held out the prospect of many thousands of houses which would be built and here we have what the previous Director of Housing has to say about it. He went on—

Where are you quoting from?

I am quoting from the report in “The Friend” of Bloemfontein of the 16th May. He is the person who received the very best testimonial from the Minister last year. He went on and said that there was still the question of land. If they wanted to carry out a housing scheme successfully, land would have to be available on cheaper terms and not only for State undertakings but also for the individual. In this Bill coming from the Government provision is also made for loans to individuals. It applies to the person, who was mentioned here yesterday by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren), to the man who draws a salary of between £25 and £30 a month. Those people cannot obtain land in the immediate vicinity of the cities to build houses, for that land has been completely bought up by large companies, which then sell it by way of plots at a very high price. That was the reason why we on this side agreed in principle on the Bill in regard to sale of land on instalments. Dr. Hamlin went still further and said—

That is the position in which we find ourselves today. The other side of the House is quite satisfied with the Minister. But we and the country know that he failed in his duties towards the country and as the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) said, the same Minister now comes along and asks us to give him a blank cheque. In his speech the Minister said that he could not proceed with the legislation which he had in mind “because there were mechanical difficulties”. I do not understand what he means by that. Does it refer to the supply of materials or to the artisans? Quite possibly that is one of the difficulties he had. It is possible that we cannot provide the requirements because all the materials cannot be manufactured here. We should like to have more particulars from the Minister in regard thereto. We are now faced with this problem, that we have a Minister to whom we must grant these full powers. We all realise the necessity for the building of houses. Year after year the problem becomes bigger and bigger. There is, however, one thing which we ask ourselves particularly and that is whether we are not perhaps again going to build slum houses, as happened after the last war. At that time we built houses which very soon became slums. We should like to know from the Minister whether we are not again going to build houses, one row after another, all the same and all unaesthetic. We want to know whether there will be proper planning for the areas in which those houses will be built, and whether those houses will not be built in such a way that after ten or fifteen years they will be nothing but slums. If we are once more going to follow the procedure which was followed after the last war, then we will soon see rows upon rows of houses which ultimately are going to deteriorate so much that no decent people will want to live in them. Is the Minister simply going to proceed with the building of houses right and left, or is he going to confine himself to this wonderfully planned scheme which he mentioned in his speech last year. We should like to know very much. Then there is still another matter, namely the artisans who will be required for the building of these houses. Scores of people will have to be taken on in the building trade to build these houses. In this interview Dr. Hamlin stated that 75,000 building artisans will be required to build the houses. We have only 26,000 available. I want to hear from the Minister how he is going to make good that shortage. This is a matter about which this side of the House feels very concerned. The Minister says that 5,000 of them are in the army. That is all right, and we do not find fault with it. But we also should like to know whether the same facilities will be made available for the men and boys who are now in the country and who have not yet had any training, so that they may be included for training under the scheme in order to become registered artisans. That is the question which I should like to put to the Minister. 75,000 labourers, trained artisans, are required. According to Dr. Hamlin we only have 26,000 available. The Minister now tells us that there will be 5,000 returned soldiers. We demand that the same facilities for training will be given to others, who then will also be able to receive a proper training and to be absorbed in the building industry as artisans. That is what we have in view. Today there are large numbers of temporary lessees who have to leave their holdings, who in many cases with their families have to migrate to the towns, and many of them will have to obtain houses in the towns. There are a large number of them who will now have to come to the towns and their children will have to find some means of existence. If the Minister will tell us that they may quite possibly find work in the building industry, then we know that the sufferings of those people will not be so terrible, for today there are thousands who have to leave their houses where they have been living for years and years. Then there is another matter which I want to discuss and that is the question of the control of building materials. Is the Minister going to create a pool of all the building materials in the country and in how far is he going to allow the small building contractors to get their rightful share? Wherever one goes in the country one finds that the small building contractors have a serious grievance. During these war years they have done very little work. They cannot give the security in order to obtain large Government contracts and they find that they cannot make a proper living. The permit system is of such a nature that the large building contractors obtain all the permits. They are nearest to the fire and they get all the warmth. The small building contractors want to know in how far they will be given relief. This housing problem is not limited to the towns and villages; one also finds it in the rural areas. In how far will the rural areas receive consideration under the scheme? Will the farmers who require houses for themselves and for their labourers be able to obtain assistance under this scheme? Finally I want to come to the Bill itself. As far as this Bill is concerned I agree to a great extent with the hon. member for Wood-stock. The powers given to the Minister here are tremendously wide powers, and I wonder whether the local authorities will be satisfied with Clause 2 (1) (1) and (m) under which the following conditions will be prescribed to the local authorities—

1. (l) The provision of prescribed services by a local authority in any area in which dwellings have been constructed, and the charges to be made for such services.
2. (m) The powers (including the restriction of existing powers) of local authorities to impose rates or other charges (including differential rates or charges) in respect of land or dwellings owned by the commission or acquired from the commission or acquired or constructed out of monies advanced by an administrator or the commission.

Did the hon. Minister consult the municipalities or the executives of the municipalities of this country in regard to this question? I notice that in sub-paragraphs (k) (i) and (ii) provision is made for subsidies to individuals. How is that going to work? That is something we should like to know. Where will they have to apply for loans or subsidies. Then there is something which makes me somewhat suspicious, namely paragraph (o). That looks to me very much like billeting. Does the Minister want to have the power to billet people upon families? Does he want to have that power? The paragraph reads—

The hon. Minister has in the past already referred to billeting.

He threatened us with it.

When did I speak of billeting?

If the Minister did not speak about it, then the threat has been used by other Ministers. I think the Minister himself spoke about it. We on this side want to know whether he wants to obtain the power to billet people. I want to tell the Minister that if he should proceed to the billeting of strangers upon private families there will be a rebellion like there never was before. He will uproot our entire family life. Then I want to refer to Clause 2 (2) (b). There you get regulation after regulation. You notice there that the hon. Minister will have the power to make regulations and he can also delegate to certain bodies the power to make regulations. There will be two sets of regulations. How are we going to keep control by this House over such regulations which are made by other bodies? The other regulations will have to be laid on the Table of the House. Here, however, I read—

1. (b) Different regulations may be made under the said sub-section in respect of the commission and any housing board established under Section (4) or in respect of different housing boards so established, local authorities, companies or other bodies, areas or schemes, or in respect of different classes of local authorities, companies or other bodies, areas, schemes, dwellings, contracts, contractors, employers, artisans, learners, apprentices, employers, materials or equipment.

All the regulations must be tabled.

Even the regulations made by these bodies?

Where does the Bill say so? The Bill says that the Governor-General can make regulations in connection with the body.

In any case it is clear that we will not have regulations by the Minister only but that there will be other regulations too.

Made by the Governor-General and all of them have to be tabled.

I shall be glad if we can keep the control.

The House will have the control.

However that may be, it is not at all a sound state of affairs. Afterwards you will be so hemmed in by regulations that you will not know where to tum. I also agree with the remarks of the hon. member for Woodstock in regard to sub-section 5. Will the Minister give time to the House to criticise these regulations? As it stands here no provision is made as to how the regulations will be brought to the notice of the House for discussion. The regulations will be laid upon the Table, but how is the Minister going to make provision for the approval or disapproval thereof.

Any member who objects against the regulations can propose a motion to that effect.

And when does that motion come up for discussion? Most likely after the Session is over.

It can in any case be discussed under my vote.

First of all we are faced with the difficulty that we realise the urgent need for houses and then we are faced with the other difficulty that we have a Minister who asked for legislation to build houses last year; we gave him that; he knew how many houses had to be built and he did nothing. What assurance do we have that when we give him these powers he will make use of them and that the use will be efficient in so far that we will get the houses. Furthermore we are faced with the serious problem that the House has to delegate its powers to a Minister and one does not know in how far the Minister will make proper use of those powers. I did not expect that in this year 1945 we would still get a Bill of this kind in this House. As far as I know there has been no other country which has ever delegated such powers in normal times. What is the tendency in England today? Today the tendency in England is to revert to the normal conditions under which Parliament is supreme where Parliament has the final say. They repeal their emergency regulations, but we here are saddled with a Government which told us during the past six years that they were fighting against a dictatorship, but here they are creating a greater dictatorship than we have ever known. We are sorry to cede those rights but we want to have proper control and the Minister should as far as possible meet the objections raised by the hon. member for Woodstock and myself in regard to Clause 2 (5), by properly amending that clause and I hope that we shall soon have an opportunity to discuss the regulations promulgated by him.

As the hon. Minister proposes to take the question of housing into his hands, which is something we have frequently asked him to do, we naturally welcome his effort, but I must say at once that after I had perused the Bill and taken note of the powers the Minister is here asking, I am not prepared to give the same power to the Minister that we gave to the Government during the dark days of the war. It is unnecessary today to place such powers in the hands of the Minister. Insofar as the Minister will have the requisite authority to go ahead with his housing schemes I am prepared to accord him my support, but there are one or two things in this Bill which I do not like, and I trust that the Minister will permit us to alter those previsions so radically during the committee stage that it will at any rate give satisfaction in this House and in the country. If we allow the Bill to go through in its present form, without the revisions in Clause 2, then I fear the land will definitely have to pay for that and when I say this the Minister must not take it as a personal reflection upon him. That is not my intention, but powers are being asked for here that I am not prepared to agree to. I have made a thorough study of the Bill and I have searched in vain for a provision that allows the Minister to let private individuals build their own houses. I can find no such provision. But I find in Clause 2 that the commission will exercise control over material, and in consequence of the fact that they will have control over material no private individual will have the right to build his own house in his own time and in his own way. That is one of the foremost objections. I am not opposed to the control of the prices of material. There I think the House will unanimously support the Minister, but we do not want the position to recur in connection with the control of materials that it will be placed in the hands of people who give preference to certain favourites as has happened recently. Under this clause I can see absolutely no provision under which a private individual who wants to build a house can go along and ask for the building materials. He does not possess a house and he wants to build one, but he will not be able to obtain materials. I have searched the Bill for that opportunity but I cannot find it. What is the effect of it? The effect is that you will be confronted with this position; all houses will be built exclusively under the control of the commission and the local authorities. The great mass of the people will simply have to wait. They all will have to go through this one channel. If our experience was that every channel is utilised when a task is tackled and that it is expedited as much as possible we should perhaps have reason to say: We are prepared that you should put up these houses; go right ahead! But our experience is just the reverse. We find not only red tape, but also it is really the exception when you have capable people to speed up the work. I am not saying this to cast a reflection on anyone, but I am speaking from the bitter experience we have had in the past. I know in my heart that the right people will not be appointed. The Minister must not be offended when I state that. But I know that the Big Four or the Big Twenty will again play their rôle.

Who are they?

They are the people who want to do the work in order to foster their own interests. The Minister has asserted that this is not a repetition of cost-plus. I tell the Minister that it really is a repetition of cost-plus. True it will not be 10 per cent. this time. Here it will not 6 per cent., but it remains cost-plus, and the Big Four with their favourites will do just what they like. Those thousands of people who want to build their own houses in their own way and in their own time will be completely eliminated. I maintain that if the Minister leaves an opening for private individuals to build their own houses we shall find that when in two years time the Minister comes along to render an account of his stewardship and tell us how many houses have been built his success will be fourfold compared with his expectations, provided these people can only get the material. I do not want the Minister to close the door on the man who wants to build his own house. I know there are people who proceed from the standpoint that houses should be built only by building contractors with years of experience in the building trade. I say that on the Witwatersrand you today have houses that were built by big contractors and within twelve months those houses have become dilapidated. Hon. members who come from the Witwatersrand will support me in that. But the houses that my father and his brothers built 30 and 100 years ago are still standing today. They have not cracked or broken down. The cheapest and the best house is the house that was built to stand for all time.

Are you accusing the artisans of not being able to do their work.

I am not saying that, but we are too inclined to run away with the idea that when a house is built by workmen under the supervision of a big contractor it is necessarily a good house. I can show you houses on the Witwatersrand that have not been standing twelve months and they are full of cracks. There are hundreds of people who have never built a house who can build as good a house as any man. I do not want to suggest these people should go out to build houses for other people, but allow them to build their own homes. As I have said before, the commission will have control of building materials. We know that the private individual who wants to build for himself will be bullied and bilked. He will not know the ropes or how to set about getting a permit. He will be fobbed off, and because I am convinced in my heart that the private individual who wants to build for himself will be sidetracked I am taking up the cudgels on his behalf. Give me a house that has been built by a man in his own time and in his own way, and I can assure you that house will stand for a long time. Now I want to know whether the Minister is going to allow that. It is clear to me from this Bill that the private individual will not have the right to do this simply because he will not be able to obtain materials. What is going to happen now? Your Big Four type of contractors will get all the business as they got all the business during the war, and they will be only out to help their friends. The small man will have a raw deal. I want to tell the Minister that if he will see to it that private individuals are given permits and are permitted to erect their own houses he will have solved his problem within two years. As the Bill now reads the small man has no hope against the big and powerful contractor. He will not be able to obtain material or he will have to wait until they have skimmed off the cream and then perhaps he will get a little. I want to know why the private individual should be eliminated. Why cannot the Minister say that the quickest way to stimulate housing in this country is to ensure that the available material is distributed as quickly as possible? It is stacked up to the ceiling. I proposed that course two years ago. The materials are being accumulated. Do you know for whose benefit that is? I do not charge the Minister in that connection, but it is for the benefit of those in authority who are behind him. Do you know who is going to get that material? The Big Four again; the people who got the Fortification contracts and they will build in that way.

Who are the Big Four?

It is those with the moneybags who will see that they get material. The small man will not smell that material. Will the Minister in his reply say that every individual, whether he falls under a big municipality or not, will have the legal right to be taken into immediate consideration and that he will not have to wait until the Big Four have skimmed off all the cream? Much more is bound up in this Bill than one realises at first blush; and I think as far as concerns the workers of South Africa we have had just about enough of the control of manpower and we are not prepared to grant that authority again. The man who thinks the workers are prepared to allow themselves to be bound down for another three years under such jurisdiction as that exercised by the Controller of Manpower is entirely out of touch with the feelings of the workers. Let me tell them that the South African workers, the South African Trades and Labour Council has unanimously disapproved of the control of manpower. Does the Minister imagine that we are prepared to extend that power again? I oppose that to the utmost because I believe that the Minister can carry out his plan without resorting to controls. Have we not had six years of war? Now I should like to put a personal question to the Minister. What right have we now got, notwithstanding the so-called emergency that exists, to lay down that a part of the workers of South Africa must remain under control, that the building industry workers should remain under control? Although the employer is referred to in the Bill in practice it is the employer. I may say, suppose I am going to build a house for myself; I get a few tradesmen to help me, and then the controller comes along and says these men may not work for me, that they have to work at a large place. If there is one thing we cannot tolerate it is a continuance of the control of manpower. The Minister can proceed with his scheme without that tyrannical power. I can give the Minister the assurance that if there is one thing that is unpopular in South Africa it is the control of manpower. Is this right? Is this a free country? Every other section of the community is free and can do what they please. The mineworker can do as he likes, he can work in whatever mine he wishes to. Any other tradesman can go where he fancies. The tailor can work where he desires. But the building worker, the carpenter and the mason, is not allowed this liberty. He still falls under control. And have we not had a great deal of experience of the unsympathetic enforcement of control? Have we not experienced that a good deal? I say that during a period of war we were prepared to sacrifice everything, but now the war is over we are not prepared to concede anything of that sort. And what strengthens me in saying this is the fact that I am convinced the Minister can carry out his plan without exercising control over manpower. Take, moreover, the question of wages. I think here the Minister is going too far. I had thought the matter of wages was something decided by the Wage Board, by industrial agreements, but here the Minister is also taking the question of wages under his control; it appears to me to be overlapping with another department. What is it we have here? We have this position, that all the schemes will be carried out by contractors. Then we say to all the workers in the building industry: Look I am compelling you to work for the Big Four or their friends on the basis of 6 per cent. The 6 per cent. is guaranteed by the Big Four. In other words you are obliging a man—it is well-nigh tantamount to conscription—to Work for a contractor, for a firm, who will make 6 per cent. out of him. This House has only the right to force a man to work for an employer when no profit is attached to it. But no free citizen may be compelled by Parliament to work for a company when there is profit attached to it. I say I am not prepared to allow this to go through. During the Committee Stage I shall urge the Minister to make an alteration. This Parliament has no right to do this sort of thing. Parliament could only take such a course if there was no profit involved in it, but to say now that you are going to take a free citizen and to compel him to work on a basis of 6 per cent. profit—where will it land us? Members on the other side have said they will give the Minister the power. Well, not with my acquisence. I shall definitely not do so. We had to put up with that tyrannical attitude during the war, but we cannot permit it any longer.

How are you going to vote if the Minister does not comply with your request?

You will notice that under paragraph (vii) of (s) the power will be exercised because there we empower—

I have mentioned that power is taken to prevent private individuals obtaining material to build houses. In sub-paragraph (i) of (t) it is stated—

and then under (ii) it is stated—

Do you see here how clearly it is emphasised that the material which has accumulated today will not be obtainable by the public, or people who want to build houses, but by the Big Four and their friends. Well, I had thought that the country had suffered enough by the war. They must have made enough out of cost-plus during the war to be satisfied. Why should we go further and say that the people should be bled white in order to give them their 6 per cent. We cannot concede that.

How are you going to vote if your demand is not acceded to?

That is of course his own business.

There is another matter on which I trust the Minister will furnish the House with a reply, and it is something everyone is anxious to know—what is going to be the price of the houses? He will tell us that he does not know what the land will cost ? How can the Minister speak about expropriation if he does not even know what the land will cost? He says three things are necessary—land, material and labour. He knows exactly what the labour will cost. He ought to know what the price of materials is today. He ought to know at what price he will be able to purchase land. How is it he is not in a position to state the price at which the houses will be available to the public? This is one of the most important things. Do not tell me that after the war our soldiers and the members of the public will want to be provided with houses costing £1,500 and £1,600 and £2,000. Persons with a salary of £25 or £30 a month cannot pay that. If houses of that sort are envisaged the scheme will prove abortive. If we are going to build houses costing a penny more than £800 or £900 we shall be building houses altogether too expensive for a person in receipt of an income of £20 or £30 a month. He will not be able to afford it. We know that. The big four have representatives everywhere, and they are endeavouring to instil it into the minds of the public that you cannot build a house at a lower figure. That is not correct. During the war houses were built by the Department of Lands that I would be satisfied with, and would live in, for less than £400; but the Big Four and their friends and the municipalities tell you that you cannot provide a house under £2,000, and then they want us to accept that. That accounts for the contractors racing round in order to skim off all the cream within three years so that during this period a great number of houses can be disposed of by them at £1,500 to £2,000. The Government and the nation will then be saddled with these expensive houses in the future. This matter of the price of houses we cannot just let slide. The second reading must not be taken before we know something more about the matter.

A little while ago, I do not know how many of the members were present, the Minister of Public Works recommended the so-called “austerity house” to the people of Johannesburg. The Minister said on that occasion: This is the sort of house we are going to build in view of the circumstances. Look, what a miracle that such a house can be built for £1,500. Let me say that house was not worth half as much as the houses built by the Department of Lands for £400. On the same day at least half a dozen contractors who were there said: We wish that the Minister would tell us how many thousand of these houses he requires at £1,500; we shall build them. But they were valued by the public at £400. I ask the Minister to stand up as the guardian of the people, because we are confronted with attempts to squeeze the people dry now that the opportunity is there. All sorts of wires are being pulled to exploit the great shortage of houses and by a lot of wangling make the public pay dearly for the houses. Because we know that most people are willing to pay for a house more than they know it is worth, just in order to have a home. I make this suggestion. Let the Minister say at once that the cost of all material will be fixed at pre-war prices plus the enhanced cost that according to the Government represents the increase in prices during the war. Not a penny more. Then it will be equitable. Then we shall find out the fellows who have told us the livelong day to what an extent the costs of living have increased. Then we shall see where they come in. I say that the price can be fixed for boards and screws and locks and ceilings and all these articles, and they should not cost a penny more than before the war plus the increase in price corresponding to what the Government has determined is the increase in living costs; nothing more. Then we may expect that we shall get houses at reasonable prices. But now we hear mention of houses costing £2,200 that before the war were £700 and £800. I ask where we will land ourselves if we say to the people: Here are your houses, but as soon as the people are in them we know that they will be plunged into poverty. Because if they have to pay on a basis of £1,500 and £2,000 for houses worth £700 and £800 we shall be conferring as great a disservice on the people as is possible. That is why I am suggesting this way out. The Minister says he requires these large powers. Let him then keep control on the material and fix the prices for the material, and let material be available for every individual so that no one will have preference. Then the Minister will find out that the municipalities will co-operate with him and he will be able to utilise his commission to the fullest extent. Not only will he receive the co-operation of the local authorities in the matter but he will find that all the individual forces now slumbering in the country will rally to him and the housing plan will progress much more rapidly than will be possible under this Bill. I know the Minister’s scheme will not have progressed far when the suggestion will be made that the scheme should again be modified, and what I am afraid of is this, that instead of concentrating the people’s energies in fostering the housing scheme a new complexion will be given to it. It will be said that we cannot put up 10,000 houses but that we should allow the importation of prefabricated houses. I know that is being mooted, and as soon as the Minister finds he is not making progress with his plan his so-called experts will tell him that he must import houses to satisfy the people. I want to protest in advance against any attempt of this kind because I know the tremendous agitation that is in progress in the House to import the so-called prefabricated houses from other countries and to put them up here. We do not want this sort of thing. We want houses that are constructed of bricks and stone obtained in our country, because such houses will prove much cheaper in the long run. Do not import these so-called temporary houses, because they will cost us a lot in the end. The best house is the house that may cost a little more now, but that is built of good material. Do not let us import houses on a big scale in order to get rid of this scheme and to escape from it as soon as possible. I only want to tell the Minister that I am not going to vote for his Bill at the second reading. Those are my reasons. And in Committee I shall ask him to introduce the necessary amendments, and I hope the Minister will realise that what I have stated here today is not directed against him personally. I know he is in earnest because he, just like myself and other members, have already talked and talked, but he has not made any headway. I want to tell him this that I am not going to stand in his road if he wants to do anything, but I should make myself guilty of gross disloyalty if I should give my vote for this Bill knowing that paragraph (ii) as it now stands is in direct conflict with the interests of the workers and the freedom of the workers. Therefore in Committee I shall urge that the position should be so improved that the Minister should at least have the goodwill and co-operation and support of the workers in connection with his plans.

I am one of those who wishes to support the efforts being made by the Minister of Demobilisation to translate into being the promises that have been held out to the returned soldiers that they would have a roof over their heads soon after their return from active service. The Bill itself is a very far-reaching one but I have a good deal of misgiving as to the final end and termination of this matter, because I fear very much that the spirit of the blank cheque may infect those who are to be the Minister’s humble instruments in carrying out his policy. Public servants are all too prone to take a view of this kind, and to run loose to a considerable extent in regard to matters of expenditure often becoming regardless of a reasonable and right-minded policy in carrying out a big-minded enterprise. I do not know of any enterprise carried out by public servants that has not cost four times more that it should have done, and I think they are a very expensive luxury when you come to rely on them for building or construction work. The point I have misgiving about is the extremely far-reaching power that is taken under this Bill. Not only have we almost reached a totalitarian stage, but even in regard to the ending of these powers indicated by the limitation of 3 years—at the end of three years the widest powers are to cease—the bodies that will have been put into being by these powers have an almost unlimited lease of life. Like John Brown’s soul they will “go marching on” when his body lies mouldering in the grave. That will be the case with the powers the Minister will be provided with by the passing of this Bill. The spirit of the blank cheque may have its good purposes, but from one’s experience of bad times, as well as good times, one comes rather to fear the blank cheque spirit. I have heard many a distressed soul express thankfulness and exclaim: “Thank God for the good bank manager—that is the bank manager who honours cheques on an overdraft”. And in regard to this matter it seems to me we shall be treading a very dangerous path if we give such unlimited power to people we know very little about. The Minister we know, and we honour the enterprise and vigour with which he takes up matters he has to introduce into the House; and I must say he portrays his enterprises in very captivating terms he usually gets his own way in this House. I want to be sure in such an enormous matter as this that he is going to find the sound and careful men to carry out the policy to which he has set his hand. One thing I am extremely doubtful about, and that is the clause which deals with the construction of companies which are to have power over—

This prescribed class of company “or other body” is the sort of body I am most suspicious of do not like these companies or other bodies that are constructed to do certain things for a Ministerial department. They are new features in the picture. We can understand Government control. We can understand the Government building of houses, but why should a company be promoted to deal with the salé of the dwellings? There is always, to most of us, a suspicion of some kind of graft going on in connection with these companies that spring up through provisions of this kind, and I hope that the Minister will, before we get to the Committee stage of this Bill, decide upon a really extensive cutting down of the dangerous powers set forth in the Bill at present. There are many powers which the ordinary prudent and careful mind rejects at sight, but I do feel that the Bill is very cleverly designed to give almost painless totalitarianism. Where in the past we have been inclined to take fright at Government by regulation, it is now called by a different name, “a prescribed company” or “prescribed class of company”. That, in other words, means a company that is constructed by regulation, and we are going to have, before we know where we are, to authorise expenditure for a tremendous number of things which we shall be taken to have approved of under this fascinating word “prescribed” which we did not intend. As a matter of fact, I think the Minister should go very carefully over this Bill again. Most of us are tremendously uneasy about the prospects of the returned soldier finding when he comes back that no provision has been made for his future residence in his own home. I hope, sir, at the same time, the Minister will not take excessively extensive powers that will merely encourage the avaricious and dishonest to pester him, to be a constant source of annoyance to him, arid so impede the real legitimate work that should be got on with. This Bill, to my mind, presents too many temptations to the avaricious and the enterprising who are always hanging around the skirts of any great enterprise to see what rake-off they can get. We have to profit by the past and we have to be prepared for that kind of thing, and to see we hold out no great opportunities to them to make hay while the sun shines. I hope the Minister will, on second thoughts, before we reach the Committee stage, cut out a great deal that is in this Bill, that will not be really necessary for him in embarking on a bold scheme which is aimed solely, with one single purpose, at the housing of the men who come back, and at the erection of dwellings in the best and most satisfactory manner possible.

I do not think it is necessary, nor are we called upon at this stage, to offer any further criticism against the almost unlimited powers which the Minister asks this House to bestow upon him. I think the country is more concerned about an urgent need that exists than the granting of powers that may or may not be excessive. I would only ask the Minister to bear one factor in mind. We know under leases which exist today there is usually a clause prohibiting the lessee from sub-letting. I do not see that is specifically provided for, but I take it the general provision which gives the Minister power to determine the conditions of land tenure will, in the present Bill, enable him to make provision in the regulations to be promulgated to declare any prohibition against sub-letting void. We know of several instances where people living in Pretoria have come to Cape Town for several months during the year, and they cannot allow their houses to be sub-let for fear of cancellation of their lease. This is a matter that has been taken up with the Minister’s department, but I feel the opportunity afforded by this Bill should be seized upon to obviate an anomaly, which certainly allows many houses and flats to remain vacant during several months of the year. There are just one or two points that were dealt with by the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) that I shall touch on, before generalising on the Bill. I take it he voices the sentiments of the Party he represents, the Labour Party. I want to ask him from our side whether we are entitled to expect co-operation from Labour through their trade unions. I feel we are entitled to know their attitude. To what extent is labour going to assist us in keeping down the costs of houses. To what extent are they going to take pride in craftsmanship in working on the buildings on which they may be engaged? We know that several bricklayers content themselves with laying 200 bricks a day and regard that as a day’s work, and we also know that a good bricklayer can lay 800 or 1,000 bricks. Speaking to an old contractor the other day about conditions in the past—15 years ago—when there were not so many machine tools—he said that a carpenter could hang 8 doors a day doing all the work by hand, whereas now with improved building devices and machinery he is satisfied to hang two doors only. If we are going to have an outburst from labour criticising us so severely, we must ask them to what extent they are going to co-operate and assist. During the discussion of the Minister’s vote in Committee of Supply I raised the question of costs. I am sorry that the Minister’s reaction was not as full as one expected. If I remember correctly all the Minister said was that he would draw the attention of his department to the figures mentioned by me. The question of costs is of such paramount importance that I make no apology for reiterating it here this afternoon. If these houses are going to be put up at an exorbitant cost the scheme is bound to fail. The houses will have to be paid for over a period of many years and the terms will be easy, we hope. I believe that in a few years we will have returned to normal and prices will recede to pre-war levels. If therefore we give the ordinary man a house costing £2,000 and expect him to pay it off during a time when a similar house would cost only half, we will destroy his pride of ownership. That house will not be looked after properly and we will have a repetition of the failures we had in the past when so many municipalities refused to avail themselves of housing loans because they said that these people did not take sufficient interest in their homes and allowed them to go to wrack and ruin. I feel therefore that I can at this stage again mention the figures for which experience has taught us in Ermelo that houses can be built. We have a non-European house of three rooms which can be put up with non European labour for £113. That is the overall cost. I have listened to speakers this afternoon and not in a single instance have figures been mentioned which approximate that figure. All the figures mentioned were 200 per cent. or 300 per cent. higher. I feel that if it can be done at Eremlo it can be done elsewhere. The materials used were good. The workmanship though not of the highest order is good and it will ensure that the house is permanent and lasting. In the case of Europeans we put up a five-roomed house with two sanitary conveniences outside at a cost of £460. If you add the cost of the land and the Union rates that you may have to pay in the bigger centres it will bring it up to £600 or £800, and that is still a reasonable figure. I cannot over-emphasise the importance of cost. Unless you can give a man a house at a reasonable cost the scheme is bound to fail; it is doomed to failure. Much was said about the shortage of skilled artisans. This Bill will make a change in the situation. There will be a dilution of the restriction requiring only skilled artisans to be employed. I make bold to say that some semi-skilled artisans put up a utility house which will stand the test of time. It was mentioned this afternoon that our forbears built houses of mud and these houses have stod for 200 years. With semi-skilled labour we can put up a house, quite a decent one, which will stand the test of time, but we must nevertheless insist upon a certain standard. We know that during the building boom on the Rand jerry-built houses were put up at fairly high cost and even before they were completed they were showing signs of cracks and many of them are dilapidated structures today. I might mention another experiment which is worthy of trial. One of the collieries in Ermelo has gone in for a scheme of prefabricated houses. They use what is called vermiculite, a composition of low-grade mica which is processed by mixing it with a certain quantity of cement, and when this vermiculite is cast into a form three inches thick you have the same strength and stability that a nine-inch brick and mortar wall would give. Its added advantage is that it is fireproof, damp-proof, soundproof, and, above all, verminproof. As we are having so much trouble in the coastal belts with pests like Italian beetle or the powder beetle attacking wood, this is a form of structure which I think should commend itself. We know that a tremendous amount of damage was done in the coastal areas by these beetle pests, and in this connection it may be worthwhile for the Minister to insist that when we import timber from overseas, that timber should be pre-treated in the country of supply, or otherwise, at the least, it should be treated here, because you might put £100 worth of timber into a house but if you have to replace that timber once the house is finished the cost of replacement will be out of all proportion to the original cost of the timber. We cannot overemphasise the importance of the pretreatment of timber. I think timber will prove to be the bottleneck of any housing programme. I have seen the figures and it will require at least 75 fully loaded cargo vessels per annum to supply us with the timber necessary for our Government and municipal housing schemes. I shall be glad to have the assurance from the Minister that provision has been made for the acquisition of the necessary timber because unless we have it we will not be able to carry out the housing schemes. In passing I feel that appreciation should be expressed to our Forestry Department for their efforts. They have in the years past had the foresight to lay down large areas under forests and if it were not for our locally supplied timber we would have been in a very parlous position during the war period. Now, coming back to the question of costs, in this Bill provision is made for basing costs on a cost-plus system. We have had very unfortunate experiences in the past in connection with military contracts. Very often the cost-plus system offers no inducement to economy at all. The more cost the greater the remuneration of the contractor, and I would like the Minister seriously to bear in mind the possibility of private enterprise contracting and building in competition with the cost-plus system. I do not wish the Minister to rely solely and entirely upon this cost-plus system. This system may have its advantages but it certainly has serious disadvantages. In conclusion I would again commend the Minister not only to direct the attention of his officials to it but to examine very closely the details I have given him about the Ermelo scheme, because cost is of paramount importance.

I have listened carefully to the debate and I do not think any mention has been made of the platteland. From all I could hear it was only the towns and cities that were spoken about. I would like to stress the point that I think the Minister should bear in mind that we have recruited many men from the platteland to go to the front. Those men today will be coming back and many of them would like to go back to the platteland but many will have no homes, because some of them after joining up got married and they will be coming back without any facilities for housing. In this legislation proposed everything goes to the cities and towns and I would like to stress the point to the Minister that the artisans whom we recruited from the platteland should also be considered. When the men come back and the work of building starts they will have to go to the cities. On the other hand we find that a good many natives have turned out to be builders. There are good builders amongst the Basutos. I would like to know from the Minister whether he is only going to make provision in this legislation for giving work to natives belonging to the Union or whether he will extend a helping hand to the natives from Basutoland and other territories. If he does that he will find that a good many Union natives will not get work under this legislation but that the Basutoland boys will get all the work. He speaks about regional committees. These regional committees, as far as I can understand, will only be applicable to the cities. I would appeal to the Minister to look to the platteland too and to see that there are regional committees there also. Then there is the following. I am now speaking about my own area. 1,000 men went to the front. These men look to us today for homes. If they find that the only facilities are to be given to the cities I say these men will have every reason to be disappointed with us. May I make a suggestion on these lines, that the Minister should, in his reply, tell us something about what he intends doing for the platteland. It will be much appreciated. If he says that they can borrow £250 to construct a house on the platteland he will be doing something for the returned soldiers from the platteland. But there is absolutely nothing in the Bill which grants the platteland any facilities.

There is nothing against it though.

If the Minister studies the Bill he will see that it always just refers to “local authorities”. I therefore think that we should have these regional committees in the platteland. He should also allow us to get a loan, or revert to the old system of giving £50 to a man to build a house. He will then be doing something for the returned soldiers. May I tell the Minister that there are men today most anxious to build houses on the platteland, not with material which must be got from somewhere else, but with local material. The only thing they want is doors and windows, but even these they cannot get at present, and I appeal to the Minister to see that these big firms and the control boards who have the right to control all building material will not exclude the small man, and that the platteland will get its fair share. I would also like to say this that I do not know whether the Minister has taken into account the number of people in this country at present from other countries but I do feel that if we are going to have these expensive houses some of them will go back and that the Minister will keep down their numbers. May I also say that the Lands Department have at Vaal-Hartz houses costing the Department £350 with boarded floors and ceilings, a dining room, three bedrooms, a kitchen, pantry, bathroom, and two mosquito-gauzed verandahs. These houses have stood the test for a good many years now and I hope the Minister will do something on similar lines. We ask for serviceable houses on the platteland. The other point is this. Certain young men will leave school and under this proposed legislation I do not see how they can become artisans in the cities. I do hope the Minister will not prevent these young men from becoming artisans and that provision will not be made for the towns people only. The last point is this: Some of these artisans may be qualified and may be good for the towns and the cities but I say we have men on the platteland who can build a very good house although they have no certificates. They have built good houses in the past. I hope the Minister will not bring forward legislation to say that they must first pass an examination before they can build a house. We in the small towns and on the farms should be granted facilities to build for ourselves. But the Minister must help us to get material. In the past it took people more than 18 months to get a permit for a door for a house. I hope this will not continue. If the Minister does not do this you will have a setback in the country which is uncalled for. The people on the platteland, who supply the food for the cities must be helped so that they can become producers. Lastly the Minister must give preference to those in the malarial areas. Unless certain facilities are given to them they will be in need of medical assistance. I appeal to the Minister seriously to consider this because these areas at present are being developed on a very large scale and unless they get special facilities it will be a setback as never before in this country.

I want to move that the debate be now adjourned.

No, we can still go on a little while.

All right, in that case I should like to bring a few matters to the notice of the Minister. I want to associate myself with the remarks made in regard to building workers. The Minister should not limit himself to artisans only. If he does so, the work will be impeded for a long time. There are boys who are capable, but who have not been able to join the trade unions, although they can do the work. Furthermore, I also do not want him to curb the initiative of private individuals. Let everybody who wants to build a house have the opportunity to do so. The Minister will remember that there was any number of farmers who wanted to build houses during the war, but the size of the houses was limited so much that most of them could not build. The floor space allowed was too small and the farmers did not build because in many cases they thought that if they had to build a house of that type, they would afterwards have to build on again or have to enlarge the house, which would mean additional expenditure. Since the Minister asks for all these powers, I hope that he will give a definite reply on this point and that he will tell us whether the farmers will have the opportunity to build. In some cases they have been waiting for three or four years for the reason which I have already explained and they would now like to have the opportunity to build. This is a very important point as far as we are concerned and I hope that the Minister will consider it sympathetically and that he will be accommodating so that those people can obtain the necessary materials. I know of scores of cases where the people could not build because under the emergency regulations the scheme was such that it would have been quite impossible for those people to build. It would simply have meant a double expenditure in the end. I hope that the Minister will give an explanation on that point.

I shall be brief. To begin with I feel that this Bill is the most important matter introduced this session and it cannot be denied that it has been overdelayed. But the criticisms that have been levelled at the Controller of Building Material have to a great extent been justified. I feel that the handling of permits has been ineffective, slow and unjust. What I suggest should be done right away is to lift the ban, to lift all control on buildings of 2,000 to 2,500 square feet and to make the material required for houses of that size available to everyone, so that the private individual will be able to put up his own house. The few points I wish to raise are mostly in connection with the returned soldiers. Up to the end of hostilities winning the war was priority number one. Now demobilisation comes next and I feel that housing the soldiers should be priority number one. Then there are our prisoners of war and returned soldiers who have been away for four or five years who could not look after their own affairs like some of us who did war work but did not go away. They must have preference in every way. I feel that the Government should take immediate steps to procure as much timber from Europe and as many fittings for houses as they can, to have them available when shipping space is procurable. I also feel that the Minister should at the committee stage introduce an amendment to empower him, to subsidise houses for soldiers and prisoners of war, apart from the grants and loans they will get from the Demobilisation Department, because I am afraid that the cost of these houses, on account of high wages and inreased prices of materials, will make it impossible for them to pay for the houses. It is said that there is a shortage of labour and artisans. When the war broke out we were short of munition workers and other war workers, but womén were co-opted and they made a very good job. I do not say you have to co-opt women workers in the building trade, but in many walks of life there are people who would be only too keen to assist in building houses In conclusion I want to say that the country will not be satisfied with anything less than very prompt and speedy action. The Minister asks for a blank cheque. We gladly give it but we expect him to make proper use of it. The provision of houses will be the acid test for the Minister and his department and for the Government.

I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

Debate adjourned; to be resumed on 1st June.

Although the Minister has been considering this question for years, and although the Corbett Committee has enquired into it for years, I cannot congratulate the Minister on the results. There is nothing original in the solution offered by the Minister, and in my opinion this Bill undoubtedly does not offer a permanent solútion of the financial difficulties between the Union Government and the provinces. My impression is that the Minister has earnestly sought for something better. He has searched and searched, but apparently his ingenuity finally deserted him and he fell back on something with which the Union commenced, something we had already tried out and which had failed. It had failed because this system of subsidisation could not be applied to the financial difficulties that existed in the difficult postwar years after World War No. 1. Now we are faced with the same post-war problems, after World War No. 2, and I believe just as this system failed after World War No. 1 it will also fail on this occasion. We are sorry not only because the Minister’s scheme will come to grief but because there is a big danger of education suffering in the way it suffered in the years 1920 to 1924, when the Nationalist Party Government had to find a proper solution for the difficulties. The Minister’s Bill falls in a natural manner into three main sections. It is a consolidating Bill. In the first place we have a clear description of the functions of the provincial councils, of the services that the provincial councils are responsible for, and the legislative powers they have in connection with them. The Minister has stated that this Bill proposes only one alteration in the existing powers, and that in connection with the construction and control of water schemes. The Minister has forgotten to tell the House that he has entrusted a second service to the provincial councils, and one about which I shall have something to say later, namely, school feeding. Previously it was a joint service. We laid down the policy and exercised supervision over it. It appears to me that the Minister became a little afraid of the baby for which he was responsible, and he is now attempting to place it on the doorstep of the provincial councils. But we shall talk about that later. The first part of the Bill describes the services the provincial councils are entrusted with and the legislative powers they have in connection with them. The second part grants certain sources of revenue to the provinces to place them in a position partially to finance those services. The Minister has stated that there have been no noteworthy alterations except in two respects. In the first place the provincial councils now have the right to impose a hospital fee in the form of a poll tax on the natives to a maximum amount of 2s. 6d.; and the other at which the Minister has already jibbed, namely the right of the provinces, if they so wish, to impose a tax on advertisements. In connection with that the Minister has stated he is not certain whether the thing is right and he would like to consult further with the provinces about it. There is therefore only one thing remaining over, and that is the poll tax on the natives, with a maximum of 2s. 6d. Representations have been made to us that 2s. 6d. is inadequate and the Minister should consider whether it is not possible to increase the amount from 2s. 6d. to 5s. It is impossible to provide adequate hospitalisation for the natives at 2s. 6d. a head. I want the Minister to realise that as far as the Cape Province is concerned he will have exceptional difficulties. Our natives go to the Transvaal to work; there they contract certain diseases and when they return to the Cape we have to provide them with medical services and hospitalisation. The Cape Province especially feels that 2s. 6d. a head is inadequate and we should like to know whether the Minister will take into consideration increasing the amount to 5s. should that be necessary in the future. The Minister does not want to come to the House every year to make an alteration, and consequently he should make this provision more elastic. Now we come to the third section, and that is the important one. Here it is admitted that the provinces’ sources of income are not adequate for the services for which they are responsible, and the Government now proposes that the Treasury should assist the provinces with funds. It is here the Minister has made the biggest change. In the Act of 1913 it was provided that the Union Government should contribute 50 per cent. to the expenditure of the provinces. That basis of subsidisation answered its purpose in normal periods, but in the post-war years it no longer answered its purpose. It failed. Then the Nationalist Party came and laid down a new basis; for the sake of convenience I shall describe it as the Havenga basis. It was that we should entrust certain services, to the provinces, certain very important services such as education and certain health services such as hospitals. Under the Burton system education especially suffered, and the Nationalist Party then resolved whatever happened it would introduce a system of subsidisation that would put the provinces in a position at any rate to finance and look after education in a proper way. Consequently the Havenga system of subsidisation on a per capita basis of school-going children was brought into operation. That system worked for twenty years. It was elastic. It is true that the Union Government was obliged to introduce a new form of subsidies in respect of new educational services. But for twenty years the system worked, and it appears to me the Minister should rather have improved on that system. Now the Minister comes with a brand new system. What does he propose? He lays down in this Bill that there are certain services that are so important that the Union Government will be entirely responsible for the expenditure. The two services he regards as of such importance are national roads and national education. He is subsidising national roads 100 per cent.; and he is subsidising native education and the school feeding of native children 100 per cent. The attitude of the Union Government is, therefore, in the first place that these two services should not be allowed to suffer whatever else may happen. The roads that have to be built for wealthy people to drive on must have funds, and the Union Government will advance 100 per cent. of the expenditure. The same applies to education and the school feeding of native children. Whatever, else happens the education and school feeding of the native children may not suffer. That is the stand-point of the Minister and he is prepared to advance up to 100 per cent. When it comes to the European child and the coloured child the Minister is prepared to advance only 50 per cent. of the expenditure. There the Minister makes the efficiency of the education of the European child and the coloured child dependent on the capacity of the provinces to contribute 50 per cent. of the expenditure. But because the Minister himself has a feeling that the money thus provided will not be adequate he tells the three provinces that he will give them additional contributions. The Transvaal is regarded as well enough off. To Natal he gives £100,000; to the Cape Province he gives £150,000; and to the Free State an additional £300,000. But the Minister lays down that those globular sums are only guaranteed for, three years, and at the end of the three-year period he will investigate the matter further to ascertain whether it is necessary to contribute further amounts. I should like the House to realise that in the judgment of the Minister there are certain provincial services he regards of sufficient importance that he is prepared to finance them 100 per cent. It is peculiar that it is national roads and the education and feeding of native children that the Minister regards of such importance. Education for European and coloured children is, in his opinion, not so important, and the Government is not prepared in this connection to contribute 100 per cent. There the Government says it will only contribute 50 per cent. of the expenditure. That is diametrically opposed to the old Nationalist policy. The Nationalist Party stated that whatever happened education, especially of the European child, might not suffer. The basis of the Minister’s system is that whatever happens education of the native child in South Africa may not suffer.

That is, of course, a misrepresentation.

That is the policy.

But it is a misrepresentation of it

Has the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) read the Bill? Does he know that the Minister in connection with the education and feeding guarantees all expenditure to the provinces of the native child; is it a fact or is it not?

Because the provinces cannot bear that themselves.

What is wrong with it?

The policy of the Nationalist Party was that we would guarantee their expenditure in connection with education. Accordingly we gave them a per capita subsidy in connection with school-going children. Whatever the financial difficulties of the provinces may be in difficult years they would get that revenue in respect of education and in respect of that education, especially the education of the European child, they would never be short. Now the Minister says: No, we do not regard the education of the European child as of such importance; it is left over partially to the capacity of the provinces, but we guarantee in future only the funds required to give the native child proper education and to feed him properly That is the difference between the Nationalist policy as laid down in the Havenga basis and the policy of the other side. The Havenga basis is being thrown overboard and in its stead we have the new system that this Minister is introducing, namely that the most important service to be entrusted to the provinces in the future is the education of the native child and the school-feeding of the native child, and expenditure in those directions are guaranteed 100 per cent. That is the first objection we have to the new system. In the second place, we object to the Minister allowing only a margin of five per cent. The Minister says that if the expenditure of a province in a certain year exceeds that of the previous year by more than five per cent. the province will receive only 33⅓per cent. further assistance from the Government on the sum in excess of a five per cent. increase. Now I should like to put a question to the Minister. We know there was a very important report in connection with national health services. The Government decided to leave the work largely in the hands of the provinces. We know that if the provinces comply with the desires of the public in South Africa in regard to national health services as far as the provision of hospitalisation is concerned, there will in the immediate future be an increase of expenditure under this head. The Minister restricts this to five per cent. I want to ask the Minister whether he really believes that it is possible for the provinces to give effect to what the people desire in the matter of naional health services and to remain within the limit of five per cent, imposed by him. In the second place, the Minister stated yesterday incidentally that he was glad to hear that the Cape Province intends to introduce compulsory education for coloured children. He is glad. I want to ask the Minister this: suppose the Cape Province introduces compulsory education for coloured children will this not involve such an expansion of coloured education that the 5 per cent, limitation will be immediately exceeded? Does the Minister believe it possible for compulsory education to be extended to coloured children while keeping within the 5 per cent. limit? Well, if the Minister says it is impossible is he not immediately throwing on the Cape Province a greater burden than the Cape Province can bear. We feel that the Minister should at least do what is laid down in the Act of 1913. That Act allowed a margin of 7½per cent. The Minister is limiting it to 5 per cent. and we feel that the Minister should make that 7½ per cent. Let us be very clear on one point. The provinces cannot give effect to the pressure of the people for ampler health services and remain within the 5 per cent. The Cape Province cannot make proper provision under this system for compulsory education for coloured children and remain within the 5 per cent. And at the moment if the Cape Province exceeds the 5 per cent. a heavy burden will fall on it. In the third place we want to say this: The distribution of wealth in South Africa is not equal. Some provinces are richer than others. Much of the wealth of South Africa is in the Transvaal Province. It is the richest province of South Africa. Prof. Frankel has calculated that in 1938-’39 the national income in respect of the Transvaal Province was £211,600,000 while the national income of the Cape Province, the mother province of South Africa, was in the same year only £107,915,000. According to those figures the income of the Transvaal was twice as large as that of the Cape Province. The result has been that in the past the Transvaal was enabled to develop its education system in a better way than any other province. We know that in many respects the education system in the Cape Province is far behind that in the Transvaal. I should like to mention a few ways in which it does fall behind the Transvaal. In the Transvaal education is free up to matric; the Cape Province cannot yet afford that; in the Cape education is free only up to Standard VI. In the Transvaal they have made Standard VI part of the secondary school and all educationists agree that this is a very good change, to make Standard VI part of the secondary school. The Cape Province cannot yet afford that.

What about the Free State? It is still poorer.

I am now making a, comparison between the Transvaal and the Cape Province. In the third place, the Transvaal has done much more in the direction of vocational training. It has gone much further in connection with the system of school farms. We in the Cape Province have not been able to afford that either. It is reckoned that if the Cape Province would introduce immediately the things the Transvaal enjoys today it would involve an increased expenditure of £500,000. Transvaal is thus, as far as educational facilities are concerned, far ahead of the Cape Province today. Under this 50-50 system, with the wealth the Transvaal has, and with the revenue it has, the advantage the Transvaal possesses becomes even greater in comparison with the Cape. The difference that exists at present between the school systems of the Transvaal and the Cape will become greater. The wealthy province is the one that will benefit most by this new system. We know that the Transvaal is the richest of the provinces, then comes Natal, then the Cape and then the Free State.

The Cape has the best system.

The Cape has a school system of which we may be proud, although we cannot provide everything that the Transvaal has today. But my point is that as far as the establishment of schools is concerned the Transvaal is better off, and if it was in a position to do more, and should the difference between the revenues of the provinces from now on become greater, the result will be that the Transvaal school system may be improved from year to year, while the Cape will find it increasingly difficult to maintain its school system. The province that will experience difficulty is the Cape. I should like us to take note of the fact in regard to the Cape that in one year, in the past year, the number of coloured children in the schools in the Cape Province increased by 5,000, while the number of European children in the schools virtually remained the same. The greatest expansion and the greatest expenditure in the future, especially if compulsory education is introduced, will be in connection with coloured education. The Cape has not the sources of revenue the Transvaal has. The margin under the Minister’s system is very small with the result that if Cape Town wants to do its duty in respect of coloured education the European child will suffer. The Minister is caring for the native child. He guarantees the expenditure as far as the native child is concerned. The Minister guarantees 100 per cent. of the expenditure in that respect.

In the same way as under the Havenga policy.

The Havenga policy also guaranteed the expenditure in respect of the European child.

It did not.

The Havenga policy stated that a subsidy would be given in respect of every child in so far as it was necessary to give a good education to every European child. The Minister must not come here and say that it is the Havenga policy that is being continued. A radical change has been made, education of the European child being now the responsibility of the provinces and we are contributing only 50 per cent. The responsibility of the native child remains the responsibility of the rich ‘father. The Union Government is the rich father. This rich father remains responsible for the education of the native child and its school feeding, but as far as the European child is concerned the Province must now just try to do its best on the meagre revenue it has.

Throw the doors open; then they will become rich.

We are now speaking not about immigration but about the system of subsidisation of the provinces. In connection with the school feeding system I merely want to say that the Minister is the father of the school feeding system. A few years ago he stood up here and said our Government is now going to take a big forward step as far as social welfare is concerned; we shall no longer allow undernourished children to sit in the schools, but we will give them food. He advertised that far and wide over the lenght and breadth of the country. This was the practical thing the Government was going to do and we were told the scheme would eventually cost the country £2,000,000. What does the Minister say now? Now he has become afraid of his own child. Where is he leaving that child? He is leaving it on the doorstep of the provinces. The scheme of which they were so proud, for which they took all the kudos in the country, the big thing they were going to do to combat malnutrition in the country, and that was going to cost £2,000,000, is now thrown on to the provinces. The Minister has become afraid of his child.

Are you in favour of the abolition of the provincial system?

This is undoubtedly the way to kill it. Take the Cape and the Free State. The Transvaal is rich and has a proper school feeding system. The Cape Province and the Free State can only introduce it little by little. What is going to become of the school feeding system? I hope the Minister will stand up and give a fine funeral oration on the school feeding system of which he was so proud. In conclusion, I should like to say something about the National Road Board. I think the time has come when this subject should no longer be left in the air. This is what the Minister is doing. The whole organisation and the financing of the National Road Board is something that demands the immediate attention of the Government and of Parliament. The National Road Board spends every year quite a few million pounds, and not the slightest degree of control is exercised over the way in which the money is expended. Our departments have not the slightest opportunity to exercise control on the way in which the National Road Board funds are spent. The provinces have no interest in it because they do not advance the money—the Government finances it 100 per cent. There is not the slightest control over the way in which millions of pounds are expended by the National Road Board. What is the result? In 1936 it was decided to build national roads. A five-year scheme was mapped out. Some 5,400 miles of roads were to be built, and 25 per cent. of them were to be tarred; the cost was calculated at £9,000,000. This was in 1936. Well, the five years have passed. Eight years have elapsed. We are now in 1945 and what is the position? They should have built 5,400 miles, and they have built 3,300 miles.

That is not so bad.

There are some people who are satisfied with anything. I should like the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (District) (Mr. Hayward) to know that this was a five-year plan.

Did the war not intervene?…

The engineers went to win the war.

In 1937 it was already admitted that they could not carry out the pragramme. What, however, has been spent since 1936? Does the hon. member wish to say that it is because the war intervened? They did not carry out the pragramme. True, it may be argued that the war delayed progress, but the original programme involved an expenditure of £9,000,000, and up to date it has already cost more than £17,000,000. Is the war responsible for that? I have the particulars before me. The Central Administration alone has in those eight years cost £260,000. Road construction involved an expense of £16,800,000. Interest and redemption of divisional council loans represented £863,000. The road costs alone were £17,000,000 and the total expenditure for the past eight years was £19,208,000. When we asked them this year when they thought they would be finished with the five-year plan, and what they thought the cost, would be, they were unable to tell us when it would be completed, but they hoped that the programme that was to have cost £9,000,000 will now be carried out at an expenditure of £32,000,000. I only mention the figures to indicate what the result is when there is no Parliamentary control.

Who is responsible for the system?

If it is a weak system it is our duty to see that it is improved. Here the Minister has a chance to do this, but he is leaving the thing in the air. That is the impression one gets of the whole basis the Minister proposes, namely that he always follows the easiest road, the one that at the moment causes the least difficulty. But that is not the way to solve problems; he is only piling them up. He is potsponing the difficulties and accumulating them. After the Minister had meditated so long over it we thought he would have produced something. I must honestly say that I think much more of the Havenga system, under which it is ensured that the education of the European child shall not suffer. The present Minister is only making provision that the native child does not suffer. I must honestly say that if the Minister wants a system under which the provinces are responsible for all expenditure on European education, he ought in the case of the European children to make the grant by the Central Government not less than 50 per cent. of the expenditure in any case, but 60 per cent. in respect of European children. We on this side attach exceptional value to education and we maintain that the schools of today represent the citizens of the future. "We do not want education to be shabbily treated. We do not want, for instance, that in Natal the Afrikaner children should be further neglected in regard to education.

Cut out Natal.

We know that if there is one province where the Afrikaner child is not getting what he is entitled to then it is Natal.

Oh no.

The hon. member will hear some figures today in this House which will reflect how badly the Afrikaner child is treated in Natal. No one can say that the English child in the Free State is given a poor show. Is there any member who can stand up and say that the English child is shabbily treated in the Free State? We want the money to be made available for the proper education of every child, and we should like the Minister to lay down the principle of mother tongue education. If the Minister will not go further let him at least lay that down for the primary school education through his mother tongue, for this will be the best for his development mentally and manually. I think there will be amendments from this side of the House in connection with the matter and other speakers will deal with it. I have only wanted to deal more or less with the financial implication of the Bill.

I would not venture to criticise, especially not the Minister of Finance. But the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) stood up here and made a speech, and it seems to me he is trying to stir up the Transvaal members to see whether they will not become so swollen-headed that eventually their heads will burst. On that side the hon. member for George stood up and spoke about hatching, but I have never yet seen a broody hen affecting such turns as his. But still I am thankful that the hon. member for George admits that the Transvaal has done its best as regards education, and I am also glad that he admits that the national assets of the Transvaal are large in comparison with those of the other provinces. But the hon. member knows little about educational matters in the Transvaal. He reads a good deal and he sees this and that but he does not know too much about these thing. I do not want to spend more time on the hon. member but I would like to give the assurance that we, as Transvaal members, will not become swollen-headed. There are a few matters I would like to bring to the notice of the Minister.

So far your speech has been wide of the mark.

The hon. member says I am wide of the mark but I have never seen worse marksmen than they because they shoot into thin air. I would like to associate myself with the hon. Minister’s statement on the subject of native education and I would also express my approval of the Minister’s plans in connection with national roads because they are a very big national asset. I am quite satisfied that Natal as the Garden Province has received £100,000, I am also satisfied that the Free State has received £300,000 and I am also satisfied that the Cape Province is receiving £150,000 extra for coloured education. But then I come to the Transvaal. Transvaal is nothing but the hen that lays the golden eggs and it seems to me the Minister now wants us to believe too that we are the hen that lays the golden eggs. The hen has become exhausted. In the olden days one heard of nest-eggs but now they want to take the nest-eggs as well, for if I understood him correctly the Minister now wants to go so far as to boycott a province which brings in more for education than it requires. I just want to make a few remarks and I want to ask the Minister whether he thinks it is fair towards the Transvaal for the reason, as the hon. member for George says, that they are so very rich and have all the big national assets? Is it fair that our education should not get its fair share? When hon. members speak about education they should know that even in the vicinity of Pretoria there are still European children who are unable to attend school because there are no facilities for them. And when they do go they have ragged tents. If the Church does not show compassion by giving up vestries and church halls for that purpose, a city council has to supply a hall. For seven years I struggled in the Transvaal Provincial Council to get votes on the capital estimates and I believe today the position is still the same. While another province receives £150,000 for its coloured education we still have bursaries being awarded in the Transvaal of 7d. per day. I ask you whether anybody can support a European child on 7d. per day. I want to go further and I want to ask the Minister whether he considers it quite fair when we in the Transvaal hear that the Transvaal roads are the worst in all the four provinces? When we have visitors we hear that we should come to the Free State or Natal or to the Cape Province to drive on good roads.

Why don’t you build roads?

But the Transvaal is being used to lay the golden eggs. I do not want to quote figures because I cannot hold my own against the Minister when it comes to figures and I do not think there is a single member in this House who can hold his own against him, but I politely want to bring to the Minister’s attention that as things are now the Transvaal will eventually feel that she is the stepchild with all the troubles right on our doormat. Round about Pretoria, even to go to school under difficult circumstances. The Province has done its best for education but the hon. member should not think that we will become swollen-headed and that the Cape Province and the Free State and Natal should have all the advantages. The Transvaal is by no means in such an ideal position.

At this stage I wish to move the following amendment—

At the outset I want to make this accusation against the Minister. It may seem rather impudent coming from a backbencher, but all the same it concerns a subject of which I have some knowledge, and I want to say at once that there is a clear discrimination here—to use the word used by the previous speaker. Natal is specially favoured in this Bill. I want to go back to the motion we had here in the House last year in connection with the language question. The motion was divided into three parts, firstly, that the mother-tongue should be employed in the primary stages of the child’s education; secondly, that the schools should be dual-medium schools and, thirdly, that provision should be made for the training of teachers. I only want to deal with the first of these three. Last year, during the discussion in this House, no difference whatsoever existed between that side of the House and this side as regards the first part of the motion, namely, that the child should receive its educational instruction during the primary stages through the medium of its mother-tongue. When I pointed this out to one of the members, he asked me whether there was still any place in South Africa or in the whole world Where the first stage of the child’s education did not take place through the medium of the mother-tongue. The hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp) says that he was a teacher in Natal for twenty years. I asked him to listen to the debate and to voice his criticism. Has provision not been made for mother-tongue instruction in the primary stage? I wish to quote briefly a clause relative to the mother-tongue instruction in Natal. I refer to clause 11 (1) of ordinance No. 23 of 1942 which reads as follows—

In the other three provinces the position is that if the child’s home language is Afrikaans, it receives its instruction through the medium of Afrikaans, but that is not the position in Natal. There the parent elects the medium. I now want to go back for a moment to the enquiry of the Broome Commission. The Commission sat for two years making an enquiry into the system of education in Natal. It gathered a considerable amount of data which is submitted to the Department of Education. But it is strange that this clause relative to mother-tongue instruction was, notwithstanding the recommendations of the Commission, worded differently from the proposal of a section of the Commission. In a minority report the Commission recommended mother-tongue instruction similar to that in the other three Provinces, but in spite of that, the authorities in Natal laid down that the parent should have the right to elect what the medium of instruction should be. Two members of the Commission recommended that the medium of instruction should be the mother language. Why was this proposal rejected by Natal? Let us see now what the results have been. I must say that it is very difficult to obtain any information. I tried to obtain the information through official channels but could not obtain it. I tried to obtain it through the teachers, but according to the regulations, the teachers may not furnish any information for fear of being guilty of an offence. We nevertheless obtained certain information regarding the conditions in Natal and I wish to explain briefly what the position in Natal is in connection with the application of the provision of this clause. I will refer particularly to Durban. It is surprising to see what is happening there. The schools there have been investigated by persons who are well-informed on these matters. And what do we find there? Let us see how many Afrikaans children find themselves in purely English-medium schools. The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Morris) said just now by way of interjection, that there is no such thing as doing an injustice to Afrikaans children in Natal. Here I have the figures. In the Escombe school, there are 36 Afrikaans children in a purely English-medium school; at Glenwood there are 20; at Westridge there are 30; at Sea View there are 133; at Addington there are 225; at Durban North there are 23; Mansfield Road 50; Stamford Hill, 150; Mont Clair, 75; Durban High, 12; Windsor Park, 150; Mitchell Road, 50; Girls’ College, 5; Boys’ Preparatory High School, 15; Overport, 10; Berea Road, 10. … I am glad to see that the hon. member for Durban (Berea) (Mr. Sullivan) is here. At Park View there are 6; Botanical Gardens, 50; Girls’ High, 12; Stellawood, 12; Malvern, 80; Bellaire, 40; St. Agnes, 50; Penzance, 20; Marais Stella, 10; St. Joseph’s, 15; Red Hill, 20; Briardene, 25; Marist Brothers, 10; Fynnland, 57; North Ridge, 20. Now here we have a group of schools which are purely English-medium schools. There are no parallel classes and those Afrikaans-speaking children receive their education through the medium of English from the very first day until they leave school. Here we also have a number of Afrikaans children in the English sections of parallel medium schools. For the information of the House, I may just mention that in the parallel-medium schools the parents may choose either Afrikaans or English, but because the parents have the right to choose the medium of instruction, there are 41 Afrikaans children in Pinetown receiving their education through the medium of English. In Rossburgh there are 36 Afrikaans children receiving their instruction through the medium of English. In Wentworth 50; in MacDonald Road 20; in Clarens Road 50; and in Greenword Park 20. In other words in Durban alone there are 1,648 children whose home language is Afrikaans but who receive their education through the medium of English. That is how this clause is carried out in Natal. Why? Because the parent has the right to elect the medium of instruction. One may ask why are the Afrikaans parents so foolish as to choose English as the medium of instruction. Before I discuss that, I would just like to quote from the Minister’s own bulletin. Here I read this—

Then he goes on—

The whole system was therefore of English origin. The Afrikaans-speaking parents are in a minority in Natal, and they feel that if they do not allow their children to learn English, they would be lost, and unfortunately they have the idea that the child can only learn English in an English school. Consequéntly, they drift with the tide and they allow the poor mite to go to an English school and the poor child suffers under the unfair system.

They are bilingual. It is the English children who are not bilingual.

The second factor is that economic pressure is brought to bear upon them. As soon as the child is sent to an Afrikaans-medium school, the parent is virtually stigmatised. He is called a “Boer” and the English community decides there and then not to offer him any employment. The Afrikaans-speaking parent may not reveal his feelings in this manner; he must send his child to an English-medium school. Ultimately, therefore, the child finds itself in an English-medium school. Then there is a further reason, namely, that facilities are not always available. Strangely enough, in Durban boundaries are fixed.

Parents living in a certain area, are not allowed to send their children to another area without the consent of the Director. The schools having parallel classes may only enrol children from the immediate vicinity. If the parent lives in the Glenwood area, he has to send his child to the Glenwood school. There may not be fifteen children to form a parallel class and so no parallel classes are formed. Sometimes children living in different areas want to attend the same school, in order to make up a class of fifteen but this they are not allowed to do. It is obvious that if the child receives its education through the medium of English in the primary stages, it will afterwards also receive its secondary education through the medium of English. If the parent sends his child to an Afrikaans-medium school at the beginning, then he runs the risk of not being able, at a later stage, to send his child to an Afrikaans secondary school. I understand that there are only two or three in the whole province, and in order to avoid all these difficulties, the Afrikaans speaking parent is inclined to resign himself to the position, and to send his children to English schools. The principals, of course, often advise parents to send their children to English schools. They want as many children as possible. If the position in Natal was similar to that in the other provinces, these things would not happen. I want to know why Natal adopted this obsolete form of Ordinance No. 13 of 1916. Two members of the Broome Commission are opposed to it and in the face of, or in spite of the report of the Broome Commission, in spite of the objections lodged by the Synod, in spite of the position in the other provinces, and in spite of the universal law of nature, this system is being followed in Natal. In spite of the fact that it is a universal law of nature that a child who speaks a certain language in its home should be educated through the medium of that language, notwithstanding the fact of nature that every animal enables its young to enjoy that right, we have this position in Natal, that the child does not receive its instruction through the medium of its mother tongue. They know that they are able to bring pressure to bear upon the Afrikaans-speaking parents to send their children to English-medium schools. If it was laid down by means of regulation that the child should receive its instruction through the medium of the mother-tongue, they will not be able to evade it. I said that I wanted to make an accusation against the Minister and I now want to do so. Last year the whole House voted for the principle of mothertongue instruction in the primary stage and in spite of the fact that that motion was passed by the House last year, that system is not being applied in Natal yet. Why did the Minister bring pressure to bear upon the Free State; why are we having that struggle in the Transvaal; why must even English teachers in the Transvaal raise their objections to the introduction of dual-medium by force; why did the Minister try to force it upon the Free State? They are now applying the dual-medium system in the Cape Province and this first principle which was adopted by the House has been disregarded in Natal. The Minister can very easily force Natal to come into line. He merely has to withhold the money until such time as they change their policy. They must simply be made to feel that if they do not do justice to the Afrikaans speaking child, then we will not provide them with the money. We advance the money and we therefore have the right to say what should be done with it. That is an important principle. The authority advancing the money has the right to determine how that money should be used and where money is now being granted for education in Natal, we should have the right to say how that money shall be used. We want it to be used according to nature’s system which is recognised throughout the whole world, namely, that the child should receive its educational instruction in the primary stage through the medium of its mother tongue. It is often said that it is better for our children to go to English-medium schools because then they learn better English than in Afrikaans schools. But is that actually the case? Last year the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) mentioned the achievement of the Jan van Riebeeck School and other members mentioned the achievements of other schools. Now I just want to mention the achievements of schools in Natal where the children are also taught English but their instruction from the beginning is through the medium of Afrikaans. It is often said that while the children learn English, they are able to read and write English but that they cannot speak English. In 1943, a trophy was awarded by Mr. Joliffe for those children who were the best debaters. The following schools took part, the Girls’ High, Marists’ Brothers College, Wyketon High School, Hilton College, St. Charles’ College, and the Voortrekkerhoërskool. What was the result? The two schools who came out top were St. Charles’ College and the Voortrekkerhoërskool. They competed and the Voortrekkerhoërskool won the trophy. It was a bilingual debate. It was not purely luck because the following year; the Voortrekkerhoërskool again won the trophy. In the Voortrekkerhoërskool the principle of mother-tongue instruction is applied and here we see the result. The whole world advocates mother-tongue instruction and still that principle is not carried out in Natal. Take the case of the Port Natal High School. Until 1941, the Port Natal High School flourished. The mother-tongue medium was applied from the very start but the protagonists of the dual-medium system thought fit to put a stop to that. The result was that the lower classes were taken away and those children were sent to parallel-medium schools. In 1941 the school had 547 pupils. In 1942 the number dropped to 389. The very lifelines of this school were severed. In 1943 it had only 347 pupils and in 1944 only 294. It is estimated that under this system this school will only have 174 pupils in 1948. The school is gradually being extinguished. Its roots have been severed. That is what is happening in Natal where we hear such a lot about British fairplay. It is meanness. It is nothing else but persecution. It is British persecution. I would not go so far as to call it child-murder but it does amount to mental child-murder. It reminds one of the time when children were equally wronged during the Boer War. Then they were physically wronged and now they are mentally wronged. Every coolie’s child is able to receive its education through the medium of its mother tongue; every native child is entitled to receive its education through the medium of its mother tongue; every Jewish child is entitled to receive its education through the medium of its mother tongue, but the Afrikaner child is denied that right. I say that it is an injustice and that is why I am moving this amendment and I would like the Minister to give his serious attention to it. I wish further to point out that, in moving this amendment, I have the support of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister, who is now overseas. He moved the motion on the language question last year and the hon. member for Vryheid seconded that motion. I would like to refresh the memory of the hon. member for Vryheid. I am not going to quote what he said. He can look that up himself but in one paragraph he said this: “I am pleading now in all amicability that the authorities in Natal should also fall into line and introduce mother-tongue instruction in Natal.” I also have the support of the Minister of Education. The hon. Minister quoted the views of Onse Jan here and he stated that Onse Jan agreed that in the primary stages there should be mother-tongue instruction. So there I have on the opposite side the support of three of the authorities, namely the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the man who taught for 20 years in Natal. I am making a plea for this right which I am asking for in the amendment. As I have just said, I have the support of the Prime Minister and I have the support of the Acting Prime Minister. I wonder whether it is still necessary for me to talk any further on the amendment. The hon. member for Durban (North) (the Rev. Miles-Cadman) also made an excellent speech here last year, in the same strain. The hon. member for Zululand said this morning that he would like to hear figures. I have now given him the figures. Last year he supported the principle of mother tongue instruction and I hope he will again support it. The Government is not powerless to act in Natal. They can take action. They threatened to take steps in the Free State and they are at present conducting experiments in the Cape. They can easily do it. I am appealing especially to the hon. the Minister of Finance, because he is a person who, for a long time, was closely associated with a pedagogic institution. I understand that he is also a leading spirit in the Sunday school movement. He therefore has a fair amount of influence in the educational sphere. We already have one judgment against us which shows us that we cannot allow these children to be treated unfairly. We read in the Bible that whosoever should do the least injustice to one of these little children, it is better that he should hang a millstone round his neck and throw himself into the sea. I do not want the hon. Minister to do that, but I want him to realise that an injustice is being done to these children, and therefore I want to appeal to him to see to it that justice is done to them. I would like to see him exonerated from the blame that he did not see to it that justice was done to these children. I want to read a few extracts at this stage from a letter written by a person who is able to speak authoritatively on this subject. He writes—

They therefore drift away from their language. They do not learn their own language any longer. They do not go to their church any longer. That is a further loss. Where you might have had a very good supporter of the Church, you now have a person who has cut adrift. I read further—

They are a loss to their own nation. He continues—

Then he refers to delimitation of boundaries, to which I have already referred—

Who is your authority?

The Rev. H. Kruger. He is much interested in education.

In Natal?

Yes.

To what Church does he belong?

He is a Reformed minister in Durban. He made an important investigation into this question. I am able to cite another authority also, and that is Dr. Greyling. He has a high status and is secretary to the Sunday schools in South Africa. I had to use these authorities because the teachers are not permitted to supply information. Under the disciplinary regulations prevailing in Natal teachers are not permitted to supply this information to us and we are forced to obtain information through other bodies. The Rev. Kruger further states—

I only quote small parts—

The Minister is head of a Sunday school institution and I would like him to note the tendency referred to in this letter which I have just read.

There is also another reason.

And that is also referred to in this letter. It is a policy of Anglicising the Afrikaner. I want to say emphatically that the reason for that policy of “the parent may choose” simply to Anglicise children on a large scale. It is the same policy as was followed by Lord Charles Somerset here and it is the same policy which Milner with his assistant Sergeant wanted to carry out in the Transvaal after the Second War of Independence. The purpose was to Anglicise children on a large scale. With the approval of the Afrikaans-speaking members opposite and also with that of the Minister of Education who has an Afrikaans surname that kind of policy is pursued. I am doubtful whether one is able to use strong enough language to disapprove of it. If we were, for example, to follow the policy in the Free State in respect of the English child which is being followed in Natal in respect of Afrikaans-speaking children then we will have much propaganda in the English newspapers. They will shout murder. But in Natal it is permitted to go on surreptitiously. That is what is happening to 1,648 children in one city in Natal. If that were to happen in the Free State there would be a hue and cry. In the Free State 10 per cent. of the population is English-speaking but that 10 per cent. is being treated fairly and they receive what they are entitled to. 25 per cent. of the population of Natal is Afrikaansspeaking and see what is meted out to them! We can no longer speak about British fair play. We now have to speak about Afrikaans fair play. To put it in every day parlance, we play fair but the English do not play fair, at least not in Natal. That is the position and we cannot emphasise it strongly enough. Some days I have often considered whether one should not start an agitation that the Children’s Protection Act should not be applied to Natal. As matters are there it amounts to neglect of the children. It is mental and spiritual murder which is being committed on the children there and it makes one consider that the Children’s Protection Act should be applied to Natal. It is very easy for the Minister to do something to alter that position. He should take steps in the direction of Natal being brought into line with the Transvaal, the Free State and the Cape. If Natal wants to march along with the other provinces and the whole world then we would be satisfied. The Minister may easily do it by a slight amendment to Ordinance No. 23 of 1942. He could only omit the choice by parents so that there may be mother-tongue instruction. That is all. Then the whole matter would be in order. We only have the power to force Natal by refusing to grant funds. We vote funds here and they use the money as they like and they compel Afrikaners on a large scale to attend English-medium schools. They are aware of the fact that their numbers are diminishing. Afrikaners have large families and that is how they strengthen the position. That is the process which is taking place. We are told that the parent has the choice and that it is a good Calvinistic and Christian principle that the parent has to choose. But the parent has no choice of school and no say in the appointment of teachers. The parents may not determine the conduct of schools. They are able only to choose the medium of instruction. [Time limit.]

I shall not detain the House long on this matter. This principle was mentioned last year during the debate on dual-medium schools, but the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Brink) has made certain statements which, in my opinion, we must refer to again because he may perhaps have created an erroneous impression as a result of his ignorance, not ignorance in connection with these matters but ignorance in connection with conditions in Natal. He has stated, for instance, that Natal teachers may not furnish any information regarding school affairs. Now it is peculiar that he should say that. One of the Natal teachers wrote a book on education in Natal, and if he took the trouble he could have read that book. It deals with education in Natal up to last year. I am the ex-teacher who wrote that book, and it is before me now. It is also peculiar that last year when it was unfortunately mentioned by someone else that I was a person who knew something about education it was laughed at. But this year I gather that I have been promoted to such an extent that I am regarded as an expert.

It was a quotation made by yourself.

Nevertheless the promotion since last year was rather good. But this matter the hon. member for Christiana has mentioned is a very important one. Last year I referred to it and made an appeal to the Administration of Natal, not to the Minister of Education, to accept the principle of the mother tongue as the medium and to relieve parents of this compulsion that rests on them to make the decision, or to make the choice in connection with the medium. In that I did not blame the Administration as such for the state of affairs. I know personally what the Natal Administration is doing to influence the people to allow their children to receive education through the medium of their mother tongue. Perhaps I may be allowed to speak here on this subject, because I was a teacher in Natal for 15 years and I have had experience of single-medium, dual-medium and parallel-medium schools, and because I myself may have worn out the soles of my shoes in going after the Afrikaans-speaking parents to try to induce them to place their children in a school with the correct medium from the very start, and because I did not have to aid me in this fight the assistance of some of those persons who are mentioned here, the same persons who are now going through the country and casting the blame on the Natal Education Department.

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

Before I go further I think it is right that I should congratulate the hon. member for Christiana on the nice way in which he presented his case. As an ex-teacher he is able, I believe, to regard the matter objectively, and by his reasoning he sought to arrive at a solution of the delicate question of the mother tongue as a medium. What is the position in Natal? He explained that in the other provinces, in the Cape, the Free State and the Transvaal the child is compelled to accept the mother tongue as the medium. That is so. In Natal the position is somewhat different. There we have the so-called parental clause. That is to say before the child is enrolled the parent has to go to the school and inform the principal as to the language in which the child should receive education, and if he is unable to come to the school he has to sign a form in which he intimates in what medium the child should be enrolled. Now I shall endeavour to remove a wrong impression the hon. member created in the House. Here I am again speaking from experience, and I want to point out that by circular letters it has been impressed on the principals of schools that they must in no circumstances influence the parents. Consequently when the hon. member spoke about pressure being exercised on the parents it is absolutely wrong. No pressure is exercised on them. In my opinion that is a weak point, because you find that when the parents come to the school and after you have perhaps, without exercising any pressure, pointed out the necessity for the mother tongue to be used as a medium, especially in the early stages, they have nevertheless purposely put the child in the wrong medium. I say that this is just the weak point, that no pressure can be exercised on the parent to place the child in the Correct medium. For official reasons no pressure at all is applied on the parents, but it is a fact, as the hon. member stated, that the parental choice does hold good in Natal. As far as the parental choice is concerned it is a democratic principle. When I discussed this matter with members of the Executive Committee in Natal and pleaded for a change in the system, so that the parents, when they brought their children to school, could be induced to place it in the right medium, it was immediately pointed out to me that this was a democratic principle that was being exercised in Natal.

Is it a pedagogic principle?

It is a democratic principle. To what extent we can expect a parent to adopt a pedagogic principle is another question. It does not arise here. But I think the biggest duty that rests on us as parents, as parents who have greater privileges—and I am speaking now as a parent in Natal—is to point out to other parents that they, when they do not choose the mother tongue as the medium for their children when they visit the school, are making a wrong choice. That is our big principle. But when the parents choose wrongly it is not for us to cast all the blame on the Department of Education, as the hon. member has done. That is the object of his argument. But let me read out to the hon. member what I wrote in 1940 in regard to the parental choice, before I ever dreamed of entering politics—and otherwise the thought might perhaps arise that I wrote this for political reasons. After I had dealt with the Broome Report I strongly emphasised that the choice of a medium in Natal should not be left to the parents. Two members of the commission who also urged that were the Rev. Odendaal and Capt. Botha, who is at present chairman of the Provincial Council in Natal. As reasons Why the choice of the medium should not be relegated to the parents, I mentioned the following—

1. (a) That a large proportion of the Afrikaans-speaking parents did not realise the value of the mother tongue as the medium.
2. (b) That they do not know what is the difference between a medium and a subject.
3. (c) That they are very indifferent in connection with the choice and leave it to the child or to the school.
4. (d) They believe their children will have a better chance of finding employment if they receive education through the medium of English; and
5. (e) Some parents are of opinion that the child will learn English better if it receives instruction through that medium.

There are also other reasons that I gave.

It is the same as I said.

The hon. member has, of course, studied the book of the hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp).

On a point of information, I did not get it out of that book, I have never seen or read his book.

I am very disappointed in the hon. ex-teacher that he should have given instruction for so long and have never read a scientific book of this nature! I, of course, do not expect other hon. members to have read it. They usually read the “Bulldog” stories, but we are now speaking about an ex-teacher like the hon. member for Christiana, and I would advise him to read it as soon as possible. The hon. member mentioned certain figures in reference to children in Durban. I shall accept that they are correct, and I shall further accept that he obtained them from teachers. Is that so or not?

I mentioned my sources this morning.

However that may be, I accept his figures, but the hon. member has omitted to tell us that in Durban and in the immediate neighbourhood of Durban there are schools where the children may receive their education through the medium of Afrikaans. He spoke about primary schools and high schools, and both are available for children who wish to receive their education in Afrikaans. That is just where the error comes in, that if we allow children in the primary school—and we stressed this point last year—to receive their education through the wrong medium in the commencing stage they will not find it easy to change the meduim later. I agree with the hon. member that usually it is the Afrikaans-speaking children who suffer thereby. We find English-speaking children usually choose the correct medium. I can neither criticise nor congratulate the Department when the choice is correct; the parents do that. It is in connection with the Afrikaansspeaking children that the parents frequently go wrong. In Natal we have English-medium schools and Afrikaans-medium schools—the hon. member mentioned one of them—we find parallel-medium schools and dual-medium schools, and then we have the private schools with an English atmosphere. The facilities do exist, let me say that at once, for the Afrikaans-speaking child to receive his education through the mother tongue as medium. Right throughout Natal they can go to schools with Afrikaans as a medium. But what do we find? We find not only Afrikaans-speaking children in English-medium schools, as the hon. member said, but we find Afrikaans speaking children in the English-medium classes of parallel-medium schools and dualmedium schools.

This morning I mentioned a number of them.

Where is the mistake to be found then? The facilities are there and it is the choice of the parents that is always wrong. This is what I want to submit to you, that we should not be offended with the Department.

The law.

Nor with the law. But we must look into it as Afrikaansspeaking people that we are not making the right choice. This is what I want. We must not look for the fault outside, we must seek it within ourselves. We are always trying to blame someone else; and I speak again from experience when I say that some of my strongest Nationalist Party friends in Natal made the wrong choice at the school with which I was connected. I do not know how many times I have not run to the parents and said: “But your child is receiving its education through the wrong medium in the wrong class; how can you expect your child at the age of seven to be instructed through the English medium? It is to his advantage that the child should receive education through the mother tongue,” and then I find that on every occasion one of the reasons I have mentioned is given. I am not referring only to my Nationalist friends on the other side, but to all Afrikaansspeaking people, or very many of them. When we say that the principle of parental choice is wrong, and that we should consequently compel the parents to choose the mother tongue as medium, we again run up against the democratic principle. Let us then rather at this stage adopt the course of influencing our co-Afrikaners to let their children have the right medium at the commencement. When we reach that stage, as we proposed last year, they will have been brought up to have some subjects through another medium, and they will then know their own language so well, and have learned the other language so well as a subject, that they may, with advantage, go over to a bilingual medium. As matters at present stand the hon. member is right. It happens that the parents choose wrongly and the child cannot avail himself properly of the dual-medium system that we proposed here last year. But do not imagine that the Natal Education Department is bent, as our hon. friend said, on Anglicising our Afrikaners. That day is long past. We have forgotten all about it. I speak as one who for years was a member of the Saamwerkunie and who together with Dr. Pellisier, Dr. Jansen, Mr. Booysen and others represented the conditions we had in Natal. I have previously stated that if you alleged that in the nineteenth century an effort was made to Anglicise the Afrikaner, as we saw it happen here in the Cape, then I agree with you. But I can tell you that since 1910, or since the Afrikaans language was recognised in Natal, in 1923, that policy of Anglicisation has never been applied in Natal. If you say that is the object there you are hopelessly wrong. At the moment we have in Natal a Director of Education with Afrikaans sympathies. He is out to give the Afrikaans-speaking people their full rights, the same rights as the English child has. It is under his control that we introduced a new policy that the English child shall be compelled at a certain stage to use Afrikaans as a medium and thus become bilingual. This is the policy in that province which you say is one that is designed to Anglicise the Afrikaans-speaking people. That province is yet going to give the lead as far as the dual-medium is concerned, and it will give the lead to make our people in South Africa bilingual. That is the same province which you know so little about. You know really nothing about Natal. You have heard of Durban and then you think it is Natal. That is not Natal. It represents only a small minority in Natal—only 10 per cent. of Natal; 90 per cent. are right-minded people.

We know what Natal made of you.

One develops and I also have developed. I will tell you what stood in the road of Afrikaans in Natal. Until 1900 there was to a certain degree an influence towards Anglicisation, but since the commencement of Union it was to be ascribed for several years to the fact that Nederlands was taught at school and was attempted as a medium—Nederlands not Afrikaans. What did we find? Nederlands was just as foreign to me at school as English was. We had two foreign languages. Nederlands had no practical value to us but English had. It was therefore not to be wondered at that many parents let their children choose the medium that would be of practical value to them; but ever since Afrikaans was introduced we find a complete change as far as Natal is concerned. You can go into the figures in our schools and you will find that. What did one of our directors of education say—

It was not our language; but ever since Afrikaans has been introduced one can detect a considerable advance. And therefore I do not want us to be unjust towards Natal as a province. Their Department of Education, the Provincial Council and the Executive Committee are not out for the Anglicisation of the Afrikaans-speaking people. We in Natal take a definite stand for our own language. We have no inferiority complex. It is a settled matter. We no longer fight over Afrikaans. We just act, and if the danger is there we, must not blame the Department but ourselves. But now it is further stated in this motion that we should compel Natal to make the mother tongue the compulsory medium; that we should compel the Natal Administration to remove the parental choice; that we want consequently through a financial Bill, through financial influence to go over to this, to say to Natal that we will not assist it unless it changes its principle about the medium according to our liking. That is not the way in which intelligent people set to work. I do not say whether it is right or wrong—hon. members know what my attitude is in connection with the matter—but as long as we leave education in the hands of the provincial councils this Government will not concern itself in the affairs of the provinces. Whether it is right or wrong that education should be entrusted to the provinces is another matter. But one fact remains, that education is still in the hands of the provinces and consequently they will evolve their own methods in connection with educational affairs. Personally I feel very strongly in favour of the principle the hon. member has expressed. We said so in the House last year, and I am not inclined to carry out any dual-medium system if the sound principle of mother-tongue education at the commencement of the child’s school career is not carried out. Only when that principle of mother-tongue education during the commencing stage of the child’s school life is applied can we make a success of the dual-medium system; and consequently we can appeal to Natal to take the course of influencing all parents towards adopting the mother tongue as a medium for the education of their children. But in the circumstances that prevail at present we cannot compel them to adopt this course, and it would not be wise to try to compel them to do so.

I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) this morning, and while agreeing with some of what he said I cannot agree with it all. He criticises the provincial councils and in doing so accentuates the weakness of the provincial councils and that heightens our regret that the provincial councils continue to live. But then he supports and wishes to increase the proposed further tax on the native people. I feel, and my colleagues feel with me, that we should hesitate a long time before the provincial councils should be permitted to impose direct taxes on the native people. That right was deliberately excluded in 1925 and one must come to the conclusion that at that time all the various aspects of the matter were fully considered. If this tax of 2s. 6d. is allowed to be levied, even if it is allied to the collection of the general tax, I feel that the people themselves will not realise why another bull even if a smaller one is in the kraal. It seems to be accepted by many hon. members that the general tax paid by the native pays for all the amenities he receives, but it is forgotten that the native also pays hut tax and stock tax. Whilst the general tax qualifies a man for a land grant there is no guarantee because land is not available, but he must pay notwithstanding that there may be no land available for them. The man who cannot get land must still pay that tax. And if they get the land they are still obliged to pay a quitrent of 3s. a morgen. It will therefore be observed that there are many calls upon the native people, and it must be realised that this tax will have to be paid by every native male over 18 years of age, no matter what his income may be. I do not propose at this stage to enter into a full discussion as to the justice of the general tax, which has no relation to the earnings of the payer or the amenities he receives, but I do say emphatically that the war-time value of money and the astonishing increase in the price of everything used by the natives, an increase ranging from 100 to 200 per cent., vis-a-vis the small rise in wages they have received, makes the present time inopportune to impose further taxes of this kind on these people. We are always hearing of malnutrition and underfeeding which in some cases even result in death. How can we in those circumstances contemplate the imposition of a further tax upon people who are unable to meet their present taxes and at the same time to provide for their simple family wants? The representatives of the native people have no objection to the imposition of taxes on the native people, taxes which fall within the general taxation policy. But what we do object to is discrimination against the natives. We are forced to the conclusion that the native has the general tax imposed upon him for the reason that his income is not sufficient to bring him within the scope of the taxation existing for Europeans. It is strange that whilst the native, when he reaches the age of 18 years, has to pay £1 a year general tax, notwithstanding his economic position, the European personal tax in the Cape Province, although nominally applying to all Europeans, grants exemption in the case of a single man earning a salary of less than £150 per annum, and in the case of married people earning less than £250 per annum; and in relation to income tax, no income under £300 is taxable. I would hesitate to state the number of natives who pay general tax earning less than £30 per annum. The Acting. Prime Minister said recently that taxation knows no colour bar. What he meant is that natives who fall within the scope of the income tax law have to pay income tax, but he forgot to mention that the same native also paid a general tax, and the other taxes I mentioned. But quite apart from these considerations I would like to know what the provinces are undertaking to do in return for this extra taxation. This is not a social security tax by virtue of which in return for a small contribution a person would have a guarantee that he would receive certain amenities. Under the South Africa Act the duty was specifically laid on the provinces to provide hospitalisation for the native people. They have in my view callously repudiated that responsibility simply because they had not the right to tax the natives. I trust that the House has not forgotten the strictures passed upon the native hospital at Butterworth by Colonel Reitz in relation to the conditions that prevailed there. I want to know what guarantee we have that the present position will be better when this tax is paid. Shall we have the old story that benefits must not exceed the value of direct contributions, with resultant failure to provide hospitalisation irrespective of race or colour? I must honestly say that I do not trust the provincial authorities, in view of their past record, to treat the natives fairly and to provide for them hospitalisation in relation to their crying needs. Of course, it cannot be denied that natives need hospitalisation and that the provinces will need funds for carrying out this hospitalisation scheme. If a direct contribution is unavoidable I would suggest that the Union Government should pay that 2s. 6d. from the general tax. This could be done without departing from the original intention of the Act. In other words, the contribution of 2s. 6d. should be paid by the Union Government to the provinces out of the £1 per head which is now paid to the Union Government in the form of a general tax. I want to point out the repercussions of the proposed new tax. First of all the General Council of the Transkei has contributed for some years past an amount of £11,000 and more and this, with the subsidy of £1 10s. per £, is the equivalent of almost £30,000 per annum. Then the Trust has itself used its funds to pay for hospitalisation and other funds have also been used. I would remind the House that that is all native money. The Transkeian Council gets the hut tax as part of its revenue. We have had an instance of the use they make of this money. In the Transkei there are 4,000 miles of branch roads constructed and maintained with this money, and bridges were built. These roads and bridges are used more by Europeans than by natives but they are in fact constructed with the money of the natives. In view of all these factors I think we should hesitate a long time before imposing further taxation upon the natives. Can it be expected that the Transkei will carry on with their contributions towards these funds which were used in the past for hospitalisation if they now have to pay another tax for that purpose? We native representatives cannot force the Government or bring much influence to bear upon the Government in order to change any opinion they may have. All we can really do is to appeal to the well-known sense of justice of the Minister himself in the hope that he will give consideration to this matter and come to the conclusion that the imposition of this tax is not justified. The hon. member for George suggested that this tax should not be 2s. 6d. but 5s. What he really said is: “What is 2s. 6d. Make it 5s.?” All I can say is that although 2s. 6d. is not a large sum of money to him it means a great deal to the native, even though it does not go very far towards financing a hospitalisation scheme. But I do say that in addition to the taxes they already pay they cannot afford to pay this extra 2s. 6d. I suggest that the Minister should give the same consideration to these representations that he has done to those of the big interests represented by the newspapers and delete the second proviso to Section 10 (2) of the Bill.

The hon. member for Vryheid (Dr. Steenkamp) called himself a scientist.

No I did not.

He referred to his own book and said that it was a scientific work. Never before have I heard anybody here referring to it as such. He himself is thereby doing a most unscientific thing for I have never before heard of a scientist adopting the practice of blowing his own trumpet. I must tell the hon. member it looked rather a poor show when he got up here and read from his own book and then asked the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Brink) why the latter did not read it and did not quote from it.

I quoted from it because it is the only book about education in Natal.

The hon. member himself told us that for a period of fifteen years he was a member of the “Saamwerkunie” in Natal and during that time he was in favour of mother-tongue instruction. We can only tell him now that he should be ashamed of it because he has now run away from that principle. He told us that Natal is producing the right type of Afrikaners and that we should read his book. No, the hon. member makes us somewhat ashamed of being Afrikaners when he talks like that. Before he was in politics or, as he said himself, before he had any inclination to go into politics, he was a great champion in Natal of the mother-tongue medium. But as soon as he got political aspirations and wanted to fit in with the political organisation of the other side, mother-tongue instruction was no longer good enough for him.

When did I say so.

The hon. member will remember that he voted for dual-medium education last year.

Certainly, but there should be mother-tongue instruction up to a certain stage.

It certainly is no mother tongue instruction if half the subjects are taught through the medium of the home language and the other half through the medium of a foreign language. Mother tongue instruction means instruction through the medium of the mother tongue and not half through the mother tongue and for the rest through a foreign language. In that case it is no longer mother-tongue instruction but dual-medium instruction. The hon. member has got himself into a tight corner. He talked about the democratic choice of the parents. When he was asked whether that is a principle which is pedagogically sound he did not have the courage to reply to it. He simply said that that was another matter. He, the pedagogue and the scientist, now pleads for a democratic principle which is not pedagogically sound. Where do his science and his pedagogics now come in?

You did not listen to him.

No, I did listen to him and I also understood him. The hon. member listened but he did not understand.

The hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. J. C. Bosman) does not know what mother-tongue instruction is.

People who talk like the hon. member for Vryheid talked here, admit that they are doing something which is pedagogically unsound. I want to remind the Minister of Education that years ago he also wrote a book about South Africa. It is quite worth while reading that book in regard to the conditions in our country. I do not always agree with his conclusions but it is worth the trouble to read that book.

Is it more valuable than the book of the hon. member for Vryheid?

Yes, I think that it is much more valuable.

I am only asking.

Yes it is more valuable. The Acting Prime Minister in any case tried to deal objectively with the matter. He comes to conclusions with which I cannot always agree but his book is valuable.

Did you read the book?

Yes, I read the book. The Acting Prime Minister in that book dealt with the question why his contemporaries knew English so well. He said the reason was that English was the medium of instruction. Then he went on to say that an important change had come about—

This is a change on the soundest of education principles. That was his point of view. He went on—.

In most cases today the Afrikaansspeaking children receive instruction through medium of Afrikaans with English merely as a language subject which is taught.

Then he points to the dangers which might arise—

Then he said that this resulted in the people not being any longer as well versed in English as the previous generation was. He then emphasised that it is the task of educationalists to find a remedy for it. That is what we have always advocated. We want mother-tongue instruction and at the same time we want to see our childlren become bilingual. But we want to leave that to the educationalists without us passing legislation compelling them to follow the principle of dual-medium. In his book the Acting Prime Minister also speaks of the process of “Anglicanisation” as he calls it. The Afrikaners then felt that they should have separate schools for mother-tongue instruction. In this connection I should also like to read out something. It does not relate so closely to our present discussion but it shows the objective view which the Acting Prime Minister sometimes expressed.

Only sometimes?

He says—

But then according to the “Cape Times” he must be lying.

He admits that there was such a thing as concentration camps. I do not want to go further into that matter.

I hope you will now all read my book.

I read it years ago.

You should be careful that he does not start quoting from it himself.

No, he will not do what the hon. member for Vryheid did. For that reason I undertook the task to quote from his book. The point is that where the Minister treated this question objectively he said that mother-tongue instruction is not only a sound, but the soundest of educational principles. He did not say it was sound up to Std. II or Std. III—it is the soundest principle.

You better be careful that he does not start writing another book.

Yes, he may also change his opinion now, for we have already witnessed a person who was in favour of mother-tongue instruction for fifteen years, but changed his opinion. Today we have the position in the Transvaal that a struggle is in progress in regard to mother-tongue instruction under the dual medium. A draft ordinance is before the provincial council and what did we find? Tremendous opposition became noticeable and from whom? From the educationalists, the school principals. I am not talking now about the political opposition against it. I am talking of educationalists. Last year the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom), when we discussed the question here, received a very insolent letter from a certain Mr. Currey, principal of St. Andrew’s College in Grahamstown, who seriously attacked him on account of the attitude which we on this side took up, but now we find that that same principal writes letters to the “Daily Mail’.’ in Johannesburg in which he strongly opposes dual medium, and in this regard he is strongly supported by a certain S. A. Clarke, principal of the St. John’s College in Johannesburg. They strongly oppose the ordinance and maintain that they do not want to be forced, but that it should be left to them to make the children bilingual. The English newspapers are full of attacks by people who call it a fatal blunder, people who maintain that the United Party did not get their approval for this thing at the General Election. They say that they voted for the war but not for dual medium. You notice a tremendous agitation taking place against this ordinance now before the Transvaal Provincial Council, under which they want to use compulsion, and the people who object are people who from a scientific and educational point of view object to it and say that it is wrong. Last year my point of view was that we as a Parliament should tell the teachers in the schools falling under the provincial councils that they should give us bilingual citizens.

To achieve this they must do what the Minister of Education said in his book. They should proceed along pedagogical lines and find means to achieve the aim. That is exactly what educationalists are saying now. They say that political leaders should not come along and should not by means of an ordinance in the provincial council determine that they are going to compel the schools, without taking into consideration what the educationalists think about it, to introduce the dual medium. The hon. member for Vryheid quoted Natal as an example of language equality and bilingualism. When he says that he makes me laugh. We still have to see whether Natal in another 35 years will make more progress than they did during the past 35 years since Union. They have had 35 years in which to prove what they can do in respect of language equality and bilingualism, and look where they are standing today? The hon. member for Vryheid spoke here of parental choice as a democratic principle. But when parents get together and by their work and actions establish singlemedium schools, Afrikaans-medium schools, and when they say that it is their wish that their children should attend those schools and when they, according to the hon. member make the correct choice, what does he do? He and his Party come along and do everything in their power to kill the Afrikaans-medium schools as such. In that case the parents choose wisely but now they must be forced to abandon their Afrikaans-medium schools. I purposely mention the Afrikaans-medium schools for we know that the whole agitation is directed against Afrikaans-medium schools. As long as there were only the English-medium schools no agitation took place, but then he came along in order to carry into practice for the Afrikaans-speaking people the “soundest educational principle”, and as soon as Afrikaans-medium schools were established they became scared and those schools must therefore be condemned. As the Minister of Demobilisation said during that agitation, the Afrikaans-medium schools brought about all the racial hatred and therefore they should have their wings clipped. Never a word was said about the English-medium schools but the Afrikaans-medium schools should be strangled. This is a matter causing much dissatisfaction and the position today is such that at this very moment in one of our provinces, namely the Transvaal, a fierce battle is being waged about this problem in the provincial council. As far as the Free State is concerned—I can only speak on behalf of the Free State—the Minister knows that the Provincial Council of the Free State and the Administration do not want to agree to this principle which he now recognises. They are still in favour of the mother-tongue medium but besides that they recognise the principle that every child submitting himself for examination in the Free State should pass in both subjects and this again brings me to a point which I also raised läst year. I said that if they were honest about bilingualism they should do what the Free State has done, that province of racial hatred, that Nationalist province, that province which does everything in the wrong way, but which is the only province of the Union which so far has laid down that no child can pass in the matric or school higher examination unless it passes in both languages. Let Natal show its honesty and also make such a provision. Will they do that? Never in your life. Will the hon. member for Vryheid be in favour of it? In the Free State no teacher can pass out of the Normal College unless he passes in both languages. Will Natal now make a start to do the same in its Normal Colleges? I want to ask the hon. member whether he will be willing to advocate that in Natal?

Of course.

I shall be glad if Natal will now show that it is really in earnest about language equality. All its talk will not bring us any further.

Examine the figures.

If Natal is in earnest it also should lay down in its legislation that everybody there has to pass in both languages. Before that is the case the hon. member should not come here and tell us that Natal is so very much in favour of bilingualism. The Free State is the only province which postulates it and really promotes bilingualism. I want to express my agreement with the remarks of the hon. member for Christiana, namely that if the English-speaking children in the Free State would be treated like the Afrikaansspeaking children in Natal, the roof of this House would collapse as a result of the shouting that would be heard here, and in the country there would be a tremendous uproar. In every little village in the Free State where there is a sufficient number of English-speaking children they have to receive instruction through English medium.

How many?

I think twenty.

In Natal it is fifteen.

In the Free State we do not have the position that English-speaking schools are treated shabbily by the provincial administration, like the Afrikaans-medium school at Pietermaritzburg. No, our provincial council provides buildings and grants privileges and everything which is necessary.

There are only two in the whole of the Free State.

The hon. member does not know what he is talking about. In Bloemfontein alone there are four or five. The hon. member who ran to London to fight against Afrikaans medium should remain quiet. Last year we warned the Minister that on this question they were getting on to dangerous ground and that it would cause many difficulties and if at any time they want to compel the Orange Free State to apply unpedagogically a system which runs counter to the majority of educational people in the Free State, they are looking for trouble. It will cause a great deal of unpleasantness and difficulty. I do not hope that the Government will be so stupid as to start such a conflict. I am glad that the Minister has given proof that he is also liable to being frightened. I think he was a bit frightened in regard to the tax on advertisements. That would certainly have been a most unpopular taxation. My objection was against the fact that the Minister and the Union Government, realising quite well, that it would be a most unpopular taxation wanted to push it off on the provincial councils. In that case the Government would have been able to say: “We did not levy it; the provincial councils levied it.” It gets the provincial councils into a corner and tells them: “There you have a new source of taxation.” I wonder whether it was not a cleverly devised scheme to wreck the provincial system and to make it more and more unpopular; for the time being it has dropped the matter. I want to say that if the Government wants to levy a tax on advertisements in that way it should do so itself and not leave it to others to receive the blame for it afterwards. I believe, however, that one can expect that if such a tax should be levied, it would have the same effect as, for instance, the tax on medicines some years ago. That was a minor tax which caused a tremendous dissatisfaction and which unseated a previous Minister of Finance. Furthermore in regard to these provincial taxes I must say that I am pleased that the Minister acceded to some extent to the request of the Orange Free State. Where in the first instance he only wanted to grant them £200,000 as a special allowance over and above the 50 per cent. of the annually recurring expenditure, he now granted them £300,000. They asked for £350,000, which they thought they should get. He gave them £300,000. During the past nine years, that is to say from 1935-’36 until 1943-’44, the Free State, when calculated on this basis, received on the average £277,926 annually from the Government. That means that the Free State will now receive only approximately £22,000 more than the average figure. The argument is now being advanced in favour of this new system that it is extendible. The elasticity was to be its favourable characteristic. But of course when it is extendible it is also subject to contraction. The new formula may be extendible but it also depends on the condition in the province. It will afterwards also be possible to contract it and that is what the province is afraid of. I do not know whether the Advisory Committee of the province informed the Minister that they were quite satisfied with the new arrangement? I do not think that they are quite satisfied. Of course they have to accept it because it is the policy of the Government but as far as the Free State is concerned I want to point out that the Free State has done its duty in regard to the collection of taxation for obtaining an income. There we levy the ordinary personal tax, entertainment tax, the wheel tax and the motor tax. During the past few years the Free State has not failed to collect taxation and it has not simply said that it is going to rely on the Government. No, the Free State used its sources to the full. The personal tax and the income tax were increased by 25 per cent., the entertainment tax was increased by 25 per cent., the wheel tax was increased by 25 per cent, and the motor tax by 10 per cent. The Free State made use of all its sources and levied higher taxation. The Minister cannot say today that the Free State did not do its duty as far as this is concerned. As a matter of fact the Corbett Commission also said that apart from the motor tax in Natal the Free State had a higher rate in most types of taxation. As far as the extra expenditure is concerned nobody can find anything wrong with what the Free State did. The Free State gave its teachers higher salaries, which amount to an additional expenditure of £70,000 per year. The salaries of nurses were increased, involving an additional £12,000 per year. Road workers were given higher pay which means another £22,000, so that £104,000 is required for increased salaries and those increases were absolutely necessary. I do not think the Minister can find fault with that. Furthermore last year the Free State paid off an amount of £150,000 in cash from its capital debt. In cost of living allowances the province has already paid £221,000. The Free State furthermore applied to the Government for an extra £100,000 for free hospitalisation, an amount which according to the calculations will afterwards have to be increased to £160,000 per year. The Free State is willing to introduce free hospitalisation provided the Government grants the extra allowance. The Government however, refuses to do so. Another scheme was suggested and I think that is one of the schemes which will be laid before us today, namely to tax the natives with a hospital tax of 2s. 6d. per head of the population. I only mention these points to show that the Free State fully deserves what it is getting. It does not possess all the taxable sources which the other provinces have. Just think of the roads. In normal times the roads of the Free State are used to a tremendous extent by the other provinces because the Free State lies in the middle of the Union. All the roads traverse the Free State but it does not receive any taxation from the other provinces for the use of its roads. The Free State roads are used much more by the other provinces than is the case in any other province. The Free State did its duty to levy a higher taxation and it only increased its expenditure where it was absolutely necessary. The Free State is entitled to the higher amount. I am only sorry that the Minister did not go further and did not also give them the additional £50,000 for which they asked. In conclusion I should like to hear from the Minister—and I hope it will be dealt with in his reply—whether the provinces have all agreed in principle to accept this new formula and whether they did not perhaps accept it because they could not do otherwise.

I do not intend to follow the hon. member with the discussion on the dual medium, but I should like to say this to him, from the English point of view. In the Eastern Province where 30 or 40 years ago very few of our youths could speak Afrikaans, today every school is giving instruction in Afrikaans and almost all our children are becoming bilingual.

We are very pleased indeed to hear that.

I can only assure the hon. member that in the Eastern Province, and I think in Natal, we conceive it our duty, and not only our duty but our privilege, to learn the second language, and we are doing our best in that respect. I do not think the legislation brought into this House will affect our attitude or our determination. We are doing our best now to learn the second language and we shall continue to do so. The question of the medium is one of the functions of the Provincial Council. Members of provincial councils are paid £250 a year; this is their job, and I think we can leave it to them to discuss the matter of bilingualism and to work it out. I should like to follow out the suggestion made in the speech by the hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming). He suggested that the native is not able to pay a higher levy than at present, and he has taken into consideration the extra half-crown. I do not think this method of taxation a wise one amongst the natives. This poll tax is not a scientific tax, but it is the only method by which we can tap the general bulk of the natives. You get a large number of young men today who are receiving free education. When they turn 18 they go up to the mines, or elsewhere, where they earn their £3 or £4 a month, and the least they can do is to contribute something to the health of their people as soon as they start earning money. The chief point I wish to impress upon the House is there should be a guarantee that this money will be spent on native hospitals. In this connection I would like to quote a few figures from the report of the Native Trust to show that substantial amounts are being received. The amount that will accrue from the Transkei to the Cape Provincial Council is £42,000; Ciskei, £11,000; other parts of the Cape, £11,000; total amount approximately £65,000; from Natal £43,000; from Free State £15,000; and from the Transvaal £47,000. The hon. Minister will know that prior to the Act of 1925 the Cape Province was obtaining a subsidy from the Union Government based on the expenditure of the General Council. But there is no provision today for that same subsidy, and I am afraid that the provincial authorities will say that this taxation they are obtaining from the native must be applied to the whole province, and that this year the money derived from the natives in the Transkei will be applied to the whole province and not merely to the Transkei. I think that is wrong. We in the Transkei have suffered from a lack of hospitalisation for many years. In the last ten or twelve years missionaries have started hospitals. There are seven or eight such hospitals in all, and the hospitalisation is good and has caught on with the natives. Whereas ten or fifteen years ago in some institutions we only had about 20 beds there are now 200 beds, but these institutions are in a very serious position financially! I can quote to the House the statement found in the White Paper on the work of the Native Trust—

In quoting that I wish to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that the provincial councils have never stood up to their responsibility in regard to hospitalisation. They have refused to make any contribution. They said: We derive no taxation from the natives and we are not responsible for mission hospitals in native areas. At the outbreak of the war these hospitals were faced with the position that without assistance they would have to close down. The Trust came to their assistance and each year the amount devoted to them has increased. In 1941 the amount was £31,000, while for the current year the amount is £75,000. The Trust cannot carry on any longer. All I want to be assured of by the Minister is, as far as the Native Trust and Development Fund is concerned, that this taxation is going to absolve the Trust from any further responsibility or liability for the maintenance of these hospitals. When the Act was passed in 1936 and provision was made for the development of the natives, it was never contemplated for a moment at that time that the Trust would have to face the responsibility of maintaining native hospitalisation. That amount was purely for development purposes. Today on account of the legislation dealing with natives four-fifths of that amount of general tax has been taken by the Union authorities for native education, and only one-fifth is left for the Trust. I wish to say that if we have to continue with this liability of maintaining these hospitals in these areas, mission hospitals and other hospitals, we may as well close down that fund. We shall have no money left for native development. I feel it is one of the most important functions of the Native Trust and of the Native Commission to see that the onefifth left is used for native development and not for extraneous purposes such as education and hospitalisation. I want to ask the Minister one question. As I said before, this subsidy paid by the Union Government is based amongst other things upon the expenditure of divisional councils. The Union Government pays on the basis of the expenditure of divisional councils in the Cape and even of local road boards. In the Transkei we have one road board. As the Transkei has its native General Council, which carries out a large number of the duties of a divisional council, such as the maintenance of roads and the building of bridges and hospitalisation—I think the contribution this year to roads and hospitalisation is something like £13,000—in view of the fact that this General Council carries out essentially and in some cases precisely the same duties as divisional councils, I want to know why in the provision for subsidies payable to the Cape Provincial Council no provision is made for a subsidy to be paid on the expenditure of the General Council. It seems to me to be only fair, seeing the General Council is carrying out the duties of the divisional councils in regard to the maintenance of roads—and many of these roads are travelled over by railway buses and so on—it seems to be only fair that any expenditure by the General Council in the same channels as funds expended by the divisional councils should rank for a subsidy, in order that the General Council may also have a claim for some subsidy from the provincial council. The position was so bad in the Transkei in regard to roads and bridges that much repair and construction work was done by the natives without any external assistance. No assistance could be obtained from the provincial council, so the European residents agreed to a 1¼d. rate on landed property. This is one of the few instances where local people have voluntarily agreed to the imposition of a tax for their own benefit. As far as the Transkei is concerned, the general tax should be subsidised in exactly the same way as the divisional council receives its subsidy. A further point I would like to raise. The general tax is a tax on all Union natives, but I should like to point out to the Minister—and he is of course aware of the fact—that there are tens of thousands of foreign natives paying no tax into our revenue. Are these natives going to have free hospitalisation? Is there any scheme by which they could be made to contribute something? Is it fair that our natives should pay for the hospitalisation of Basutos, Nyasa natives and natives from Lourenco Marques? I think there is something wrong there. I would prefer instead of an increase in the general tax to see a tax based on the income of natives. For instance, let every employer of natives deduct half-a-crown from the first month’s salary of a native employee and remit it to the authorities. I know it will be extremely difficult to collect. But I agree with the hon. member for Transkei that this is an unscientific tax, and perhaps some other method of obtaining money from native areas might be suggested. We find that in Basutoland a levy was imposed on all native wool exported from the country, and this levy of a ½d. was collected from the traders and brought in a considerable amount of revenue. I personally would prefer to see the money required from the Transkei raised on a wool levy or some similar scheme, so that the wealthy natives might contribute something more. I hope that the authorities will try to find some better method of taxing the native who is able to pay. Where a native has 300 or 400 head of cattle and 2,000 or 3,000 sheep, it is obviously not right that he should pay exactly the same tax as the native who owns practically nothing. I hope the Minister will place this matter before the Bunga. Let them argue it out and see if they cannot devise a fairer method of taxation. I do not think the natives will object to paying a certain amount of tax for their hospitalisation, but I do not think the present tax operates fairly.

This debate ranges over the financial relationships between the provinces and the Union Government. Not over the relationships in other respects, but there is of course a measure of affinity between the two. I think it is obvious that if the Union Government has entrusted certain functions to the provinces then, especially if those are important functions, we must see to it that the means are available for the carrying out of those functions adequately. Unless of course the intention is to kill the provinces by making them unpopular in this way then after a certain period to sidetrack them. If that is not the idea it is absoluately reasonable to expect that when you entrust important functions to the provinces, as we are now doing, that the means should be made available for the adequate carrying out of those functions. Education is, of course, one of the most important functions, the question of public health and of hospitals is an important function that has been entrusted to the provincial councils, especially after the report that came out and the partial acceptance of that report by the Government. I am not referring to the other functions. But there are other functions that relate to roads for the development of the country which are also important. When we look at the means that have been made available as sources of taxation for the provinces it appears to me that the intention originally was to entrust those sources of taxation to the provinces which would be collected as direct taxation and not as indirect taxation. Direct taxation is taxation which is much more readily felt by the taxpayer and consequently it is a much more unpopular form of taxation. The taxpayer is not nearly so sensitive to indirect taxation and consequently it is not so unpopular. From the outset the idea apparently was to give only direct taxation to the provinces.

It was originally put that way in the law.

In the list there were certain taxes which were not altogether direct taxes.

They first had the general power to impose any direct taxation. I think it was in the South Africa Act.

In 1913 with the Financial Relations Act a schedule was drawn up and although the idea then was that it should be direct some indirect taxes slipped in. The first objection I wish to express is that it is not altogether fair towards the provinces to allot to them only those sources that are unpopular, and will hit the taxpayer most severly; that it would be more reasonable to provide them with a greater range of choice of indirect taxes so that they can find the necessary funds without imposing unpopular taxes. There is, for instance, a tax that has been on the schedule all these years, and that is Item 10., So far as I know it is not applied in any of the provinces today. I refer to the tax on fixed property. For a long time it was imposed in the Cape Province, but it was so unpopular that it had to be rescinded; but it still stands there as a potential means of taxation, and it seems to me that it might just as well be removed, and in its stead the Minister might just as well consider giving to the provinces an indirect method of taxation that is practical. This principle that the Minister is laying down here is substantially a return to the principle of 1913. It is a departure from the subsidy basis that followed in later years. Whether it is an improvement or whether it is a retrograde step that we should have reverted to the 1913 basis, the fact remains that there is a measure of uncertainty. There are certain services. I think it can be laid down what the minimum requirement is to carry out these services adequately. In every case an attempt has been made in the report of the Corbett Commission to lay down what is the minimum amount that would be adequate. I think the provinces would be glad to know about this basis, if they accept it from the Government and should it fall short on what one might describe as a minimum basis, for the future carrying out of those services, whether that difference between the two amounts cannot then be made up by way of a special promise. That would reassure them in adopting this basis. We must remember that we stand today at the most favourable period for provincial finances, and if you are going to establish your basis under the favourable circumstances of today it is very probable that in the future you will hot be able to manage; and the provinces that will be the first to be caught are the Free State and the Cape Province because their sources of taxation are not so ample as those of the other provinces. If we had a fixed system, a percentage right through the country, then it would only operate equitably if in each province the wealth was the same as in the other provinces. But as you have a difference in the relative wealth of the provinces this principle does not apply evenly. The Corbett Commission laid down that the wealth of the various provinces was not the same. They give the contributions of the various provinces to the national income in 1938-’39. The contribution of the Transvaal to the national income was £211,600,000. Of that the proportion due to mining was £76,600,000. There is no provincial taxation payable on mining. Thus for the sake of fairness we must reduce that amount by £76,600,000. But it still means that the Transvaal’s contribution to the national income is £135,000,000. In the Cape Province the contribution to the national income was only £107,000,000. You see immediately that the income of the one province is lower than that of the other. But its expense is greater, thus relatively it is a poorer province than the other. Consequently to apply the same basis to both would not be just. You find the same difference between the Free State and Natal. The contribution made by Natal to the national income was £48,000,000 and that of the Free State £27,000,000. Under these circumstances it is of course very difficult to say this is a fair amount although it is the same percentage in every province, and consequently I consider that the correct principle is that account should be taken of the difference in the relative wealth of the various provinces. When you come to your subsidies you have to take that into account. The basis is 50 per cent. of the expenditure with certain qualifications. In addition there are certain special subsidies. In the case of the Free State it is £300,000; in the case of the Cape it is £150,000; and in the case of Natal it is £100,000. On the normal subsidy, a margin is allowed of only 5 per cent. Whether that is adequate or not I shall leave for the moment. I think there is much in what was said by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth), the basis allowed for an increase ought to be higher, especially bearing in mind the augmented services expected from the provinces in regard to hospitalisation. I wonder whether in any case it cannot be the via media that where in respect of normal services the increase is 5 per cent, in respect of hospitalisation and health services it should be 7½ per cent. But now there is another position, and it refers to this special subsidy. This is a permanent subsidy. It does not grow. There may be increased services. Larger expenditure may be necessarily bound up with hospitalisation and health services, but that £300,000 for the Free State remains at £300,000 for three years, and subsequently as Parliament may resolve. I believe that the correct principle will be for that special subsidy to be dealt with on the same basis as the normal subsidy; in other words it should also be progressive. If 5 per cent. is allowed on the normal subsidy in reference to extension of services then there ought to be, at least in respect of the special subsidy, a 5 per cent. margin for a natural increase. I think that is quite logical and quite fair, whether that amount is necessary today or whether it is not. If it is necessary for existing services it is obvious there will be an extension of those services next year, and then in the case of the Cape where this year £150,000 is being paid out, an extra 5 per cent. at least will be disbursed in respect of the expansion and so next year the sum of £157,500 will be granted. I think the Minister will admit it is a principle that is being applied on the normal subsidy. Why is a departure being made from it in the case of special subsidies, for which there exists such good grounds as indicated in the Corbett Commission. As far as the sources of taxation are concerned I have already said a few words about them. I only want to add that the whole question of the advertisement tax is apparently being reconsidered, and I would just point this out. The idea has been expressed—I do not know whether the Minister has investigated it—that a possible alternative, or a possible extra source of taxation, would be a sales tax. I am not sufficiently conversant with the matter to say whether it will be good under the circumstances, but I would point out that this tax is imposed in many countries in the world, and amongst others it is levied today in both Canada and Australia. But then of course it is a tax that would have to be adopted on a Union basis. You cannot allow one province to have a sales tax on its own, otherwise you will have the same difficulties that exist in regard to importers’ licences. Consequently it would be better to lay down a model, and then all the income from it should be promised to the provincial councils just as in the case of liquor licences. I have been talking generally about the subsidies and about the sources of taxation in connection with the hospital contributions. I see the Minister has made provision that the hospital contributions of divisional councils shall be included by the provincial councils as expenditure; but what about the position of the municipal contributions to the hospital deficit in the Cape Province? Is that also included.

No, that is purely a matter as between the provinces and the municipalities.

But in the Cape, as distinct from the other provinces, the responsibility for a portion of the hospital deficit is thrown on to the divisional councils and a portion on the municipalities.

But that is because the provinces have laid it down in that way.

But the part that is thrown on to the divisional councils falls under consideration in connection with a subsidy for the provinces. Why do we have this difference then between the portion that is contributed by the divisional councils and the portion that is contributed by the municipalities? The principle is the same. Both are local authorities. In both cases the provincial council thought fit to place a part of the responsibility on the local authority. Why make this difference, depending on whether it is a divisional council or a municipality? I think it is a matter that ought to be investigated. Then, finally, I should like to say a few words in connection with the National Road Board. This morning the hon. member for George pointed out that at the moment the whole position of the National Road Board is in the air. I want to go further than this. I think the dual position the National Road Board is in gives no satisfaction to anyone. The Minister did not do it here; he leaves the position just where it is; but he will have to devote his earnest attention to it, in order to see that the position of the National Road Board is made to fit in more closely with our system of provincial councils; that there should not be such a degree of diversity and duality, that the administrative costs are frequently so high and where this is also the cause of exceptional friction. I think the Minister realises it is not a position that works easily, and something will have to be done to see whether such a change cannot be brought about so that the friction that exists today can be entirely eliminated. A measure of friction exists especially in connection with the appointment of members to the National Road Board. I think that this is also a matter the Minister is cognisant of. Much dissatisfaction exists as far as the provinces are concerned—in respect of certain provinces at any rate—and I think it is necessary for the sake of healthy co-operation between the provincial council and the National Road Board that as far as the appointment of members to the National Road Board is concerned they should enjoy the full confidence of the provincial councils of the provinces that they represent. I think this matter cannot be left much longer in the position it is at present. The figures mentioned here by the hon. member for George afforded proof that the board fulfils a very important function. We vote that money to them, and today we are in this difficulty, that we as Parliament voting the money for the National Road Board do not exercise sufficient control on the expenditure of that money. It is not subject to any measure of control by our Auditor-General. I do not know where to fit that in; it is a matter for the Minister, but he must see that this position is thrashed out in the future so that in the future there will not be this incessant friction that we have had in the past.

For some considerable time now there have been increasing signs of the necessity for a revision of the financial relations between the central government and the provinces. There have always been increasing signs of the urgent need for an overhaul and extension of local government machinery in this country. These are two related interests and they are both involved in this measure. They are interests of first-class importance to this country and in these circumstances I regret that the hon. Minister was not able to bring in this measure a little earlier into the House when all its implications might have been more fully explored than they can be in the end-of-session atmosphere which prevails in the House today. We are laying new foundations which should be sufficiently well laid to last for a considerable time and in the circumstances it is a pity that anything of that kind should be done in a hurry. That does not mean that I feel there is anything seriously wrong with the principles that are being laid down in this Bill. My own feeling is all against the provincial councils as local government bodies in this country. I think they provide an extremely awkward basis. Our provincial boundaries do not march with any human or economic interests. The lack of balance therefore, which is created faces us with problems of accommodation which are too great, I think, ever to be effectively adjusted. That is clearly reflected in this Bill itself in the fact that we have to place alongside the general principle of financial relationship between the central government and the provinces, provisions for special subsidies for three out of the four provinces. However, it seems that the emotional support behind the provincial councils is so strong that it will continue to exist. After all, the system has been reported against and reported against for the last 25 years and it is still with us. So it looks to me as if we are not going to get rid of them. In the circumstances I think that the general principles embodied in the financial adjustments of this Bill have a good deal to be said for them. I am all in favour of making the people who spend the money raise it, and answer to those from whom they raise it for what they do with it. That is an essential change in this measure from the pre-existing situation, as I understand it, with certain modifications; and apart from the continuance of the responsibility for education and hospitals by the provincial councils, two functions which I think very definitely need centralised control to establish a unified policy, the functions that are being placed on the provincial councils, that have in the past been placed on the provincial councils but which they are now going to finance themselves, are largely of a local government nature. Therefore I believe this is a step towards making provincial councils, as far as they can be made so, real local government units. Unfortunately I cannot spend very much time on that aspect of the situation today because inevitably my main interest is focused on the revision of the powers of the provincial councils in respect of native taxation. I want to say at once that I strongly support the case that was put forward by my hon. colleague, that is that we are entirely opposed to the incorporation in this Bill of the possibility of a direct tax on the native population, even to the apparently small amount of 2s. 6d. I propose to explain my reasons for that opposition, some of which are the same as those given by the hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming). But the first point I want to put to the Minister in this connection is that this Bill with this clause in it embodies a new principle in native taxation has not been effectively put before the Natives’ Representative Council for its consideration. This Bill involves a very large principle in the matter of native taxation, a new principle, and in the terms of the 1936 Representation of Natives Act, provision is made for the full consultation of the native people through the Natives’ Representative Council on any matter of this kind. The situation as I have it is this, that until this Bill was published some ten days ago, even the Native Affairs Department did not know what this tax was going to be. Since then it is quite true that this Bill with this new provision has been referred to the Natives’ Representative Council, but it has been referred to the Natives’ Representative Council in such a way that the Natives’ Representative Council themselves have expressed their belief that this-type of consultation is a complete and absolute farce. What happened in regard to this Bill was that when it was published and the Native Affairs Department realised that it should be referred to the Natives’ Representative Council in the terms of the Natives’ Representation Act, the Natives’ Representative Councillors were urgently summoned to Pretoria. I am told that they were summoned by telephone, so urgent was the call. They went there last Friday morning to discuss this matter and when they arrived on Friday morning, copies of the relevant section of the Bill were presented to them for the first time. They had apparently been told over the telephone that they were going to discuss the question of the imposition of a direct tax by the provincial council on them, but they did not even see the section of the Bill until five minutes before the meeting opened last Friday morning.

Members of Parliament are in the same position.

It is all very well, but members of Parliament can at least get up and say that they are not ready to discuss the matter and if they refuse to discuss it the matter cannot be put through the House. The hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) yesterday asked the hon. Minister to postpone the consideration of this Bill that has been on our desks for some ten days. I think he was quite right; I am not challenging that, but he asked that the consideration of this Bill be postponed till today and that was agreed to at once. What the Natives’ Represented tive Council did was to say that they could not express their opinion on this matter which involved a great principle so far as they were concerned on this type of consultation, and they feel that if this is what the Government really intends to do with the Natives’ Representative Council, which is what they have long been beginning to suspect, then the sooner that body is done away with the better. They refused to express an opinion on this issue for the simple reason that they said they had not enough facts to deal with the matter. They did not know what they were going to get for the 2s. 6d. They did not know what anybody else was going to pay in the way of hospital tax. They wanted to know what the returns of their own taxation were in comparison with the European taxation so that they could give a considered judgment as to whether this was a reasonable demand or not. I think members of Parliament will agree that these were perfectly legitimate questions and that the councillors had a right to expect answers to those questions. For those reasons alone I should be opposed to the imposition of this tax. I think that the Natives’ Representative Council was quite right in asking that legislation of this kind should not be passed through this House this Session, that they at least be given time to express their opinion on it in terms which would reflect the intentions of the Act of 1936. They said: “We did not ask for a Natives’ Representative Council; we asked for representation in Parliament. Now you are going to place us in the position that even what you have given us is going to be of no use to us at all”. It is a perfectly legitimate answer. For that reason I am opposed to the granting of this power in this Bill, and I hope very sincerely that the hon. Minister will reconsider his decision in the matter and will agree in the committee stage to delete the proviso in Clause 10 which gives this power to the provincial councils. He has agreed to delete the provision giving the provincial councils power to tax in the matter of advertisements. We have no political power or pressure behind our demands as those interested in advertisements have but that seems to place an additional obligation on the Government in view of its trusteeship in respect of the people we represent. Now in so far as the tax itself is concerned, even if the Natives’ Rerpresentative Council had not taken up this attitude in regard to it I should have been opposed to this tax and that for some very obvious reasons. The first point is that we know both from the report of the National Health Services Commission and from the report of the Provincial Financial Resources Committee, on whose opinion the National Health Services Commission largely based its findings in regard to hospital services, that the provincial councils have lamentably failed in their duty in regard to the provision of hospital services for natives. It is clear that the maximum proceeds of this tax of 2s. 6d. is not going to make a fantastic difference to the financial resources of the provincial councils and in the circumstances inevitably one must ask for the programme which this tax is supposed to assist in developing. What are the native people going to get in return for this new 2s. 6d. as the hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming) asked?

2s.

If they get 1s. 6d. worth they will be lucky. I feel that before levying this new tax for hospital services the Government should have come forward with a statement of the programme and of the time factor in their programme of hospital development which the provincial councils are offering before asking Parliament to agree to any increase of revenue for the provincial councils at all. So far there has been no new imposition in regard to the European population. The provincial councils have the power to increase their direct taxation on the European population. They may be going to do so. But we have not heard anything at all about it; and if they do it I am perfectly certain that those who pay these taxes will also demand that they should know just what they will get. Now, I am asking this question about the provincial council’s programmes with one particular section of the native population particularly in mind. This new tax of 2s. 6d., which I understand two provincial councils have already got new ordinances ready to impose as soon as the Bill goes through the House, so that there is no question at all of its being a dead-letter. This tax will be imposed on all natives. It is going to be an addition to the poll tax. Now, there has been considerable agitation, and justified agitation, from the rural areas in regard to the incidence of poll tax and what the rural native population gets out of it. The farm native population is almost half of the whole native population, and they have contended with considerable justification that they get just nothing out of the poll tax. They have no schools or clinics and certainly no hospitals, yet they are also going to carry this additional burden. What are they going to get out of it? In that connection I wish to remind the Minister of the finding of the Provincial Financial Resources Committee in this regard. They analysed both the actual position in regard to beddage in hospitals in this country and the beddage that should be provided. They decided to accept as their standard a much lower standard for natives than for Europeans. I think it is one bed for 200 Europeans and one for 600 natives. They adopted that lower standard for natives on the very ground that the bulk of the native population are rural natives and that it will be practically impossible to give them hospitalisation on the same basis as for Europeans. They thought themselves “justified in making this differentiation in view of the fact that the bulk of the native population resides in rural areas which must for some time be remote from any general system of hospitalisation and consists of people leading a primitive life in which for social and economic reasons, hospitalisation has not yet played any large part.” We know what the farming population is beginning to think about that situation; but it remains a fact that not only is that provision not made, but as the commission pointed out, there are not even roads in the rural areas to make it possible for the natives in their grave emergencies to get to the centres where hospitalisation is provided. All these services have still to be provided. That trail still has to be blazed and it will take a long time and a lot of money to do it, yet here they are already asking these people to pay another 2s. 6d. added on to their already heavy burden in this regard. In all the circumstances I feel that the native community, who will certainly bitterly resent this added burden, will have every justification for doing so. In addition I wish to remind the Minister that the Financial Resources Committee made it quite clear that one great reason why the provinces had not carried their burdens in a fashion which we would regard as adequate was because they were so weak in capital resources. They state that the provinces had found it impossible to carry their burdens in this regard. “The committee,” they said, “had received complaints from all the provincial authorities that they were hampered in their development by lack of capital. Particularly is this so in connection with the provision of school buildings and hospitals.” It adds that “the committee has no wish to criticise the present arrangements” but “the need for capital facilities to enable adequate services to be rendered is obvious and the provinces cannot be blamed for failure to expand their services if the necessary funds are not made available”. If circumstances are such that the Government had to add these burdens on to the already heavy burdens of the natives, it should have given us a statement of its plans in this particular regard also as an indication of what will be done. Finally, on this section of what I have to say—and I hope the Minister will hear me—my next anxiety is this, and it has been considerably aggravated by what the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) has said. I am not blaming him this time. I usually have reason to quarrel with him, but on this occasion he was just doing what a good member of Parliament does, looking after his own constituency. The hon. member for Tembuland asked what was going to happen to the money raised by the tax in the Transkei in view of the fact that at present the Bunga is providing a certain amount of its own resources to support the hospitals existing in the Transkei. I sympathise with the hon. member for Tembuland. Services have been established there and he wants a guarantee that if the Bunga feels that it is not going both to subsidise and pay the tax, at least the money paid by the Transkei will be spent on it. But the implication of that argument, which may be all right for the Transkei, is dangerous to the rest of South Africa. Implicit in that demand that the money raised in the Transkei should come back to the Transkei is the old iniquitous principle of a self-balancing account. I cannot say that is what the hon. member for Tembuland wants, but that is what will inevitably happen. It is what inevitably happens when these specific taxes are levied on specific groups. The tendency is for the community responsible for the service to assume that its obligation ends when the resources of that particular tax end. We have seen that with the Native Trust Account, and we see it every day in the Native Revenue Account in the municipal areas. This brings me to my final point, which is that my objection to this tax, apart from the fact that it is an added burden oh people whom I am not sure can pay it—I am not stressing that too strongly at this moment—is that it is a discriminatory tax which has a very unfortunate psychological effect in this country. Out of this way of taxing the native population by methods different from those which apply to the rest of the community there arises the idea that these are the only taxes that the native people pay. That is an idea which lends some colour to the unfortunate propaganda that continually goes on from the Opposition side of the House, that the native population should be given nothing they do not contribute to, and the source of contribution is visualised as the poll tax only. This raises the whole taxation issue in this country and I want to suggest to the Minister that the time has come to depart from this method of dealing with the native population in its taxable relationship to the country. The time has come, I believe, to review the whole taxation policy and to see whether it would not be far wiser and more satisfactory to bring the native population within the ambit of the general taxation system of the country. A difficulty arises there. I want to call the attention of the Minister and the House to the fact that while this Clause 10 of the new Bill apparently limits the power of the provincial council to tax the native population and suggests that there are aspects of the native’s life which must not be taxed, in fact, for revenue other than that derived from the personal tax which the provincial council is empowered to levy, every tax imposed by either the Government or the provincial councils applies to the native population. That is, apart from the personal tax and the provincial tax on income taxpayers which the provincial councils could not impose upon natives, the native is subject to all the taxes which are imposed in this country. The situation in regard to the income taxpayer is now being altered by this Bill to bring the native income taxpayer within the scope of the provincial tax. Let me repeat that all the fees and licences which can be imposed under the First Schedule to this Bill, are all applicable to the native population. It may be a fact that the native population would not contribute much under any of these headings, but that is due to their economic status; it is not due to their taxable position under our law. And in so far as they do not pay because they are economically incapable of paying, that merely squares with the modern principle of taxation that taxation should be levied according to the capacity of people to pay. But in this Clause 10—and I am anxious to have the attention of the Minister because I feel this is important—which repeats the old statutory position in regard to the powers of provincial councils, there is the implication that the native population is exempt from the whole range of taxes applying to Europeans. This clause lays down—

with the new provisos that follow. I want to point out that any implication there that the native is exempt from taxation in these directions, that is in regard to persons, lands, habitations and incomes, is entirely unjustified. In fact, the native is subject to taxation in practically all these directions. He continually pays taxes on his land to the Trust. He cannot buy land; he cannot hold freehold land. No, that is not exactly right. I will put it this way. The bulk of the native population can never buy land; they hold their land on the basis of a perpetual quitrent. That is a tax on land. And even where they do not own land they pay on their habitations, both in rural areas and urban. They do it directly in the rural areas by paying a 10s. hut tax, and in the urban areas indirectly by paying rents in locations and rates where they occupy houses outside the location. They are also subject to the ordinary income tax law. Finally as the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) says, the tax on immovable property has been a dead letter. It has been imposed only in the Cape Province and only there, in a very limited sense, so that that exclusion means nothing in effect. But here is the point which I wish to make: Although the provincial council is prevented from imposing a tax on persons, land, habitations, etc., it will now have the right to impose a tax on incomes, by this amendment, and to impose a tax on persons, which is a thing which complicates the whole situation. To appreciate the implications, the situation must be seen in this light that where the tax on persons is imposed on Europeans, coloureds and everyone else by the provincial council, it is imposed by the Union Government in respect of natives. The native population is not exempt from personal tax. What it has been exempted from is not the personal tax as such, but the imposition of the personal tax by the provincial council. What is otherwise a provincial tax has in their case been imposed by the Union Government, and as a matter of fact in all the circumstances the native has paid much more heavily in personal taxation than the rest of the community in that the exemptions which other races have enjoyed in respect of the personal tax under provincial ordinance have not applied to him in respect of the poll tax. This is the only differentiation that I know of in the ordinary taxation law. Every other form of taxation applies to the whole community. The native pays the indirect taxes imposed through customs. There is no discrimination there, unless it be that goods in common use by natives have been more highly dutiable than goods in common use by other sections of the community. I am thinking of things like kaffir sheeting and cotton blankets on which extremely heavy duties are imposed as the natives can exert no political pressure to protect them in that regard. All the indirect taxation falls upon them; and they are subject to all the licences, etc., which the provincial council can impose. The income tax is applied to them too. Now the provincial council will get the power to impose a personal tax; and let me make it perfectly plain, I am not objecting to that as a principle. In fact, the implication of what I am saying is this, that it would be far better for the native population, I think—I want to qualify it for this reason that am in the same position as the Natives’ Representative Council in that I have not been provided with a scientific analysis of the position—but on my own analysis I think the native would be far better off if he were brought completely within the ambit of the general taxation system. And it would be far healthier for the country if that were the case. It would cut the ground from under all this argument that for services provided the native depends on what is paid by the white man. That argument really derives from the poll tax. It would render ludicrous the sort of proposition put up by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) this morning, which was that the Government felt so tender towards the rich that it has to guarantee the money for the roads on which they travel, and that it was so tender—I thought he was going to say—towards the poor that it would guarantee their education, but he did not say that. He said instead, so tender towards the natives that it was going to guarantee their education: Look, he said, what they are doing for the Europeans! He said the Government would provide only a 50 per cent. subsidy for the Europeans but 100 per cent. for the natives. I am not accusing the hon. member for George of being vicious in this regard but he is a politician.

And what are you.

We are all politicians in this House; and he finds it useful at times to use that sort of argument where his Party are determined to play up European prejudice. He does it with a rather unhappy grace, but it can be done under this system, and that is an additional reason for abolishing the whole thing. We will probably lose a bit by it, and the natives would proportionally gain, since under the exemption provided in respect of personal tax in the provinces, a good many natives would have to be exempted, because in spite of the assumption that personal tax is a flat rate tax, in fact the exemptions give it some relationship to capacity to pay. Of course the reaction of the Central Government would be that it would lose, but in fact it would not lose much since it is paying over far more to the provinces on behalf of the natives, or it will increasingly do so, than the whole poll tax brings in. What I want to say is this, that neither we nor the native population have any objection to the native population paying taxes. We are extremely anxious, as are the natives, that they should make their contribution to the national revenue. All we are asking is that that contribution should be graduated according to their capacity to pay and that the amounts which they actually contribute in other than direct means shall be consistently remembered instead of being consistently forgotten. They contribute to a far higher degree than their means justify to the national revenue through indirect taxation. What they contribute in direct taxation might under this scheme of making them subject to the Provincial Personal Tax instead of the poll tax, be considerably smaller. But what we pay in political maladjustments through this type of direct taxation, which belongs, in any case to the Middle Ages, is far more than we can continue to pay. We would be far better off by applying the general scheme of taxation all round, even if it does mean handing over the control of these revenues to the provincial councils. Our one desire is that the native population shall be increasingly enabled to pay and everything they are able to pay they will willingly pay and we will willingly support this Parliament in imposing the obligation upon them. That is my case. I put it to the Minister for his consideration and I ask him seriously to consider withdrawing this tax from this Bill. It is establishing a new precedent and a bad one. Where the Government is prepared to allow the provincial council to impose new obligations on the whole community for health service or for social security which has been promised we will not be obstructionists. But this sort of thing will only make more discrimination in ideas if not in fact, and it is the idea that is so often important. It will give us endless trouble. The natives will resent it. The provinces will be inclined to give only what is paid for and the Opposition will do its best to see that the natives get nothing more than they can help, beyond what they can see is directly paid for by the natives. I ask the Minister to delete this clause and to institute a general enquiry into the whole taxation system in regard to natives, to see whether my proposition is not a sound one.

I think the new financial powers given to the provincial councils are very desirable and mark a step forward. The new basis for subsidising the councils marks a definite step forward and in particular the basis upon which education is to be subsidised. The old system of basing that upon the attendance at schools is unsound because expenditure has little relationship to a fluctuating attendance. I am glad to see now that the amount is going to be fixed but I am not sure whether the same principle is going to be applied to the institutions which are being subsidised. I take it that if the Union Government is paying each province a flat amount by way of subsidy the provinces, in turn, should pay each institution a flat amount by way of subsidy. I raise this point because I am interested in a nursery school, and there is a great deal of discrimination. This House has voted to the provinces a certain fixed sum which is distributed amongst the provinces and the provinces, in turn, have been paying that over to the institutions concerned on the basis of attendance. Now there may be something to be said for that in the case of primary and secondary education, where attendance at school is compulsory, but in the case of nursery schools there is ho compulsory attendance laid down, and our experience has been this that where an epidemic has started, such as the infantile paralysis epidemic last year, for two or three weeks more than half the pupils are kept at home. The children in these nursery schools are between two and six years of age. It is very unfair to base the subsidy upon attendance. I must say this though that in certain cases allowances were made. Nevertheless I think it is right that the provinces should subsidise these institutions at a flat rate, based, if they like, upon the number of pupils in the school but not upon the average daily attendance. Nursery schools receive no money for school feeding, and yet the Nursery School Association is taking an active part in promoting the idea of school feeding. I think this is a discrimination that might well be remedied. In introducing the Bill the Minister stated that he intended to go into the question of whether some uniform system of taxation among the provinces could not be instituted. That would be an admirable idea in connection with the personal income tax. I do not think there is any maximum limit that the province can charge, but in levying a percentage tax on income tax there should be a degree of uniformity among the different provinces. It would be a step forward if the Minister would go into it with the provinces. A few words on the question of taxation on advertising. The Minister has intimated that in the Committee Stage the relevant section of the Bill will be withdrawn, and with that many of us are pleased. He stated that in any question of a tax on advertising there should, if possible, be uniformity in the four provinces and that he intends to take the matter further with the provinces. I submit that the real test is whether we should give any power to the provinces to impose a tax on advertising. The arguments against authorising the provinces to tax advertising are numerous and overwhelming. I think it is entirely wrong in principle that anybody other than this House should be entitled to levy a tax on any item of business expenditure. I do not know why advertising is singled out as a business expense.

But the Minister has told us he has dropped it.

The Minister has not dropped it. He is consulting with the provinces with a view to securing uniformity. I think the matter should be approached more objectively and from the angle that the tax should be negatived entirely. There are many forms in which an advertising tax could be levied—on newspapers, periodicals, magazines, hoardings, posters on railway stations, and then there are catalogues, cinemas and radio advertising. Advertising is done in a multitude of ways, and the question arises why there should be taxation on certain types and not on others.

You are flogging a dead horse.

I put it to the Minister that the idea of any such tax should be abandoned.

The Minister told you long ago he was dropping it, you know he is going to drop it, and here you are making a speech about nothing.

Hear, hear.

I want to come to the final point, Clause 5 of the Bill. I am glad to see that the penalty to be imposed for late payment of personal tax is to be reduced from 10 per cent. to 5 per cent. I want particularly to refer to sub-clause 1 (b). Here we find different rates of penalty for late payment of personal income tax based on the amount of tax due. The same persons have to pay the penalty on an amount, which represents a percentage of their income tax, and yet in the Income Tax Act the matter is disposed of by the payment of interest at the rate of 7 per cent. per annum in respect of any amount not paid by the specified date. In this clause the rate varies from 12 per cent. to 30 per cent. per annum. I cannot see any reason for differential penalties in the case of the personal income tax on the basis laid down here. I do not know why it should not be uniform with the penalty imposed on the income taxpayer. It would be ideal at this stage to create uniformity, and I should like the Minister to move in the Committee Stage to delete paragraph (b) and substitute a clause making the penalty uniform with that in the Income Tax Act.

I did not expect to hear a debate on bilingual education on this Bill. I thought that question had been one of the major issues at the last provincial council elections, and the country having made its pronouncement it would not be necessary to go into it again. I feel, however, this is a measure that needs to be examined rather more closely. There are a number of important points in connection with it, and I think this discussion will do a great deal of good. Particularly as far as the Cape Province is concerned I welcome the improved position it will be placed in as a result of this new measure. The Cape Province has, for many years, had to battle against the system that militated-very much against them. One of their drawbacks has been the inadequate provision for financing coloured education, and on that subject at any rate they will receive considerable benefit. I would also like to support the point made by the hon. member for Tembu land (Mr. Payn). I think the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) rather missed the point of his remarks. His principal point, I think, was that the Cape Province and all Cape divisional councils are directly responsible for certain services. In the Transkei some of these services have not been provided by the divisional council but they have been provided by the Transkeian Territories General Council. The General Council has had no subsidy from the Provincial Council in respect of those services, and on account of that they are excluded from the list of contributions that will be supported by the Government on the £ for £ basis. That was, I think, the particular point he made, and on that point I should like to mention that the. Transkeian General Council, in its current year’s estimates, is budgeting to spend £78,777 on public works and £13,000 on public health. If that expenditure had taken place in a divisional council area it would have been subsidised by this Government on the £ for £ basis, but as it has not been previously subsidised or assisted at all by the Provincial Council, it does not fall within the range of subsidies under this measure. A strong case can be made out for including at any rate some portion of that expenditure under the heading of those that may be subsidised. Then in regard to the hospitalisation of natives, the Provincial Council has consistently refused to face up to its obligations. It has beeen a very difficult task to try to get it to make very small contributions, particularly to mission hospitals, which in the Transkei have been terribly neglected by the authorities. I hope that now they will make a generous contribution and face up to their responsibilities, that they will make a reasonable grant to these institutions, and in that way enable them to obtain more assistance from the Union Government. With regard to the half-crown tax on natives I agree with the hon. member for Cape Eastern. I think the method of approach in connection with consulting the Natives’ Representative Council was very unfortunate. We should have given them more time for consideration. Had we done that we might have had a much happier state of affairs. I rather gather from what the hon. member for Cape Eastern said that in her opinion the amount suggested was very low, and I was wondering whether a way out would not be to withdraw this item from the schedule and substitute 5s. in its place. The natives, I feel, can well afford to pay this amount. In regard to the statement that farm natives are unable to pay and that they are given practically no services, I may say that a very large number of farm natives today are enjoying hospital facilities. In many cases, too, farm schools are being established and they get assistance from the provincial authorities. So the natives do derive benefit from this taxation. On one point I think the farming community is going to be taxed rather excessively. I entirely oppose the idea of giving the provincial councils power to levy an auction sales tax.

They have always had it.

I think it is wrong that the Provincial Council should be able to levy a tax of this sort on one form of sale. If the Provincial Council or any other authority wants to levy a tax let them have a general sales tax. Before the war wool, which was sold entirely by auction, would have borne considerable taxation, while other sales would not be subject to the tax. If the Minister is favourably disposed to considering the point put forward by the hon. member for Cape Eastern. I suggest he withdraws this item of 2s. 6d., with the tax on advertisements and the auction tax, that he should review these three and see whether it is not possible to bring forward more equitable forms of taxation in their place. I think the country generally will welcome the agreement that has been made between the Union Government and the provinces, and that they will feel that the provinces have been placed in a much more satisfactory position. From that angle I should like strongly to support the Bill, and if one or two of these amendments could be made I should be more satisfied.

In the Act of Union it is made clear that the administration and control of natives is vested in the Union Government, and it is on that basis the whole of the machinery of the Government has been founded hitherto. At one time, it is true, a certain amount of dual taxation was permitted to the Union Government and the provinces in respect of natives. The undersirability of this was proved some years ago and legislation was clarified to avoid two taxing bodies in the Union having power to deal with natives. We seem about to revert to this objectionable principle. I quite agree with the view expressed by the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) in regard to the attitude of the Department towards the Native Representative Council in the way they expected them to arrive at a decision on this Bill. Intricate though it is, and difficult to understand, the Department expected them to arrive at a decision possibly within one day, and certainly within not longer than two days I want to quote to this House the promises that were made in respect of the powers of the Native Representative Council and on the extent to which they would be consulted on matters which precisely correspond to the matters referred to in this Bill before us. When the question of the Native Representative Council was before a joint Sitting of Parliament, our present Prime Minister, speaking on behalf of the Government, said—

To what extent has that promise been fulfilled in this instance? The conditions under which the Native Representative Council was consulted were such as not to allow of sufficient consideration of the matters placed before them through this Bill. I quite agree with the hon. member for Cape Eastern. It would be a great mistake to proceed with the levying of the taxation proposed by this Bill, in the circumstances indicated by the hon. member in the House in regard to the consultation with the Council at Pretoria. Then there is another objection in regard to this Bill. One of the principal aims is to levy a hospital tax on the natives, a tax of half-a-crown per annum on the persons mentioned in the Bill. That tax will come into operation in the various provinces. In our own province I defy the Minister to produce any European who has ever paid such a tax. A hospital tax has never been levied on the European or native people there; certainly not to my knowledge, and I have lived a lifetime there. It is to be imposed it is a novelty to the natives, and never to my knowledge has such a tax been imposed even on the Europeans there. What will be the effect on the natives of that kind of taxation? Remember, a very large class of the natives who will fall under this taxation are persons who have no knowldege of hospitalisation themselves, and who are not particularly enamoured of hospital treatment, because they are very largely ignorant of it. A growing proportion of the natives, it is true in the backward and tribal areas are becoming accustomed to hospital treatment, but that proportion is not large enough to sway the whole of the native population to agree to the desirability of this tax. Another point made by the hon. member for Cape Eastern was whether free hospitalisation is going to be provided when this tax has been paid by the natives. I thing there is considerable room for doubt in regard to that. There is nothing even to assure us that the money collected in one year will be spent in that area or that sufficient hospitals will be provided in that area to meet the needs of the natives who have contributed towards the tax. The present procedure is for natives to pay Is to the hospital for every treatment at a clinic. It may be true we are criticising this matter at some disadvantage to the Provincial Councils. Spokesmen of the Provincial Councils are not here to say what their policy is going to be in regard to the provision of hospital treatment, and therefore we are conscious of the fact we are criticising a body that is unable to answer for itsef in this House. But we have realised what the effect of this taxation is going to be. At one time the policy in regard to native taxation was to tax the native only on visible things. In our province he was, for fifty years, taxed on his hut or dwelling. That was considered preferable to a poll tax; and I think that was amply demonstrated when the poll tax was imposed and a native rebellion ensued; not, I may add, solely because of the incidence of this tax but the tax certainly proved very unpopular and there were other disturbing influences. Now we are going to multiply forms of taxation by saying these natives must pay a hospital tax. I think it is a great mistake to multiply media of taxation. The tribal native in the past has looked upon taxation as a tribute he pays to the Government, somewhat like the tribute which under his own system in tribal law he paid to his chief. There is no feeling of innovation or novelty about the payment of taxation through the proper medium of collection, that is the Government, and the process of collection is rather different in the case of taxation paid to the Union Government. It is paid to the magistrate either in his own office or to him during his tour of tax collection. But I have seen the dog tax levied on natives by travelling inspectors or travelling collectors sent out in the case of the native dog tax, I think by the Provincial Council direct, and that I think gives a very bad impression. A man who comes from heaven knows where and who goes heaven knows where comes along with a snatchel on his back and says he is the dog tax collector, and with that pleasant announcement he proceeds to chase the people about for their dog tax. That has its own horrible objection, and I think that in my plea for taxation by a single body I need not go any further afield to illustrate the objection to two taxing bodies than the gentleman who announces himself to be the dog tax collector. Although I am a strong supporter of the Provincial Council system I feel that a decision ought to be come to at this juncture that we should not proceed with this particular tax, where consultation with the Native Representative Council has been so insufficient as to amount to no consultation at all. After all, the Native Representative Council is a body which could be very helpful in making any tax acceptable to the natives by explaining the conditions in the various tours the members make in their own constituencies. These men are very active; I have recently heard of visits they made to the native areas to give an account of their stewardship, and to explain the various subjects before the Council. I have no doubt they are serving a very useful purpose, although at one time I objected to the method of election, feeling it might lead to people of the wrong kind being chosen. In the light of my experience I feel this body might serve a useful purpose, and I wish the Government would pay a little more heed to their resolutions. Many of their resolutions are, I believe, not even replied to. I think the attitude of aloofness the Government has of late adopted towards this body is preventing it from serving the useful purpose it should. I hope better relations will prevail between the Council and the Department of Native Affairs than have been possible hitherto and that the Council will be helpful to the Government and to their own people in whatever work they undertake. I trust that the Minister will listen to the appeal that has been made by the natives not to press this taxation at this stage. The natives themselves may say quite fairly that they have not been consulted about this taxation, and as so little information about it has been conveyed to the large mass of the natives—who after all are going to be called upon to pay—it would be a mistake to impose this tax.

The debate today has in the main covered the question of bilingualism.

The mother tongue.

Yes, mother-tongue education. Consequently before I come back to the Bill it may be necessary to say something briefly on that matter which is also the subject of the amendment that has been proposed. I cannot accept the amendment, not because I am opposed to the principle that the child in the earlier stages should receive its education through the medium of its mother tongue, but simply because the amendment is in conflict with the tendency of the Bill. The purport of this alteration is to strengthen the feeling of responsibility on the part of the provinces. An amendment of this sort is in conflict with that. If you accept this it means that our financial assistance to the provinces is being employed to force our policy on the provinces, and if we do it in this case why not then in other cases? And then we put an end to provincial responsibility. The Government does not want to use its financial power to impose a certain policy on a particular province. That would be dangerous, from the viewpoint of the Opposition as well. I do not know whether they realise that. Last year we adopted a motion in connection with the language question. There were three parts in that motion. The first part was in the spirit of this motion, namely the use of the child’s mother tongue as a medium in the first stages of its education. The second part was in connection with the compulsory introduction of the second language as a medium of instruction. My friends on the opposite side were strongly opposed to that. The third had reference to an alteration in connection with the training of teachers. If the Government uses its power to impose one part on the provinces then it is not unreasonable to expect the Government to use its power to impose the other parts as well on the provinces.

Have you not tried to do that in the case of the Free State?

My hon. friend asks whether we did not attempt to do that in connection with the Free State. Not more than in the case of the other provinces. I acquainted all the four provinces of the resolution taken by Parliament. I did nothing more in the case of the Free State than in the case of Natal. If my hon. friend now asks why the first part of the policy contained in that motion was not applied in Natal we must also ask why the other two parts were not applied to the Free State. My hon. friend cannot use this Bill to force one part of Parliament’s resolution on a province unless he accepts that the same procedure he has now suggested may also be followed in connection with the other two parts.

But in respect of the first part unanimity exists.

But the resolution was adopted by Parliament as a whole. If my hon. friend now desires that we should use this Bill to force the first part on the provinces then he must not look askance at it if we exercise the same power to force the other parts on the provinces. Now I come to the Bill itself. Before I deal with the principal point that has been advanced by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) I wish to reply to a question put by the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) because it is fundamental. He asked whether the provinces adopted these proposals in principle, and whether it was the case they could not do otherwise. No, I can give him the assurance that the provinces readily adopted the new principle. It is true, as my hon. friend knows, they pleaded for a higher special subsidy in some cases, but as far as the new principle is concerned they are satisfied. It is also obvious, because it is to their benefit not only bearing in mind their immediate financial needs—they obtain immediately an amount of about £2,000,000 more—but it is also to their advantage as regards the future. The new system is regarded by them as being more elastic than the old system. My hon. friend can be assured that the provinces in priciple accept these proposals. I come now to the principal point mentioned by the hon. member for George. He has mentioned two main points, and then there are certain subsidiary points that were mentioned by him and other members. He said, in the first place, that in this Bill, as far as concerns the subsidy, we are departing from the Havenga system; we are guaranteeing expenditure in connection with national roads and national education up to 100 per cent., but we are not doing so in reference to European and coloured education. He has stated that the Havenga policy guaranteed the expenditure on education for the European child, that it ensured the education of the European child should not suffer. Let us test that by the facts. I have so often to put my friend’s assertions to a factual test. Take, in the first place, the expenditure on national roads. Was the 100 per cent. policy introduced by Mr. Havenga or by me? Mr. Havenga was Minister of Finance in 1935 when that policy was introduced. In connection with the policy of 100 per cent. for native education—who introduced it, Mr. Havenga or I? That goes back to 1925 when Mr. Havenga was Minister of Finance. There is no departure from the Havenga policy in that respect. As regards the other assertion, that it was the Havenga policy to guarantee expenditure on the education of the European child and to ensure that the education of the European child should not suffer—as the hon. member put it—what do we find in the Corbett Report? According to that Report the expenditure incurred by the provinces and that they ought to incur on European education is £22 11s. 3d. per child per year. The expenditure the Havenga policy guaranteed was less than two-thirds of that, namely £14 15s. 3d.; and then out of that £14 15s. 3d. they had to cover not only two-thirds of the cost of the education of the European child but also part of the costs of the other services they had to provide. Where are we now departing so greatly from the Havenga policy? Is it quite correct to say that it ensured 100 per cent. of the costs of the education of the European child and that we are now only doing it to the extent of 50 per cent.?

It is rather distorted.

Yes, it is rather distorted. On the contrary, we are giving the provinces jointly £1,900,000 more. We are improving their position and they can thus make better provision for the education of the European child. They will be much better off as far as that aspect is concerned under this policy than under the Havenga policy. The great weakness of the Havenga policy was the absence of elasticity. As I have already shown, in the case of the Free State the subsidy had to be reduced. In fact, we kept it at the minimum notch. Under the Havenga policy no increase could have been given. In this respect as well the present proposal records a big improvement. The second main point my hon. friend made is he said we should give more money to the provinces than is now proposed. The hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) also argued along those lines. We are already giving the provinces this year an additional £1,900,000. The subsidy will, in future mount more quickly. We are thus giving considerably more, but look now at the contrast. Yesterday my hon. friends pleaded earnestly for a reduction of taxation. Today they are pleading for an increase in expenditure. How strikingly does it not prove the justice of the observation made yesterday by my hon. friend the member for Vasco (Mr. Mushet) in this connection. The hon. member for George said that we should increase the contributions from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent.

The difficulty is that you are spending money on the wrong things.

Yesterday I had to impose less taxation; today I must expend more money. That is the way it has gone right through the Session. The one day greater expenditure and the next day less taxation! He proposed that the subsidy should be 60 per cent. of the expenditure instead of 50 per cent. In the second place, he proposed that a larger amount should be granted to the Cape Province. May I point out that where he refers to the complaints of the Cape Province we are doing something in this Bill that the famous Havenga policy never did. In other words, we acknowledge in this Bill, for the first time, that there is a case for preferential treatment in respect of the Cape Province. Does he also wish on that point to revert to the Havenga policy?

I said it could be improved.

For the first time we are granting a special subsidy of £150,000 to the Cape Province. This does not merely imply that the provincial tax payers of the Cape Province will have to pay £150,000 a year less in taxation in comparision with the provincial taxpayers of the Transvaal, but it also signifies that a very large proportion of that £150,000, that has to come from the Union taxpayers is derived from the Transvaal that contributes the largest proportion of revenue to the Union Treasury. It is a two-edged sword. A further point in connection with which my hon. friend pleads for increased expenditure is in connection with the 5 per cent. margin. We allow a margin of 5 per cent. for the normal expansion in respect of which a province will be entitled to the 50 per cent. subsidy. He wants to make that larger. This limitation is a break and a very desirable break. It means that the provinces will think twice before they allow-expenditure to expand too rapidly. I want to point out that this break is really only applicable to the first year. My hon. friend apparently did not take that point. The limitation to one-third is not something that is of permanent application in respect of the increase of provincial expenditure. It applies only to the first year and in the following year and in subsequent years the provinces will get 50 per cent. of the increased expenditure. It does not mean that we are taking much from the province but we are putting it in the position of having to think twice before it enlarges its expenditure.

Every year you only allow 5 per cent. on the previous year.

Yes, but what does it mean? Supposing now that a province’s expenditure this year is £2,000,000. Five per cent. on that is £100,000. This means that if the provinces expends £200,000 next year, it will receive one-third on the second £100,000. But when we come to the following year the 5 per cent. is calculated not on the £2,100,000 but on the £2,200,000, so that in the following year the province gets the full 50 per cent. on the £2,200,000, plus a 5 per cent margin on it. The limitation only applies in the first year. The hon. member asked further what the position of the provinces is going to be in connection with health services and the expansion of hospital services. The position is simply this, that we shall find 50 per cent. and they will have to find 50 per cent. It was never the intention that the people should secure an extension of those services without paying for them. The people, I believe, are prepared to pay for that, and whether the people pay through the provinces or through us it comes to the same thing. But the provinces will have to get half from the people for the extension of the services and we shall have to find the other half. I fail to understand why they should not be in a position to do justice in respect of those services. Then the hon. member mentioned certain special points. He referred to the proposed hospital contribution that the natives are being asked to contribute, to a maximum of 2s. 6d. a head. He stated this was inadequate. So far as I know none of the provinces has raised any objection to this limitation. So far as I know they are all satisfied. He wants to put it higher. Before the provinces can ask anything more they will have to furnish evidence of what they are going to do with the money should they get it. He also spoke about the school-feeding system, and he said it was something we had let drop. It was never a Union service. It is a service that began in two of the provinces as a provincial service, and we came into it in order to extend it and to stimulate it by the grant of a special subsidy. In the first instance we contributed a subsidy of two to one. In other words, we contributed two-thirds. Under this system we shall make a subsidy on the basis of a half, and is my hon. friend entitled to become so agitated here and to enlarge on this with such a wealth of words and gestures? We are not running away from that service. In regard to the important question of the Road Beard, he breached the question of Parliamentary control. I would not say that the position is entirely satisfactory, although in this respect we are still dealing with the very famous Havenga policy. The present position is in conformity with the legislation introduced by my predecessor. What I would like to point cut is that it is not the case that Parliament has absolutely no control. On the loan votes we vote funds for the Road Board. We can say a good deal on that occasion, and my hon. friend also knows full well that it is a matter that comes under the Select Committee on Public Accounts.

But the accounts are not examined by the Auditor-General.

They come before that committee. The report is presented and the chairman of the Road Board gives evidence. My hon. friend this morning gave ample proof that he has at his disposal considerable information in connection with that matter. What he has said is not absolutely correct, that Parliament knows nothing about the matter. A further point was broached by the hon. member for Winburg in connection with the request from the Free State for an additional £100,000 required for free hospitalisation. What is the actual position in this connection? The Free State will be in a position to collect £17,000 from the natives as their contribution. The province will also get £17.000 from us. It will thus have an amount of £34,000 at its disposal in this way. This leaves £66,000 over. If they find £33,000 then they obtain £33,000 from us under the subsidy. But as a result of the expansion of the hospital services the public of the Free State will economise £66,000 in hospital fees. The public of the Free State will thus be better off as they will only have to pay £33,000.

How is it collected from the public?

They can obtain it from the European population in the form of a hospital levy. The public are now finding £66,000 and according to my calculations it will have to find £33,000 while it is relieved from the £66,000. The hon. member for Fauresmith asserted that we were driving the provincial councils to resort to unpopular direct taxation. If he refers to the South Africa Act—while he was speaking I looked it up—he will find that the South Africa Act drove them to that.

I stated that we should not do that now.

Since that time there has been a development more and more in the direction of the grant of other powers to the provinces. The proposed tax on advertisements would have been a step in the direction of indirect taxation. It is asserted that it is an indirect tax. In any case my hon. friend will definitely not argue that we should allow the provinces to make use of the most important source of indirect taxation, namely customs and excise, because this is a matter that impinges on general national policy.

I am not proposing that.

We thought about a tax on advertisements, but apparently that was not to the liking of hon. members on the other side. He also spoke about the differentiation that is made between the municipalities and the divisional councils. In that connection the position is this. In the Bill we take account of the expenditure of the divisional councils in so far as it is taken from their sources of revenue, and we regard that as part of the provincial expenditure, because the divisional councils function only in the Cape Province, and it would be unfair towards the Cape Province to exclude the expenditure of divisional councils from their own resources.

But what do the municipalities contribute to the hospitals?

We have municipalities in the four provinces. In that respect the Cape Province is not an exception.

It is only in the Cape Province that the municipalities contribute towards the hospital deficits.

That is an arrangement between the Cape Province and the municipalities. We are dealing here with the divisional council’s revenue as part of the provincial revenue in the Cape Province because they only exist in the Cape Province, and it would not be fair to exclude that expenditure from our calculations because we have not those bodies in the other provinces. The hon. member stated further that we ought to lay down what is necessary in provincial expenditure and to add the difference. He will see that that is extremely difficult to do. The Corbett Commission tried to go into that, and it had eventually to fall back on the actual expenditure of the province. It is difficult to determine what the expenditure ought to be. This would lead to endless complications and it would mean that the Union Government would have to decide in advance what the expenditure of the provincial councils should be, and that would be the end of the provincial system.

†Now I come to the points raised by my friends over in that corner. They dealt with the power which this Bill proposes to give to the provinces to impose a hospital contribution on the native people. Let me again make the point quite clear, that this Bill does not impose such a tax on the natives; it merely gives the provinces the power to do so. I make that point because while I know my hon. friends realise it, other people outside do not. Now, if the provinces are to be held responsible for the provision of extended hospital facilities they must be given the chance to receive their part of the cost of such services. In relation to social security, in relation to health services, it has always, I am sure, been realised that these things must be paid for, and paid for by the people who get the benefits. That has been realised by the various commissions and committees who contemplated contributions for the purpose in which natives would also participate. It was recognised that they would have to contribute. Now, where we say to the provinces that we recognise it to be their duty to provide extended hospitalisation, surely we must give them the power to raise contributions also from their native populations. They have the power, and they will doubtless use it, to raise contributions also from the other elements of the population for that purpose. It does not mean that these contributions will only be raised from natives. Again, do not let us make the mistake of thinking that we can get these services without paying for them. You cannot just assume that the Union Government will pay for them and think that the Union Government gets its money from Heaven. The provinces, where they supply the services, must get money from their people. We all realise that a good deal more must be done by way of hospital services than has hitherto been done, not least as regards the natives. It was pointed out here quite rightly that in the past the provinces have been hestitant about doing their job. All kinds of shifts and expendients were resorted to, such as the grants from the Trust Funds to which the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) referred. Up to the present the provinces had the excuse that they could not afford it. We are now taking that excuse away from them, which is very important, and if the importance of that is realised I do not think we are going too far in saying that the adoption of this proposal will be to the interest of and not to the detriment of the natives.

That is if they get the hospitals. They have not got them in the Transvaal but they are paying taxes.

I think my hon. friend will have to admit that there has been a great improvement. The hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) made a special point in connection with the consultation of the Native Representative Council. Well, the Council was consulted in regard to this particular proposal in the Bill. It was not a matter, as the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) suggests of asking its opinion on the whole of the Bill. On that point it may have taken it a long time to give an opinion. All it was necessary to do was to ask its opinion on this part of the Bill. I am not prepared to admit that it was impossible for the Native Representative Council to express such an opinion, if need be, after an adjournment over the weekend. But I cannot help getting the impression that the Council was more concerned, perhaps necessarily, to state its general position in regard to the question of consultation, than to hold up this particular proposal. I think that was the main point in their minds. But in any case I repeat that there is no finality about this proposal. We are not now imposing this tax on the natives. This tax has still to be imposed and the Council will still be able to consider and report on the proposed legislation before the imposition of the proposed taxation. Does my hon. friend realise that? Surely my hon. friend has read Section 27 of the Representation of Natives Act of 1936. The Council can still report on the legislation in this regard. This Bill does not settle the matter. Oh no. It does not put and end to the Council’s opportunities of giving its report. Therefore I say again that it is not possible to accept the suggestion that we must hold up this particular Bill for one year to give the Council an opportunity to report on it. They have had a chance and will have a further chance in relation to provincial legislation, if such legislation is forthcoming. The hon. member for Tembuland dealt with similar matters in regard to this aspect of the Bill. Let me say to him in reply to the point which he made here that I certainly would regard it as not unreasonable to expect that the provinces will, as the result of the powers given to them under this Bill, shoulder the burden which the Trust has been bearing and which was not contemplated when the Trust came into existence. Where the hon. member referred, however, to the possibility of our also taking into account in our subsidy to the Cape Province the revenues of Native Councils as was done before 1925, may I point out to him that the position has changed since 1925. Before 1925, under the so-called Murray Settlement, the revenues of these bodies were taken into account because of the different position in regard to taxation in the Cape from other provinces. In the Cape there was a differential burden as far as natives were concerned. That disappeared in 1925. The provinces were all placed in the same position thereafter, and on that account there is no longer the case that there then was for doing what the hon. member wishes us to do, and presumably is the reason why the Cape Provincial Administration which is so directly concerned, has not asked us to do it. I think they must have recognised that they would not have a case for such a request.

The provincial authorities of the Cape say you turned it down.

I do not think that is correct. I have no knowledge of it. They have not asked for it and we have not turned it down. Then the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) raised one or two points. One important point is in regard to the question of uniformity of taxes in the case of persons paying the Provincial Income Tax. I symphasise with the hon. member’s point of view, but that is not likely to be attained as long as you have the provincial system. That is an aspect in respect of which each province does want to have some autonomy, and any attempts which had been made in the past in the direction of obtaining uniformity, have broken down. As long as you have the provincial system, each province will want to be able to follow its own decisions. The hon. member also referred to Section 9 (1) (b), the clause dealing with the penalties. That is something which we have always had since 1927.

It has always been bad.

It has always been bad, but I hope the hon. member is not going to suggest that I should now have trouble with the provinces by taking away something they have hitherto had. The same applies to the suggestion made by the hon. member for East Griqualand (Mr. Fawcett) in regard to the tax on auction sales. That is also a right which the provinces have had in the past. If we were to take it away a good deal of trouble would be caused. Then just one point in conclusion. The hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) at the beginning of his remarks expressed a doubt whether this is going to be a permanent settlement of the provincial question. I would hesitate to assure him that it will be a permanent settlement of the provincial question. I think the experience of all countries, whether you have a federal or a semi-federal system, has been that you cannot have a permanent settlement of the relations between the Government and the provinces. In any country you have periodic reviews. The same thing happened in Canada. I believe in Canada a commission reported a year or two ago. I do not think any action has been taken on that report yet. It became a serious matter in Canada and the same thing happened in Australia, so that I cannot promise that this will be a permanent settlement of the provincial question. The facts of the situation change from time to time. These changing facts have to be taken into account. I can only claim that these proposals deal with the situation as it exists now, that they will create a better relationship than has existed in the past, and that there is a reasonable prospect of their continuing to give satisfaction for some considerable time.

Amendment put and negatived.

Original motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time: House to go into Committee on the Bill on 2nd June.

I shall not keep the House very long. We were all anxiously looking forward to the day when the Government would ultimately decide to provide in the housing requirements of the people. We know what the position is in the cities today. Even the health of our European population is suffering from it. It is continually pointed out to us that people have to live in caves in a country such as South Africa and that this is a scandal, and the Minister has on every occasion spoken of the large number of houses he intends building, but he never got as far. We are therefore glad that he has now come forward with this Bill. We should like to hear from the Minister whether it is his intention that this scheme will also affect the rural areas. In the amendment which has been put it is asked that it also be extended to the rural areas. We want to know what the attitude of the Minister is and whether through this scheme he is going to effect separateness especially in the towns where it is urgently needed. We want to see the European population on the one side and the coloured and native population on the other side. This mixing of all races is not healthy for a country. We should like to know what the Minister is going to do, also on farms where poor people and bywoners are living. Will those people also be provided with decent houses? It is necessary that in this legislation provision be made that the people may build those houses themselves on a much cheaper basis. We know what the demand is; we know that every person is yearning for his own dwelling house and we hope and trust that the Minister will not tarry too long with this matter and that it will not merely be a Bill of promises because he perhaps thinks that an election is on the way and that they now want to promise the people that the Government will get busy with this scheme, and that he will let the people wait in vain for the putting into effect of this scheme.

The Housing Bill as such definitely carries the approval of both sides of the House. In other words, it is a national scheme that has been instituted owing to the state of emergency that prevails throughout the whole country. Consequently we welcome this legislation as such with the exception of one or two points in connection with which we are moving amendments. I am glad to say that the debate has been conducted on both sides in a calm manner, and we feel that we are striving for an objective that will serve the needs and the circumstances of the whole country. We on this side of the House will appreciate it if the Minister will be considerate in connection with the amendment put by this side of the House. We feel the need for it. We do not in the least desire to break up the Bill. The question is too big. It is a big national matter, and we do not want to try and thwart the Minister in connection with the institution of this legislation. The criticism emanating from this side is aimed at rounding off this Bill so that it may apply to all the different circumstances and requirements. The general complaint on that side and on this side of the House is founded, on the fact that the Minister is demanding too large powers. It is a rare request that a Minister should come to this House to be empowered to act according to his own wishes. Millions and millions of pounds of the State’s money is at stake, and consequently the House feels that it would not be justified in agreeing to place those powers in the hands of the Minister to enable him to act just as he wishes to. If we examine this Bill carefully we find the Minister has virtually the powers of a dictator over all the State departments, to take action along any lines he may think fit. Our feeling on all sides is that the Minister is here treading on dangerous ground. If he is going to act with the full powers he has demanded here he will be placing not only himself but the country in danger. If the Minister makes a failure of this scheme this Bill will later on eliminate him from the field entirely. We are all fallible, and if the Minister takes this power into his hands and fails, then he will disappear from the scene. Thenceforward he will be lost, and we do not want to see him disappear so quickly. We on this side urge that the Minister should make concessions in regard to the question of separation and in order to apply the principle of separation strictly. We know what the relationship between the various races in the country is. We know it is not favourable. To bring fire to the powder is dangerous, and why when we have a way of preventing it should we deliberately place the various sections or groups of the community so close to each other that there will be inflammable material for the future? We are prepared to vote the money and to be compliant in regard to the building of houses, and with a view to meeting the housing emergency for all sections; but let the building proceed on such lines that there will be a dividing line in accordance with the need for separation and that will prevent clashes between the sections. That is the reasonable demand from this side, and I feel that that side of the House should really have put this amendment and not this side. They have the same feelings in respect of separation as we have, I do not say all of them but the great majority. We take the liberty of recommending this to the Minister. In the past we have seen that certain malpractices have occurred whereby a single individual has filled his pockets at the expense of many other persons. We have seen these people congregate like vultures at the place where carrion is to be found. The danger is that the contractors are already licking their lips in anticipation of filling their pockets with big building plans, and that certain groups will be chosen in order to fill their pockets at the expense of the taxpayers, at the expense of the country and the people in general. I say that we would not utter such a serious warning on this point if we had not had experience in the past that these dangers really exist, and if we had not good reason to fear that certain persons would have an advantage over others; Accordingly we ask that the Minister should take all necessary precautions to ensure that certain contractors do not get all the work. He should also ensure that the profits they derive from the erection of houses shall not be exorbitant because there have been excessive profits in the past. He must also see to it that the books of these people are carefully examined, that their expenditure and income is thoroughly enquired into. The second point in the amendment from this side affects the big idea that we in the first place wish to devote our attention to housing for Union citizens, individuals that were born in this country. I think they have the right to make a claim to that. In the past it is the South African who has suffered under the housing emergency, and the first consideration should be given to the Union citizen as such. Another point to which I wish to direct the Minister’s attention is that there should be a careful estimate of how many houses should be built and where the housing emergency is most acute. We cannot forthwith carry out grandiose and extensive housing plans. The housing crisis has been occasioned by the influx of aliens, refugees and immigrants into the country. Before the war there was no such thing as a housing shortage in this country, and the population has naturally expanded in these few years to such an extent that this tremendous dearth of houses has arisen. The outstanding fact is that it has been occasioned by the influx of immigrants and aliens and refugees, but the time is coming when these aliens will return to their own countries. Well, go ahead and build 30,000 houses or more, and the result will be that house rent will immediately commence to drop and later on we shall have too many houses instead of having too few as at present. I maintain that affects the country in the same way as the country is now affected by the fact that there is a shortage of houses. The Minister should evolve a practical plan. He is in possession of all the information. He is aware of the number of aliens who are living in the country, and he ought to know how many refugees are occupying houses in the country, and he also knows how many of them will have to leave the country. After he has worked all this out properly he ought to know precisely what is the exact shortage of houses in the country, and then he should take steps to supplement the shortage. Now I want to make an appeal to the Minister. The housing shortage on the platteland bears no relation to the influx of immigrants and refugees and moreover the housing shortage on the platteland had become terribly acute even before the war. There was a tremendous need for houses on the platteland. I cannot sufficiently urge on the Minister that he should bestow his full attention on assistance to the platteland. There are houses in certain areas of the platteland that really militate against the health of the mothers and children living there. Many of those houses are built with thatch, straw and tins; poor people have to live in those houses and then we expect a healthy nation.

Are Europeans living in such houses?

Europeans and coloured people and also natives. The hon. member has no doubt seen it for himself in the Transvaal, because I have also seen it there. We expect the parents living in such houses to bring their children up properly. The people on the platteland believe that they should see to providing their own houses and they try to knock a house together with the expenditure of a few shillings. They do hot know that the Government should help them, and the result is they do not agitate. There are always complaints that the farmer does not provide a proper house for his bywoner. And in the second place, we hear that the farmer does not give proper houses to his work people. We know the difficulties of the farmer. The farmers are not all wealthy people. The platteland is full of small farmers who are hard put to it to build a decent house for themselves. How on earth can he in addition to that think about his bywoner and his work people, coloureds and natives and about providing them with proper houses? I think the need on the platteland is just as acute as that of the cities. If the townsman has to live in a proper house approved by the health authorities or otherwise, what is the difference? The same method ought to be applied to the platteland. We ought not to allow anyone to remain in a house that is inimical to the welfare of his family. On the platteland we find some of our farmers who build four or five or six rooms alongside each other and in every little room there is the coloured workman with his wife and children. I consider that is not proper. The platteland must be assisted, and the health of the farmers’ workmen must be taken into consideration. Our platteland population is dying out from tuberculosis and other diseases. The health of the workman on the platteland is in a critical state, and who knows better than our doctors that it is really to be ascribed to the fact that these people are not living in houses that make for health and strength. I want to make a strong appeal to the Minister not to forget the platteland in this housing scheme. I really feel that the right Minister to have tackled this task would have been a man from the platteland, a person who understands the circumstances of the platteland and the needs of the platteland. It is all very well for the city business man and industralist who attracts thousands and tens of thousands of people to the towns to work there; they are not concerned with the houses; the town councils must see to that. The Minister and the Government have to make that their business; these people do not pay. But the position is entirely different on the platteland. There the farmer does not know anything about the town council that can help him, and consequently it is the platteland that is always treated in a stepmotherly manner in regard to housing. I want to impress another matter on the mind of the Minister, and that is in regard to the railway rates on building material. As far as the platteland is concerned, this is a bad factor, because I want to tell the Minister that the railway freight on building material is under one of the highest tariffs. For a little wood or currugated iron and similar articles you have to pay railway rates that run into almost as much as the goods cost here in the town. Is that fair? With an eye on the Minister’s scheme I want to ask him to see to it that the rates on building material are reduced, and I would say that it should be reduced by 75 per cent. Why should the platteland pay the higher tariffs? I should be glad if the Minister with a view to this, would approach the Minister of Transport and try to get this concession. A final point. I know that the hon. Minister cannot do everything single-handed. He will have to make use of committees. Consequently he will have to appoint committees in every centre of the country, and it is expected indeed that he should do so. It cannot be otherwise. Now we desire that the Minister should not, as in the past, select persons who adopt an unsympathetic attitude towards the public and who are merely appointed because they are prominent party men. That is no reason to appoint them on the committees. In the past we repeatedly got this. I do not want to warn merely the other side of the House, but also this side, against the danger of appointing prominent party men on all the committees. Usually you find that the outstanding party man on the platteland is the biggest bluffer you can get, and then the public are victimised. Otherwise for what object have we got the local authorities, our divisional councils and municipalities? The local authority is elected by the ratepayers. Why should they be ignored and why should party stooges be appointed to do the work? Is that justifiable? We never take exception when the Minister makes use of the magistrates. These are the obvious people who should serve as chairmen to give effect to the Minister’s building plans. But we are making an appeal to the Minister not to resort, as he has done in the past, to party men but to make use of the local bodies who are conversant with the needs of such a district, and who have knowledge of local conditions. The persons who serve on the local bodies do so honorarily and they are the people who are au fait with affairs. For the sake of promoting this gigantic plan of the Minister’s it is necessary that he should not ignore the local bodies but that they should be his strength. If he does this the platteland will be saisfied, and it will be the first step towards making a success of such a big plan. There are still several points regarding which we can talk, but we do not want to detain the House longer. As I have said we do not want to thwart this big enterprise and we want to help the Minister. We are not satisfied that he should demand from this House authority to act entirely on his own discretion and to take such measures as may merely seem good to him. We expected that he would be the first person to refuse assuming absolute dictatorial authority and power but we will not stand in his way. The emergency is there. We would like to see him make a success of this task, and our blessings rest on the Minister in regard to the future, and I believe that we shall place no obstacle in his path. Next Session we shall see how far he has progressed. He has taken a gigantic task on his shoulders, and we do not want to make it any heavier. He must take the initiative and the country will judge him by what he will have accomplished.

I am glad of the opportunity of being able to say a few words now that this Bill is before Parliament. It is one of the most important Bills which has yet come before this House. I want to express my admiration of the magnanimity which the Government has made manifest by putting this scheme before the House and of the fact that we have a Minister who has the competence and pluck to tackle this important matter energetically after a war of six years. I would like hon. members of this House to realise fully that it is a national matter which must be tackled in the interests of the people of South Africa.

I do not want the people to be incited by political propaganda so that they can make full use of this attempt on the Government’s part, and I am convinced that the Minister will ’do his utmost to satisfy everybody and see that justice is done. I feel that the nation is rejoicing to think that plans are now being made for those who have already lost their identity through living in the backyards of villages and towns. When I think of my own village, then I feel that a matter of the greatest importance is being tackled, for I know how in my village many respectable people, often with large families, have to live in backyards, and it will be a great relief to them, and they will once again be able to mix in society when in the future they have their own homes. Some hon. members on the other side expressed doubt, but I have no doubt that the Government will tackle this matter wholeheartedly and carry it out. It is a responsible task which the Minister has taken on. I would just like to come to one point which has not been provided for in this Bill, and that is the plans in respect of the platteland. There I would like to make a proposal to the Minister. I do not know whether he will accept it, but I hope that he will. On the platteland we can build much cheaper than in the towns. I want to quote a few figures. On the platteland we can build houses which will not cost more than £500. I will tell you why the platteland can build more cheaply than the towns. They make their own stones, they have means of transport, they have their stones, sand and cheap labour and free water—all these things they have to pay for in the towns.

Do you think it is possible to build houses for £500 in country villages?

I am now speaking of the platteland. I am certain that many people will be able to build a house for £500 and also far less. There are many people there who live on small farms and make a decent livelihood, but who have never been able to save enough money to build a house. In the towns you find building companies who grant loans to people, but on the platteland that is not the case. Nobody is prepared to grant loans in order to build houses on the platteland. For that reason I would like the Minister to afford this opportunity to people on the platteland as well. Give them the chance of obtaining a long-term loan, so that they can pay it back in easy instalments. This will be of enormous help to the people, and it will mean that many people will no longer have to live in mud houses, and share the political views of members on the other side.

We do not want fowl runs.

As soon as one talks of the interests of the platteland, the Opposition comes along with these remarks. It is not a political matter, but one of national interest. That is why I am bringing the needs of the platteland to the Minister’s attention. Many people on the platteland will be able to build a first-rate house for approximately £500. Let the Minister help the farmers on the farms with such small sums, those poor farmers who cannot afford to build houses themselves without assistance.

You will receive information on that point when I reply, but I will explain that we have a similar system in view. I think your proposal is a good one.

There are a large npmber of soldiers who came from the platteland and who are now returning there, and these people are also entitled to assistance. The platteland must not be overlooked. I see Dr. Allen is sitting here, and I would just like to touch upon a point. He has done much in the last few years in connection with malaria infested areas which is very much appreciated. I do not know whether anyone in a malaria infested area can build a house and enclose it with gauze for £500, but I am only menioning it in order that the Minister should not lose sight of the platteland in his scheme.

After all the eloquences we have heard in connection with the housing scheme one feels some timidity in rising to speak. That, however, will not prevent me from bringing up two or three points on which I should like some information from the Minister. Let me say at once I have no intention of throwing a spanner in the works, but I shall assist the Minister in any way I can. I realise he has a difficult job to undertake, and in view of the opposition he has had to contend with in the past I think it the duty of this House to give him all the assistance it can to bring the housing scheme into operation. I am sorry the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) is not in his seat because I would like to tell him I was rather disappointed in the attitude he took up yesterday afternoon on this Bill, especially in view of the fact that one of the leaders of the Labour Party did assist the Minister to draft the Bill. When the hon. member for Krugersdorp condemned the Bill by bell, book and candle I hardly knew where the Labour Party stands, and whether he is going to support the Minister remains to be seen. After the supposedly eloquent way in which he condemned the Bill one feels there is no course left open to him now but to oppose the Bill at every stage. There are one or two points I should like to put to the Minister. I understood him to say that the system which was to be largely adopted would not be binding tenders but by way of a specific estimate plus 6 per cent. If the Minister eliminated this cost-plus 6 per cent. he would remove a lot of dissatisfaction to the Bill. Having experienced something about cost plus 6 per cent I hope the Minister will modify that in the Committee stage. We have heard a lot of talk about building mechanics slowing down, and there is a certain amount of truth in some of the statements; but I want to tell the House that cost-plus 6 per cent. is largely responsible for the attitude many building workers take up at the present time. I do not want to see this system tolerated any longer. I know the Minister is in a difficult position, and possibly he thinks this the best way out of it. I suggest the Minister give the method a trial not for three years but for two years. That will give the Government and the country an opportunity of ascertaining whether it is a success or not. The cost-plus system has a tendency to create a slowdown. What is a slow-down? It means not only loss of time but additional expense which no contractor can get over while the building workers take up that attitude. I do believe that when the scheme gets going the building workers will play the game, especially when they realise what is at stake. When they appreciate there is a need for houses for the returned soldier they will, in my opinion, play the game to the country. Another point I want to put to the Minister in reference to cost-plus 6 per cent. is this. I have been approached by private people who have put this point. Supposing a building contractor undertakes a job to build a house people expect, when he is finished, that he will pass on to them part of the excess he has made on the job; that is to say if his profit runs to more than 6 per cent. he will be expected to return something. A lot of people are looking at it from that point of view. Another point is this. In the Bill continuous employment is to be provided for a term of 10 years. I realise that what the Minister has done has been in order to remove the colour bar so that natives may build their own houses. That was a big concession by the building workers, and I think the Minister surmounted it rather more easily than might have been expected. But if this guarantee for 10 years is carried out it should be made operative only to the registered building workers of today. If he leaves the door open to everybody who is likely to become a building worker in the near future the Minister will be leaving it very wide open indeed. A number of people will regard it in this way: If I am registered as a building worker I am sure of 10 years’ continuous employment. Ten years is a very long time to look forward to, and lots of things may happen in that time. I do not agree with all the statements that have been made regarding the housing shortage. In Great Britain millions of houses have been destroyed, but here hardly a hen’s nest has been destroyed by enemy action. When we come to realise that a large number of people will be leaving our shores, I maintain the housing shortage is not likely to be anything nearly so acute as is predicted. If the right steps are adpoted we shall overcome the housing shortage in a much quicker time than is anticipated. I hope the Minister will give a reply to the points I raised and particularly in regard to the 10 years’ guarantee to men engaged in the building industry at the present time. I should like to see these men guaranteed employment to compensate for the sacrifice they are prepared to make in allowing natives to engage in the building trade. If they had not taken up the attitude they have their jobs might be imperilled in the future, and as they have taken up that attitude they should be guaranteed employment on the lines they have asked for. In regard to this Bill we have to adopt one of two evils. The bigger evil is to delay house building, as this would create a definite hardship on many of our returned soldiers, and other people. So I am prepared to adopt the lesser evil and support this Bill with one or two amendments at the Committee Stage.

The hon. member who has just been seated spoke of the provision of houses for returned soldiers. Now I would just like to draw the attention of the House and the Minister to the manner in which all sorts of promises are made to returned soldiers at the present time, and I want to ask his people to be a little careful in what they do. Recently what is known as the “soldiers’ parliament” was held at Bloemfontein, and various soldier organisations were present. Mr. R. H. Burns, Chief Liaison Officer was present, as well as Mr. Webb, Under-Chairman of the Housing Committee of the Demobilisation Committee. Mr. Webb said—

Thereupon one of the soldiers stood up and put this question—

Mr. Burns replied—

I want the Minister to tell me whether he and his Housing Committee and the Demobilisation Committee approve of such things being said to the soldiers. It is a serious matter. It is now being made a political matter.

The soldiers know how you would treat them.

That hon. member can never see the point. I am asking whether it can be approved of that, where soldiers come together and the matter is explained to them by such officials, it is said that the Government intends to do certain things for the soldiers, but that the soldiers must see to it that they vote for the Government. I read this in “The Friend” of 15th May, 1945. In passing I want to mention another promise which Mr. Burns made that evening. He said—

Where is such an Act? He spoke of an Act which was before the House. It is a serious matter that, when the Minister’s officials address people on the subject of housing, they should make such promises on behalf of the Government to soldiers who ask questions. I ask the Minister and the Government to put an end to such actions and the making of such promises. If there was ever a measure of which misuse can be made, then it is this one. I am not making an accustation, but this is a measure under which we may have corruption or anything else. What has become of the accusation which was made by way of a telegram and read out in this House by the Labour Party, namely, an accusation by architects in Johannesburg that there is corruption in the building control?

That does not fall under me.

The building controllers will probably disappear now that the Minister controls everything. I say that this House cannot grant all these powers to the Government before it hears what has become of the that matter. An accusation of bribery was publicly made, and as the Minister is taking full powers in connection with the building of houses and building material, we would like to know whether those accusations have been preliminarily investigated, as promised by the Minister of Public Works. We would like to have that information. I will not go into the Bill in detail, for other hon. members have already done so. But I would like to have a statement from the Minister as to what he intends doing in connection with private building undertakings. Great powers are being granted to the Minister, and we cannot grant him those powers without knowing what the Government’s policy is. There are private people who are desirous of building, and we would like a statement from the Minister in this connection.

I also do not wish to put a spanner in the good intentions of the Minister and his Department with regard to the efforts they are making to overcome the building chaos in which we are. I realise that the authoritative powers that he requires may be very necessary. I hope that these powers will be used to break down the restrictions on building in this country. I would like to read to the Minister a small passage which appeared in the “Argus” last night in regard to reconstruction in Russia—

And he goes on to say that bureaucracy which sometimes seriously hinders reconstruction should be avoided. I wish to emphasise that the building industry has more or less stood still, like a motor car, for a period of years. You can start dismantling the engine, taking off the cylinder head, and tampering with the magneto, whereas all the motor needs is some petrol. I hope that the Minister will use his powers to prevent the clogging of the building wheels which have stood still for so long. A feature that I did not like was when the Minister referred to experimental houses to be put up for costing purposes in order to work out what should be paid at cost plus 6 per cent. I do not think you are achieving what you really want to do, which is to build houses. I would like to see you pay attention and use your powers to taking away control of building material in this country and the issuing of building permits with all the red tape attached to it. Restrict buildings to the present size of 2,000 square feet so that palatial mansions cannot be built, but allow people to be free from red tape and obstructive restrictions. I am quite confident that if the material, a large amount of which possibly is available today, can be obtained from the D.W.G.S., and additional material can come into the country, building will proceed. I think that the idea of trying to restrict the profits of a builder does not work out in practice. You can do it by Excess Profits Tax on his income, calling for his balance sheets, but to try to do it on a cost plus system with so many small builders is a very cumbersome basis.

That of course applies only to national houses, where we can supervise labour.

I trust the Minister will use his power in trying to stop restrictions which have held up the position. I realise that the Bill has tried to solve the labour position. The trade unions have now agreed to open their ranks and allow dilution. That is one of the best features of the Bill. In this connection the hon. member, for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) referred to the fact that experimentation in housing was not a big factor and that the old brick house was still the best. I am prepared to accept that possibly the new prefabricated house has not yet proved its worth conclusively. We have heard of the rumble house. I know it was built by the municipality at Kempton Park, but I do not know whether it was a success or not. I have seen the vermiculite houses which look good to me, and there is talk of prefabricated houses. I feel that this is not a matter to be entirely neglected. I feel that the hon. member for Fordsburg has the same influences behind him which try to hold a country to the hand loom rather than to the machine loom. It is clear with regard to the labour position, as the hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. Bawden) indicated, that the trade unions must face another factor in their work. In England recently they referred to organised idleness, organised laziness and the organised feature of slowing down work. I want to know that the problem is going to be tackled. It is ridiculous that a bricklayer should turn out 250 bricks in a day, in the face of statistics. In the same way we have it in other lines of labour. I realise they need the protection of the trade unions, but they must face the fact that they must put up schemes to us whereby efficiency and output can be increased because that is the main factor. It will take time to get the necessary personnel even under the C.O.T.T. scheme, even in view of the fact that further apprentices are to be allowed in industry. But they have to tackle the fact that the present labour force will have to turn out three or four times the amount of work they do now. There must be some method which they can put up to the country so that the labour force can be used to the full extent.

If ever we have heard a speech and had a Bill proving the absolute impotence of the Government, and of a Minister to carry out the task entrusted to him, then we have heard such a speech and we have received such a Bill from the Minister when he moved the second reading of this measure. If we needed any proof of the futility of the efforts made in the past, even though such efforts were only verbal statements, then we had such proof from the Minister when he introduced this Bill. I do not wish to repeat what has already been said but one could not fail to become aware of the sad state of affairs which we have to deal with. When we listened yesterday to the speech by the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) in which he quoted from the various speeches of the Minister and from the official statements which he read out here in this House we saw very clearly how the Minister made promises in this House year after year, promises of the number of houses which would be built, solemn declarations of what would be done from year to year—those promises grew into a mountain, but the mountain did not even bring forth a mouse. That is the position which we have to face now. The Minister admits that he has done nothing. He has numerous excuses; and because he has done nothing he now comes along with this request that we should give him practically unlimited powers in order that he may be a dictator as far as the erection of houses is concerned. He gives no particulars to the House or the country of what he intends doing and what he contemplates. The speech he made here was again full of promises, like all his speeches in the past. The question which each one of us puts is this: must we now practically by violating everything we stand for, give these powers to the Minister. We shall move amendments but we are in this position that we are practically compelled to grant these powers to the Minister, even although it violates all our principles, simply because we realise that something must be done, and unless something is done, thousands and thousands of people, particularly the poor classes in the country, will find themselves in an even worse position. We are simply forced to do this out of sheer desperation. As an act of sheer desperation, we have to grant these powers to the Minister in the hope that, although it is possibly an idle hope, he will in the future do something to assist these people in their distress and that he will do something in order that they may find a refuge. There is not the least doubt that the position in this country is deplorable. We are told by officials and by persons who are able to speak with authority on this matter that there is a shortage of thousands and thousands of dwellings. When the hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen) stated here that people in various places in the country have to live in hovels, that statement was challenged by the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie). He wanted to know whether they were Europeans, non-Europeans or natives, and when the hon. member for Namaqualand replied that there were also Europeans, he challenged that statement. He said that he had never seen white people living under such conditions. I do not want a wrong impression to be created through that interjection by the hon. member for Rustenburg as far as this matter is concerned. The position is precarious and apart from what I have seen with my own eyes and what other members have seen with their eyes, of the wretched conditions under which European families live today, it may perhaps be illuminating to refer members to an article in the “Rand Daily Mail” which appeared during the latter half of last year. It is in connection with conditions in Pretoria. A representative of the paper went to Pretoria to make an investigation there, and, inter alia, he wrote this—

There are no other houses for them. And then he goes further—

Those are the conditions which are to be found in Pretoria, that zinc hovels of this nature in the backyards of coolies are occupied by white people and, as the paper says quite rightly, that because no other houses are available for them I do hope therefore that members like the hon. member for Rustenburg who, apparently in order to prevent too black a picture being painted of the Government, casts doubt upon what we say here, will realise that they are not doing the country a service by simply trying to explain away conditions of this nature. It is better that the country and the Government and that members on the opposite side, should know the circumstances in which white people in this country have to live.

The City Council of Pretoria is to blame.

That hon. member was a member of the City Council of Pretoria and if the City Council is to blame for it, then he is also to blame for it. But I deny that it is only the City Council that is at fault. The conditions existing in Pretoria are found in all the cities of the Union. I will concede to the hon. member that, to a certain extent, the city council is to blame, but certainly not to the full extent. It is partly due to the econmic conditions existing in the country, for which the Government alone is responsible. It is this Government which during the past six years has hung on to and controlled building material. There are thousands of people who would have built houses for themselves and for poor people, but they could simply not do so, because the Government would not make the material available. The hon. member should not just say that the city councils are to blame. They are to blame, but the biggest sinner is the Goverment and it must realise that, because the country realises it.

There was no building material.

I will come to that. Unnecessary buildings were erected on a large scale. At Bon Accord, on the main road, a large factory was erected which was only completed after a whole year. I do not know who the owner of this factory is. It will be rather interesting to know that. But this is a factory for the manufacture of malt for kaffir beer. So we can find numerous instances throughout the country where building material was made available for such purposes while thousands of families were in need of houses. The Minister can look into this matter. It will be his duty to see to it that building material is not used for such unnecessary purposes when there are people without houses in the country. It is a crying shame, that whereas people are living in hovels,’ large quantities of corrugated iron sheets and other material are used for instance, for the erection of a large factory for the manufacture of kaffir beer. I will pass over the fact that, in places such as Hermanus, large luxury houses were allowed to be built which are not even occupied permanently but are only used as holiday residences. There are many other similar instances. In these times of war Mr. Schlesinger obtained building material for the erection of a large bioscope in Muizenberg. So we can find instances throughout the country of that kind of action while decent families had no roof over their heads because the Government failed to make the necessary building material available. But I want to come to the Bill itself and the powers which are given to the Minister. The Minister has in his speech, and hon. members opposite, have in their speeches, referred to the housing need, and what they apparently had in mind was only the returned soldiers. Our standpoint is this; whether it be returned soldiers or whether it be ordinary citizens of this country, if a person has a family then the need for a dwelling is the same, and I would like to have the Minister’s assurance, now that he is being granted full powers to be a dictator in respect of building material, that he will see to it that a fair distribution of building material amongst the population as a whole is made. We hope that he will not adopt the attitude that returned soldiers should first be assisted and that the other people may just as well perish.

We spoke of all the people

I would prefer to hear from the Minister himself what his policy is and I just want to warn the Minister that the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. H. J. Bekker) is making promises on his behalf. I would like to have the Minister’s assurance, even although it is only another promise, that the building material which is available will not only be used to create compact residential areas in the cities. We know that there is a serious shortage of housing in the cities and we duly sympathise with the large cities on account of those circumstances but I want to say to those hon. members who represent urban constituencies that as far as the country towns and the rural areas are concerned, the housing needs there are as acute as they are in the cities. In my own town there are people who live in houses made of sackcloth. The Minister knows that sons on the farms have come of age during the six years of war. They have married and they want to set up their own homes. There are other young people who have bought farms and who have to build; there are bywoners who have to be accommodated and I want the Minister’s assurance that he will not confine the distribution of building material to the large cities, but that he will meet the needs of the people in the country towns and on the farms where building material is required in order that these people on the farms and particularly the poorer people in the country towns may be accommodated. I want to express the hope that those people will receive their rightful share of the building material which will be made available. In view of this, I want to move this further amendment to the amendment of the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein)—

1. (c) to divide all controlled building materials in such a manner that persons who wish to build or to have their own houses built, as well as persons living in country villages and on farms, will receive their fair share.

In connection with the amendment, I just want to say this that the Minister stated that he is going to have people trained to do the building work and that he is going to pay them certain wages and so on. I want to bring this to his notice that there are many persons who are able to build their own houses or to have them built, also in the cities, but especially in the rural areas and on the farms. Those people should not be excluded. The person who wants to build individually should not be excluded, but he should be taken into consideration when the building material is made available. The Minister should not only look towards his large schemes, but he should also see to the individual enterprise. All the people will not want to live in houses built under these large schemes. There are individuals who want to build their own houses and I do not want the Minister to leave those people entirely out in the cold.

The hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Brink) yesterday admitted that I was sympathetic towards the rural areas last year.

But last year the Minister was not a dictator in respect of building material and I want to tell him in advance that he should look after those people in the rural areas who wish to build houses.

I say that to indicate that I am not unsympathetically disposed towards the platteland.

The Minister’s disposition may be of the very best but he may be controlled and influenced by certain people to such an extent that these people on the platteland will not receive their due. That is my fear and that is why I want to warn the Minister in time because the people who are going to avail themselves of the scheme are all people from the big cities and they will in the first case see to the interests of the big cities, and if the Minister does not take steps to ensure that in the platteland people will also be assisted to erect houses—and in the cities also there will be individual persons who will want to build on their own—then they will not be in a position to avail themselves of the big schemes which are contemplated. The Minister has informed us that he intends limiting the cost of houses as much as is possible. That we welcome. He has stated that the amount to which building contractors would be entitled would be the cost of the houses plus 6 per cent. Has the Minister given consideration to all the implications? While I support an endeavour to keep the cost as low as possible I can come to no other conclusion than that under this scheme the small contractors will be totally excluded. The person who enters into contracts extensively to build hundreds and, if necessary, thousands of houses can easily build at a profit of 6 per cent., but what about the individual small builder who builds houses one by one, which perhaps takes three to four month’s to complete? If he is able to make only 6 per cent. on a house say of £1,000 then his gross income over a period of three months will be £20 per month.

Plus his own wages.

I am referring to the small contractor. He cannot pay himself a wage.

Oh yes.

That is some consideration for the small type of man. I am pleased with that, otherwise the small type of contractor would be eliminated. There is another point. The hon. member for Winburg (Mr. Swart) directed attention to the sins of officials in the past in connection with the control of materials. The Minister is now assuming a responsibility here which was not his responsibility in the past and I have drawn his attention to a few cases which in my opinion were scandalous. But I still want to draw his attention to this. I have referred to a sufficient number of cases, but I want to refer to this particular case, where, through an official certain persons were in the past in respect of building materials given an unfair advantage. At Pretoria on the way to Waterkloof there is a piece of land on which one speculator contractor erected six houses a short while ago. They were not for his own family. But he obtained permits from the Controller of Building Materials for erecting six houses, all of them for speculative purposes.

Is that he case in Brooklyn?

Yes, perhaps we have the same case in mind. So there may be hundreds of similar cases in the country. Such things should be impossible. How does he manage to build one house after another for speculative purposes, to make a profit on it, to make profit out of people who are waiting for homes, while numbers of people with families and who have to have houses are not able to obtain a permit. The speculator buys land and builds houses and flourishes under the control we have had to date. I refer to the case because it is clear that this sort of thing may develop into what the Americans call a racket. If very strict control is not exercised in respect of this type of contractor then you will also find this sort of thing in the future. The hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) has proposed an amendment with a view to ensuring that when the Minister carries out his promise and establishes big housing schemes, steps will be taken to see that there will be proper separation as between Europeans and non-Europeans in respect of residential areas. I want to assume that when the Minister builds houses he will erect houses at one place for Europeans and another for non-Europeans. I take it that that is his intention. But then I want to ask him how in future without legislation he will prevent houses at present erected for Europeans passing into the hands of Indians or other non-Europeans. If the houses remain State property he will be able to control the position but is it not the intention that the people should eventually become owners?

In certain cases, yes; in other cases, no.

If there is no legislation which requires that certain residential areas will remain European areas, in what way is the Minister or the Government to prevent that in time they again become mixed residential areas? As long as the State is owner the Minister will be in a position to ensure that, but if the people become owners and legislation is not adopted prohibiting non-Europeans from buying such houses or occupying them, how is he going to ensure that separation will be maintained? He can do it only in one way and that is by legislation. Only in this way will he be able to ensure that houses erected for Europeans will in future be secured for Europeans. We are spending millions on the erection of houses and it must be provided by legislation that houses which are built for Europeans will be preserved for Europeans. Otherwise we will again just have mixed residential areas as we have extensively in Cape Town and even in Johannesburg and Pretoria. Without legislation to control the matter there will be no certainty as far as the future is concerned, and that is why the amendment has been proposed by the hon. member for Boshof. Notwithstanding the vituperation which some Government newspapers have directed against him because he has moved this amendment and moves other amendments, the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Boshof is quite appropriate, and I therefore desire to learn from the Minister, when he replies, how he intends ensuring that the part of his scheme intended for Europeans in the years to come will be preserved for Europeans. Just this one point more: There is at present an influx of natives into our cities, especially Cape Town. They come here in ’ thousands. Does the Minister intend in a reckless manner building houses for natives coming to our cities in large numbers? Every day we are told of the conditions prevailing in Cape Town, at Windermere, etc. Thousands of natives come here. Does the Minister intend building houses for them under this scheme?

Only for the permanent population.

When the native has been here for a year is he a permanent resident?

No.

If he has his family here.

What is the definition of “permanent”? How is it to be determined if the Minister does not define t? Thousands of natives come here to live here. Are they here permanently? When the Minister has these powers and if the funds are made available, will such funds be used for natives for erecting houses for them? What will be the result? That where thousands now enter ten thousands will come.

Have no fears about this matter.

The Minister says I must have no fears. When I was a student in the Western Province, 30 years ago, people in the Western Province did not know what a native looked like.

20 years ago!

Yes, 20 years ago there were people here who had not seen a native, and now we must hear that in the Cape Peninsula alone there are already 80,000 natives.

60,000.

And then the Minister says that we must have no fears. If the Minister is not concerned about the position which is developing here, I fear that he does not in the slightest degree appreciate the problem which is developing here.

I will not erect houses to entice them here.

If these funds and powers are used for building houses for natives it will be the best attraction for them to come here from the native areas. Then other steps will have to be taken to prevent natives from coming here. Every day pictures are painted in newspapers of the sad conditions under which natives come to live on the Cape Flats. If they have it their own way the Minister will simply use a considerable quantity of building materials and the funds provided under this Bill to build houses for natives on a large scale. The result will be that not only the European population but also the coloured population who live here permanently will be neglected, because the supplies of building material is insufficient to provide for the needs of all. As far as wages are concerned, I would like to know whether I understood the Minister correctly that as far as nonEuropeans are concerned, whom they now intend training, whom they intend training for two months or so ….

The first training will be for approximately 16 weeks and after that three years.

Did I understand the Minister correctly that during the first period they will be employed at 1s. 6d. per hour.

That has not been decided yet, but that is the proposal.

They will be paid 1s. 6d. per hour and after having been employed for a certain time they will receive an increase of so much an hour until they ultimately earn 3s. per hour.

2s. in the case of natives.

Does the Minister realise what that means? If a native works for eight hours per day he will receive 16s. per day.

In his own territory.

Here also, if for example houses are built at Windermere?

At Langa.

Then I want to ask the Minister whether he realises what that means. He is going to pay natives who had received a relatively short period of training, a few months, a wage of 1s. 6d. per hour and after a few years they will receive 16s. per day. Does the Minister not realise how he will disrupt everything by following such an unsound policy of paying natives 16s. per day? Has the Minister calculated the monthly amount? Has he asked himself the question that if he employs natives at 16s. per day, for 26 working days, it means approximately £20 per month? ’ Has he put himself the question what the effect will be on thousands of Europeans, some of whom in Government employ, who do not earn 16s. per day, but 6s. per day? Does the Minister and the Government not realise how they will disrupt everything in South Africa and especially make the position of the poor man in South Africa totally impossible. I cannot do otherwise than express my strongest protest and opposition against this policy of the Government to elevate natives in that way.

No decision has been taken. What must we pay?

There is not the slightest reason why natives who must be used for this purpose should receive higher payment than natives employed on any other work, on the mines or anywhere else, also in the building trade elsewhere, where natives perhaps receive 5s. per day. Why should natives in this case receive 16s? Is the Minister not aware of the fact that there are Europeans and non-Europeans in the country? Is the Minister not aware of the fact that the Europeans must maintain their position over the natives in South Africa? How would it be humanly possible for the Europeans to keep a higher standard than the natives if the Government follows such a foolish policy to pay natives wages above the wages of thousands of Europeans? It is a wrong and pernicious policy and I am astounded that the Government which ought to realise its responsibility in respect of South Africa has decided to announce a policy of this nature.

I second the amendment.

I shall give this Bill my support. At any rate I do not associate myself with the doubts and fears expressed by the hon. member for Krugersdorp. This Bill appears to me to provide the framework within which the Minister and those he will gather around him to assist, can remove anything in the nature of obstructive regulations on the part of the local authorities and do the same as regards provincial ordinances. I know the latter have caused delay in the past, and only by accepting a Bill of this nature can the work really proceed at the pace one would like to see. This Bill also provides that framework from within which the Minister has volunteered to accept the full responsibility for its functioning, and for that I commend him, because it is a very brave step.

Fools rush in.

I would not say that, but I would say that having assumed such responsibility much depends upon the Minister. His is the responsibility to see this national housing scheme does go ahead and that the much-needed houses are soon brought to fruition. I much regret that the Minister, in his speech when recommending this Bill to the House, saw fit to generalise and lay the blame upon the apathy of the local authorities.

I gave that as one factor.

The Minister gave that as one factor, but I do not think it is a factor at all in many instances. I know the municipality with which I am associated has done everything they possibly could to get on with the erection of houses. Here are sheaves of copies of telegrams dealing with the delay caused by the provincial authorities, and some are to the Minister himself, seeking his assistance.

Your front-bencher, the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) said I did not go nearly far enough.

Your argument was you had not the machinery; neither had the local authorities to proceed at the pace necessary, hence my support to this Bill. Everything was up against you. Firstly, the building regulations.

I agree entirely that many of them had great difficulties, but I say some of them are guilty of apathy.

I wish to repeat; I know the East London municipality, and the Minister also knows, has endeavoured on all occasions to co-operate with him and get on with the job.

Yes, I agree with you.

But unfortunately, as I say, there have been delays from causes beyond our control.

I agree.

If you agree with that I am satisfied. One thing I do request from the Minister is, that there will be no pushing for home ownership at existing exorbitant prices. May I refer to my own municipality again. I refer to them because I know the undertaking they are prepared to proceed with. The hon. member for East London (North) (Mr. Christopher) gave some idea earlier in this debate of what exactly the municipality was prepared to do. They were prepared to offer some 243 lots in one of the best parts of the municipality to ex-servicemen at £1 a plot, roads, kerbs and gutters fully provided. The municipality has also made it a condition that these privileges shall only be granted to persons whose income does not exceed £500 per annum. Tenders have been called for, for the erection of these houses, and I may say we have as good building contractors in East London as there are anywhere else in South Africa. Having accepted the lowest tenders the cost of a four-roomed cottage, house alone, will be £1,737; that is without even adding the £1 that the purchaser would pay for the land. To redeem this on a 30 years’ basis with repayment of 3¼ per cent. interest at which the municipality have made arrangements to borrow, entails a monthly payment of £7 12s. 4d.—that is on a 30 year basis—and then there will also be £3 16s. 9d. for rates, municipal and divisional, plus—this figure is approximate but the minimum—£1 5s. a month, bringing the total to £12 14s. per month that is what a man with an income of less than £500 per annum is supposed to pay. I say that that is impossible, and anyone who falls for signing on the dotted line on those conditions is putting a millstone round his neck and he will never be able to pay for the house in his lifetime. I would suggest to the Minister that home ownership be encouraged, but that the price should not be assessed on today’s values. Interest on the capital expenditure plus ordinary charges attached to any house should be paid, and after a period of five years the value of the house will be assessed at its true value, as it is then, and the payments off capital will be arranged from that date, any loss in the interim to be borne by the Government.

Are the houses to be leased during the initial five year period?

Certainly. They are leased on the payment of interest on the capital expenditure plus ordinary charges which shall be paid until actual assessment takes place. We are simply asking for what the Government has done in the past in connection with irrigation schemes and similar ventures, and if the Government is to assume its full responsibility and do its duty to the lower income groups the plan I have suggested will suit the circumstances. In conclusion, may I say that with the placing of this Bill on the Statute Book the House and the people of South Africa are saying to the Minister: Now, here is the order, it is up to you to deliver the goods.

I feel constrained to rise and take part in this debate to register my protest against this further usurption of the powers of Parliament. I know it is done by way of asking Parliament to concede those powers. But I do not known whether Parliament is sufficiently aware of the nature and extent of the powers it is asked to concede to the Minister. I feel I would be failing in my duty as a member of this House if I did not rise to register my protest here. At the beginning of this Session we had a motion by the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) in regard to the delegation of powers. I supported that motion. I moved an amendment to that motion and I feel that it would be really running away from that motion and from the amendment I moved at that stage if I did not rise now. The nature of the powers asked for is more than an ordinary delegation of powers. Prof. Allen of the University of Oxford has thus described it in connection with similar power accorded in an Act in Great Britain—

You had not the war to think of then.

It is difficult to deal with an interruption of that nature.

Of course it is very difficult.

One does not really know whether one has to accuse the member of senile decay or perhaps of retarded development

That is only personal; answer the question.

I will deal with this particular emergency. I first want to deal with the principle. In this Bill we have powers granted, under Section 2, to the executive which include powers to encroach not merely on the sanctity of contract, not merely on the inviolability of property rights, but also on the liberties of the subject, the personal liberties of the subject. I say those are very far-reaching powers, and they require a great amount of justification, whether it be war or otherwise, before one can be justified in granting these powers. But above these powers that I have said we are conceding here, powers encroaching on the sanctity of contract and the inviolability of property rights, there is also the power—and it has not yet been remarked upon in this House and I think it is remarkable that it has not yet been remarked upon—conceded to the executive to suspend acts of Parliament. That, I think is a very far-reaching power.

Why?

Because it is a privilege and a right which belongs to Parliament and any person who has any regard for the privileges and rights of Parliament will be very jealous to concede those powers to the executive. I do not think the hon. member who has just interrupted me has read this Bilk

Of course, I have.

He does not act as if he has. Sub-section 3 of Section 2 reads—

Here the executive has the right not only to alter the terms of this Act but it is also given power to alter the terms of any other Act.

Exactly, in an emergency.

I am afraid I can only say what I think Schiller once said, that against stupidity even the Gods contend in vain.

You need not be personal. You know you are wrong.

This sub-clause says—

In other words, Parliament now deliberately concedes power to the Executive to suspend any Act of Parliament, and I think that is an extraordinary power which we are giving to the Executive, and I want this House at any rate, to realise the nature and the extent of the power which it is conferring upon the Executive. I think if there are members who have so little regard for the prestige and for the privileges of Parliament as to take it in such light-hearted fashion as the hon. member for Port Elizabeth ….

South, opposite to North

I thought the hon. member was far from the magnetic north. In any case if there are people who take these privileges so light-heartedly it is their funeral, but I am addressing myself to those members of Parliament who have sufficient regard for the prestige and privileges of Parliament to guard jealously against any encroachment on those powers. I am not speaking to people who are frivolous in regard to this matter. These are the powers that are being conferred upon the Executive by this section. I think it is well that the House should know what these powers are, that the country should know what these powers are. There may be sufficient justification for granting these powers, but to the extent to which these powers are exceptional, to that extent one must have justification for conferring them on the Executive. In this clause that I have just read, there is a provision which is not entirely unknown in our statutes unfortunately. There have been statutes before which have had a clause of a similar nature, but those clauses have always called forth the condemnation of people who know something about the subject. I wish to refer to one example quoted by Lord Hewart in his book “The New Despotism”, in regard to Section 130 of the Local Government Act, 1929. That is also an Act which gave power to the Executive to modify the provisions of that particular Act. In this case we go much further. We extend that power to modify and to suspend the terms of Acts other than this. But even in that form it called forth the following comment in a leading article in the “Times” ….

What do you want to do?

This is what the “Times” said—

That is what we are doing here. This is nothing else than a Henry VIII clause in which we give the Executive power to make regulations which shall have the force of modifying or suspending any Act of Parliament properly passed by both Houses of Parliament in this country. I am prepared to recognise the emergency into which we have drifted.

That is generous of you.

And also the need for extraordinary measures in those circumstances to pull us out of the mud. I fully realise that, but on the other hand one must not lose sight of two factors, two very important factors, even while conceding the position of emergency in which we are at present. Those two factors are in the first place, that it is by the gross incompetence and iaxity of the Minister responsible that this state of emergency has arisen.

Rubbish.

I do not think the Minister is very happy in the choice of his supporters. This is not an emergency which has come upon us as a thief in the night. It is not an emergency which has arisen by reason of causes over which we have no control whatsoever. More than 14 months ago the Minister made a speech in this House. If he had been alive to the condition of affairs existing then, if he had applied his mind fully, then he ought to have realised that something ought to be done. Instead of that he gave us glib promises, he gave very hopeful indications as to the number of houses they were going to build. He dallied along the path instead of doing his job.

Why did he not do it?

That is what we want to know.

It is a pity that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. McLean) was not in charge. At any rate there would not have been any lack of water for the mortar in the houses the Minister was going to build. That is the first thing that we must realise, that it is not an emergency in which we were put over which we had no control.

Don’t be silly.

If we had a proper Minister who was alive to his duties and who had taken up these matters seriously when he spoke in this House 14 months ago, then we would not have been allowed to drift into this position in which we find ourselves today.

How could you avoid it?

While recognising the emergency that has arisen, that is the first factor we must also recognise. The second is this that apart from the emergency there has been sufficient time, if not to build houses, then for the Minister to have informed Parliament of the nature and extent of the powers which he was seeking. In other words, one would have expected if there had been a due regard for the privileges of Parliament, that together with this Bill, the Minister would have put before the House the regulations which he proposed to make under the Bill. What was there to prevent the Minister when he drafted this Bill from drafting the regulations at the same time and laying those regulations on the Table of the House, and coming to this House and saying in those circumstances: “I want you to approve of these regulations”. It would not have been entirely a blank cheque. We would have known what was in his mind. We would have known in what way he contemplated exercising the powers conferred in Section 2. In Clause 2 he vaguely asks for certain powers. I understood that during the course of the speech of the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) the Minister interjected to say that these regulations were ready. I do not know whether I correctly understood him.

Nearly ready.

If they are nearly ready, then surely by a little exceptional effort they could have been ready and laid on the Table of the House, and before this House rose, the Minister would have asked for the approval of the regulations.

Or he could have let us see those that are ready.

If there had been a proper regard for the privileges of this House, that is the way in which the Minister ought to have acted. He ought to have come and said to us: “I have contemplated this legislation for some time. I have now drafted the legislation. At the same time I have also drafted the regulations. They may not be quite all that I want, but at any rate they will give the House a fair indication of what I want, and I am prepared to put them on the Table of the House and I am prepared to ask for the vote of the House on these regulations. It may be necessary for me to come with further regulations at a later stage, but I am prepared at this stage, to take the House into my confidence and to ask the approval of the House for these regulations which I consider essential”.

He did that.

Is the hon. member referring to 1888?

Not 1878 either.

I thought it was a little bit older than that, probably 1066. I think the Minister is quite capable of answering this question without having the issue muddled by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South).

That is what you are doing now.

It is not a case of in vino veritas but probably in vertate vinum. In other words his truth is slightly muddled. Why have these regulations not been laid on the Table of the House? If the Minister has not got the regulations quite ready, was it an impossible task for him to see that they were ready in time for the House to discuss them, and if it had not been done why had it not been done? Surely there was time enough, even if it did mean a little burning of the midnight oil for the Minister and his legal advisers to have these regulations ready. If that had been done, I do not say that I would have been completely satisfied, but at any rate it would have tempered the delegation wind to the shorn lamb that is Parliament in this case. But nothing of the kind has been done. We have not even been vouchsafed that. As Lord Hewart remarked in his book to which I have already referred on page 86, it is still delegation but it is delegation which is robbed of its sting. He says—

The second example he quotes is this—

So it is delegated power, but it is delegated power which is to a large extent robbed of the mischief which is inherent in all delegated power. Instead of that we find the Minister talking very vaguely in Section 2 of powers he wants. He has those regulations under Section 2 largely ready and framed, but he had not put them before the House. We do not know what they are. There are members who have asked the Minister what those powers are. Not generally, but how those regulations read. Some of those regulations have been framed, but they have not been submitted to the scrutiny of this House, and we have had no occasion to see whether those powers are not wider than we feel the occasion justifies. We know nothing about those regulations. We may have them next year; that is true. The extraordinary thing is that the Minister who is responsible for both these factors, firstly for the emergency that has arisen, and secondly for the fact that even at this stage we are not permitted to have a scrutiny of these regulations, should be permitted to ask for the powers asked for in this Bill. I go so far as to say that if anything similar had happened in England where parliamentary government also obtains, in such a case the Government would either have taken the blame themselves and said: “Under these circumstances, we are not prepared to carry on any further,” or if they had not taken this step, they would have said: “There is the Minister who is responsible” and it is really nothing short of effrontery to expect the House to give these powers to the very Minister who in the past has so disregarded his responsibility in those very same matters. The least one would have expected, consistent with the self-respect of the Government, would have been to say: “We realise that this Minister is responsible. There must be some reshuffling of portfolios, or there must be some changes in the Cabinet. If we want those powers we must put them in the hands of a Minister who has not, by his past conduct, shown his complete incapability of dealing with these matters. In the case of Sir Samuel Hoare, when it had been found that he had done something which was not consonant with the interests of the country, the Cabinet did not say: “We are going to keep Sir Samuel Hoare in the Cabinet”, they said: “You have to go; we are going to stay in power but we are not going to allow you to stay in power”. It is too much to expect the House and the country to give such exceptional powers to the Minister who has already given proof of his incapacity to deal with the powers that are entrusted to him.

That is your opinion.

There are supposed to be some safeguards in this Act against the way in which this Minister will exercise those powers, but I am afraid that those safeguards’ are woefully unsufficient and inadequate. The one safeguard we have now is Clause 2 (4) and that is that the regulations must be laid upon the Table of both Houses of Parliament within 14 days after the beginning of its next ensuing Session. We are in Session now. Why not have the regulations laid on the Table now? But in any event that is the normal thing. Most regulations must as a matter of course be laid upon the Table of the House, so as the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) has already pointed out, this is really no exceptional safeguard. It is the ordinary practice. The other safeguard is in Clause 2 (5) and that reads as follows—

I think that is also wholly inadequate because, firstly, you have this trouble as to who is going to bring up the regulations for discussion; where are we going to get the time? Who is going to concede the time if the Government is not inclined to do so? The hon. member for Woodstock has also remarked upon the inadequacy of that safeguard. It can be said that there is the general safeguard that we can call the Minister to account at the next Session if the Government will be so kind as to give us an opportunity, but that is really not much of a safeguard. Lord Hewart in the book to which I have already referred says this—

We had that experience when we were discussing the Union-Castle Steamship Company contract. There was a large number of members on the other side of the House who agreed that it was a most unfavourable contract for South Africa, but the inexorable Party Whips were put on and against their better knowledge and against their own convictions, many members on that side of the House had to vote for it.

Order, order!

Rather than to call the Minister to account, you have got to see that those powers are curtailed before he exercises them in such a way that it is undesirable for the country, because once he has exercised them in that way, the Party Whips are put on the job and you get no satisfaction at all. I say it is a foregone conclusion that once the mischief has been done the whole force of the Parliamentary majority is brought into play and the Party Whips are put on and an appeal is made to the Party allegiance of members on the other side.

The same with you.

I can see on whose corns I am treading. As I say, there is really not much in this safeguard of calling the Minister to account. It is not really a safeguard at all unless of course—and that is what I want to ask the Minister of Welfare and Demobilisation who is the responsible Minister—unless the Minister gives the House the assurance that when the matter comes up to this House, it will be left to the free vote of this House and that the Party Whips will not be put on. Is the Minister prepared to give us that assurance? Is the Minister prepared to tell us that he is so satisfied that he will carry out those duties in a proper way, that he will not misuse or abuse the powers that are given to him, that he will leave it to the free vote of the House? If he is prepared to do that, there will be some substance in saying that this matter should be left because the Minister can be called to account, but without that assurance this is simply an empty gesture to say that the Minister may be called to account. It is a foregone conclusion. Hon. members opposite, as the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Barlow), were constrained to say the other day, that they have no choice. The hon. member for Hospital says that he feels this way but he has to vote that way. That is why I say there is no sense in saying that the Minister can be called to account. No, I think a further safeguard is necessary. Clause 2 (5) should be amended on the lines suggested by the hon. member for Wood-stock, i.e. that the regulations shall cease to have effect unless approved by Parliament within, say, 20 days after the opening of Parliament. Do not leave it there as at present, that it must be disapproved, because then there is no duty on anybody to bring those regulations to discussion; there is no certainty that the Government will grant the time for that discussion; but if you put it in the way in which the hon. member for Woodstock has suggested, namely that the regulations must be approved by the House, then the Minister is bound and the Government is bound to give time for this discussion, because unless the regulations are approved within 20 days after the commencement of the Session, those regulations will lapse. If I may recapitulate what I have endeavoured to put before this House, it is this: Is it too much to ask in view of the urgency of the matter, in view of the nature and extent of the powers which are asked, is it too much to ask in the name of Parliament and for the sake of Parliament’s rights and privileges that these three safeguards which I have mentioned, at any rate should be granted as a condition of the conferring of these evtraordinary powers upon the Minister?

Of course, it does not matter about the soldiers’ rights.

The three safeguards which I have envisaged are these: In the first place that the regulations should be placed before this House for its approval before the House rises; the Minister says that he has the regulations practically ready. Have them put on the Table of the House and have them approved before we rise. That is the first safeguard which, I think, we may fairly claim as Parliamentarians. Leave aside for a moment, the question of what Party you belong to.

And postpone the building of houses; that is all you want.

The second safeguard is this, that any further regulations which the Minister may deem necessary be laid on the Table of the House within twenty days of (he opening of the next Session of Parliament. Let the Minister say: “I will issue those regulations; I will act under those regulations, but I promise that within 20 days of the next Session of Parliament I will lay them on the Table of the House and I will get the approval of the House for it”. That is the second safeguard.

And the third.

I must ask the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) to stop these interruptions.

I am prepared to concede that the necessity may arise for further regulations which the Minister has not yet drafted. I am prepared to concede that necessity and I am prepared to grant him the power to act under such regulations, to make those regulations, but then he must come to this House within 20 days of our next Session and ask for the approval of these regulations by this House, and not leave it in this way, that they shall be in force unless disapproved. It must be a positive act on the part of the Minister. He must give the House an opportunity of debating those regulations and his conduct in the matter; and the third safeguard which I think would be a most valuable safeguard against any abuse of his powers, is that the Minister give the assurance to this House that, when the matter is brought up at the next Session of Parliament—these regulations that he issues in the recess—he will leave it to the free vote of this House to condemn or to approve of those regulations, and his conduct under them. I think that would be the most effective check on any abuse of the wide powers that are asked for in this Bill. I think the House will realise the fairness of what I am asking. These are extraordinary powers. Under ordinary circumstances no Parliament would dream of granting them, but I think we are entitled to say that, if we give the Minister these powers, he must be prepared to grant safeguards so that Parliament may know that the powers will not be abused, either by the regulations he makes or by the way in which he carries out the powers.

I think we all recognise the knowledge of the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) with regard to legal procedure and accept his knowledge on that, but we are also in this position that members on this side of the House view with suspicion any attempt of members opposite to frustrate measures which we feel are necessary to bring about a better state of affairs with regard to our soldiers who are returning from the front. Those of us who were here a few years ago still have memories and we know what the attitude was of hon. members on that side of the House towards our soldiers.

One can see you are in a corner if you resort to that argument.

We also know that it is the urgent desire of members on that side of the House that we should fail in our duty towards these returned soldiers.

You have failed for the last 14 months.

They know that when these soldiers come back and we cannot provide them with homes they will be dissatisfied.

You have already failed.

They also think, and it is wishful thinking, that the soldiers, dissatisfied with what the Government have done, will turn to the Opposition. The last thing on earth that soldiers will dream of doing is to support them.

What are you afraid of then?

Certainly not you, but the position is this. Extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary remedies, and I, for my part, whilst realising that we are conferring upon the Minister very great powers, am satisfied that if he can build houses under these powers, that is all that is required. If he builds houses we need not worry about any irregularities.

Can you not be a Parliamentarian for once?

We know that Parliament will not withhold its assent to the powers demanded by him if he is successful in building houses for the soldiers. That is one of the most necessary things. We have to tackle it no matter how much Parliamentary procedure goes by the board. But I do say this, that if the Minister fails to build houses under this Bill I would prefer not to stand in his shoes, because in my opinion the political career of the Minister depends upon making a success of the powers we are conferring upon him, and I want to say to the hon. member who has just spoken and who asked the Minister to leave it to the free vote of the House, that the House will give its assent. I am sure that under the powers given to the Minister he will build sufficient houses to guarantee getting the assent of Parliament next Session to the actions he has taken. But I am a little unsettled in my mind about one or two matters in this Bill. Firstly, what is the position of the small man? It seems to me that there is a tendency to sacrifice the small man by not giving him an Opportunity to acquire land at a reasonable price and to build his own house under the aegis of the building societies. I would like to feel satisfied that these men will have an opportunity and have land made available at a reasonable price to enable them to build, because I feel that every house built not only relieves the shortage but when a private individual builds a house he is leaving one which will become available for a returned soldier. I hope the Minister will reassure us on this point. There is another matter I would like to ask the Minister, namely, whether they have given any consideration to the question of mass production. It seems to me that even under improved methods we are in the main building houses in very much the same way as they were built 100 years ago, except that we are building them not quite as fast as they did then. That is due to trade union regulations which have grown up in the past 20 years. All the industries have in the last 30 years had improved methods of production, and one feels it is strange that the building industry is proceeding to a great extent on the same lines as they have for many years, but I feel that we can only catch up with our building problem if some other method is evolved in building instead of laying bricks one by one, for instance. It seems to me that more might be done with large moulds and concrete, and spray painting instead of hand painting, and that the building of houses should be expedited very considerably. I feel that mechanical forms of doing work should be further investigated. In conclusion I wish to say that if the Minister can make a success of this housing scheme not only the House but the country will approve of any steps he takes.

I likewise recognise the knowledge of the hon. member for Faure-smith (Dr. Dönges) on constitutional questions, but I also recognise that all he said with reference to the disregard not only of Parliamentary rights and privileges, but Parliamentary duty is correct. Most of what he said was based on logic and on reason. I only wish that his case were a true reflection of the views of the Party to which he belongs and that it were a measure of their love for Democracy, and if it were, the country would be less concerned today about the rise of Fascism in this country when our own soldiers have been fighting overseas in order to destroy it there.

The country is concerned about the rise of Communism, not Fascism.

It would be pure sophistry to pretend that after six years of war, when our manpower was used to prosecute the war there would not be a housing shortage at the end of the war. But what the House must also recognise is that during this period the necessary steps have not been taken to put ourselves in a position to meet the housing shortage which exists today. In the motion moved by the Labour Party at the commencement of the Session it was recognised that the time was coming when the Government would have to accept responsibility for building houses, and it required no prophetic insight into the housing position to realise that necessity, but the position would have been a lot better today if steps were taken some years ago in anticipation of this acute shortage. When the present Minister of Labour was in charge of the Welfare Department he took the step of presenting to this House the Rents Act which has been of considerable value and benefit to the country during the war and will be of benefit in future, and if the control of the sale of houses and the control of land values had been parallel with the control of rents, we would not be faced with the present inflated land values which is largely responsible for the great difficulties we are faced with at present. The real trouble rests not in the absence of houses but in the cost of building houses today, costs which are not explained wholly in terms of the increase in wages to building workers or the increase in building materials, but it is largely due to increasing land values, because land values in 1939 were not pegged in the same way that rents were pegged. Had land been pegged in 1939 there would not have been this great difficulty we have today to build houses. The Minister in recent years has been speaking in telephone figures about the number of houses to be built but year by year it was easy to see that these remained figures and that there was no reasonable expectation of the figures being fulfilled. The difficulties of the municipalities are not difficulties of one or two months standing. They are difficulties which date back to the past years and the municipalities in this country, in the main, have taken the correct and reasonable standpoint in their examination of the building costs of houses and have recognised that the main factor, as regards working men is the amount of interest they have to pay for the house. The passing of the buck between the Government and the municipalities and vice versa has gone on until we now have to recognise generally that particular measures must be introduced, so much so that the Minister comes along and asks the House for a blank cheque. That blank cheque can only be given with considerable misgiving. It can only be given with the knowledge of the fact that the return of our soldiers is being exploited for the purpose of asking this House for powers to give to the Minister the right to introduce Government rule by regulations in a democratic country, and rule by regulation is something which almost every member supporting the Government is pledged to oppose. The granting of regulations in terms of this Bill is an expression of totalitarianism, covered by the excuse of providing houses for returning soldiers so that they might have homes to live in. We are openly introducing a measure of totalitarianism in the name of soldiers who have been overseas fighting against that system. Another cause for misgiving, which will remain a very severe cause of misgiving, unless the Minister can give a specific reply to the question put by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) regarding the dual control, is the planning and the building of houses. If there is to be proper central co-ordination it is necessary and essential that the Minister in charge should also take over the position of the Building Controller, and only with these rights vested in one Minister will it be possible to co-ordinate the planning and building of houses, so we should abolish the dual position which exists in that regard. Now it may be strange, having said that we should remove the dual position, that I should now go on to say that in regard to certain provisions in this Bill, the provisions of controlled labour and the provisions dealing with wage regulation instruments, should be put into the hands of the Ministry of Labour. The working classes in this country fought for a long time to ensure that there should be a proper State Department to deal with industrial questions, and in this Bill where provisions are being asked for to deal with wage regulating measures, the House is entitled to ask from the Minister that such provisions should be solely under the control of the Ministry of Labour. And there is particular reason why we should ask for that assurance. Let us see how one clause of the Bill reads. Paragraph 4 (e) says that building workers will be guaranteed employment for a period which shall not exceed 10 years. In answer to that I say to the Minister: “Thank you for nothing”. They are going to give a guarantee which shall not exceed 10 years and which can be anything less than 10 years. It is a guarantee of full-time employment to building artisans which may last one or five years, but less than 10 years, and in all the public utterances I have heard in regard to the guaranteeing of full-time employment to the artisans as a reciprocal measure for their foregoing their rights, not in one instance has it mentioned that a period of less than 10 years should suffice. I have heard 10, 15 and 20 years, but this is the first time that I have heard of a period of something less than 10 years. When it could be as little as this Bill provides for I say to the Minister—and I am quite satisfied that every building artisan in the country will say—thank you for nothing. That is no protection to building artisans who are being asked to forego their rights to preserve decent wages. For months past, through the Press, the suggestion has been made that it is purely on account of the building artisans seeking to preserve and entrench their privileges that building has been held up. On the other hand everybody recognises the truth that the building artisans and the trade unions have frequently and consistently said that they are prepared, because there is a national emergency, to accept the dilution of industry, to see Africans trained, if they are trained for the purpose of building houses in which Africans will reside. Everyone knows that African workers earning wages of from 25s. to 35s. a week cannot afford to live in houses built by European artisans at their rates of pay, and because of that the building artisans have said they would forgo that restriction and agreed to the introduction of African workers on skilled operations. What we ask for in return is a satisfactory assurance that this national emergency will not be exploited for the purpose of in future reducing wage conditions, but all the Minister does now is to guarantee them for less than 10 years. There is another important question. For six years the engineers have been subject to conscription, to the control of manpower, and statements have been hinted as coming from the Cabinet that in the near future there will be a relaxation of that. Engineers are looking forward to this iron control of manpower being removed, and it is not satisfactory to transfer the manpower control over engineers to the building artisans of this country at a time when the war in Europe is finished. I say you must get co-operation from the trade unions, and you can get that co-operation. The gestures which have been made to the country are gestures which are a guarantee that you will get co-operation. Do not apply compulsion to them when they are quite ready to meet the country in its need.

There must be many members in the House like myself who had great difficulty in following the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) is his legal perambulations. We have, it is true, been dissatisfied in this country and in the House at the enormous lack of houses and at the slow progress made during the last year. The Minister himself recognises that fact, and he has come to ask us for extraordinary powers to meet the position of emergency. It is quite true that this House must be careful in granting such emergency powers, but when a national problem like this is before the House I think the safeguards the Minister have given when has has assured us, as he will no doubt, that that will be carried out, is adequate in this situation in order to meet the case, especially now that one hears that there is a new Director of Building in this country, and that his Housing and Planning Commission are now in a position to function adequately. I want to draw attention to the fact that a great deal of the trouble in the past has been not so much through the local authorities refusing to do their duty in taking action, but there are many other factors which the Minister knows well which prevented them from taking the necessary action to provide the adequate number of houses which many of these local authorities had every intention to provide. I hope the Minister will see to it, with his Commission, that in future such difficulties will be overcome to give local authorities every possible encouragement. I also want to draw attention to the fact that apart from the local authorities there is in the Cape the Citizens’ Housing Utility League which in the past did excellent work to provide sub-economic houses for Europeans, and which has lately adopted the scheme to build a large number of houses for coloureds at Matroosberg. I am a director of that company. Our difficulties in the past very often were that when we negotiated with the Central Housing Board for a loan we had to do it first through the local authority and then through the Provincial Administration. It actually took 5½ months to get a loan through while our contract was already given out, and it is quite true that that contract increased in price owing to a rise in wages, and the cost of material had actually increased so that there was an addition of 6s. per month in rental to sub-economic houses for Europeans. I think the Minister should, through the powers he takes in this Bill, help those societies who are out to assist in the housing problem, especially in relation to the poorer type of coloured and European person. I should like him to see whether he cannot help this Housing Utilty League by the Government giving the total amount of loan required for such houses. At present we have to go for 15 per cent. to outside sources. We pay a higher rate of interest and that adds to the rental to be paid by these people who fall within the lower grade of wage earners. In view of the powers he is taking in this Bill I feel confident the Minister will come to the aid of similar housing leagues—I believe there is also one in the Transvaal—who are out to give their services free to the housing problem which confronts us. I am sorry in a way that under paragraph 4 the Minister gives special powers to the Provincial Council of Natal. On a previous occasion in this House I remarked that the time was ripe when the provincial system should be done away with. The National Convention of 1910 expressed the hope that the Provincial councils they provided for under the Constitution would not last too long, and that in due course provincialism would die away. I do not think we should give new powers to a provincial council or more than entrench existing powers. If the Minister was quite sure this would help the housing scheme good and well, but I hope that in future the Minister will be very careful in giving any powers as regards houses to provincial councils unless there is strict supervision and direction of policy and execution by the Central Government. The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) referred to the Big Four. It is quite true that during the war when circumstances were much more urgent than they are today this question arose in connection with military contracts. I myself strongly objected to the fact that these contracts were handed out to a Big Four while many builders who should have been taken into consideration were left out in the cold. I do not know who the hon. member referred to as the Big Four, but I want to ask the Minister that under the powers he is taking in this Bill he should see that the whole building industry is utilised and that no big individual builders are given contracts out of all proportion to those received by the other builders, who can also assist. I therefore hope that through his Planning Committee everything will be carefully planned. Although there is great haste, the haste is not great enough to prevent careful planning, and unless there is careful planning and total pooling of all the building resources in South Africa I do not think any building scheme on a large scale can be a success. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will take note of these few remarks and that he will specially consider the good work done in the past by the Citizens Housing League of Cape Town.

This debate has ranged for three days, and I am deeply indebted to hon. members for the constructive suggestions which have been placed before me from all sides of the House. There is no doubt that the anxiety of hon. members in regard to the housing position has shown itself by the manner in which, with one or two exceptions, they have attempted to keep this matter above the level op Party politics. I want to thank hon. members very sincerely for the manner in which they have approached the subject, and for the suggestions that have been made. I do not propose now to deal with every matter that has been raised in the course of this debate. That would detain the House too long. I want to try to deal with the main threads that have run through the debate, but I can give the House the assurance that all those points will be considered. I shall ask the Director of Housing to do so, and we shall ensure that constructive suggestions that have been made shall be followed up. It is clear that, apart from the amendment moved by the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) and the addendum to it by the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom), members of the Opposition are prepared to allow a second reading of this Bill to be taken. The main objection of hon. members opposite, and in this they have support from other sides of the House, is that such far-reaching powers as are contained in this Bill, or are made available by this Bill, should be ultimately sought by means of regulation. The hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) has spoken on that subject this evening. The hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Rupssell) raised the matter yesterday. Their action is consistent with the stand they have taken in this House during this Session on the delegation of powers. It would have been illogical on their part if they had not raised this matter which has come up in this particularly acute form. I think every member of this House agrees—I hoped that would be inferred from the remarks I made in introducing the second reading—that Parliament does not lightly welcome being asked to give far-reaching powers by way of delegation and by way of regulation. It is not a function which Parliament lightly accepts, an it is only an emergency of a particularly grave character which justifies the House in acceding to such a request. I suggest we are in such an emergency. I will come to the criticism that this emergency should have been foreseen, or the suggestion that this emergency was with us a year or more ago. But I suggest in this matter, whether we are taking far-reaching powers or not, one has to be guided by the circumstances of the emergency itself. I do not feel that one need necessarily look for precedents in this matter. One can overdo the question of precedents. There are times when a Government must make up its mind to make its own precedents, and not be concerned with what has happened in the past. But in actual fact I do find in this case, apart from the war emergency reguations, the powers conferred by the War Measures Act, an Act peculiar to a country in time of war, there is a precedent for empowering the Governor-General by regulation to take such drastic steps without coming to Parliament. I find one of the last Acts passed by the Nationalist Government, in which they were supported by my friends opposite, was the Currency and Exchanges Act, No. 9 of 1933. In terms of Section 9 of that Act—

1. (1) The Governor-General may make regulations in regard to any matter directly or indirectly relating to or affecting or having any bearing upon currency, banking or exchanges.
2. (2) Such regulations may provide that the Governor-General may apply any sanctions therein set forth which he thinks fit to impose, whether civil or criminal.

Then sub-section (3) of Section 9 provides that—

Two blacks do not make a white.

I entirely agree, but I would say this. There is this distinction between what I am asking Parliament to do now and what the former Nationalist Government asked Parliament to do in 1933. They placed before Parliament a measure which enabled the Governor-General for all time to change an Act of Parliament by regulation. That Act is still in force. I ask for this power, because of extraordinary circumstances, for a period of three years only. Do not let us concentrate too much on precedents, however. We are dealing with a matter according to the circumstances prevailing at the present time. The hon. member for Fauresmith has suggested that I might have laid the regulations on the Table now. He mentioned that I had said they were nearly ready. Although the task of drafting them is nearly completed my hon. friend will, I am sure, appreciate that regulations cannot be laid on the Table merely when they have been drafted departmentally. They must be scrutinised by the law advisers, and there are difficulties of that sort in making them available now.

The Governor-General said in his speech you had discussed this matter thoroughly.

I shall come to the matter of why I did not introduce them earlier, at a later stage. I am dealing now with the request made by the hon. member for Fauresmith. I do not think it will be practicable to lay the regulations on the Table before the House adjourns for the Session. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) suggested that, in order to meet the difficulty, I should establish a post-Session Select Committee. The hon. member for Woodstock yesterday afternoon pointed out the constitutional difficulties in the way of that course, and I need add nothing to what he has said in that regard. But I do feel a good purpose may be served if an opportunity were given to hon. members on all sides of the House to meet me in an informal committee if they wish to do so, and to have an opportunity during the recess of consulting with me, or the Director of Housing and the chairman of the National Housing Planning Commission, any regulations which may have been made or which it is proposed to make. A committee of that sort has already been appointed from members of the Party to which I belong; but it seems to me a good purpose will be served—and I throw out the suggestion to hon. members—in having a committee representative of all parties which could meet from time to time. I leave it to the Parties, and to the Whips of the Parties, to consider whether they would like to avail themselves of that invitation.

You want more scapegoats than yourself.

My hon. friends suggested they wished to be consulted and to know what is happening, and if they wish to do that they must not run away from any responsibility indirectly placed upon them. The second objection raised by hon. members opposite is that this housing emergency could have been prevented. The hon. member for Boshof said this could have been foretold at the beginning of the war. One knows that the housing question in South Africa, or the housing shortage in South Africa, is not a sudden and new phenomenon. It is an acute manifestation of a chronic disease which has been going on for almost a quarter of a century; and after every war that disease becomes more apparent than before. Obviously one knew that during the war years there would be a falling off, a depletion in the number of buildings put up; but do my hon. friends, who suggest this emergency could have been prevented, suggest we should have had recourse during the years of the war to the manpower and the material resources of the country which were being reserved for defence requirements? We cannot have it both ways. Either, if you wage war you wage war to the fullest extent, and one realises there must be sacrifices in the community, and if a certain limited amount of material is available, and if a certain limited amount of labour is available, one must decide whether to divert this away from war purposes into channels such as housing, or you have to concentrate them all on the war effort. The Government has taken full responsibility for bending all its energies and all its national resources to the war effort in the last five years ….

Why did you make promises?

…. and if the cause of housing has suffered thereby, we can only say that has been in the greater cause of South Africa. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) interrupts and asks: “Why did you make these promises?” and I would remind him and another hon. member that the hon. member for Gordonia, in the course of the debate last night, suggested that in introducing the Housing Bill last year I had misled the House. And he began referring to certain statements I had made. I want to refer him to one of the quotations he made. He quoted the fact that I had said—

And he said all the Government had done during the war years was to “think” about housing and that we had done nothing. Housing can be divided into two parts in South Africa, housing under the Housing Act, that is national housing, and housing which flows from the ordinary coming into play of private building. I said on this occasion that, despite the pre-occupation of war, the Government had not turned away its mind from housing. The hon. member quoted that and said the Government did nothing but think. I asked him to go on with his quotation. The hon. member then quoted a lot of figures, but he did not quote the passage immediately below that, and which was significant—

That is the figure he did not quote. During the previous nine years of peace 8,000 had been built, and during the four years of war 10,000 had been built, more than in the previous nine years of peace.

How many of those 10,000 were for whites?

My hon. friends are very keen on quoting the shortage of houses.

How many were for whites?

I have not the exact figures at the moment, but if the hon. member suggests by that interruption that the housing shortage is in respect of Europeans only, he is being inconsistent with the allegations of other hon. members opposite. The housing shortage of 150,000 ….

In my speech I quoted the number of houses you built since 1939.

The hon. member did not quote what I mentioned. I leave the point there. There has been another suggestion in this debate, namely, that 14 months ago we should have realised there was a housing emergency. It was said that every member of this House realised there was an emergency 14 months ago and yet nothing was done. The hon. member for Boshof quoted the Van Eck report. He said that Dr. Hamlin pointed out there would be a shortage of 150,000 houses …. [Interruption.] If this figure is correct—and I assume its correctness for the purposes of discussion—it falls into two sections, 30,000 houses for Europeans and 120,000 houses for non-Europeans. But these houses do not refer to national houses only. The Van Eck Committee never found there was an immediate need for only 150,000 national houses. The Van Eck Committee found there was a total need in the country of 150,000 houses, whether built under the Housing Act or by private enterprise. I want to emphasise that point because there has been a certain amount of confusion in the minds of some hon. members who have participated in this debate when we talk about meeting the “housing” shortage we know that we cannot hope to meet that entirely by the building of “national” houses. The building of houses by private persons, the building of houses by private enterprise must go on side by side with the building of national houses, and there is no intention on the part of the Government, in taking the powers sought under this Bill, to interfere with or to restrict private enterprise and prevent private enterprise playing its part in building houses.

Will the private individual who wants to build a house be able to get a permit?

I will come to that if my hon. friend will be a little patient. The allegation against me is that we knew the difficulty and did nothing. Is that correct? The Van Eck Committee did report in February, 1944. It did suggest there was a shortage of 150,000 houses. What did the Government do? I introduced a Bill in this House. My hon. friend quoted from my second reading speech. In that I gave details of what had been done in the past and asked for powers to establish a National Housing Commission with much wider powers than the former Housing Board. Where are the specific promises that were made? The hon. member for Gordonia quoted the fact that I had said the Government had committed itself to £23,000,000 in respect of sub-economic houses, but the hon. member does not know the system under which sub-economic housing has been working. When this Government took over in 1939 the former Government had committed the country to a sub-economic housing programme of some £13,000,000. That is to say, it invited local authorities to apply for loans to build sub-economic houses, but the former Minister of Finance had said the accumulated amount of applications from local authorities for building must not exceed £13,000,000. That did not mean that £13,000,000 would be spent immediately. But it meant this. Suppose that £13,000,000 had been allocated, then, if another local authority came into the field and asked for a loan it would have to be told: No, we are up to the limit of our commitments and we cannot help you. The present Minister of Finance during the war years agreed to the Government committing the country to a sub-economic programme of £23,000,000. That was the position.

You might as well commit the country to £100,000,000 if you do not spend it.

What is the increase in the national debt as the result of your commitments?

I am not going to follow up the rather abstruse interjections of my hon. friend. I am merely attempting to give the House the facts. It is alleged I made promises: I am giving the facts. It may be the hon. member did not understand the facts.

Your promise was a promise of houses.

In order to attempt to follow up this allegation made against me that I was making rash promises, the hon. member brought in the name of Dr. Hamlin, and he said I had repudiated Dr. Hamlin. [Interruptions.] If the hon. member for Gordonia would not allow himself to be the victim of postprandial excitement it would assist me. I listened to him very quietly when he spoke, and I now want to deal with his allegations. He said I had repudiated Dr. Hamlin. I have never repudiated Dr. Hamlin.

No, he was right. [Interruptions.]

If my hon. friends would not allow this nervous excitement to get the better of their normal calm and cautious behaviour, I shall deal with the matter. I made no statements about the former Director of Housing, Dr. Hamlin, until my attention was directed to a statement he had made and which was given prominence in the Press. In this statement he was reported as having said that no question had been more misinterpreted or more misrepresented than that of housing. “Promises had been made which those who made them knew would never be fulfilled”.

You made those promises.

It seemed to me that statement must hit me amongst others.

You are not repudiating it.

You are feeling the pain before they hit you.

I was rather startled by the statement in view of my experience of the facts. So I think in view of the fact that the hon. member for Gordonia has raised the matter, and as there does seem to be a certain amount of misunderstanding on the point, I had better give the House the facts. Dr. Hamlin said that promises were made which those who made them knew could not be kept. He used a phrase about “Ministers running away like scalded cats”. He was Director of Housing in July, 1944, and he wrote to me in that month as follows—

He then went on to give certain figures in regard to the houses which it was alleged were being built, and then he went on to say in this letter—

That was my statement to the then Director of Housing and he complained that that was an unfair allegation, contending that he was helping me to carry out “the most ambitious programme ever undertaken in South Africa.” A few months later Dr. Hamlin went down to Bloemfontein and, on the 6th November, 1944, he said—

And on the 28th November, 1944, he addressed members of the African Health Officials Association in Johannesburg and once again gave his views on housing. These views were splashed across two columns of “The Star”, “Views of Dr. Hamlin” and he said—

And then he went on to deal with the permits issued for private buildings. Three weeks before he had said national houses were being built at the rate of 1,000 per month. What I have done is not to repudiate Dr. Hamlin but to say that, if in fact statements were made which misled the country, a certain measure of responsibility might possibly attach to the former Director of Housing. May I return now, Sir, to the allegation that one should have adopted other steps at the beginning of last year. The steps then taken were to appoint the Housing Commission with wider powers and to arrange for building materials being made available for national houses. In June, 1944, I asked the local authorities for their estimates for building programmes for the year ending June, 1945. I have given the House the facts before. They asked to build 23,000 houses. The Housing Commission, knowing of the limitation of materials, cut down the request to 12,000. We then asked them to give written undertakings to build 12,000 by June, 1945, and, they gave them. During that time the Housing Commission solved the vexed problem of the financial assistance to be given in respect of losses on national housing schemes. I had been told up to then that the only hurdle in the way of local authorities going full steam ahead with building national houses was that the losses on sub-economic houses were too heavy. We changed the formula to the complete satisfaction of the local authorities and, by November, 1944, I was in possession of undertakings from all the local authorities in the country that they would build 12,000 national houses by June, 1945. We had material enough for 12,000. Was that being negligent? Of these 12,000 I believe that approximately 4,000 will be completed. [Laughter.] My friends laugh but they missed the point.

And you missed the boat.

The point is that by November, 1944, they had given information which could be assumed to be correct, information in writing in the form of undertakings, and if it was correct the maximum use could be made of the available material. There was a suggestion in December that there might be labour difficulties in respect of this immediate programme and I asked the Commission to make enquiries and to make sure whether these houses would be built. It was the information which subsequently came to me which made me realise that the scheme had broken down. I am not suggesting that the former Director of Housing made these statements mala fide. He made them bona fide. I do not suggest that the local authorities who undertook to build houses did so lightly. They probably believed that they could carry out their commitments, but various circumstances intervened. In some cases it appeared that labour difficulties arose, labour being diverted to small projects. Whatever the difficulty may have been, whether it was due to the multiplicity of authorities, to labour difficulties or otherwise, the fact remains that these national houses were not being built. In the meantime private building went on in terms of building control. I am referring only to difficulties in respect of houses built under the Housing Act. It was because we realised that if these difficulties continued we would not solve our problem that the Government has come to this House to ask for these special powers. If the Government did not come to ask for special powers, Parliament and the country could have held the Government negligent for not stepping in. There has been no misleading of the country, no deception. The moment the position was fully appreciated I made a statement to the Senate on 4th April last, in which I indicated the views of the Government.

Then you have had almost two months in which to frame your regulations.

My hon. friend is in too much of a hurry. I come to his point. The introduction of this Bill has become largely possible through the fact that agreement has been arrived at with the building trade unions in regard to the dilution of labour, trainees, etc. These communications have been going on whilst hon. members opposite smiled at the apparent dilemma of the Government. It would certainly have been premature to introduce the Bill before we reached agreement. The very fact that the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) says that he does not like the provisions of the Bill regarding labour shows the difficulties which would have arisen if, following on prior careful negotiations one had not reached agreement with the trade unions. And the position would have been infinitely worse if we had rushed in with a Bill without consulting them. Let me assure the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Wanless) that it is not the intention of the Government to offer the trade unions a guarantee of less than 10 years. Negotiations have been going on on that basis. I am quite prepared, at the Committee Stage, to move an amendment to make the guarantee at least 10 years. So much then, Sir, for the allegation that we should have anticipated the position and should have taken wider powers at an earlier stage. This House approved of the Bill I brought before Parliament last year. In the second reading of the Bill I stressed more than once that the plan of the Government was to co-operate with local authorities and allow them to build, and that was approved. Parliament gave me authority to go forward with the programme and allow them to build. Parliament did not then say it would not work. It was willing to give it a trial. It has unfortunately broken down and now one is asking for additional powers to meet these difficulties and others. The hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) has said that he would have wished to have more details of our plans in applying these powers. I think the House is entitled to have some idea of the manner in which it is proposed to use the powers. It is of course not practicable for me now to deal in detail with the matter, but generally speaking my object is this, that the Commission is in touch with the major local authorities. It is enquiring from them their building programme, what they can build, what they would like to build and the nature of their difficulties in respect of material and labour. The Commission will then, after receiving this information, decide whether it, by the exercise of these new powers, ’ should assist the local authorities in the work. We do not wish to interfere with the local authorities provided they get on with the job. If they cannot get on with the job or are unwilling, the commission will build itself. But we go further, because it is quite obvious that even if the local authorities are in a position to build themselves there may still be gaps and timelags. I have, therefore, issued instructions to the Director of Housing that the commission should begin building at once, and the Director is searching at present for suitable ground for the building of houses to be let at cheap rentals. We intend to start building straight away in the main centres of the Union, houses for people in the lower income groups. But this Bill is not intended only for the lower income groups. I would divide national houses into three categories: (a) houses to be sub-economically let to the lower income groups; (b) houses to be let at economic rentals; and, group (c), houses to be sold on the hire-purchase system to persons earning between £25 and £45 a month, the group to which the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hopf) and others referred. We intend to deal with all these categories under the Bill and to make it possible for persons falling in these groups to be assisted. Of course the Bill goes further than this because it is possible, under the expropriation terms, to expropriate land for private people. If an ordinary private person wants to build a house, and finds suitable ground but is being held up to ransom, it is possible for the commission to expropriate the land. It is a far-reaching power but it is indicative of the fact that the Government wants to assist people in building by private enterprise. The plan involves control of land prices, profits and labour. It envisages an immediate start in building by the National Housing Commission itself. It envisages the provision of houses for those who can afford to buy them, in the middle group. I want to again emphasise the difference between national housing and ordinary private housing. A great deal of criticism has been offered in this debate to the control system. The Housing Commission has hitherto had nothing to do with the control system. It is not intended by this Bill to take over the control of all building material. Powers are taken to control materials in respect of national housing but it is not the intention of the commission to use these powers to the detriment of ordinary building. Side by side with national housing must go on the building of ordinary houses. There is a good deal of force in the contention that for the purpose of building houses within certain limits all control might go, bêcause we can control labour. Of course control of large building must remain like flats and picture palaces. Although some churches may be built I still think that the need for building houses is a Christian need which must be considered as a matter of priority. Concern was expressed about the building of houses on farms and in rural areas. Provision is made in the Bill for that, in Section 2 (1) (k) and the commission will do all it can to arrange for permits for buildings in rural areas and on farms. In introducing the Bill I mentioned that regional committees will be appointed, initially in the larger areas, but I quite agree with the hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen) that it will probably be necessary for us to have small committees in various parts of the country, and I would welcome the co-operation of members opposite, and all members of the community in dealing with these housing matters.

Did not your Party recently pass a resolution that no Nationalists should sit on any committee.

They will be voluntary bodies for looking after the interests of these areas, and if any individual can make a contribution I will welcome it. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Burnside) asked me about trainees. They will fall under the Demobilisation scheme at first. They will receive intensive training for 16 weeks and then be trained on the job. While on the job as trainees they will receive a rate of pay greater than that of apprentices. On completion of the training, after three years on the job, they will be full artisans and receive artisans’ wages. There are a number of other points of detail to which I will give attention. Some of the points raised may come up again and be more appropriately dealt with at the committee stage. So I come finally to touch on the amendment, moved by the Opposition. I am afraid that I cannot accept this amendment. The one concerns the old King Charles’ head of the Opposition—compulsory segregation. It is the policy of this Government to provide housing amenities for all sections of the community, and we feel that the system which has been so successful in the Cape areas can be extended, the system under which,, by a process of natural attraction, the members of various racial groups go to the same area. Since 1920 I know of no single instance under the Housing Act of a scheme providing for mixed residence, and it is certainly not the intention of this Government to allow it. I do not accept the amendment because it is not necessary, and we on this side of the House do not need to pass statutory powers to deal with the matters which can be dealt with administratively and need not give offence to any section. My hon. friends opposite are sometimes touchy when they were attacked in debate, but there are members of other races who have have feelings. They are also human beings, creatures of flesh and blood, so why should we cast aspersions upon them.

What aspersions?

If my hon. friends feel that if they get into power they want these safeguards, let them put them in. We on our side of the House do not need Acts of Parliament to make us do the right thing. The same applies in respect of the other two amendments. It is evident that national housing is not intended for aliens. It is true that there are aliens in the country. There are also numbers of British evacuees. There are still 6,000 wives and children of British servicemen in the country. I am making enquiries as to whether their return may be expedited. They are all anxious to go back. Hon. members will appreciate that if one can allow five or six thousand of these persons to go fairly quickly quite a number of flats and boarding houses will become available. But I hope my hon. friends do not object to South Africa having given them refuge. As far as the final amendment is concerned, it is not necessary to accept that. The principle of allocation and fair distribution of available material must obviously be adhered to. In these circumstances I regret that I cannot accept any of the amendments. I would like to thank the House once more for the very constructive suggestions; except for one or two minor lapses, I do appreciate the high standard this debate has taken.

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

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—64:

Lawrence, H. G.

McLean, J.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Morris, J. W. H.

Oosthuizen, O. J.

Payn, A. O. B.

Payne, A. C.

Pieterse, E. P.

Prinsloo, W. B. J.

Raubenheimer, L. J.

Robertson, R. B.

Russell, J. H.

Shearer, O. L.

Shearer, V. L.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Steyn, C. F.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sullivan, J. R.

Sutter, G. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Ueckermann, K.

Van Niekerk, H. J. L.

Visser, H. J.

Wanless, A. T.

Waring, F. W.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Williams, H, J.

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

Noes—22:

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Potgieter, J. E.

Steyn, A.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, C. R.

Van Niekerk, J. G. W.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wessels, C. J. O,

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendments dropped.

Original motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee on the Bill on 2nd June.

I move—

This Bill, like other taxation measures with which the House has already dealt, does two things. In the first place it seeks to give effect to the resolution passed in the Committee of Ways and Means, and in the second place it sets out to make certain other changes which have been found to be necessary in the existing income tax law. As far as the first part of the object of the Bill is concerned, that is dealt with in Clause 1 which fixes the rates of income tax for the present year. As I have already indicated we are not making any changes in the existing rates of taxation except as far as one subsidiary point is concerned, but in terms of the constitutional convention we must none the less re-enact the existing rates from year to year, even though no change is made. The bulk of this Clause 1 of the Bill is in the form of a re-enactment of the existing rates of taxation. The one subsidiary point is in respect of the treatment of excess recoupments which I explained fully when I moved the motion to go into Committee of Ways and Means. On that account I shall not repeat what I then said. The relevant parts of Clause 1 are sub-clauses 1 (a) (vi) and 2 (c). Those paragraphs deal with that particular point. The rest of the Bill, however, contains provisions which have not been dealt with by the House previously this Session. I do not intend to go into details on all of them. Some of them are of a minor character and have been explained in the White Paper which is available to all hon. members. But I shall refer to all those which are of substantial importance. The first point to which I wish to refer is in respect of contributions to staff pension funds. There are certain clauses in the Bill—Clause 2, Clause (5 (a), Clause 6 (b) and Clause 7 (a)—which seek to clarify the position in regard to contributions to such funds. The present law provides for the deduction from taxable income of contributions to funds of this nature. But in effect, the present law leaves it to the commissioner to decide whether or not a fund is to be recognised for such purposes. To an increasing extent, however, doubts and difficulties have arisen in the determination of funds which should be so recognised, and that is the more so because, as the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) pointed out, I think, two years ago there is a possibility of abusing this provision in the present law. On that account it seems to be necessary to define more clearly the nature of the funds in respect of which the concession should be given. Let me give an instance. It is possible today for claims to be made for deductions from taxable income in respect of contributions to a fund, where the contributions amount in fact to ordinary savings which are returnable with interest, to the contributor. In some cases those contributions are quite considerable and in some cases, too, the funds have only one or two members. Hon. members will therefore see that there is a possibility of abuse, and that it is obviously desirable to define properly what kind of fund should be recognised. That definition has been attempted under paragraph 2 (b) of the Bill. In dealing with this matter, my Department has for some time been in consultation with the representative bodies of commerce and industry. Their criticisms on the original departmental draft were substantially made before this Bill was introduced into the House, but one point remained outstanding, and that is a point in regard to Section 2 (b) (2) (b) (iii) and (iv). These are paragraphs which exclude for the purpose of deduction, funds where the contributions are applied to payments of ife insurance premiums. With regard to that one substantial point the representations made to us had not been met when this Bill was submitted. Further representations were made to me after this Bill was published, and as a result I feel that this aspect of the matter requires further enquiry. That enquiry it will receive in connection with the revision of the Income Tax Law which we are contemplating next year. In the meantime I shall propose at the Committee Stage to delete those two paragraphs to which I have referred.

Will you mention them again, please.

I propose co move at the Committee Stage to delete paragraph (2) (b) (2) (b) (iii) and (iv), but as a temporary means of checking abuses I propose to move an amendment in Clause 6 which will provide for a ceiling in respect of the contributions to such funds. The amendment will, of course, be on the Order Paper, and will indicate what the ceilings will be. I do not think that this will lead to any substantial hardship. I think it meets the position as a temporary expedient. Then I want to refer to Clause 4 of this Bill which amends Clause 9 of the existing law which was put into the law to deal with attempts at evasion by the creation of trusts. We have found, however, that the existing law does not cover one possibility of evasion, i.e., where there is a transference to a trust of shares tn a private company. The amendment will now have the effect of curbing that type of evasion. Another clause which deals with a somewhat similar subject is Clause 9 of this Bill. There we have the case of a taxpayer who has omitted income from his tax return where the omission is discovered in a subsequent year. At the present moment such omitted income cannot be taken into account for reducing losses carried forward to the subsequent year whereas obviously it should be so taken into account. That means that if in the year in which the income was actually earned the taxpayer still has a loss, even after this omitted income has been included, he cannot be taxed on that omitted income in respect of the subsequent year, where he has perhaps quite a substantial income. In other words, this omitted income cannot be brought to account to reduce the loss carried forward to the subsequent year. If the discovery of this omitted income gives him a favourable balance for that year, he is taxed on it, but if it gives him an unfavourable balance in the year, it does not reduce his loss carried forward to the next year, and therefore he escapes taxation. Clause 9 is intended to rectify that. Then I pass on to two clauses which deal with rather different subjects, Clauses 3 and 6 (a). Those clauses deal with the question of lease premiums. A lease premium is a special consideration given in connection with a lease. The principle of the present law is that such a premium is part of the taxable income of the lessor, while it is deducted from the taxable income of the lessee. Sometimes, however, a lease premium takes the form not of any cash payment but of an undertaking to effect improvements on the leased property. Obviously that should also be taken into account. But in the same way it means, of course, that the lessor should pay on that amount whereas the lessee should receive the benefit, just as happens in regard to other lease premius, and that is proposed in the clauses to which I have referred. Then I would like to refer to Clause 7 (b) where it is proposed to make an exception which will be acceptable in several cases. I have already referred to a similar concession as far as excess profits duty is concerned in the special taxation Bill. The point is this, that both in respect of normal and super tax, the taxpayer is entitled to a rebate. If the period of assessment is less than a full year under the present law, the rebate is adjusted proportionately. Take, for instance what happens in the case of death. It is quite possible that the income is not spread proportionately over a year, take for instance, the farmer who gets perhaps practically his whole year’s income in the first three months. In that case it would be unfair to the estate obviously, if it only got a proportionate rebate; or take the public servant who retires in July and gets his leave gratuity and then perhaps dies a few months afterwards. There again the estate is unduly burdened, and so it is only fair to make it possible for the commissioner to arrange that in such cases the rebate shall not be decreased on a proportionate basis. I think that is a concession that, will be generally acceptable. There are only two other mattters to which I heed refer, and both deal with procedure. In the first case, Clause 10 contains certain amendments in regard to procedure in respect of appeals against decisions from the Income Tax Special Court to the Supreme Court. I may say that in respect of these suggestions the Bench has been fully consulted. There are two points. At the present moment, in the case of an appeal to the Special Court, the Court is limited to the particular point of law which has to be formulated in advance. Sometimes the Court may consider that there is another point of law much more important, but the Court is debarred from considering that. We are proposing to empower the Court to deal with any point of law in the event of a disputed assessment. Secondly, we are proposing to allow by consent of the parties for an appeal direct from the Special Income Tax Court to the Appellate Division. Very often everybody knows right at the beginning that the case is not going to be settled until it comes to the Appellate Division, and where the parties agree they may go to the Appeal Court straight away to save time and money. The other provision to which I wish to refer is the provision we propose to make to facilitate the conclusion of agreements with other countries in matters of taxation with the view to eliminating double taxation. Section 94 of the existing law empowers the Governor-General to enter into such agreements. What we propose here is to extend his power in that regard by making it possible for agreements of that kind to cover reciprocal assistance in tax collection as between two countries. Those hon. members who read the budget speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in England will have noticed that an agreement on those lines has been concluded between Great Britain and the United States. A similar agreement has been negotiated between Great Britain and ourselves. The Chancellor of the Exchequer also referred to the proposal to negotiate agreements with various other members of the Commonwealth. I think to an increasing extent such agreements will be negotiated and it is desirable that we should have the further powers herein referred to to make those agreements as flexible as possible. Sections 11 and 12 provide for this. Those are the only points to which I think it is necessary to refer at this stage. The other points are explained in the White Paper, and they can be discussed further in Committee, if necessary.

Because this side of the House has no objection in principle against the tax we are being asked to extend for another year, the second reading of this Bill need not take too much time. This side of the House, however, feels that the Minister should improve his Income Tax Act in three respects, and that point of view will be put by members on this side. We ask for three things. It will not cost much money, but yet it will be a great consideration for the persons affécted. In the first place we ask that where sickness strikes a family and that ill-health is of such a nature that it not only destroys the income of that person for that year but also causes him to involve himself in debt, the State should take cognisance of that. The Minister told us that it is difficult to find a formula which does not open the door to malpractices. I can just tell him that another country found a formula like that. Canada has it, and what is possible for Canada is not impossible for South Africa. Secondly, we ask that where parents have a minor child above the age of 18 years, between 18 and 21 years, and that child attends a recognised educational institution, the same rebate should be applied in respect of that child as is applied in respect of a minor child under the age of 18; and, thirdly, we object to the limitation of 30 per cent. which was last year placed on the improvements which a farmer can set off against his taxable income.

Were there cases where that caused difficulty?

Yes, that point of view will be put by this side of the House. I only mention the matters. There are members on this side who will deal with the matter further. That is all we ask for. If the Minister is prepared to meet us as regards those matters, the committee stage of the Bill will also not take much time. As regards the amendments, we did our best to discover what the implications are of each of the amendments. In Clause 1 there is a concession to the gold mines. It is to allow the gold mines which have been exhausted still for the last time, if I may put it that way, to pay out a good dividend. The Minister shakes his head, but that is what it boils down to. We know that the capital expenditure of a mine is calculated for the life of the mine, and amortisation is provided for annually. Supposing we come to the end of the life of a mine and they sell the machinery. Under the old Act there was a danger that practically all the income from the sale of the machinery would go to the Treasury. The Minister can make appreciable concessions to such a mine. I can only say that we do not intend voting against it.

The present arrangement sometimes works very unjustly.

I just want to tell the Minister that we are very little interested in the dividends he still allows an exhausted mine to pay; we would rather see him try to encourage new mines still waiting to be developed in the Free State to produce. Now we come to Clause 2. As the Minister knows, we welcome sub-clauses (a) and (b). It closes the door to evasion of income tax, which Undoubtedly took place in recent years. The Only fault I wish to find with the Minister is that he is closing the stable door after the horse has been stolen. The worst evasions took place during the war years, and he is closing the door only now.

There is only a foal inside now.

Yes, he catches only the foal, but we would have raised serious objection to those two sub-clauses at the end of that clause except for the fact that the Minister promised to move the deletion thereof in the committee stage, and that satisfies us. As regards the rest of the amendments we have no objection and I leave the matter there.

The hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) has already indicated in what directions we wish to plead with the Minister for concessions. Last year already, even in the beginning when notice was given of these taxation proposals, we pressed the Minister to exempt people who have been affected by a catastrophe, in other words, people who owing to ill-health were forced to call in doctors and incur hospital expenses. There is no single family in South Africa which is not at one or other time affected by sickness, hospital expenses, etc. If I may refer to the report of the Gluckman Commission, it is pleaded for there—and it is felt right through the country—that medical services should be given free to the population of the country. In view of the strong feeling in South Africa that people who are affected by disease and who go to hospitals must be considered, we want to ask the Minister at this late moment to meet those people. It is wrong to tax the health of the nation. I think at the moment of two cases who are lying in hospital here from my constituency. They have been here for months and their expenses amount to hundreds of pounds, yet there is not the least provision n the Act to give exemption to these people. [ therefore want to plead very earnestly with the Minister at this moment to take this question into consideration whether he cannot move an amendment in the committee stage to give concessions to these people. A second matter I wish to bring to the Minister’s attention is the question of the tax on improvements which was levied last year. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (District) (Mr. Hayward) asked whether we knew of cases of hardship. Let me tell the hon. member that this tax does not affect people with farms which have already been developed. They do not suffer much as a result of this. But we have a pioneering country and the further one goes into the interior the fewer farms there are that have been developed. Much development must be done. Owing to the war there has been a cessation of development for almost five years. Let me give an example. I know of somebody whose gross income from his farming operations in the past year was less than £1,000, but he spent more than £1,000 in improvements in the form of jackal-proof fencing, boreholes and windmills. I should like to take the hon. Minister to the northwestern constituencies and he will find that a surprising amount of development still has to be done, and where these people develop their ground and cultivate it it eventually results in increased income to the State. But what is more, when we read the report of the soil erosion expert from America who visited our country and said that we have to tackle soil erosion with all our might, and seeing that the Government is being asked to spend millions of pounds in the interests of the national problems of South Africa, it is certain that the Government should not only exempt these people from taxation but that the State should do everything in its power to minimise the danger of erosion. The Minister last year said that the difficulty is that they want to trap the cheque-book farmers, the professional people who farm in order to evade taxation. I want to ask him whether it is so impossible for him or his Department to give a definition of a bona fide farmer. Last year we referred him to the definition of a bona fide farmer contained in the Farmers’ Relief Act but the Minister would not accept that definition. I ask him whether it is possible to give a better definition. Is it impossible to give a definition that a bona fide farmer is someone who does not perform professional services, but devotes himself entirely to farming and is dependent on his farming operations? I allege that it is possible for the Minister to find a satisfactory definition. If the Minister will do what the Nationalist Government did in 1928, namely to realise that the improvement of a farm is a source of income for the country and therefore not to tax improvements, if the Minister is imbued with the idea of seeing the farmers independent, and if he wants the country to be developed, the Minister will be able to find a definition of a bona fide farmer, and for that reason it is that I at this late moment ask the Minister to move an amendment by which the improvements effected by a bona fide farmer will be exempted from taxation.

I should like to say a few words in connection with the second point that was mentioned by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth); in the first place in regard to granting a rebate in respect of children above the age of 18 years who attend a recognised educational institution. The Government, I hold, should do nothing to thwart the education of the child; the Government ought to do the reverse. It should do everything in its power to ensure that the child is educated as well as possible to become a useful citizen of the State. When the child has reached the age of 18 the rebate is no longer allowed for income tax purposes, but we feel this is just the time when the parent spends a great on the child. It is just the time when he goes to the university or to the high school. It is not only school fees that have to be paid, not only the fees for education at the university, but also money for board and lodging, and I am convinced that many parents are not in a position to allow their children to continue at school. It presses especially heavily on people in the lower and middle income groups who have to keep a child at school. The wealthy man does not experience any difficulty, he can pay the extra costs; but every few pounds the middle class man or the poor man can save he has to save, and I am pleading specially for these people. There are the Government officials who do not draw very high salaries, there are the teachers who do not draw high salaries. They are anxious to give their children as good an education as possible, and it is they who today are finding things difficult. It is expected of them that they should live at a good standard and it is expected of them that they should set a certain example for their children. What does the State do to assist a child of 18 to reach the stage that he becomes a useful citizen of the State? I feel that if the Government or the Minister meets the parent in regard to children over 18 it will be a good step. It is wrong for the Government to thwart and to hamper the parent or the guardian at the stage when he needs help most. I may cite the example of a teacher who has two sons he would like to educate. He is a teacher at the high school. The children are very clever and he has already spent a great deal on their education. The one is studying medicine and the other surveying. It costs him a great deal to keep these children at school, and it is expected from him as a teacher that he should bear the whole expense. He has spoken to me and I feel the arguments he has advanced are right. He says that every pound he can save is of great help. This not an isolated case; there are hundreds and possibly thousands of similar cases. I should like to ask the the Minister whether, if he can see no prospect of allowing this rebate in respect of a child so long as it is continuing its studies, then at least he should grant a rebate until the child has turned 21.

When I asked the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) by way of interjection whether there were cases of difficulty in connection with the 30 per cent. rebate he said that cases of that sort would be mentioned.

There are many cases.

When the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig) rose, I really expected him to cite more striking instances. He referred to the case of a farmer whose income was less than £1,000 and who spent more than £1,000 on fencing, dams, boreholes and windmills. Last year the Minister increased the rebate from 20 per cent. to 30 per cent., and I must honestly say I feel that was satisfactory.

Why not 100 per cent.?

For approved erosion schemes.

I do not want to hold up the measure. When we are in Committee we may perhaps be able to go into the matter further, but I must say that it does not seem to be good economics for a farmer making less than £1,000 a year to spend more than £1,000. A farm should be developed gradually, and if 30 per cent. is allowed that appears to be quite adequate. Then £700 will remain, certain other expenses that can be deducted, leaving his nett income perhaps at £400 or £500, and on such an amount very little tax is paid. I do not consider the hon. member has made out a case to review the position.

I should like to associate myself with what the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig) has said in reference to the 30 per cent. rebate. When the 30 per cent. was instituted we felt it was a war measure because the Minister was in need of further revenue. But now the war is over we are appealing to the Minister to allow the full amount farmers expend on farm improvements. That is no more than right and just. It is an encouragement for the farmers and the farmers today receive no encouragement at all. Under the taxation laws the Minister allows 15 per cent. wear and tear on implements, but when we go into the increase that has occurred in the price of implements between 1940 and today we find the prices have actually risen from 100 per cent. to 200 per cent., and only 15 per cent. rebate is allowed. Let me remind the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Mr. Hayward) that in my constituency there are numbers of cases where the 30 per cent. is inadequate. A farmer has an income of £2,000. He is a newcomer, and he has built a dwelling house and outbuildings, and begun to improve his land,-and he has spent more than £1,500. That is the capital he has invested. If 30 per cent. only was exempted it would only be about £400.

In any case he cannot make a reduction in respect of a dwelling house.

I am referring to improvements. What does the hon. member regard as improvements? He improves his cowsheds, his fencing, etc. This is not subsidised. Fencing wire is today very expensive and iron posts have risen from 1s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. There is no subsidy as far as this is concerned. The farmer has to pay the higher costs, but he can only deduct up to 30 per cent. for income tax purposes in respect of improvements. Now I should like to bring another case to the notice of the Minister. Farmers today have to deal not only with soil erosion, as the hon. member for Calvinia has stated, in order to protect mother earth, but they have to contend with other difficulties, such as noxious weeds and other pests. There is the Scottish thistle that is spreading throughout South Africa. The Scottish thistle is today a greater danger than erosion, and that evil is not being tackled by the Department of Agriculture. I can assure the Minister that in my constituency farmers are paying up to £300 a year to eradicate the Scottish thistle, and if they do not incur this expense in continuously eradicating the thistle they would within ten years no longer be able to make a living. We know what the position is in certain parts of America. There the Scottish thistle has made such headway that hundreds of people no longer can make their livelihood; and in South Africa the Scottish thistle is already driving farmers off the land. Seeing the war is over I would ask the Minister not to stick to the 30 per cent., but to revert to the old basis of 100 per cent. for improvements and the eradication of noxious weeds, the building of dams and the prevention of erosion. It is an extremely reasonable request we are making, and I hope the hon. Minister will yet bring in such an amendment.

I should like to express my appreciation for the manner in which hon. members on the other side have tried to expedite the disposing of this matter. I want therefore to reply very briefly in the same spirit. These matters have, of course, all been discussed before. They were discussed in Committee of Ways and Means; the House gave its decision at that stage, and we cannot go back on that. Let me deal shortly with these three matters. In the first place the hon. member for Calvinia (Mr. Luttig) brought up the point about medical expenses and hospital expenses. I can only repeat that I do not feel happy about the proposition that it is necessary, by way of a tax rebate, to meet people who have to shoulder such a burden. In the first place by such a concession you can only meet a man with a small income on a very small scale. On a small income the scale of taxation is so low that a concession such as the hon. member is advocating would be very limited. It is true something of the sort is done in Canada, but in that country the scale of income tax is much higher than ours. For that reason the concession signifies much more than it would here. I have stated, however, that when the whole subject of our taxation system is enjoying consideration, and should we go over to an increased scale of income tax, this point will receive further consideration. But this year in any case nothing can be done. The second matter mentioned by the hon. member for Calvinia, and it was also touched on by the hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. J. G. W. van Niekerk), is in respect of the consideration farmers receive in comparison with other taxpayers in respect of their capital expenditure. This matter was thoroughly discussed last year and again this year. As hon. members know, this provision was greatly abused by cheque book farmers. The door had to be closed, and in our estimation a 30 per cent. concession is entirely reasonable in respect of the bona fide farmer. It is not regarded as a war measure, and the fact that the war is over makes no difference.

Instead of hitting at the 10 per cent. cheque book farmers you are now hitting at all the farmers.

By no means all the farmers have been affected by this. It affects very few farmers. In regard to the plea made by the hon. member for Lichtenburg (Mr. Ludick) that there should be a rebate in respect of children over 18 years of age, at any rate those who attend university, I would like to say that most children who have turned 18 are able to earn something on their own account. Consequently those whom the hon. member wishes to give favourable consideration to represent a relatively small group. They already benefit by the fact that their university education is to a large extent paid by the State. Now the hon. member wants to confer a further advantage on them. If it really meant that persons who are at present not in a position to enjoy a university education would be enabled to do so, one could understand it. But what would the concession mean? Five pounds a year. That is all. If this money was utilised, say possibly £50,000 or £60,000 to give bursaries in deserving cases, if that was the plea, it would have been a better plea than to allow £5 in respect of any student, whether he is a poor man’s child or a wealthy man’s child. I am afraid therefore I must give the same reply as I have done on previous occasions. I regret that I cannot comply with the requests to which expression has been given.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee on the Bill on 2nd June.

I move—

This and the two following resolutions are resolutions which have been passed annually since 1942 and have reference to certain preferences under the Ottawa Agreement of 1932. This one refers to the preference which Union crawfish enjoys in the United Kingdom. Since the outbreak of war this has been of no direct benefit to the industry because the British Ministry of Food, which is the sole importer of food in Great Britain, has contracted to purchase at an agreed price the total exportable output of our crawfish canneries, and therefore we have agreed since 1942 to suspend annually for a period of 12 months this preference, and the position now is that we have arranged to sell the whole of our available crawfish canned to the British Government for the coming year. Since our industry is safeguarded we have agreed to suspend the preference for a further year. It will be necessary to review during the current year what will have to be done in regard to the future, and I do not anticipate it will be necessary to ask for it in future years.

I second.

Motion put and agreed to.

I move—

The position here is slightly different in so far as we have no available fresh fish, nor facilities for exporting it to Great Britain. In fact I do not think we have availed ourselves of this preference since 1932, and we therefore are prepared to agree with the United Kingdom Government that this measure be suspended for a further period of six months. Again at the conclusion of hostilities this will have to be taken into review in regard to the future.

I second.

Motion put and agreed to.

I move—

This resolution refers to an agreement between the Union and Canada in respect of citrus fruit under which the Canadian Government agreed to impose a duty of 35 cents per cubic foot during the months of May to December, during which time Union citrus would be permitted to enter duty free into Canada. Owing to lack of shipping we have been unable to ship oranges to Canada during the war period, and the result of this agreement has been simply to increase the cost of oranges to the Canadian public without any corresponding benefit to anybody, and we have therefore agreed in recent years to suspend this preference. This resolution refers to the last season, 1944, and only requires ratification in respect of the future. I am not yet able to say whether we shall be able to export any oranges to Canada during the coming season. It entirely depends on the question of shipping, and at the present moment there is no apparent prospect of the necessary refrigerating space being available.

I second.

Agreed to.

I have been asked by the promoters of this Bill, and by the hon. member for Durban (Umlazi) (Mr. Goldberg) who is absent, to take charge of this Bill for them, and I move—

Agreed to.

House in Committee:

Clauses, Preamble and Title of the Bill, put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN reported the Bill with amendments made by the Select Committee.

Amendments considered.

Amendments in Clause 1 and in the Preamble put and agreed to, and the Bill, as amended, adopted.

Bill read a third time.

I should just like to put a question to the Minister. It has now become the habit to leave the taxation proposals more and more to the discretion of the Commissioner. The Commissioner is given discretion to do this and to do that. Now I just want to put a question to the Minister in regard to that. Supposing that the Commissioner exercises his discretion under a taxation Act and he gives a certain ruling under which something is not included in the taxable income, and then there is a change of Commissioners and a similar matter is again submitted to him for decision and he then gives a different ruling; can his decision then be made retrospective?

No, not in cases where a decision has already been given.

I want to inform the Minister that there is anxiety in the sphere of industry and on the part of the public at the fact that the Commissioner may exercise his discretion and give a certain decision, and that the matter may then again come before the next Commissioner who then gives another decision. Is it possible that it may be retrospective in any respect? Will the Minister give a clear statement so that it can go on record in Hansard report.

No, it is not possible that in those circumstances it can be given retrospective effect.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 3,

I want to move this amendment, as I promised to do at the second reading, namely, to effect a decrease as regards the personal and savings levy tax in connection with married people who have an income of less than £300; it is a decrease from £3 to £2 10s. The amendment is as follows—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 6,

I should like the Minister to give a clear reply here also. As I understand the Bill, the portion paid as savings under this article is exchangeable on all amounts paid before this particular year.

Yes.

For the years 1942, 1943 and 1944 it is exchangeable. In other words, a person who has paid the savings levy in those years can exchange his certificates in order to receive back his money. Are there exceptions, and has the Commissioner the discretion to refuse?

No, there is no discretion given to the Commissioner, but as the Act now stands it provides that where the amount is more than £20 it is not payable. It is not a question of discretion.

And in the case of an amount under £20?

The Commissioner has no discretion.

Representations were made to me to the effect that in cases where the savings levy was less than £20, the Commissioner refused to pay it out.

Then there is a mistake.

Then we have only to see the Commissioner about it?

Yes.

Then there is a further point. We want to know whether the Minister is prepared to meet us as regards subclause (b). There it is provided that the savings levy will be repayable only after six years. We feel that that is too long. We do not mind that the State forces us to save. That helps us. But in the post-war years we may perhaps want to buy a house or furniture or something of that nature, and we want the right to get back that money from the State. Under this proposal that money is frozen for six years. We cannot get that money. That is in the period when we need it most and can put it to the best use. That is the period when everyone wishes to make provision for the building of a house or something like that, so that the money can be used for some or other purpose, and here the Minister now lays down that it cannot be repaid until after six years has elapsed. Does the Minister not think that the period is too long? We should like the Minister to consider decreasing it to two or three years.

I just want to point out that where the amount is more than £20 the period is six years.

£20 for one specified year?

In view of the fact that the savings portion of the tax in future will not be payable by people who do not pay income tax, but only by income tax payers, we propose making that provision generally applicable. One will not be able to get very far with an amount of less than £20, even if for two years it was not levied, in order to build a house or to purchase furniture.

Every little helps.

Not really much in this case, but apart from that an amendment like that would lead to changing the whole of the rest of the Act. I therefore regret that I cannot consider it now, but I shall be prepared to consider it further next year.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 7,

I must ask for the deletion of this clause, seeing that it is not expected that the Bill referred to in this clause will be passed this year.

Clause put and negatived.

Clause 8 put and negatived.

On New Clause to follow Clause 6,

In the second reading speech I indicated that we proposed to make a concession of general applicability in regard to agents who had expenses over and above the normal commission. At present the tax free percentage is limited to 5 per cent. but there are cases, especially in respect of agents for the sales of townships, where the expenses may be a good deal heavier, and we therefore propose to allow for such expenditure as part of the tax free portion. I move—

1. 7. (1) Section 26 of the Special Taxation Act, 1942, is hereby amended—
   1. (a) by the insertion in paragraph (b) after the word “exceeds” of the words “the expenses in connection with the transaction which he may have incurred and which the Commissioner may allow, together with”; and
   2. (b) by the insertion, after paragraph (b), of the following paragraph:
      1. (b) bis so much of any amount, other than an amount referred to in paragraph (b), which accrues to or in favour of any intermediary in respect of the alienation of any immovable property referred to in paragraph (a) of the definition of “immovable property” in Section 25, as exceeds the expenses in connection with the alienation which he may have incurred and which the Commissioner may allow, together with five per cent, of the consideration for the immovable property concerned;
2. (2) Sub-section (1) shall be deemed to have come into operation on the first day of March, 1945.

Agreed to.

On Clause 14,

I move—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

The remaining Clause and the Title having been agreed to.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill with amendments.

Amendments considered.

Amendment in Clause 3, the omission of Clauses 7 and 8, the new Clause 7 and amendment in Clause 14, put and agreed to, and the Bill as amended, adopted.

Third reading of the Bill on 4th June.

This seems to be a suitable point at which to ask a question as to the rule which is to be followed in future in regard to cases of this kind. Is this to be taken as an indication of the future intention of the Government in making grants to widows of Ministers Plenipotentiary, or is there any sort of assurance that their petitions for pensions will be entertained. We have a very haphazard method of dealing with these matters. I am not reflecting on the Committee whose task is always difficult. I simply wish to point out that here we have a case of the lamented death of the Minister Plenipotentiary, and we propose to grant £1,000 to his widow. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether it is intended to deal with any similar cases that arise in a similar manner or what the policy is with regard to our Diplomatic Service which is becoming an increasingly important branch of the Public Service.

Perhaps I should explain that it has been the custom for some time now, on the retirement or death of overseas representatives like Ministers or High Commissioners to pay a gratuity which is calculated on the basis of one month’s salary for each year of service, with the maximum of 5.0 persent of one year’s salary. In the past the Government placed the amount on the estimates and had it voted by the House, but in the last case, that of Colonel Reitz, exception was taken to that procedure, I think by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth), who made the point that in such cases the matter should first of all be dealt with by the Pensions Committee. That is why this procedure has been followed in this particular case, and it is our intention to follow that procedure in future. But the basis adopted has been the same as that followed in similar cases in the past.

This is a case in which a prominent member of the Public Service is about to be transferred to the Diplomatic Service, and provision is sought to be made by this recommendation for the continuity of his service. No-one would object to that. The only point is that we do not wish to repeat the experience this country had in relation to the case of Dr. J. F. J. van Rensburg. In his case there was a transfer from the Public Service to the post of Administrator of the Orange Free State and there was a condition which laid down that a certain period was to be added to his service. It was laid down that in the event of the termination of his appointment as Administrator he had the option of returning to the Public Service. That option was neither exercised nor brought into force with the result that Dr. van Rensburg received the substantial addition to his pensionable service when he ceased to be Administrator and became Commandant-general of the Ossewa-Brandwag. I hope that in this case it will not be understood that what we are doing in regard to Dr. Viljoen will be capable of any variation when he reaches retiring age or before. Dr. van Rensburg was allowed to retire before he had fulfilled the requisite essential in regard to all Service appointments, that he must reach retiring age, but without reaching retiring age he received an addition to his pensionable service. I do not want it to be presupposed that the present provision frees Dr. Viljoen from any responsibility for the fulfilment of his service before he can draw the pension.

The precedent followed in this case is not that of Dr. Van Rensburg, where the position was different and special provisions were made on his appointment to a post for a definite term of years. The precedent followed here is that followed in the case of Dr. Gie, a happy precedent, except for his lamented early death. We are treating him in the same way as we treated Dr. Gie and I think that basis is a reasonable one, that where a public servant is appointed to a diplomatic post that should be regarded as an extension of his service.

Will the Minister indicate why this was brought up by a Treasury memorandum instead of the persons concerned having recourse to a petition to this House? It seems to me there was nothing unusual in their case and it should have been dealt with in the orthodox manner by a petition to this House.

The position is that these two mem were apprentices to the Government Printer and were loaned to a private printing firm for the purpose of assisting that firm which was a contractor to the Government and did a large part of the printing work for the Director-General of Supplies under difficult war conditions. They were members of the Government Employees’ Provident Fund and there was no provision under the law to enable them to retain their membership of the fund or to expect them to contribute for that period, but in fact they were doing Government work during that period and they should not suffer.

The point I am anxious to ascertain is why they did not have recourse to the proper remedy of the position.

The point is that they are employees of ours and we sent them to do this work. I think it was right that we should take steps to see that they do no suffer and not put the onus on them.

In this case the service by the deceased was rendered to the Land Bank and it would appear to me that we may be creating a precedent here in granting a pension in respect of war services when the actual service was rendered to the Land Bank. Genl. Muller was a member of the Land Bank Board and everyone appreciates the duties he performed but I am merely indicating that in this case the present recommendation might be open to a certain amount of criticism because he was properly an employee of the Land Bank.

It has been the practice of our Committee to grant pensions to the wives of our heroes, especially generals who served in the Anglo-Boer War. General Muller rendered outstanding service, and it is in recognition of his being a national hero that this allocation was made to his widow.

This is a case in which the widow of General Tanner is the subject of a recommendation by the Committee that she should receive a pension of £10 a month. It may not be generally remembered that the South African troops went into Delville Wood commanded by General Tanner. He was twice wounded in that historic battle. He had been for many years a member of the permanent Public Service both in Natal and in the Union. He retired on pension but did not live much more than 10 years to draw his pension. During that time the present war broke out and he was again recalled to active service and at one time held the Cape Command. This is the case of a man whose services and whose conduct were foremost on the occasions on which the South African soldier was tried to the uttermost and his bravery enshrined in world history. We now propose that his widow shall receive a pension of £10 a month. I know of other generals whose widows receive as much as £500 per annum, the widow of General De Wet for example. General Beyers’ widow receives £300 per annum. I do not wish to make comparisons but to plead that the Minister will give more generoús treatment to this case. I know perfectly well that the petition that came before this House was not so clearly worded as to make it apparent that the widow was suffering want or in pecuniary need, but it seems to me that the principle of requiring a petitioner in such a case to conform to a means test is out of place in view of the services rendered by this general. I do not think this procedure was adopted in the other cases. I do not at this stage intend to move that this case be referred back to the Committee but I hope the Minister will agree to its being considered next year with a view to an improved award. Among the tributes paid to those who fell at Delville Wood or suffered but survived, there was one by Major Heal, who commanded the remnants of a Natal Regiment. He said, “If South Africa lets any of these men starve or any of their dependants want may she be left in her hour of trial. 2,800 gone—do you realise it?”

In defence of the Committee I must make a few remarks. Mrs. Tanner was dealt with as the wife of one of our great South African heroes but she inherited an estate of £8,000 and there has been no idea of a means test in this case. The award is purely in recognition of her husbánd’s wonderful services. The petition was not lightly dealt with. The brilliant record of General Tanner was before the Committee when it made this award.

I cannot understand the language employed by the hon. member in saying the award was to recognise General Tanner’s wonderful services by a grant of £10 a month. It is a very poor token. Some information as to the date of the reported legacy of £8,000 should have been given. There is no mention whatsoever of such a legacy among the papers available to members of the House. There is one case in which a widow whose husband had no claim equal to that of General Tanner, much less in fact, received £500 per annum. That was a substantial token, and to my mind a similar recognition in this case would not have been out of place. I know how prone the public of South Africa are to be misled on matters of fact in relation to some of these questions, and in order to meet possible statements that may be disseminated in the country I want to say this, that Mrs. Tanner’s case is as stated by her in a recent letter to a friend from which I shall read as follows—

She points out that the apple crop was only rendered profitable through the assistance of friends and neighbours, who charged her nothing for the harvesting and marketing. But in 1945 there was no profit. This is not a case of anybody who might be considered comfortably off, but is undoubtedly a case which deserves much more generous recognition than that accorded by the Committee.

Can the chairman of the committee give us any indication why so small a grant is recommended in the case of Mrs. Fahey,—£60 pér annum is surely insufficient for anybody as a means of livelihood.

Mr. Fahey did not hold a pensionable post in the public service, and on that account he had a salary on a higher scale. The committee considered his duties in India during the war had something to do with his premature end. Though Mrs. Fahey was left with some estate it was felt it should try to bring her up into the same category of other widows of civil servants. Hon. members will realise that under the public service, widows’ pensions are small. The committee granted an amount which brought her up to what it regarded as practically the equivalent of the maximum pension a civil servant’s widow would have received had he been contributing to the Civil Servants’ Widows’ Fund.

I am unable to put Recommendation No. (17) as the appropriation contemplated therein had not been recommended by the Governor-General.

Will the Chairman of the Committee tell us something about this case?

Maj. Halse retired on superannuation and was awarded a pension of £330. There was no provision in law governing his pension rights.

Recommendation put and agreed to.

Recommendations Nos. (23) to (46) put and agreed to.

On Recommendation No. (47)—

I am unable to put recommendation No. (47) as the appropriation contemplated therein had not been recommended by the Governor-General.

May I just ask for some information in this connection. It seems to me to be a peculiar state of affairs. I have nothing to do with the merits of the case, but it seems to me that if the Government, notwithstanding the recommendations of the Select Committee, does not wish to award pensions they only see to it that the Governor-General does, not give his approval That makes the whole Select Committe a farce. I wish to protest very earnestly against it. It not only makes a farce of the Select Committee on Pensions, but of the whole House. Here the House is now sitting in order to deal with the recommendations of the Select Committee, and what do we find? If the Minister does not want the House to deal with these recommendations, or if the Minister simply wants to vitiate the work of the Select Committee, he simply sees to it that the approval of the Governor-General is not obtained, and then we are left sitting here like a lot of fools or baboons. 1 should like to know from the Minister of Finance how he regards this matter. I cannot do otherwise than to express my strongest disapproval about it.

In this case there was a break in service which the petitioner was responsible for, and it is generally claimed that discipline in the civil service would collapse if such breaks were condoned. This seemed to be a particularly hard case and our committee thought we would make an exception. The Pensions Committee is a compassionate committee and sometimes lets its heart run away with its head. Other information, however, has come to our notice. As the chairman of that committee I may say we would raise no objection to the grant.

Seeing that my hon. friend has raised the general question I just want to point out that what was done here was done according to a decision given a few years ago by the Speaker. The Speaker then gave a ruling that according to the law of the Union it is necessary to obtain the recommendation of the Governor-General in connection with all expenditure, including that regarding the granting of pensions, and just as it would be necessary to obtain the consent of the Governor-General when a proposal is made for increased expenditure in the usual legislation, so it is necessary to receive his consent in regard to recommendations of this nature. That was laid down by the Speaker in 1941. I am quite prepared to discuss the merits of this particular case, but I just want to say the procedure followed here is in accordance with the decision of the Speaker.

The statement made by the Minister is quite correct and we know everything about it, but that is not the question. By way of protest I now want to move—

As a Parliament we appoint a committee to investigate certain petitions which have been laid upon the Table of the House. The committee makes a recommendation. The recommendation may be correct or it may be totally wrong, but by means of a trick we are prevented from discussing that matter. The result is that any recommendation contained in the report of the Select Committee may at any time be removed from the Table by the Minister of Finance and the Government. They can simply say that the Governor-General does not recommend it. The merits of the case as presented by the chairman of the Select Committee makes no difference to the principle of the case raised here by us. I object to our right to discuss such recommendations here first being taken away in this manner. If something should happen later which does not make it necessary to accept that recommendation, the Minister of Finance should get up and tell us what the position is. He may recommend that the House do not agree to that recommendation, and if he has a good reason then the recommendation of the Select Committee will be rejected. But to come here and to place you as Chairman in such a position that that particular point should be removed from discussion is quite unfair. I do not think that we should allow that procedure to be followed. What the Minister of Finance has said has always been the rule. We know that expenditure may not be discussed unless it has been agreed to by the Governor-General. But it was never the intention that the Minister or the Government should smother discussion on a recommendation of the Select Committee. The Select Committee is our representative on a certain body. We appointed members to investigate certain matters. They make a recommendation and then we at least claim the right to discuss that recommendation here and to accept or reject it. The Minister is then in a position to explain his decision to the House. I cannot remember that it has ever been the procedure to remove a recommendation of the Select Committee from the Table by way of a trick.

I regret that I am unable to accept that motion. I naturally appreciate the spirit in which the hon. member has moved it. I agree that there is some difficulty in connection with the case, but the legal position is quite clear in terms of the Constitution Act and the Standing Rules and Orders. In view of the fact that my hon. friends are experiencing: difficulty in connection with the case, I want to suggest that the case be considered by the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders with a view to the future. I am quite prepared that that should happen; then we can go into the difficulty which has been raised here.

But I do think that you will admit that it is the first time that it has happened.

In 1941 it occurred for the first time in a case of this character.

That is correct. Before 1941 the procedure was not like that. Then a case such as this arose and the Speaker gave the decision. Let us leave the matter there and as far as the future is concerned let us refer it to the Committtee on Standing Rules and Orders for discussion.

Here we have two cases as it is.

It is only, these two cases which will naturally be placed before the House next year.

Is it a promise that it will go to the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders?

Yes.

I want to put it as follows: It is perhaps a good thing that the rules of the House should be changed if a way out could thus be found, but quite apart from that, it still remains an unpleasant fact that the Minister has abused a rule of the House to prevent a discussion, and that may happen with each one of these recommendations. Supposing the Minister does not agree with the recommendations of the Select Committee in all the other cases. Then he could only have seen to it that the Governor-General’s recommendation is not granted, and then not a single one of these cases could have been discussed. I want to record my protest that the Minister has made use of something like that to prevent a discussion. I leave the matter there, and I will want to see what the Select Committee on Standing Rules and Orders has to say.

The procedure adopted in this case seems to be an innovation. It means that even where a favourable recommendation has been submitted by the Select Committee the Government asserts a right to advise the Governor-General to withhold approval of the expenditure. That introduces a new hurdle for the unfortunate petitioner to surmount, and it seems to me to some extent to be an interference with what in the past has been recognised as the right of the Legislature to recommend expenditure in connection with petitions to Parliament. The recommendations in the opinion of many of us are not over-generous. But in this case a Miss Van Rooyen complied strictly with the procedure of this House. Her petition was referred to a Select Committee, which is a fact-finding committee, and they investigated the soundness of her claim, with the result that this recommendation was made. I hope this will be the last occasion on which a recommendation will be made to the Governor-General to withhold authority for expenditure recommended in these circumstances. This entirely new procedure is going to react on the good name of Parliament.

May I repeat the assurance I have given, this difficulty in regard to procedure will be submitted to the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders with a view to finding some means of getting over it.

The hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) spoke about the hurdles a petitioner has to overcome. If we have Government rejections to our recommendations contested on the floor of the House, the Select Committee will have to be much more careful in regard to its recommendations of relief to petitioners. In many Treasury Reports there is no indication that the Government will approve of any award. This new procedure came about after a ruling of the Speaker in 1941, in years past our previous Minister of Finance contested certain recommendations and the approval of the House was obtained before the Governor-General’s signature was sought.

I appreciate the difficulties hon. members have raised. They have not really a satisfactory opportunity of discussing the desire of the Government to have a petition rejected, and that is the difficulty I want to see overcome as a result of a discussion by the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders. I give the assurance that we shall go into the matter to see whether we can get over the difficulty.

Motion put and negatived.

Recommendation No. (48) put and agreed to.

On Recommendations in Paragraph II—

There is a case here that raises a question of what procedure is proper. This is a case of Mrs. Marchant whose husband had been a cleaner or messenger in this House and in the Senate for over 10 years. The facts were set out very briefly in the petition, but the occasion for it was that the widow of the deceased official had been informed that her request for the usual gratuity could not be referred to a Parliamentary committee. That was a very difficult case. She had lost her husband in consequence of war service. The rules relating to his employment in Parliament provided that if after 10 years’ service he terminated his employment, or if his employment was terminated by the House, he would be entitled to a gratuity of a month’s salary in respect of each year of service. That was the footing he had attained to by reason of his service, which extended to over 10 years. He was entitled to a gratuity even during his lifetime if he retired from any cause other than inefficiency. How much more so is the widow entitled to such a gratuity if he died in harness. Several widows in similar circumstances had received the gratuity. She approached the officials under whom her husband was employed and received a letter which said that in view of the military pension she received, £11 a month, and £3 a month for each child, her application could not be placed before the Parliamentary Committee. Actually the rules say that it shall be placed before the Committee. She was advised by me to petition the Select Committee for Pensions. That Committee recommended that the matter be put before the other Committee concerned. I am told by one of the members of that Committee that considerable discussion centred round the fact that she had gone over the heads of the officials concerned, but her position had been rendered very difficult. How else could she get consideration? She could not carry it further herself or through any member. The case was very difficult. I have a certain amount of responsibility for having advised her to put in the petition to the hon. member for Green Point (Mr. Bowen). For the purpose of future guidance I shall be glad if the Minister can tell us what the rights of such persons are. In this case I feel, notwithstanding the authoritative decision of he Committee, that the Committee overlooked a very important matter, namely, that under the rules governing his employment he had earned this gratuity by reason of his 10 years’ service. His widow has been in hospital twice since her husband’s death and has one boy at the matriculation age whose expenses are far more than £3 per month. She has to pay £5 a month rent. What has she got left over for food after paying for two children and two spells in hospital? Such cases may occur again and I think this one should be referred back to the Committee.

I feel impelled to interfere in this case because I think it is one in which the ruling of the Speaker has been questioned. At the cost of boring the House I will go over the details of the case.

No-one has questioned the ruling of the Speaker.

I will explain later how it is being questioned. Ten years ago Marchant was taken on to the establishment of this House as a cleaner. He went on active service in 1940, became ill, was discharged in 1943 and given a 50 per cent. disability allowance which was later increased to 100 per cent. He died in November, 1944, and his widow was granted a pension under the War Pensions Act of £240 a year, plus a gratuity of £264. She and the two children receive £20 a month. At the time of his death he was in receipt of a basic wage of £195 with cost of living allowance and special war allowance making a total of £261. Actually a pension was given, which was greater than his basic wage, plus a gratuity. The hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) has pointed put what he says Marchant’s position would have been if he retired after normal service. Actually, if he had retired as a cleanër on the ground of ill-health while in our service he would have been entitled to a pension of only £39 12s. 6d. per annum. On his death—and I want the hon. member to appreciate this—his widow would have been “entitled” to no pension or gratuity; she could claim nothing as a “right” but could have asked for relief according to her circumstances and I have no doubt would have got something suitable.

During the recess the Clerk of the House received an application from Mrs. Marchant. The Speaker considered that, as she was in receipt of a military pension greater than her husband’s basic salary plus a gratuity of £264, he did not feel justified in recommending her application to the Conferring Committees on Internal Arrangements. I take it that the hon. member knew, when he advised the widow to put in a petition, that her case had already been considered by the Speaker who had decided, and was right in deciding, that this case should not go forward to the revelant Committee. This right of the Speaker cannot be questioned and the hon. member, if he relies on Section 8 of the Pension Scheme for Officers of Parliament, he is doing so on the wrong premises. It says there that on death of such officer the widow can make an application and that such application shall be referred by Mr. Speaker to a certain committee. The hon. member relies on the word “shall”. I consider that the action of the Speaker was absolutely proper and constitutional. The Speaker is entitled to consider, as head of this House, cases such as this which are put before him, on their merits and—this is the point—if, and only if, he decides that relief is necessary, then and only then, “shall” he decide to refer a case to the revelant Committee. [Interjection]. I am interpreting this in the way I think normal Parliamentarians with their knowledge of constitutional procedure would interpret it. It seems necessary, after that interjection, to say something about the position of the Speaker. He is the head of this House and the representative authority of this House. His decisions can only be questioned by a substantive motion in this House. I feel that any move, however indirect, as this is indirect, or oblique, as this is oblique, to question the decision of the Speaker other than by the serious step of a substantive motion, which would amount to a motion of no confidence, is a move to undermine the very foundations of our Parliamentary system. The very strenght of our Parliamentary system lies in its informality, but rests on implicit obedience to the Speaker’s authority. I think it should be known to the hon. member that he Had other informal means of raising this matter and not by the indirect and objectionable method he is using. I am not blaming the Pensions Committee. They were not aware of the fact that this lady’s case had been considered and decided on by the Speaker. I am not blaming the hon. member for Green Point (Mr. Bowen) but I am blaming the member who brought this matter before the House in the way he has just done. His course of action is calculated to bring this House into discredit, and I suggest, if I might have the temerity as a back-bencher to do so to a senior Frontbencher, that he should apologise to Mr. Speaker. The case should never have been referred to today. No attempt should have been made, as it is now made, to force the Speaker to reconsider the matter. We know that the Speaker decided on the matter in a fair way and I think that other channels of raising these matters are known to the hon. member. I feel that the House should permit me to suggest that the hon. member might give an adequate apology for questioning as he has done the rulings of the Speaker of this House.

I feel sure that the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) never intended to be disrespectful to Mr. Speaker. I cannot remember him being disrespectful to anyone. The hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) might just as well say that a man is disrespectful to a magistrate when he takes a case on appeal, and that is what is happening in this case. This case was submitted, as staff cases have to be, to the Speaker, who decided that it was a case in which he could not use his discretion to recommend any award. There is nothing disrespectful in it if the hon. member wishes to take this decision to appeal, as it were.

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

I feel perfectly certain that the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) did not mean in any way to be discourteous to Mr. Speaker in connection with this case. The present Speaker is held in the highest esteem by members, and I would like to suggest to the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) that he might wait until he has shed his Parliamentary napkins before he endeavours to read a lecture to the hon. member for Pinetown.

All right, father.

Instead of him suggesting that the hon. member for Pinetown owes an apology I think an apology is due from the hon. member for Woodstock for what might almost be called his insolence. This case was brought up in the Internal Arrangements Committee, and I feel certain when the Speaker stated he was not prepared to make any recommendation we would not have objected to the hon. member for Green Point (Mr. Bowen) taking this case to the Pensions Committee, because I feel certain that if it had been in the power of Mr. Speaker to make a grant to the widow of a war veteran he would have been only too happy to do so. But I am inclined to think he could not make that recommendation. It would perhaps have been better had this case been handled a little differently; I do not know; I do not know, but I am certain there is no disrespect intended towards Mr. Speaker. How I view this case is this. If this man had been in the service and wanted to retire, a gratuity could have been granted to him; that is done in many cases. In fairness to Mr. Speaker I would like to say that only recently he made recommendations in the matter of dependants of the staff of the House. But the point to my mind is, this man is penalised because he had dared to serve his country. Had he not been in the army and died from war causes his widow would have gained a substantial gratuity which, I am certain Mr. Speaker would have been only too hapyy to recommend. But on account of his receiving a war pension Mr. Speaker did not feel justified in recommending that further payment in the form of a gratuity should be given him. Anyone outside the House not knowing the case would say that this soldier’s widow is being penalised because he served his country as a volunteer, not as a conscript. There is the other aspect to be taken into consideration as far as the children are concerned. This widow, with a pension of £11 a month, has three children to bring up, and she will not be able to educate them. When they reach the age of 18 the pension disappears, and in these days many children require to continue their studies until they are 20 or 21. This is, I think, a case where no harm will be done in referring the matter back to the Pensions Committee. I feel sure Mr. Speaker would have no objection to it being referred back. It is up to us to see that as long as his wife and family are alive we shall look after their interests. A token grant of £100 to this widow would probably have satisfied her, and she would have said: At any rate I am not penalised because my husband served his country. I move—

If the action of our Pensions Committee is regarded by some members of the House as a reflection on the high esteem in which we hold Mr. Speaker, we apologise; our action was in all innocence. The petitioner was receiving a pension in excess of her husband’s pre-war earnings; she also received a gratuity; there was no immediate need for assistance, although members here have tried to stress that such a need existed. The idea in referring this petition back for Mr. Speaker’s re-consideration arose because the committee understood all avenues for relief had not been explored. The committee thought it was a matter concerned with Mr. Speaker’s administration outside this House, not in the House, and it would never have come to the finding it did, if, in any way, the committee thought that Mr. Speaker’s authority was being challenged. Therefore, on behalf of the committee I would like the House to agree that we should not discuss this matter any further. It is rather distasteful and I make this appeal because the Pensions Committee definitely was responsible, through its finding, for this discussion taking place.

The hon. member for Woodstock has asked me to apologise. I have no intention of doing anything of the kind. I want to say that in regard to this case of Mrs. Marchant the wording of the rule relating to her husband’s employment is very clear. At no stage does it say that Mr. Speaker shall decide on this matter, so that in discussing the decision arrived at I do not imply for a moment that Mr. Speaker is at fault, nor do I wish in any way to imply that he has not authority to make representations to the committee. The rule says this—

And in the case of an officer who works in both Houses it must be referred to the Conferring Select Committees of both Houses. That was done, and I shall be surprised to learn that the decisions of this Conferring Committee are so sacrosanct that no member can comment on the insufficiency of the relief granted. There is a practice that is followed in other cases, I presume by the same committee. I am not doing more than to point out that in this particular case the committee has departed from its previous practice. There have been cases within my knowledge of officers of this House, “officers.” being defined as including cleaners and messengers, in which the widows of these officers have received a gratuity on precisely the same basis as the officer himself would have received had he retired during his lifetime, so that in those cases the man’s widow is not being treated less generously after his death than the man himself would be entitled to during his lifetime. As far as I am concerned I merely discuss this matter with the object of showing that in my opinion justice has not been done in this case by the Conferring Committee. I am prepared to undertake to bring it before the committee again next year. This lady asked my advice. She was confronted with a decision by the Clerk of the House that this should not be referred to certain committees. I take full responsibility for my advising her to put in the petition and I stated the case to the Select Committee on Pensions. I make no apology for that. If the hon. member for Wood-stock expects me to apologise to Mr. Speaker or to the House for an offence which I am innocent of he imagines a vain thing. I hope if any apology is needed he will abject himself before the House and acknowledge that he was wrong.

I am reluctant to interfere in this debate because I feel that as a back-bencher I may also be putting my foot into it. No doubt the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) prepared a constitutional case on sound argument, but I feel that the method of approach and particularly his reference to the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) makes me feel that I would like to pass certain comments. I feel that the hon. member for Pinetown has indicated to the House at all times that he would in no circumstances insult the Speaker. I felt that not only inside the House but outside it and I therefore feel that the manner in which the case was approached lacked a considerable amount of discretion. Possibly after consideration the hon. member for Woodstock will appreciate that a man who has been a front-bencher for many years can expect to be treated with a certain amount of courtesy which I feel was lacking in this instance.

I think that the matter, as set out by the hon. member for Woodstock (Mr. Russell) is quite correct. I do not say that the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) intended to insult the Speaker. In addition I do not think that he did so. He felt that he was entitled to raise the matter here. In the past he has always been justified in raising this matter and it was certainly not his intention to insult the Speaker. I think that the position is quite clear. The matter was referred to the Speaker and the Speaker could have made a decision without referring it to the Committee concerned. However, he referred it to the Committee. The Committee came to a decision and the matter rests there. If the hon. member was of opinion that the Speaker did not act correctly, then it was his duty to move such a motion. It would have been the usual practice. But whereas he raised the matter here, we cannot say that the hon. member for Woodstock acted incorrectly. What he has said here, is not constitutionally wrong. The Speaker, himself could have dealt with the matter, but he referred it to the Select Committee on Internal Arrangements. The Committee enquired into the matter. And there it remained. The hon. member for Pinetown has now stated that it is incorrect, and if we are not satisfied with the actions of the Speaker, we can go to a higher court. His supporter mentioned the case of a magistrate’s court and he said that there is a right of appeal to a higher court. The position is quite different. This Parliament is the highest court in the country. It can pass any resolution even though it be wrong. As long as the present Government is in power, the decision will usually be wrong, but nevertheless this House is the highest court. The Speaker is the person who must maintain discipline. For an hon. member to stand up here and to say that a back-bencher may not correct a front-bencher, holds no substance. The front-bencher may have more experience, but when a back-bencher thinks he has made a mistake, he has every right to point it out, for we find that people sometimes become old in this House and even then they do not know the rules. I accepted that the hon. member for Pinetown did not intend to insult the Speaker. He thought that he was right, just as the hon. member who spoke of the magistrate’s court thought that he was right. It is not an insult to the magistrate if an appeal is lodged against his finding. Then I come to the chairman of the Select Committee on Pensions. I am glad that he apologised, but I was dissapointed that he did not make his apology in a better way. He said that if this was so and that was so, then he apologised. That does not mean a thing. Such an apology is more of an insult. He should simply have said that they did not realise what the position was and that they acted in ignorance. That would have been the correct apology to make. I felt it my duty to say what I think is the correct procedure and to substantiate the viewpoint adopted by the hon. member for Woodstock.

Amendment put and negatived.

Recommendations under Paragraph II, as printed, put and agreed to.

In Paragraph IV,

I move—

The case of G. W. W. Penrice is amongst those rejected by the Select Committee without any reasons being assigned. It becomes necessary for me to recapitulate the facts briefly. In March, 1941, Mr. Penrice was committed to a mental institution in circumstances which have recently been the subject of drastic comment in a judgment of the Appellate Division to which I shall refer. His appeal for discharge under Section 40 of the Mental Disorders Act, addressed to the Governor-General within ten days of his committal, resulted in his release, though his liberation ’ was delayed until June, 1941, apparently at the request of the medical authorities.

It seems to me they locked up the wrong man.

In considering the case I submit it should be borne in mind that the Governor-General and the Executive Council who released him constitute the highest body on the administrative side of our form of Government, just as the Appellate Division is the highest body on the side of the judiciary. When that case was dealt with by the Governor-General-in-Council I may mention that that body included the late Governor-General, Sir Patrick Duncan, who as Colonial Secretary in the Transvaal and Minister of the Interior of the Union had administered the Mental Disorders Act for many years. The Prime Minister, whose experience is unrivalled, was also a member of the Council, as also were several Ministers learned in law and experienced in administration. The release of Mr. Penrice as a result of his appeal to this body surely cannot be minimised. He was released obviously because in the opinion of that body his detention in a mental hospital was not justified. Actually I could have gone further and mentioned the opinions expressed by one of the most influential members of that body but I do not propose to do more than refer to the importance of the body itself. The case formed the subject of some litigation after Penrice’s discharge. He sued to recover damages from the magistrate who had committed him on the ground that the magistrate had acted with a want of reasonable care and good faith. That case was heard by a single judge in the Natal Provincial Division, although he represented the full bench. The case was unsuccessful before the Natal Provincial Division. He wished to appeal but as the result of his omission to lodge appeal in the proper form he had to apply to the Appellate Division for leave to appeal. The Appellate Division heard his application which was argued by him in person. Although the court considered that the evidence in the case did not establish the two essentials against the magistrate, want of reasonable care and want of good faith, they held that it would have been necessary for him to prove malice on the part of the magistrate, but as no malice was established, the application was dismissed. But the Judge who gave the judgment on behalf of the court, Mr. Justice Tindall, said—

Now I maintain that this House is the body before which these comments should be repeated. The Judge went on to say—

[Time limit.]

I want to refer to Item No. 3. I should like to be told the reasons for the rejection of this petition.

If the hon. member wants information about No. 3 he will have to move something, because No. 3 is not before the Committee.

I would like to second the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) in moving that the matter be referred back to the Select Committee. I feel very strongly about this matter also because Mr. Penrice is a constituent of mine. The hon. member for Pinetown has given us a short history of the whole case but I wish to say that what has happened to this man can happen to any member of this House if he had an enemy who made propaganda against him through the Department of Justice. This gentleman was tricked into appearing at the Magistrate’s Court. There was a warrant for his arrest, but it was never served on him. He was asked to call and see the magistrate on some matter. He went there in all innocence. On arrival there he was arrested and put into the dock, and within two hours he was in a mental institution as being of unsound mind. It was not on any medical evidence that the magistrate arrived at that decision; no doctor had ever examined him, and no certificate had ever been signed that he was of unsound mind. The decision was made by the magistrate on hearing the man in the box. What is worse than anything else was the treatment that man had after being sentenced to that mental institution. He was sent there on the evidence of a doctor who said if he was sent there the treatment he got would very likely mean his recovery. But when he got there he was put into a large compartment with 40 raving maniacs where there was a light on all night. These maniacs were raving and shouting and the place was in a filthy condition, and you can imagine the state of mind he would be in. It is only due to the efforts of the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) that he was not kept there for life, because had that hon. member not taken up his case nobody would ever have helped him. That could happen to any person, even to members of this House. When the matter was brought to the late Governor-General’s notice he said there was no evidence and no reason to justify that man having been committed to a mental asylum. There was no evidence he was of unsound mind. This sort of action is unthinkable in a country like this. If it had happened in Nazi Germany one could understand it, but that in a country like South Africa a decent man could be arrested and brought to the court house by means of a trick and then put in a mental hospital without being examined by any medical man and that a certificate could have been signed by them, takes us back to the dark ages. The hon. member for Pinetown communicated to you the remarks of the judge who spoke in the Appeal Court, and I think that the remarks that were made by the judge there should be taken some notice of by hon. members. This sort of thing should not happen in a country like South Africa, that with the connivance of the Department of Justice and the Administration a man should be placed in a mental hospital on such flimsy evidence and in such an unjust way. I know the Select Committee to which this case was referred could have come to any other decision than they have, although we have not heard from the chairman of that committee why they arrived at these findings. But I am afraid that with a man like Mr. Penrice, a difficult man with a very excitable nature, any appearance by him before a magistrate or even by a select committee would at once prejudice his case. I am afraid we are all inclined that way; we form our judgments not from evidence but from our personal experience of a man. I feel this matter should be investigated much more carefully than it has been during the Session. Penrice has suffered severely; he has spent a good deal of money on litigation and he also suffered great anguish of mind. For the last there can be no adequate compensation, but I feel that the Committee should reconsider this case very carefully on compassionate grounds if the House will agree to it being referred to them in the next Session of Parliament.

May I move as an amendment—

Let me just point out to the House what the reason was for the petition being handed in. The man was in a temporary post in the Department of Labour. He requested to be transferred to the permanent staff. On repeated occasions he informed the Public Service Commission that he could not wait for ever, but that they should inform him if they were prepared to appoint him on the permanent staff. Because they dilly dallied and did not let him know that he would be appointed on the permanent staff, he was obliged, owing to the temporary nature of his work, to hand in his resignation, for the reason that a permanent appointment had been offered him outside. As soon as he resigned, they informed him that they were prepared to offer him a permanent appointment. From the records it appears that the break in his case was practically less than a month. In spite of the fact that the break was not his fault and that he had to hand in his resignation because they would not offer him a permanent appointment, he was penalised. Therefore his position is simply due to the delay which one often encounters in government offices. Last year I explained the matter clearly and I am doing so again, and I hope that this Committee will refer the petition back to the Select Committee and that the Select Committee will realise that the break was not the man’s own fault, but was due to the delay in informing him of his appointment. I gave evidence before the Select Committee. I do now wish to criticise the chairman of the Select Committee who is hardworking, but I want to say, in order to prove how anxious they were to investigate everything, that I finished giving my evidence in less than three minutes. This shows how anxious the chairman and the other members were to learn everything about the matter. One would surely have thought that they would have been anxious to find out everything from me. It seems to me that the Select Committee adopts the attitude that when a matter is referred back to them, then they must stand by their first resolution. I appeal to hon. members of this House to refer the case back and I appeal to the Select Committee not to consider such cases in this light, for people seek their help as a last resort, and I would like the Select Committee to take a broader view in connection with these matters. Here is a long list of 125 cases which have been rejected. None of us knows the merits of each case. Quite possibly the Select Committee is 100 per cent. correct in all the cases which have been rejected, but it is strange that when it is a case of an important man, for example a head of a department, then it goes through the Select Committee without a hitch. We remember the case a few years ago of Dr. van Rensburg, Leader of the Ossewa-Brand wag, the then Administrator of the Free State. His case which perhaps was not as deserving as this one, went through smoothly.

The Select Committee refused, but this House accepted it. Is was not the fault of the Select Committee.

The Select Committee recommended it.

No.

Good, but in any case, we find that if an important man is concerned, the case goes through smoothly. But if it is a case of a less important man, then it is necessary for you to fight here year after year to obtain a small pension. The Minister said last year that he had no objection to referring the ca.se back to the Select Committee. I appeal for the same sympathy now, and in addition that the Select Committee will investigate the matter carefully. I am now appealing to the chairman and the Select Commitee for the third time to take a broader view in connection with the matter, and to realise that people regard the Select Committee as their last resort. For that reason I ask that it should be referred back to the Select Committee.

I wish to refer to the Judge’s comment on the unwarranted exaggeration made use of by one of the medical officers whose testimony was relied upon for putting Mr. Penrice in a mental hospital. I wish now to deal with a more important aspect, and that is the Judge’s finding as to the evidence that was essential and that in this case was absent. The Judge pointed out that under the Mental Disorders Act “mental disorder” is classified in these terms—

I will only mention two of the six classes—

1. (1) A person suffering from mental disorder, that is to say a person who owing to some form of mental disorder is incapable of managing himself or his affairs.
2. (2) A person mentally infirm, that is to say a person who through mental infirmity or decay of his faculties is incapable of managing himself or his affairs.

The judge points out that this essential feature of the man being “incapable of managing himself or his affairs” was not proved by the doctors. The doctors who gave evidence admitted they had never seen the accused until they went into court. I shall read from the evidence. Before the Magistrate, Howick, the first doctor stated—

Then the second doctor said—

The Judge emphasises that mental disorder within the meaning of the Act in the case of a paranoiac must pertain to a case of a man who is incapable of managing himself or his affairs. Dealing with that point the Judge said—

We must realise the only evidence of any value these doctors could have tendered, according to the judgment, was that Mr. Penrice was incapable of managing himself and his affairs, and that evidence they could not pretend to have knowledge of because they had never seen him before. What would they know of him if their eyes were turned to him for the first time when he was in the dock answering a matter that had taken him completely by surprise? Without any effort at exaggeration I have quoted the remarks of Mr. Justice Tindall who, in a previous case, made remarks in regard to the treatment of a man sent to a mental hospital, as he held improperly, and that man approached this House, as Mr. Penrice has done, drawing attention to the comments of the court, as Mr. Penrice has done, and in the case of that man he received a pension for life in consideration of the treatment meted out to him and in consequence of his improper commital to a mental hospital. I am for the moment merely stating the outline of the Penrice case as it was presented to the public of South Africa by the judge, who said he spoke because of the rights of citizens, and in the public interest. Are we, as the representatives of the public going to deafen our ears to a statement of that sort from the highest judicial body in the land. Mr. Penrice has drawn attention to his treatment and to this judgment. He has done no more than say that he is out of pocket to the extent of his costs which he implied were considerable. The Secretary for Justice estimated the bill of costs would come to £600 and that Penrice’s personal expenses would be £350. But this man suffered unspeakable humiliation too, all the indignities inseparable from his treatment, as mentioned by the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mr. Abrahamson). He was confined with people under conditions which I have some knowledge of, having visited him while I was in Natal—the most unspeakable noisomeness and filth one ever experienced—and at the same time being compelled to share the company of men who had to be held down for hours on end, to remain with them, to eat his meals facing an epileptic murderer—no such thing as baths—having to live cheek by jowl with thirty demented patients for almost three months before he was discharged. [Time limit.]

I am deeply impressed and I think most members of this committee are by the facts that have been placed before us by the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) and the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mr. Abrahamson). It seems to me, and I hope the committee and especially the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) will agree, in the light of the fact that such an impartial and judicial man as the late Sir Patrick Duncan took the action to which reference has been made, and in view of the judgment to which we have listened, by Mr. Justice Tindall on behalf of the Appellate Division, those facts are such as to justify this committee and this House—the highest court of appeal—to treat a matter of this kind with the utmost sympathy and fairness.

Hear, hear.

I am satisfied that the members of the Pensions Committee, which has one of the most onerous jobs in this House to deal with and which invariably I am sure deals with cases that come before it with a desire to do what is fair and right, will, in spite of the fact that this committee has turned down their recommendation, if the matter is referred back to them, give it the fullest and most impartial attention. I hope the hon. member for Albany, on behalf of the committee, will agree to the matter being sent back to the Pensions Committee for reconsideration.

You have hot heard his side of the case.

Speaking on behalf of the Committee I regret we cannot accept this motion. We have the greatest sympathy for Mr. Penrice and in spite of the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mr. Abrahamson) having inferred that this matter was dealt with rather lightly, I should like to inform the hon. member, the Committee spent a whole morning hearing Mr. Penrice’s evidence. We also heard the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) and then several of us took papers to our homes and gave it further study during the night before we came to a decision the next day. I can inform the House that the Committee’s decision was a unanimous one, at a well attended meeting. I feel in cases of this nature we may injure the petitioner if we discuss details of the history of the case, especially one as sad as that now before us, but I must inform the Committee that though Mr. Justice Tindall questioned the method of arrest when Mr. Penrice was tricked into appearing in court and not shown a warrant, Mr. Penrice may have had a claim against the policeman, but a claim in which small damages would have been awarded, if any at all. Mr. Justice Tindall also states summons should have been issued and not a warrant. That being only a matter of opinion our Committee was not disposed to come to any definite decision on this point. But I should like to inform the House that during the hearing of this criminal charge that had been instituted against Penrice, two doctors were in attendance the whole time. He was then committed to the mental institution for observation, and after being there for a fortnight he was committed. He was under observation all the time in the mental institution. I can assure the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) that if he has read all the clauses of the Mental Disorders Act, he will realise that even some members of this House may not be free from the danger of committal. One runs the risk apparently of being committed even by making a nuisance of oneself. We gave this matter great study. All the members studied the judgment of Mr. Justice Tindall. When we had the report of the Department of Justice, which was also a lengthy one, it was also studied in the greatest detail and after giving this the minutest attention, the Committee came to the unanimous decision to reject this petition. If there had been any division on this Committee I would have beén disposed to accept the recommendations that it be referred back to the Select Committee for reconsideration but it is not in the interest of the petitioner to have a matter like this hanging over his head for another year. As regards case No. 22 which was raised by the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) this is a case in which the Committee found no difficulty at all in rejecting the petition, however sympathetic the Committee may have felt. This petitioner was only in temporary service in the Customs Department. He wished to improve his position by a transfer to the Labour Department, so he resigned from the Customs Department where he occupied a non-pensionable post and took up service with the Labour Department after a break of three weeks, and our Committee dare not condone breaks of this nature in the Public Service, just for the convenience of one of the officials.

Why do you not say what the reason for the break was? It was not his fault.

Our information was that he was only in a temporary appointment and as he sought to improve his position he resigned. We have numbers of petitions of this nature which our Committee rejects without any compunction. The fact that only 127 petitions out of 182 were rejected and the 50 recommended shows that the Select Committee does not give due consideration to these cases which have no claim in law.

I move as a further amendment—

The petitioner is the widow of a volunteer who went on service from an early stage up North, who later came back to the Union, a very healthy, robust type of man. I understand that he collapsed one day actually on the parade ground and was carried off to hospital, and from then onwards the circumstances are a little difficult to follow. The case is not quite clear. An application under the War Pensions Act was declined and a further application to the Special Pensions Board, was also declined, resulting in the petition coming to this House, I am not aware though as to the reasons for the decision, and I shall be glad at this stage to hear them from the Chairman of the Select Committee.

I wish to point out a very serious flaw in the argument put forward by the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker). His statement before this House is that while Mr. Penrice was in the dock answering the charge he was under examination by two doctors. The hon. member has failed utterly to appreciate the importance of the point made by Mr. Justice Tindall where he said the essential thing was to prove that Mr. Penrice was incapable of managing himself or his affairs. There was no evidence of this either before this evidence began or afterwards. But I would like to put it to the hon. member: Would he have been prepared to take the verdict of two doctors who were watching him when he was tricked into coming into court and then told that he was charged with a serious offence, and that evidence was going to be led as to his mental condition? Is that a time when his calmness of mind would have been such that he would have stood up to such an examination, when his mental agony amounted to human torture? I venture to say that there is no hon. member in this House who has such presence of mind or imperturbability that he would take that in his stride and betray no sense of mental disturbance or excitement or want of balance in the circumstances. It was a time when the man was being subjected to mental torture of the worst possible kind, and the hon. member would expect us to be content with the idea that Mr. Penrice was subject to medical examination. My idea is that if we are asked to accept that, we must completely reject that kind of examination and regard it as a travesty. What evidence was given by the doctors to prove, as they must prove, that he was incapable of managing himself or his affairs. On the contrary, it is well-known in the Howick district that Mr. Penrice or his wife bought a property which was very dilapidated when they took it over, and today it is one of the show places in that district, and it owes its improvement to the work of Mr. Penrice and his wife. There is no proof whatever that the man is not capable of managing himself or his affairs, and I want to quote the evidence of one of the doctors who was concerned in the matter. One of the points that had been made by the medical evidence was that Mr. Penrice had written certain letters. Those letters were dissected by the doctors into small sections and an effort was made to place a constsruction upon those sections in support of their view that he was mentally disordered. One of those letters was written by Penrice to Mr. Churchill about a broadcast he had made and another to Sir Archibald Sinclair about the result of certain air raids. One of the doctors was asked to express his opinion about those letters. He virtually said on his oath that a man who was alleged to be suffering from a disordered condition, who had been perfectly logical both outwardly and in the exercise of his faculties, would exhibit evidence of being mentally disordered in so far as litigous matters were concerned. That is the same point that the judge made, that to be disqualified from being a free man a patient must be proved to be incapable of managing himself or his affairs. I want to read a passage to the House to show how completely unsatisfactory and colourless was the reply of the physician superintendent concerned when he was questioned about the very documents which were supposed to prove Mr. Penrice’s mental condition. He said—

Everybody knows that!—

That is most illuminating!—

What we want to know is whether there was anything in them to make one believe that he was mentally disordered!—

In other words one of the chief witnesses said when cross-examined about the matter, chat the man was perfectly normal except in regard to litigation and let me say in regard to litigation he was proved to have taken part in one case relating to his wife’s property, and subsidiary litigation or correspondence arising out of that case. The judge said though this man had become a nuisance to the Attorney-General he was not dangerous, and was living in his home where he was cared for by his wife. Many of us have been a nuisance, I think, to the control officials but we do not look forward to being rushed into court on the ground that the magistrate wishes to see us and then being subjected to the treatment this man endured. There is no doubt that the judge expressed himself in such terms as to call public notice to this case and he said—as showing the value of the opinion expressed by the hon. member for Albany—that although these proceedings did not constitute ground for an action for civil damages, they may have afforded a good ground for review proceedings. That means that if Mr. Penrice had instituted review proceedings, we have it from the Appellate Court that his treatment might have afforded good ground for such proceedings and that, Sir, is more than demonstrated by the fact that the Governor-General in Council released him and that the court itself felt that this was a case upon which they should severely comment in the interests of the public at large and the rights of citizens. I hope that what has been said by the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) will be taken into consideration by the Government. I think there is a very large section of the general public, certainly in our province, who hold that Mr. Penrice was shockingly treated from the moment he was placed under arrest. He was never told of his arrest; he was denied the opportunity which any free man ought to have of seeking legal advice about a matter of which he knew nothing, namely the Mental Disorders Act. The correspondence between the Attorney-General and the Minister of Justice shows that the Attorney-General was unwilling to arrest and to let the gaoler discharge the onus of deciding whether he had observed anything mental in Mr. Penrice’s conduct. For the same reason he refrains from taking proceedings at a time when Mr. Penrice might have gone before a certain magistrate on the ground that he might not have enough before him to warrant him in committing Penrice for observation. The Attorney-General expressed that view in a letter of the 23rd January, addressed to the Secretary for Justice. [Time limit.]

I wish to move as a further amendment—

This is a very peculiar case. The applicant is the widow of William Harold Fyrth, who joined the army in the Great War. He was a farrier attached to transportations and remounts. And in the course of his duties ne was sent to South-West Africa and he died on the train journey from Pretoria to Windhoek on the 4th February, 1916. There was no doctor on the train, and there does not appear to have been even an officer on the train. The death certificate was issued on the 9th March, 1916, more than a month later. It was in these terms; it was by Dr. N. F. Mann—

Drunkenness being misconduct it was found by the board to which Mrs. Fyrth applied that the husband’s death was due to his misconduct and that they could give her no relief and she was therefore not entitled to a pension. Some time after that, in 1929, some nine years later, the same Dr. N. F. Mann went into the case again and he then made the following declaration—

So his conclusion is apparently quite a different one from that on which he had based his certificate, that the death was due to acute alcoholism. Under those circumstances it seems to me that some consideration should have been given to the claim of his wife for a pension. The wife was left with two young children, but she was able to work and she worked over a large number of years. She is today working in the Pensions Department, but she feels that a gross injustice was done to her, that she was entitled to exactly the same treatment as the widow of any soldier who died in the course of his duties. I think that the Pensions Committee might have given favourable consideration to this case. I have not been given the reason for the refusal, but I understand that it proceeds on the basis that Mrs. Fyrth is at the moment not destitute. Well, she is not destitute because she is working; she is a woman who is over 60 years of age, and it seems to me that she is entitled to be put into the position even at this late stage, that she would have been in if her husband had died in the course of his duties. The mere fact that she is not destitute seems to me no reason for not granting a pension to her. Many pensions have been granted to widows who have not been left destitute, and what has been taken into consideration has been the position which the husband occupied during his lifetime and the duties he carried out, and I would therefore ask the chairman of the committee to agree to this case being referred to the Select Committee for further consideration.

In view of the statement made by the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) as chairman of the Select Committee, I move as a further amendment—

May I point out to the hon. member that there is a motion before the House already by the hon. member for Pinetown (Mr. Marwick) that this case be referred back to the Select Committee.

I move now that it be referred to the Government.

As an amendment?

Yes. I was present when the hon. member for Pinetown gave his evidence before the Select Committee. It was the last sitting day of that committee to take any evidence; they were going to conclude their work the following day and in listening to the evidence and the attitude of the Select Committee, I could see that they had had enough of all their work. They were impatient and wanted to get away and they were not in a fit state of mind to listen to anything with any intelligence at all.

Order, order, the hon. member is not entitled to make a reflection on a Select Committee.

I withdraw that, but that was my reaction.

Order, order, the hon. member must withdraw that unconditionally.

Well, if that is your ruling I will do so. But at all events in listening to the evidence of the hon. member for Pinetown, I felt that the committee was not in the position to give this case the attention which it deserved, and I would like to go so far as to say that I felt the committee had already made up their minds after hearing the evidence from the petitioner himself and that any evidence on that day was really wasted on them because once having made up their minds, they were not likely to change it and it is for that reason that I move that this matter be referred to the Government for their consideraion.

If it will serve to bring this discussion to an end, I am prepared to support the suggestion of the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mr. Abrahamson). I do not do so in order to reflect in any way on the work of the committee. The committee has done its work most admirably, but I do so because this case has wider bearings than the matters which normally fall within the scope of the Select Committee. I personally have very little knowledge of the circumstances of the case, but I have talked to my colleague, the Minister of Justice, and we have agreed that the matter should be referred to the Government, so that we as a Government may go into it; and if the hon. member will accept that,. I hope this discussion may come to an end.

I want to reply to the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) and the hon. member for Pretoria (City) (Mr. Davis). The hon. member for Houghton referred to petition No. 188. This case was reviewed when the Pensions Act was amended in 1944, and this Act lays down that compensation shall be payable to the widow of a volunteer who dies in the Union while on military service of a desease in respect of which he was sent back to the Union, if prior to his departure he was classified in the A Medical category, or if prior to such departure classified in B or Fit category, and he has served for a period of not less than nine months outside the Union. The petitioner’s husband came back to the Union on compassionate leave. He had no medical attention while he was up North, which indicated to the Board and to our cimmittee that his disability did not arise out of his military service. This case went to the Military Pensions Appeal Board and then to the Special Pensions Appeal Board which awarded the petitioner £30 per annum. The case was again reviewed in January, 1945 and no change was made. This is a case which has been met in the terms of our Pensions Act, and as no evidence was brought which would have justified us in awarding anything of a compassionate nature, the committee rejected the petition. With regard to the claim which was raised by the hon. member for Pretoria (City), this is a case of a man who died in 1916. It is a long way for us to go back, and to rectify errors, even if there were errors that were committed at that time, and our committee dealt with this case with the greatest sympathy and we could only make an award on compassionate grounds. Mrs. Fyrth is now in employment in the Pensions Office and whilst so employed I do not see that this committee can reconsider the decision to which it came recently, and for those reasons I would reject the motions that these petitions be referred back to the Select Committee.

With the leave of the Committee I wish to withdraw my amendment.

With leave of the Committee, the amendment proposed by Mr. Bell was withdrawn.

The amendments proposed by Mr. van den Berg and Mr. Davis were put and negatived and the amendment proposed by Mr. Abrahamson was put and agreed to.

Motion, as amended, put and agreed to, viz.—

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported that the Committee had agreed to certain resolutions.

Report considered and adopted.

This clause deals with the funds at the disposal of the Provincial Administration. It is comprised of three parts: Monies appropriated by Parliament; monies provided by the National Road Board under the National Roads Act, 1935 etc. In reference to the second item there is a matter I should like to discuss with the Minister. The money available to the National Road Board is put at the disposal of the provinces. It is derived from the petrol tax. In the past year as a result of the drop in the use of petrol the amount was only £1,200,000.

There is also money from loan funds.

Yes. In normal times it was more, about £2,000,000. We know that as soon as the war is over and the use of petrol increases it will be more than £2,000,000. Then further funds are made available on the loan estimates. In all, we can make available to the provinces millions of pounds annually through this channel. Now I should like to ask the Minister whether he is satisfied with the organisation we have established for the expenditure of this money. Is he sure that the control is of such a character that Parliament can be satisfied with it, or is it not a fact that in that way hundreds of thousands of pounds of State money are being wasted. If the Minister says he is satisfied then I should just like to refer him to the discussions that occur yearly in the Select Committee on Public Accounts. I would just say that those discussions give me the impression that in the public interest it is absolutely essential that the system of financing our national roads through the National Road Board via the provinces should be altered. The other day I gave a few figures to the House. The roads were to have been constructed for the amount of £9,000,000. Up to the present three-fifths of the programme has been carried out and they have already expended £19,000,000. In order to complete the five-year plan which was to have been carried out at a cost of £9,000,000 we shall have to appropriate £32,000,000. The question that has arisen with us in the Select Committee is this. It is not because the price of everything has risen that expenditure has increased, but it is because the National Road Board has become a bottomless pit into which State money disappears every year. I was told about the lack of harmony that exists between the Road Board and the various provinces. The Road Board tries to thwart and to hamper the work of the provinces, and it puts all sorts of obstacles in the way of the provinces. The provinces, on their side, try to make the work of the National Road Board difficult, and between the two of them they are at cross purposes and clash with each other, with the result that there is a terrific waste of public money. The two are at loggerheads with each other. If we ask for a national health service the Government declares that it has not got the requisite funds. The public regards this as a matter that should enjoy priority, but the funds are not available. However, the National Road Board and the provinces continue to spend money in a way that shocks one’s financial conscience. Must we carry on like this? That is the question I want to put to the Minister. This Bill is intended as a consolidating measure. Road making is a function of the provinces. The provinces do not function as our agent. It is a function under the constitution. We have passed an Act governing the financial relationships in regard to national roads. The Minister is through this measure revising all the legislation of the country that has any bearing on the provision of State funds to the provinces for provincial services that they are carrying out on behalf of the Union Government, and why has the Minister not made use of this measure to revise the National Roads Act of 1935. Is the Minister so satisfied with the prevailing system that it can just continue? If the Minister feels with us that we cannot be satisfied, why does he not use this consolidating measure to put the matter in order? We are revising the legislation of the country as affecting the financial relationships between the Union Government and the provinces. The Act of 1935 is one of the Acts concerned. In 1935 when we passed this Act we thought we were making a good Act. The past seven or eight years has indicated to us that there are big defects in it. There is a danger of our losing millions of pounds, and though the Minister has now been presented with the opportunity to revise that Act, he is not taking it. I am not satisfied with the position. I want to ask the Minister a few further questions. I believe that the term of office of members of the National Road Board, at any rate some of them, expired at the commencement of the year.’ It was the understanding that each province should have a representative on the National Road Board and it is also the understanding that the representative of the province should be appointed in consultation with the Provincial Administration of that province. Has the Provincial Administration of the Cape been consulted in connection with the representative of the Cape on the Road Board? I would like to ask when the representative of the Cape Province was nominated to the Road Board in 1940 was advice given to the Minister through the Provincial Administration in reference to the representative of the Cape Province. Is it not a fact that the Provincial Administration, since 1940, has refused to approve in any way of the person concerned being the representative of the Cape Province on the Road Board? Nevertheless he was again nominated despite the opposition and dissatisfaction of the Cape Provincial Administration. I also want to know from the Minister whether since that, time the Provincial Administration has not intimated to the Government in every possible way that it wishes to be consulted in connection with the representation of the Cape on the Road Board.

I think I should point out that we have not before us a general amending Bill and that it is not really appropriate to bring up questions in connection with the administration of the National Roads Act. I am not the Minister responsible for that.

Who is?

The Minister of Transport. It is not an Act that falls under my administration. That Act has been incidentally mentioned in this measure because part of the funds under that Act are made available to the provinces, but we are not engaged at present on the administration of that Act. My hon. friend will have another opportunity to discuss that matter.

But we cannot plead for a change in any other way.

But we cannot undertake an amendment of the Act on this occasion, just as little as we can amend the Public Health Act because it is mentioned in this Bill. We are not occupied in amending those laws. We have not taken the whole question into review as my hon. friend wishes to put it. The National Roads Act is a special Act. It is only by way of a reference that it has been mentioned here. My hon. friend apparently wishes to see that Act revised. But that is really another matter. If he asks me whether I am entirely satisfied, as Minister of Finance, with the position,’ then I must say I am not satisfied in every respect. That does not mean, however, that I admit that hundreds of thousands of pounds are being wasted. I have no knowledge of that. Nor does it mean that I do not realise that there are more reasons for the increase of expenditure than my hon. friend mentioned. There is, for instance, the decision to tar all the roads. That had an effect on the estimates. It is not an increase in costs. This does not mean that I think that everything has always run smoothly in the relationship between the Road Board and the provinces, or that difficulties have not arisen in connection with personal questions, but in connection with that I want to point out that the National Road Board recently fell under a new Minister, namely the Minister of Transport, and that he has in fact given the whole question his attention, and among other things he has had discussions with the provinces. I believe that as a result of that a better relationship was created. I hope so, in any event, and I believe that this was the case.

Is that also the case in respect of the Cape Province?

That is the information that I have obtained from the provinces, that they are satisfied with this. But this is really a matter for the Minister of Transport. I am quite prepared to discuss that question with him, but I cannot undertake to review in this Bill that Act and all the Acts that relate to the provinces. That is going too far. The question of the revision of the National Roads Act is an independent matter that will have to be considered as such. I am prepared to consider the revisidn of that Act in consultation with my colleagues. That does not imply, however, that this is the right moment to bring that Act under revision. I want to ask the hon. member not to go further into that matter. He will have an opportunity later to mention the point he wishes to make.

But where will we have the opportunity? It is a constitutional matter?

The hon. member can put a question on the vote of the Minister of Transport.

But I cannot advocate an alteration in the legislation there. Roadmaking is a provincial function. This Bill of the Minister’s regulates the financing of provincial services in so far as the Government is concerned with them. That is to say this Bill really deals with the question of the financing of that part of the road system falling under the Act of 1935, and I am very disappointed that we cannot now go further into that. I really think that we should have the Minister of Transport here to answer this question. The Minister of Finance should not tell the Chairman now that I am not in order.

The hon. member knows that he cannot now argue for any alteration in that Act.

But we have here to deal with an Act.

The hon. member can put those questions when the money is being voted on the loan estimates.

I must honestly say that I would like to have this information now, because there is a feeling of tension here in the Cape Province. The Cape Province has gone so far as to say that it considers it has no representation on the Road Board if the same person is again nominated.

Is this Mr. Raubenheimer?

Yes.

Why?

You must ask them that.

This is not anything that we can now discuss.

But the money is being made available here.

No, no money is being made available here.

We passed an Act that certain money should be paid over to the National Road Board, and that money is now being poured into the Provincial Treasury.

But the money is not being voted here and you will have another opportunity to mention it.

Where?

When the loan estimates and the Minister of Transport’s Vote are being dealt with.

I regard it as my bounden duty not to rest until an alteration has been effected in this system of finance. I feel that I shall be failing in my duty if I leave it at that. I intend to hammer away at this matter until a change is brought about. My conscience does not allow me to do anything else. However that may be I should like to know from the Minister whether he does not think the time has arrived to revise the Act of 1935.

I am prepared to consider that in consultation with the Minister of Transport.

The Select Committee on Public Accounts makes a very important recommendation in connection with this.

Is that in the report that has been laid on the Table?

Yes, and I should like to know whether there will be a chance of discussing that.

Not during the present Session.

Then the only chance we still had during the present Session to do so falls away.

The hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) made the observation that the Provincial Administration of the Cape Province takes the view that in Mr. Raubenheimer it has not got a representative on the Road Board. In all fairness we can expect the hon. member for George to tell us why he said that, seeing he has that information, and if he will not do so he will have to modify his statement.

The hon. member cannot now discuss that matter.

I think that the position is not quite so simple as the Minister of Finance has put it, that we should discuss this matter under the vote of the Minister of Transport. There are two parties to this arrangement in connection with roads. On the one hand there is the Minister of Transport, and on the other hand there are the various provincial administrations. We, as the Government, stand in between because we have to make available the money that the provinces use for the construction of those roads. I can well imagine that when the Minister of Transport’s Vote comes up he will adopt the same attitude as the Minister of Finance now takes up, and tell us that this is not his concern but the concern of the provincial administrations.

He is the responsible Minister.

I go still further. We are giving the money, and the Minister says now that this Act of 1935 is not under discussion. But the provinces function through the consultative committee. That is the Federal Board of the provincial councils. At the head of it is the Minister of Finance.

No, the Minister of the Interior is chairman, and it is an advisory body and not a statutory body.

I did not mean it was a statutory body. It is the ordinary channel through which the provinces express their combined feelings towards the Government. But where then will we be able to discuss this matter? We want to amend the Act of 1935. If the Minister of Transport rises to speak he will say it is a matter for the provincial councils. There are two parties involved in this difficulty, the National Road Board and the provinces. I do not want to take sides in the dispute, but there is a tremendous battle in progress. Some time ago there was a row, a row that was so serious that it is stated that the Administrator of one province was transferred as a result. We know that there was difficulty in Natal between the Provincial Council and the National Road Board and we know that shortly afterwards the Administrator of Natal was transferred to London. We do not know whether there is an actual connection between the two events, but it is really being said this is the case.

I am sorry I cannot allow the hon. member to discuss that matter. This clause only makes provision for the sources from which provincial expenditure can be covered, and I must ask him to confine himself to that aspect of the matter.

I am dealing now with the source under (b). Provision is made that funds appropriated to the National Road Board shall be made available to the provinces. In connection with that we have the position of the National Roads. It is laid down in the law of 1935 how this money shall be utilised. In this clause of the Bill it is stated what funds the provincial councils shall have for their normal and recurrent expenditure. The clause runs as follows—

It is on this point that I want to speak. It is this Bill that says that the Road Board must make the funds available for the provinces.

That is stated in the Act of 1935.

Perhaps it was there as well.

This Bill merely states the fact.

It may be a repetition, but as it is stated here my submission is we can discuss it. I do not want to evade the ruling of the Chairman but although this may be a repetition it has been thought necessary to insert this repetition here. I do not, however, wish to go further into that, but I would just say that the practice has now been in progress for a considerable period, and seeing that large amounts will be required to be made available to the provincial councils through the Road Board we can certainly say it is not a healthy state of affairs that continual friction should exist between the provincial councils and the National Road Board. This friction has been going on for years, and I should like to know what is being done to eliminate it. Is the Minister taking steps in connection with this matter? What plans has he to suggest? The whole position of the National Road Board in reference to the provincial councils is an anomalous one, and it must be set right. We wish to know what the Minister’s intention is in this connection before we appropriate any further large amounts. I do not know whether another opportunity will be forthcoming during the present Session, but it is a matter that is already a few years old, and consequently it is time that the Government should have a policy of some sort. I do not want to take sides, because I am not so thoroughly conversant with the matter, but the difficulty is there, and it constitutes an anomaly in the country and the House is entitled to know how the Minister is going to settle it, and what steps he has in mind. It is not a new thing. I think that the Government should now make some plan.

I think, actually, that I have already dealt with that point. There are really three points that have been raised. One is the appointment of members of the National Road Board. That is purely an administrative matter for the Minister concerned, of which I, as the hon. member will realise, have no knowledge. The second point is the friction between the National Road Board and the Provinces. That is also more or less an administrative matter. As far as that is concerned, I can say that as a result of action taken by the Minister, who is now responsible, a considerable improvement has taken place in the relationship between the Road Board and the Provinces.

Is it satisfactory now?

I have not heard any complaints recently. But that still leaves the wider aspect, namely, whether the present arrangement as a whole is sound from a general, financial and administrative point of view. That is the wider aspect. As far as that is concerned, I said that I was prepared to discuss the matter with the new Minister now in charge of this matter and also in the light of the recommendations of the Select Committee on Public Accounts. I do not think that I can take the matter any further that that.

Have you not discussed it yet?

Not that aspect of the matter, as yet, but I will discuss it in the light of the recommendations of the Select Committee.

The criticism of this system of finance is not confined to the Opposition. Time and again, year after year, this matter has come before the Public Accounts Committee and things came almost to a head when the then chairman of the National Roads Board admitted to the Committee that the criticisms the Committee had levelled year after year were well founded. On that Committee we particularly criticised the system. I cannot see why we cannot discuss this matter here. We are now so to speak reaffirming this system of finance. The point is this, that in the consideration of this matter before the Public Accounts Committee last year we did not come to any definite conclusion as to how it should be dealt with, because we were given to understand the whole system would be considered at a conference at Pretoria in December of last year. That conference was held, and the result of it was this Bill, which reaffirms the old bad system. We are in somewhat of a dilemma. As you are aware, the Public Accounts Committee has brought forward its second report, but this report only deals with war expenses, and in this report this matter is not dealt with. There will not be time in a subsequent report during the Session to deal with the matter.

We will not have the report before us.

So in these circumstances I hope the Minister will appreciate the great difficulty we are in. It is no exaggeration to say that perhaps hundreds of thousands of pounds are being wasted through this system of finance, but here we are reaffirming it. It is an elementary principle in public finance that the people who spend the money should tax the people for that money. Here the people who spend the money do not tax the people at all. The Central Government acts the rich father, and whatever is wanted they pay out. That fundamentally is where the waste of money comes in, and we go on wasting money in this way year after year. I think the consensus of opinion in this House, especially amongst those members who consider especially the financial conduct of affairs, is that the time has come when an end must be put to this system. We see the dilemma the Minister is in, of course. He has to pass this Bill. We realise that; and only with these reservations reaffirm this fundamentally bad system of public finance. Shall I say that we warn the Minister however that this House is not going to be satisfied with the system which is bad objectively and subjectively has proved is worse than we thought.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 6„

I wish to move an amendment on (3) (a)—

I mentioned this matter yesterday to the Department ….

It seems to me that the amendment proposed by the hon. member will have the result of increasing expenditure and as such I cannot accept it without a Governor-General’s recommendation.

Under the circumstances I shall then content myself with criticising the clause. Discussing this matter yesterday I said I had approached the authorities; I approached the Minister. The Divisional Councils spend money on roads and a subsidy is paid by the Government to the Provincial Councils in respect of that expenditure. The position in the Transkei is that we have three types of roads. We have the national roads, we have the roads maintained by the Provincial Councils and for which the European population is taxed 1¼d. in the £ on immovable property. This goes into the Provincial Treasury. At one time it was considered whether we should have a Divisional Council for the whole of the Transkei, but in view of the large areas and the scattered community we decided that we could not establish such a council and agreed that the Provincial Council should tax us. I understand that in respect of that amount realised from European taxation the Central Government will subsidise the Provincial Councils. Then we have the third type of road; we have the roads that are made and maintained by the Transkeian Territories General Council, district roads. In respect of these the Bunga or General Council has exactly the same responsibilities and liabilities as the Divisional councils, It maintains the roads and is responsible for hospitalisation and so on. The Minister said that the provincial councils had made excuses for not maintaining hospitalisation among the natives. Exactly the same thing is going to happen here in regard to roads. We feel this is an attempt by the Central Government to bring about a system of finance between the provincial councils and the Central Government which will settle the financial position of the province for a long number of years. After I saw the Minister I got in touch with the provincial authorities to ascertain why the Bunga constitution was not included as he said they had not opproached him. I saw the Administrator and he called in his financial secretary—I am sorry I have not had the opportunity to convey this to the Minister privately—and the provincial authority told me this matter had been brought up before the Central Authority.

Not before me.

No. Before the Secretary for Finance.

He has no knowledge of that, nor have I. There must be some misunderstanding.

He told me they had brought the matter before the Minister’s Department and urged that the Bunga should be treated on the same basis as the divisional councils, and that their expenditure should have been included too, but that the Secretary for Finance had refused to agree to that. I do feel the position is definitely unsatisfactory as far as the Bunga is concerned. Today the Bunga is maintaining many roads which, as I said yesterday, are used by railway buses and in general public use. It is spending £60,000 to £70,000 on the roads, but in the wet weather the roads are being cut to pieces, and they cannot stand this drain on their funds any longer. I cannot see why the Transkeian General Council cannot get a subsidy from the provincial councils and why the Union Government should not subsidise the provincial council as it does with divisional councils. In one of the native areas in the Cape Province the divisional council said they could not maintain a road going through a native area, and the Trust had to make a grant of £600 towards this road. I am afraid this is a responsibility that will again be placed on the Trust, and the Trust should know where it stands in the future. The Minister has cleared the atmosphere as far as health is concerned, he has stated that the Native Trust is now relieved of all financial responsibility and now we should know where we stand, and the Bunga should know where it stands, in regard to getting a subsidy from the provincial council in respect of the maintenance of reads in the Transkei, in the same way as roads maintained by divisional councils are subsidised.

Apparently there is some misunderstanding in regard to this matter having been raised by the Cape Provincial Administration with the Treasury. Neither I nor the Secretary for Finance has any recollection of it having been put before us in any definite way and our having turned it down. The hon. member is apparently anxious that the Bunga should get a subsidy because of our including Bunga revenues. The divisional councils will not get a penny more. The provincial council, like every other provincial council, will get more. But what my hon. friend apparently fails to appreciate is what we are trying to do here is to find an equal basis of subsidising the four provinces. In the Cape Province you have the divisional councils—which exist there, and there only—and so to get a fair basis of comparison, seeing that these bodies raise their own revenues, it is right that you should take account for the purposes of subsidy of what the divisional councils spend out of revenue. But if the hon. member wants us to include the revenue raised from natives in the Cape Province we should have to do the same in the other provinces. Under the old dispensation, in terms of the report of the Murray Commission, the system prevailing from 1912 onwards to 1925, account was taken of the revenue of the Transkeian General Council, because there was nothing corresponding to those revenues in the other provinces; but in 1925 you had a general Native Taxation Act and that altered the position, and it was because of that that there was certainly no formal representation made by the Cape Provincial Authorities to us to include these particular revenues as a basis of subsidy. In any case an amendment cannot be moved, but I consider that we are doing the correct thing having regard to all the facts, and we could not in any case make the extension the hon. member asks us to do.

I wish to move an amendment—

This clause deals with the special subsidies to the three provinces, the Cape Province, the Free State and Natal, and whereas in the case of the normal subsidy, the Bill provides for an increase of 5 per cent. in view of natural expansion, an increase of 5 per cent. on the previous year, there is no similar provision in respect of the special subsidy. The position, after all, is quite simple. There must be very good reasons for the special subsidy, otherwise the Minister would not have granted it. Perhaps the reason is that one province has fewer sources of taxation than another or extends over a larger area or has a larger coloured population to be provided with schools. Whatever the position may be, there must be good reasons, there must be extra services to be rendered which fall outside the scope of their ordinary and normal resources. That is why this special subsidy is granted to them. Now I am asking that the same principle of normal increase in expenditure should also apply to this special subsidy, and I take the same basis as the Minister laid down for ordinary expenditure, the same basis of expansion, as far as the ordinary subsidy is concerned. We merely want the same principle to be applied to the special subsidy. The amount will be the same for the first year as the Minister has indicated here, but in the second year there will be an increase of the amount to keep pace with the natural expansion of the service in respect of which the special subsidy is granted. I do not know whether it is a special service but it may be because the Cape Province has 142,000 coloured children in the schools.

Do I understand that the hon. member is proposing an increase of 5 per cent.?

Not for this year, but for the next year and the year after.

That is the same thing.

In that case, I want to ask the Minister to do so. I cannot do it, but the Minister can. It is a reasonable request, that in respect of the special subsidy the same principle should be followed as in respect of the normal subsidy and that the Minister should also make provision here for natural expansion. I think that the idea is that the difference should always be there. There are special reasons why the one province should receive the special subsidy and the other should not, and even although the amandment is not in order. I still want to ask the Minister from his side, to admit the reasonableness of the request and that he should meet us. Then there is one other point which I also wish to bring to the notice of the Minister because it seems to me that the Mniister is labouring under a misapprehension in that respect. In sub-clause (3) (a), the fact is taken into account that in the Cape Province certain provincial services are carried out by the Divisional Councils. That is only the case in the Cape Province. It is admitted here that where the Divisional Councils are performing provincial services, the money spent by them on these services should be regarded as provincial expenditure in respect of which subsidy is paid. But now there are also certain of the provincial services which are rendered by the municipalities in the Cape. That is not the case in the other provinces. I have in mind especially hospitals. Apart from the hospitals under municipal control for infectious diseases, there are the ordinary hospitals. In the Cape Province the position is different from the position in other provinces. If there is a deficit in respect of any hospital, say for instance Groote Schuur, then even although it is a provincial service a contribution is asked from the City Council of Cape Town to meet the deficit. That also is expenditure by a local authority for a provincial service. Normally, it is a provincial matter. Just as Divisional Councils carry out certain provincial services and it is considered fair that the money expended by them on such services, should be regarded as part of the provincial expenditure for subsidy purposes, it is also fair that when money is spent on provincial services by City Councils, those expenses would be regarded as part of the provincial expenditure. No provision has been made for that and I just want to ask the Minister to consider that. Some misunderstanding seems to exist, because in his reply yesterday, the Minister by way of an interjection, showed that he apparently did not fully understand the point. These are provincial duties carried out by the municipalities just as certain services are carried out by the Divisional Councils. I think that it is only fair that this expenditure should also be regarded as provincial expenditure. If there is a deficit in respect of a hospital then they maintain that the municipality should pay 50 per cent. of the deficit and the province the other half. I request, therefore, that this expenditure should be dealt with in the same manner as the expenditure of Divisional Councils. I hope that the Minister will, also in this respect, put the matter right, so that the same principle will be applied and I do hope that the Minister now has a clear understanding of the facts upon which, in my opinion, the priniciple should also be applied.

The hon. member raised two points, which would both involve additional expenditure. As far as the first is concerned, I want to point out that it is not correct to say that the normal subsidy is increased by 5 per cent. every year.

If the expenses increase.

They may not increase.

Then it means that services will have to be curtailed.

It may happen that after the war period there may be a decrease in the special expenditure, as for instance in the cost of living allowances. In the old days when there was a limit of 7½ per cent., there were provinces which did not receive all of the 7½ per cent. There is therefore no automatic increase,

If there is an increase in expenditure.

Now the hon. member wants an automatic increase as far as the provincial subsidy is concerned.

Only for three years.

The special subsidy is on a triennial basis and after three years it has to be revised. We will then have to take the whole matter into consideration, and if it appears that a province has been dealt with too severely during the previous three years, then something may be added to the special subsidy, but we cannot allow the special subsidy to increase automatically. That would be in conflict with the conception of a special subsidy. It is for a period of three years and therefore not for a long period. After three years the whole position will be re-considered. The other point mentioned by him is well-known to me, because the matter of the relations between the provinces and the municipalities has repeatedly received attention. But also this point was not discussed with us by the Cape Province as part of the basis of the subsidy. As the basis for the subsidy, we take the expenditure of the provinces, and we have always regarded the Cape Divisional Councils as part of the provincial system but we have never yet regarded the municipalities as part of the provincial system. If we are forced to, we may have to go back on the idea of regarding the divisional councils as part of the provincial system. A distinction has always been made. Take for instance implements which are imported free from customs duty. Divisional councils are granted this concession, but not the municipalities. If we were to apply the subsidy to expenditure of municipalities in connection with hospitals then we would not be able to confine it to the Cape but we would also have to grant it in respect of the other provinces. I cannot accept that. We regard divisional councils as part of the provincial system, but definitely not the municipalities.

I wish to draw the Minister’s attention to Clause 6 (5) (a) on page 6—

1. (a) Any contributions received from the public and used by a divisional council for the purpose of carrying out any function which by law is vested in the province may, with the approval of the Treasury, be regarded as revenue raised by that divisional council.

I shall be glad if the Minister would explain to us briefly what he had in mind in this paragraph. Supposing a divisional council wanted to build a road which is desired by the public, but which will cost a lot of money, and the public contributed £1,000 or £2,000 for such a road, would that amount be taken into account for subsidy purposes, and would a contribution by the public to a hospital be taken into account?

No, that does not count.

Supposing the divisional council carried out the work.

They do not erect hospitals.

Assuming that to a certain extent that was also undertaken by the divisional councils. The contributions of the public for such purposes will not be taken into account then.

The divisional councils have two sources of revenue. The one is a subsidy from the province and the other is money which they collect from the public by way of taxation or of contributions. The principle embodied in this Bill is that we grant a subsidy on the basis of provincial expenditure. We cannot include in that the expenditure of the divisional councils because then we would be paying the subsidy twice on the provincial expenditure. What we say is actually this, that apart from provincial expenditure, we also grant a subsidy on the expenditure of divisional councils irrespective of the amount which they receive from the provinces—in other words, on everything the divisional councils derive from taxes or contributions.

Why then these words “if approved by the Treasury”?

We want to see how this develops. It may be used to obtain money which the Treasury should not grant.

All reasonable requests will be granted?

Yes.

Divisional Councils, which perform local services, are subsidised by the Provincial Councils in the same way as the latter are subsidised by the Union Government. There are certain local authorities in the Transkei to whom the same principle applies. In the Transkei the situation is that the local tax is part of the revenue of the Bunga, and that is used for roads and bridges. The purpose which they serve is the identical purpose served by the Divisional Councils, building roads, etc., but these roads are not used entirely by the native people. On the contrary they are used mostly by the European population. I cannot see what moral ground we have for refusing to recognise the analogy between their position and that of the Divisional Councils, and I wish to urge, in view of the fact that there appears to be some relationship between the Treasury and the Provincial Administrations, that if the matter is brought up again it will be discussed.

I am quite prepared to discuss it.

I do not wish to take up the time of the House but I just want to point out that I am not advocating that the expenditure of municipalities should be regarded as provincial expenditure, but that expenditure by the municipalities on hospitals which can be regarded as part of provincial duties should be dealt with in the same sense as the expenditure of Divisional Councils. The hospital expenditure is derived from provincial taxes or funds and if the province receives a contribution from the municipality then that is virtually a tax on the municipality, but it is still expenditure of the province which they would have had to obtain by way of taxation if the municipality had not borne that expenditure. The sole test should be whether it is a provincial service which is vested in the Provincial Council by law. If the Minister insists, as under subclause 5 (a) that it should be with the approval of the Treasury then I agree that he should have that safeguard also in this instance. If the principle is that the expenditure should be in connection with services which by law are a provincial responsibility, then it is only fair that the contributions by a municipality to such service, should be dealt with in the same way as the expenditure of Divisional Councils. The Minister stated quite rightly, and this is something which was also stated by the provinces themselves, that the increase of 5 per cent. does not amount to much because their expenditure is high at the moment. I would just like to tell the Minister this, that it is unlikely that there will be any decrease in expenditure during the next three years. If my proposal is agreed to, therefore, there will be no danger of a reduction of the normal subsidy and an increase of the special subsidy. I am prepared to put it like this, that the Minister should only allow the increase of 5 per cent. in the special subsidy if there is an increase in the expenditure during the next year. If there is an increase in the general expenditure of 5 per cent., which will then be taken into account for ordinary subsidy, then the special subsidy can also be increased by 5 per cent. If the increase is only 3 per cent., then the increase in the special subsidy will also be only 3 per cent. Then it would be fair. I will, however, be satisfied if the Minister gives me the same assurance as he has given the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. A. O. B. Payn), that he will give this matter his consideration and will discuss it if it is brought to his notice by the provinces.

Yes, I will do that.

We welcome the Minister’s statement that he is prepared to consider and to discuss with the Cape provincial authorities the issue raised by the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. A. O. B. Payn) and supported by the hon. member for the Transkei (Mr. Hemming). I notice he says that he will do so if it is raised by the Cape provincial authorities. In these circumstances it will be our duty, of course, to see to it that it is raised. But I want to draw the Minister’s attention to two other aspects of that matter. One is that the proposition put forward by the hon. member for Tembuland in respect of the Transkei does not apply to the Transkei only. The Ciskeian authorities are in exactly the same position as are the Transkeian authorities as regards local authorities. I am sure that the Minister appreciates the fact that if a general provision is made to cover the Transkei, the Ciskei must be included also, and any area in the Ciskei where a native local council operates and spends money locally raised on what are essentially local government functions. There is however this further complication, as the Minister foresaw, that wherever the native local council functions you have in effect a local government unit, and I think the Minister will agree that in essence the local councils have claims to subsidy in terms of the intention of this Bill, which is to enable local authorities to perform functions which a civilised society regards as being their obligation. It is particularly important that these native local councils should not be overlooked. They are naturally the weakest local authorities in the country and they serve the interests of the poor section of the population. They function in areas where the standard of public health is the lowest in the country. They are going to need the development not only of roads as well as hospital services, but their need for the development of water supplies is particularly urgent. All these services are services for which the additional subsidy is urgently needed. I trust the Minister will take the whole situation into review and will somehow, either in this Bill or on some very near occasion, take the opportunity of providing these local authorities with the recognition they deserve and the assistance they require.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 8,

I have an amendment on the Order Paper, which will be purely a drafting amendment to put the provisions in better terms, namely on page 8, line 72, and on page 12, line 30. I move—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 9,

I want to ask the Minister to omit these penalties.

They date back to the time of my predecessor.

We do not intend agreeing to them this time. A person pays a provincial tax of £1 to £10—that is, the poorest people—can be penalised with 5 per cent. of the tax for every month the tax remains unpaid, that is with 60 per cent. per annum. It is peculiar that the richer the person is and the higher his tax is, the less is the amount of his penalty. Between £1 and £10 he pays 60 per cent. From £10 to £20 he pays 30 per cent., and so it goes on until he pays only 12 per cent. if his tax is £50 and more. Why should the provincial councils be allowed to impose a higher penalty than the Union Government. If we fail to pay the Union Government taxes, then the penalty is 7 per cent. per annum whether it be a rich man or a poor man. I want to ask the Minister to delete 8 or 9 and to substitute a provision that the same penalty should be payable in respect of arrear taxes payable to the Union Government. Why should we allow the provincial councils to charge an exorbitant rate of interest? No, the Minister must recognise the reasonableness of our request. He must omit this clause and he should make everyone pay a penalty on the same basis. We would like to know what the Minister’s views are on this matter.

I feel that I must support the provinces in this case. In the other cases my hon. friends have pleaded the cause of the provinces. In this case I must plead the cause of the provinces. We have to do here with something over which they have had jurisdiction all these years. Their ordinances are cast in that mould and I cannot now take away something from them which will upset those ordinances. What is the reason for the provincial penalties having been made so high? They used to be still higher. At one time they were up to 10 per cent. per month.

Then they were reduced.

Yes, but not by me.

And what happened to the provincial ordinances then?

I do not know. The provinces use the argument that they have very small amounts of taxation to collect and the imposition in the form of interest on arrears is the best way in which to collect the tax. If people know that they will have to pay the penalty, then they pay the tax and if there is not a high penalty, it would be much more difficult to collect the tax.

Why does the Union Government not do the same?

. In the case of Union taxes, the amounts are mostly larger amounts.

But what about the tax of £2 10s.?

That personal levy is a temporary war-time tax.

But what about the small amounts of income tax?

In our case they are exceptions. The provincial tax is one-fifth of the Union tax, and there is a much larger number of small amounts than in the case of the Union tax. I regret but in view of our relations with the provinces, I cannot accept this amendment. I must protect them.

The Minister says that he must protect the provinces, but he allows the provinces to make the poor people pay the highest penalties.

You should get the provinces to rectify that matter.

But the Minister of Finance has more influence over them than I have. The Minister is authorising the provinces here to penalise the poor man who pays a tax of £1 to £10 by 60 per cent. while the rich man who pays £50 or more is only penalised by 12 per cent. No, we cannot support that. Then there should be a uniform scale of penalties.

I want to tell the Minister that I have been 35 years in business and my experience has always been that the poor man pays more promptly than the well-to-do man. Just ask anyone. The poor man who owes money pays his debt.

Then he would not require to pay a penalty.

I am convinced that the Minister feels very uncomfortable over this business. The man who pays a tax of £10 is fined 30 per cent. The man who pays between £10 and £25 can be fined 20 per cent., and so it is—the higher the tax the less is the penalty until it becomes only 12 per cent. in the case of a man who pays £50 and more in taxation. That is not right. Let them all pay the same. Make it 30 per cent., but 30 per cent. all round, although I consider that a man who charges 30 per cent. on a debt ought to be put in gaol. That is usury. Our legislation dealing with usury lays down that if a person charges more than 12 per cent. interest he can be put in gaol. I think that no member in this House will agree that such a penalty is justifiable. I want to make an appeal to the Minister to put the penalty on an equal footing for all. The interest the Minister is asking on arrear Union tax is also too high. He himself is asking 7 per cent. and he is paying only 3½ per cent. But let him make it 7 per cent. for all in the case of the provinces, and then we shall be satisfied. This proposal is unreasonable, that the poor man can be penalised 30 per cent. and the wealthy man only 12 per cent. This sort of thing goes against the grain and runs counter to one’s feelings of what is just. The Minister of Finance himself cannot feel comfortable about it. He says that should he make an alteration in this Bill the provincial ordinances will have to be altered. In an interjection the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) expressed the view that the penalties were reduced on a former occasion. Then the provinces, of course, also had to alter their ordinances. The Provincial Council is now in Session, and they can easily introduce an ordinance to change the rate of interest. The Minister must also expect that this proposal will be used against his Party.

The Nationalist Party did this themselves.

Then they were wrong. It is not this Party that did it. It was the old Nationalist Party. There is a political side to this matter, and the Minister cannot take umbrage if on the public platform outside I maintain that we here give an example of how the Government treats the poor man. The poor man has to pay a fine of 30 per cent. while the wealthy man pays only 12 per cent. I have not only political considerations in mind when I ask the Minister to take our request into consideration, but we can turn this to political account because it is such an unfair proposition that it must have political consequences. I should like the Minister to make a plan to equalise the matter, because it appears to me to be very unreasonable.

I do not think this is a case where the Minister can shelter behind the provincial councils. If there was nothing before us it would be another matter. We are now being asked to give legislative powers to the provincial councils in this connection.

What they already had.

Those powers are now taken up in a consolidating Bill. This is a renewed acknowledgement of those powers, and it grants a discriminating power to the provinces in respect of the imposition of these penalties. Suppose that the provinces make use of this discrimination they can turn round and say that Parliament gave them the cue for this special discrimination. We are not opposed so much to the high penalties as we are opposed to the discrimination against people who are poor and who are in arrears. The Minister has referred to the cost of collection. The provincial income tax and the company tax are collected at the same time as the Union tax.

Not the personal tax.

I am coming to that tax. In the case of those two taxes there can consequently be no question of costs of collection. Now I turn to the personal tax. In the case of income tax the individual receives his assessment. He thus receives notification that he has to pay. In that case because the tax is usually a higher amount he pays penalty at a lower rate of interest. But in the case of the other tax he is not notified. In complete good faith he may forget to pay, and then one fine day he wakes up to find he has to pay a penalty of 60 per cent. In other words, the man who is notified that he has to pay his tax and who has not paid comes off lighter than the man who has received no notification. That is not fair, and this House cannot approve of it. There is no principle on which anything can be said in favour of it. On the contrary, there is every reason in favour of making the penalty lighter in the case of the small taxpayers. I should like to know why it cannot be equal as is the case with the Union taxes. We have no discrimination there, and if it is not necessary for us to have discrimination why should we give those powers to the provinces. We cannot escape our responsibility if we let this sort of thing continue today, and if the provincial councils make use of it. It is the responsibility of this House and that is what I think we should realise and if we realise that we shall not allow a provision of this sort to be placed on the Statute Book. Whether it is resorted to by the provincial administraions or not it will be a blot on our Statute Book.

Are the penalties uniform in all the provinces?

That I cannot say. This clause is only something that gives them the authority. Let me explain again, this is something that is on the Statute Book at present exactly as it stands there. I am merely taking it over. I do not think it is reasonable to expect that I should alter this without cousultation with the provinces. I am quite prepared to discuss the question with the provinces in order to ascertain whether they make use of this scale of penalties.

A discussion with the provinces will cut no ice unless you appreciate the fairness of the argument employed by this side.

I realise that arguments may indeed be employed against the discrimination that exists here, and I am perfectly prepared to discuss the matter with the provinces but I do not think it would be reasonable to expect that I should alter this Bill without discussing the matter with them.

I had intended to move an amendment in Clause 9 (1) in line 33 to delete all the words after “then” in subparagraphs (a) and (b) and to substitute the words “a penalty … imposed by the Union Government.” It would then read—

It was my intention to move that but in view of what the Minister has said I am not prepared to put the amendment.

Clause put and agreed to.

On Clause 10,

I would like to move the following amendment on this clause—

I do so with a certain amount of diffidence out of the high regard I have for the Minister in charge of this Bill, but nevertheless I feel it is my duty to press this matter. Without traversing all the ground covered yesterday, I would like to emphasise one or two points. First of all I would refer to the action of the Natives’ Representative Council. It may be that technically they have been consulted, but I cannot feel that they have been consulted in the spirit of the Act. In the first place we must realise that we are going to change something which has been in existence for more than 20 years, i.e. the fact that only one body in the country should tax the natives, and then we have to deal with the fact that we are going to increase a tax for which we ourselves have no time at all. I would like to point out that this is merely a proviso of the Bill and that no real harm can be done to the Bill if the Minister will consider the question, even at this stage, of withdrawing it. I feel that it would be a pity to rush this Bill through the House without giving a full opportunity to the Natives’ Representative Council to consider the effect of this amendment, and I would like to ask the hon. Minister to consider carefully, even at this stage, whether he cannot allow the Natives’ Representative Council and other native councils an opportunity of going into the matter again. I would like to point out that the meeting held at Pretoria was held at very short notice and it may be that those representatives on the council would have liked to consult their constituents in this very important matter, and if my amendment is accepted they will have an opportunity of consulting their people and coming to the Government with a fully considered answer I do not think this is an unreasonable request. From our point of view this is a tax that we regard as unscientific. We have asked the Government for many years to reconsider the whole system of native taxation. We have never seen the justification for singling out the natives for a particular kind of tax, and the only reason I can think of in justification of it, is that they have not sufficient means to come under the ordinary taxation system of the country. I feel that in his reply to the debate yesterday the hon. Minister was still acting under very strong pressure which was no doubt brought to bear upon him by the provincial councils. I think the very least we can expect is that the provincial councils will tell us what they are now proposing to do in return for the tax we impose on the natives. So far they have done nothing, and we have no guarantee in this Bill that they will do anything in return for this tax to be imposed, and I accordingly move this amendment in the hope that the Minister will agree to it.

I should like to direct the attention of the Minister to a matter in connection with Clause 10 (2). It states there that the Provincial Council will not have the right to impose direct taxation “upon the persons, lands, habitations or incomes of natives”. By the word “habitations” I assume the reference is to dwellings belonging to natives.

Yes.

That is not what the clause says.

It is the wording we have had for 30 years.

But that is not what the clause says. The clause reads—

It does not say that the habitations (wonings) belong to the natives.

The English is “habitation”.

The English is just the same. I have read it in the English text. I think it should read “habitations belonging to them”. Should the Provincial Council impose a land tax—I hope they will never do it—and if I had a farm on which there were natives and the “habitations” belonged to me but natives were living in them, they could not include them in the valuation of the land; they would have to be excluded specially. The clause does not refer to habitations of natives in the reserve; it just say there “habitations”

I shall go into that point with the law advisers.

I thought the Minister said the other day that there was no such thing as a colour bar in taxation. How does that tally with this clause? “There is no colour bar in taxation”. I still remember those words. What do they mean? It means that it does not matter how much the income of a native is in the Transvaal, the Free State or elsewhere the Provincial Council cannot tax him.

Under the Union Act he can be taxed, but under this Bill we are making provision that the Provincial Council will also be able to tax such person if he is a Union taxpayer. Consequently that will now happen.

I want to support the amendment of the hon. member for Transkei (mr. Hemming). I do so in the first place on the ground that he mentioned first. It is my contention from facts which have already been given this House by the hon. member for Transkei and the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) that there has not been proper consultation with the Natives’ Representatives Council on a matter differentially affecting the native people. This matter was really decided before it was brought before the public at all, I should imagine. The consultations which went on between the provinces and the Government last year, commenced before the report of the National Health Services Commission was published. As a matter of fact the public were told that the Government was not going to accept—in full at all events—the report of that commission even before the report was published. I assume that when the provincial issue was decided as to the control of hospital services, as it apparently was during those consultations, the question of taxation was also gone into. At all events, whether that was so or not, does not really matter, because the Minister will agree that this was a matter that was decided with the provinces before the Natives’ Representative Council was consulted at all. The council was called together by telephone and the Government placed before them an accomplished fact. That is not what I call consultation.

That is how Parliament is treated very often.

But that is not the reason for my major objection to this clause. What it in effect does is that it empowers the provinces to increase the native poll tax. That is what it does in effect. It means that the native people will pay an extra 2s. 6d. in poll tax which will be collected by the provinces, I have made it clear in this House, ever since I have been a member, that I am totally opposed to the poll tax. The only equitable direct tax is a tax which is levied on income. It has been said in reply to the contention of mine along those lines that the European pays Provincial Personal Tax. My answer to that is that speaking for myself, and not necessarily for the other members of my group, I would rather the natives pay the Provincial Personal Tax than the poll tax. What is the position? In the Orange Free State and Natal there is actually a tax on persons apart from income, and I think it is an unjust tax for reasons I have given. It starts at £1 in the Orange Free State and rises with the individual’s income. In Natal it is £1 for persons with incomes under £450 per annum and £2 for those with more. But in so far as the lower income groups are concerned, they are in exactly the same position as the native. The native with an income of under £200 in the Orange Free State or £450 in Natal, would be in exactly the same position as he is now. In the case of the Cape a married person with an income of under £250 a year, does not pay the tax at all. The unmarried person with an income under £150 a year, does not pay tax at all. In the Transvaal the unmarried person with an income of under £50 does not pay it, and the married person with an income of less than £100 does not pay tax at all. So in the two largest provinces, at any rate, the ability of the person to pay is taken into consideration. In the case of the native poll tax, the ability of the person to pay is not taken into consideration, and the House is not permitting the provincial councils to increase that tax. I want to deal with the argument which has been raised by the hon. Minister, with all respect to him, that if there is to be an extended system of health services in this country the people must pay for it. Of course, they must. But those services should be paid for by the imposition of a tax on an equitable basis according to means. I am prepared to admit one possible departure from that principle, and that is a specific contribution where you have a specific insurrance scheme. The National Health Services Commission recommended that everyone in South Africa, irrespective of ability to pay, should pay something towards the national health service. They graduated the person’s contribution in accordance with his ability to pay, but they recommended that everyone should pay something. But that was not a tax. What the Gluckmän Commission recommended, in effect, was an insurance contribution which is an entirely different thing. The difference between an insurance contribution and a flat rate tax such as the Minister wants the various Provincial Councils to impose, is that the contribution is dependent upon services given in return. That is what a contribution is. An insurance contribution is a tax created for a special purpose and only paid on condition that services are given.

Would you support an insurance contribution for educational purposes on the same lines?

That system is never applied to education because that is a thing that everyone must have, whereas in the case of medical attention or disability, it is not necessarily something that everyone requires. The Gluckman Commission in effect, recommended that the £10,500,000 which is now paid by private individuals to doctors should be diverted to a State fund and should be raised by a health tax, and in return each individual should receive free services in so far as they can be made available, and the Commission contemplated that the tax would not be imposed until the services were available. The Government departed radically from the Commission’s report in any event by giving way to the provinces on the hospital issue. That has been discussed earlier in the Session and I do not propose to repeat the arguments in that connection now. But having done that, they have now gone further. They are now in effect authorising the provinces to depart from the recommendation of the Gluckman report in another respect, that is to start imposing taxes on people that they could not tax before, without having provided for the services, and that is the position we are faced with. Having regard to the provincial record in relation to the provision of hospital services for Africans I would not be surprised if for many years to come this 2s. 6d. tax is about all the native population will see of the health service. The exemption of natives from general taxation referred to in this sub-clause 2 mean nothing at all because the only respect in which native taxation does differ from European taxation is in respect of this personal tax; where they pay a poll tax, the European pays a personal tax. The natives’ dogs and food and vehicles and everything else are taxed. I have heard bitter complaints from Africans against the vehicle tax imposed by the Divisional Councils. I would strongly urge the Minister to reconsider this matter. If he wants to authorise the provinces to start a hospital insurance scheme as part of a general health scheme, that is an entirely different matter, but this simply gives them a blank cheque to increase direct taxation upon the poorest section of the people of this country without any guarantee of their getting anything in return.

I am sorry I cannot meet my hon. friends over there. I fully appreciate their attitude in regard to this matter, but for the reasons I gave yesterday I feel that it is not possible to agree to an amendment such as the hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming) has proposed. I do not want to go into the question of consultation again. I would merely repeat that the Natives’ Representative Council had an adequate opportunity of expressing its opinion, and will have a further opportunity of expressing its opinion before this tax comes into operation, if it does come into operation. For the rest I want to assure my lion, friends that I am not proposing this because of pressure exerted upon me by the provinces. I am proposing it because I believe it is right that the natives should make a contribution towards extended hospital services, and things being as they are at the present moment in respect of our system of native taxation I see no other way in which they can do that. I am proposing this also because I believe it is a good thing. I am proposing it because I believe it is going to be for the benefit of the natives. I believe it is going to lead to an expansion of native hospital services and I believe that if this tax is imposed it will not be possible for the provinces to advance the excuse that there are no funds for the provision of native hospital services. One must admit in fairness that there has been an improvement in the attitude of the provinces in so far as native hospitalisation is concerned. May I just make this further statement. I agree that there is a case for a revision of our whole system of native taxation. The hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) spoke on those lines yesterday; the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) has done so today. I agree that there is a case for a revision of our system of native taxation, but we have had quite a lot to do in the last five years, and the fact that that particular question has not been tackled is perhaps not entirely unpardonable and in any case, I hope that the least my hon. friends will do will be to count it to us for righteousness that in the matter of the relationship between native taxation and expenditure on native services there has been a very definite improvement. I hope that will be counted to us for righteousness, even though the native taxation system has not been put on the basis they desire. I believe it is right and proper that we should make this provision that we are making in the Bill, and therefore I am sorry I cannot accept this amendment.

I want to show how definite the pledge was that was given to the natives in regard to their first being consulted before Bills imposing financial burdens on them can be passed in this House. It was not said that they were going to be consulted afterwards, after those measures had been passed and after they had become law. That seems to be what we are in the process of bringing about this afternoon. Let me quote the pronouncement that was made at a joint sitting of both Houses in respect of the consultation of the Natives’ Representative Council—

It is clear that the Minister gave the pledge then that that was going to be done before any such Bill was laid before Parliament, before Parliament passed legislation of that kind. I hope we are not going to blind ourselves to or ignore what was said to the natives on that occasion. It is not a long time ago. The very body which we created is now in the course of being flouted, in spite of the remonstrances of the representatives of the natives. For my own part I have no hesitation in accepting the amendment of the hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming) because as I pointed out yesterday, I look upon the imposition of this tax as unfair. Without some sort of guarantee that any charges in regard to hospital treatment in the future will be discontinued, it will be resented in the province of Natal. At present the natives have to pay 1s. per head every time they even go to the hospital clinic, and it is quite possible that the people who pay the hospital tax may still be required to pay fees to the clinic, and I hope the Minister will not compromise us by asking us to vote for this provision.

I do not propose to hold up the House much longer. There is no necessity for me to do so. I just feel that before this clause finally goes through, we must do our best to make the hon. Minister realise how strongly the Natives’ Representative Council feel about the way in which this tax is being imposed. I know the hon. Minister agreed to the Natives’ Representative Council being consulted as soon as his attention was called to the fact that they must be consulted in the matter. It was unfortunate that that was done so late that although in effect there was actually time in which they might consider this proposition and give a reply, there was not that time for consideration of all the implications of an important departure in our financial legislation that would encourage them to take a definite stand on it. All that we are asking in fact is that the Minister should delay the operation of a clause of this kind. We are fully convinced of the necessity of the community being prepared to pay for the services it demands; we have made that perfectly clear. But we feel it is most important that the community should be carried along with the Government when these obligations are imposed. At the present moment not only has the Natives’ Representative Council been allowed to develop a certain grievance in this matter of consultation, but it has inevitably got an additional grievance. It is asked to endorse the imposition of a tax on the native population without any information (a) as to whether an additional tax is going to be imposed on any other section of the community; and (b) as to what is going to be provided as a result of the tax. I feel the Government has a good deal to gain by going slow over the imposition of the tax, without being expected to go too slow. Another year would not have made a great deal of difference to the Provincial Council, but it would have given the Native Affairs Department time, partly to do what they succeeded in doing by careful management in the matter of the reclamation schemes in the Transkei, to carry the people with them and get their consent. I do not think any of us would dream of blaming the Minister or the Government for the fact that the native taxation system has not been revised before this, but what we are contending is that this is obviously an appropriate moment in which to consider that system of taxation. In the circumstances the time should be taken to do it. If we could have the additional time, even only another year, it would give us the opportunity to induce the provincial councils to put down the programme for which they are asking us to pay, which I think is a perfectly legitimate demand; and it would also give us time to consider how that burden might be spread in the best way.

Those of us who were in the House in 1936 are all responsible to see that the Native Representative Council should be fully consulted before legislation affecting natives is passed. And I am very sure that there is no one more anxious than the Minister to observe both in the letter and in the spirit the principle that the Native Representative Council should be consulted before legislation affecting the natives is carried into effect. I am sure the Minister is anxious that should be done. I trust he will ensure that in future when it is done it will be done more effectively than was the case in respect of the Bill now before the House. I realise he cannot be asked now to delete this clause, or even to hold up the measure. I hope he will discuss it with the provincial authorities to ensure that not only shall the Native Representative Council be properly consulted before the tax is imposed, but that the provincial authorities will outline a scheme as to how they propose to spend this money.

Amendment put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 35,

I move—

1. (2) Any ordinance passed by a Provincial Council under and by virtue of the powers conferred upon it by the proviso to sub-section (1) of Section 12 of the Liquor Act, 1928 (Act No. 30 of 1928) shall, notwithstanding the provisions of Section 32 of this Act, remain of full force and effect until amended or repealed by Parliament.

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On the First Schedule,

I move—

Agreed to.

Schedule, as amended, put and agreed to.

On the Third Schedule,

I move—

Agreed to.

Schedule, as amended, put and agreed to.

The Title having been agreed to,

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill with amendments.

Amendments considered.

Amendments in Clauses 8 and 35 and in the First and Third Schedules put and agreed to, and the Bill, as amended, adopted.

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