We listened with interest yesterday to the statement of the Minister of Justice in connection with internees. Unfortunately he was not allowed to complete his statement. We should however also like to hear what the Prime Minister can tell the House in connection with this matter. I just want to direct an appeal to the Prime Minister and to ask him whether he does not feel inclined to have the conditions in the internment camp at Baviaanspoort specially investigated. We have no real complaints in connection with the other internment camps but we do have complaints especially in regard to Baviaanspoort. I refer particularly to the period when that camp was under the control of a certain Mr. McPherson. Irregularities took place there which we feel are not in accordance with the policy announced by the Government, and we are also of opinion that the Government does not even know of the incidents about which we have certain information. I wonder whether the Prime Minister will not have the matter investigated impartially, just in order to ascertain what really happened there. I do not want to go into details now, and I want to leave it to the Prime Minister himself to have an investigation made and in that manner to get to know what really happened. I just want to mention one example. A certain man who lives in the Union and who is a supporter of his party was not interned, but his son was. He is married to an Afrikaans lady. He is a well-known man, Mr. Rancke, the owner of the Elgin Hotel in Johannesburg. Mrs. Rancke became ill, and on her death-bed she asked whether she could not see her son. Every possible attempt was made to get permission for the son to come to bid farewell to his mother. Mr. Rancke even offered to send a taxi and to pay the expenses of the guards, but the son was not allowed to come and say goodbye to his mother. I feel that this is not the policy of the Prime Minister and of the Government and that if he had known about it it would never have happened. I am convinced of that. But the Prime Minister ought to know about this, because at an inconvenient moment he may be confronted with such a matter when he is out of the country. He ought to know what happened there. I have reason to believe that this matter is well-known outside the country and that people there know more about it than even the Government knows. Therefore I ask whether he will not be so good as to have investigations made. My hon. friend the member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) mentioned a case where the wife of an internee was informed of his death only after he had already been buried. I know of one case where the wife of an internee was assaulted and died a fortnight after the assault. The internee was not asked to come and see his wife, but her son was brought from the internment camp to identify her body. The father and the son then asked permission to go to the funeral, but that was refused. This is not the policy of the Government, but it is what the Government officials did, and the Government ought to know about it. I therefore ask the Prime Minister to have these matters investigated, and I will undertake to bring proof, much more than I have stated here. I then come to another matter. There are people who have been set at liberty. People from South-West Africa have long been set free, some three months ago, some six months ago, some twelve months ago, and others more than two years ago, but they are not allowed to go to their homes in South-West Africa. They are free, but they can only move about within the Union and cannot return to their homes. They live in Cape Town, Pretoria, Pietermaritzburg and other large cities, but are not allowed to return home. What can be the reason for that? They occupy houses here which we urgently need; they eat our food and they drift about here from pillar to post. There are no restrictions placed upon them, except that they have to report to the magistrate. I spoke to the Minister of Justice about it, and he told me that public opinion is against these people being given complete liberty. I also represent public opinion, at least, public opinion in South-West Africa. I have reason to believe that I represent more than half of the public opinion of South-West in this regard, and I can give the Prime Minister the assurance that that is not public opinion in South-West Africa. The large majority of people in South-West Africa are not in favour of that policy. It is an inhumane policy to give such people their freedom so that they can move about in the Union, but to prevent them from returning to their farms. What public opinion is against that? And are those people prepared to pay for the detention of these men in the internment camps? It costs money to keep them there, and the Union should pay for it. A considerable amount of money is required to keep more than a thousand people there, and are these people who are against their being set at liberty prepared to pay for the detention of these men. Now these men have to drift about in the Union and they occupy accommodation which is urgently required. They drift around here without any purpose. One of these men came to me and told me that he had lost 3,000 karakul sheep owing to the drought. An unprecedented drought is reigning in South-West, one far worse than any other drought in living memory. These men are keen to go and see to their farming operations, but the Minister states that public opinion does not want them to be in South-West Africa. What public opinion? Another German told me that he had already lost a thousand head of cattle, and that he has another 2,000 head which will also die if he is not allowed to go and look after them. I want, to draw the Minister’s attention to this, that if these people cannot be given complete liberty, let them at least be given three or four months’ leave in order to look after their farming operations. Now they are not allowed to do that. What can be the basis of such a policy? The Prime Minister has stated that we should not make more enemies than necessary. Are we not making unnecessary enemies by means of such a policy? These people are not Nazis and they were never our enemies. Even today they are not our enemies. Cannot we make concessions to them. We must view this matter in the correct light. I really want to plead with the Prime Minister with all the earnestness in my power to devote his personal attention to this matter, because I really believe that in that case all these things will not be done. I have a letter which I want to read, but I have no time for that now, and shall do it later. I want to do that just to give the Prime Minister an idea of what public opinion really is in South-West Africa.

Mr. Chairman, there has been some reference in this House recently, and also in the press, as to the probable appointments of Ministers Plenipotentiary to our diplomatic service, to represent the Union in other countries. In this connection there is a very serious matter to which I wish to draw the attention of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister. One of the men whose name was mentioned as that of a candidate for the appointment as Minister of Plenipotentiary is stated to have acted in a manner which calls for investigation. Because of the nature of the case, I do not intend to mention any names, or the name of the Department concerned in this matter, because I think that this is a matter which should be mentioned to the Minister himself on a suitable occasion. But the facts I propose to submit are derived from official communications, and are beyond dispute. An official serving under the present applicant to the ministerial post was in a nursing home 5½ months ago, when he received a peremptory message to report himself at his office. When he did so the officer administering that Department, whose appointment as Minister Plenipotentiary is said to be under consideration, demanded that he should sign the following letter of resignation, which was already typed out, and the man unwillingly complied. The terms of that letter are very important and with the indulgence of the House I should like to read what was embodied in that communication. It said—

That resignation was signed and the event took plate on the 10th October, 1945, and although the signatory died on 28th October, eighteen days afterwards, no particulars are obtainable as to the grounds of his suspension, and the evidence of his friends is to the effect that he was afforded no opportunity of replying to any charges made against him, and was given no alternative but to sign this letter of resignation. A letter dated 12th October, was sent to him by the senior official referred to in the following terms—

I want to emphasise that. It is “in lieu of leave”. It was not treated as a case for the granting of leave, but a sum of money was to be paid in lieu of leave—

After his death his executors were not paid the sum claimable in respect of the six months’ salary due to him in lieu of leave, and up to this date, five months afterwards, the amount concerned has not yet been paid to the executors of his estate. The matter has come to be known fairly widely among hon. members of this House, and if the Prime Minister will consent to representations being made to him, a deputation of hon. members, not confined to one party, will be glad to wait upon him to state their views. The fact that matters most in this distressing case is that the person concerned was not treated in the manner usually adopted in cases of that kind. I myself on one occasion was suspended by a head of a department who considered himself affronted by my independence, but I was given 48 hours within which to reply. This was under Crown Colony Government, and when I replied the charge not only fell away but I took the offensive, and this might quite easily have been the case too in the instance I am referring to. A man is not held to be guilty merely because of his having been suspended. In my case I asked for suspension, in an interview with the Lieutenant-Governor of the Transvaal. It did not necessarily mean that I was guilty of what was alleged against me. I pleaded not guilty and tabled my defence, which was accepted, and I was discharged without a stain on my reputation. But in this case, as far as my information goes, there were no such proceedings. There was no such information conveyed to the man concerned and he was not afforded a certain period within which to reply. Then there is the other point of his resignation being demanded, in fact written out for him; it seems to me much more leniency and humane treatment should have been extended to a man with 18 years’ service to his credit. [Time limit.]

I make no excuse, Sir, for returning for a few minutes to the subject of immigration I raised in the House yesterday, because I feel—and I am sure the Prime Minister will agree with me—there is a menace in our empty spaces in South Africa. The general reply the right hon. gentleman gave yesterday will be regarded with some concern by the forward-looking people in South Africa. But before I touch on another aspect of that matter I should like to refer to a statement made by the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) and the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux) yesterday, when they suggested that my object in raising the question of immigration was not the general question of immigration as such, but that I wanted in a roundabout way to get the problem of Jewish immigration brought before the House. I want to say if that had been the case I would have nothing to be ashamed of, and I should have done it quite openly. But I want to disabuse your minds of that. I want to disabuse the minds of the Committee that at the back of this suggestion of immigration was the question of Jewish immigration to South Africa. I think the Committee should know about the remnants of Jewry in Europe. More than 6,000,000 have been exterminated by Hitler and his gang. The remnants in Europe, perhaps some have friends and relatives settled in South Africa, might wish to come to this country in spite*of the unwilling attitude of our friends opposite, but I think very few would care to come here. I think the hope of those remnants lies in the direction of their ancient homeland, and in creating for themselves a new home there, and there restoring their shattered lives. I rather hope in regard to that aspect that the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister when he goes overseas will be able to do a great service to these people, not merely by opening the doors of South Africa, but in using his great influence to have the doors of Palestine opened to them, and I am sure in doing that he will carry with him the support and goodwill of all sections in this House.

I mentioned immigration and our desire to see South Africa developed to the greatest possible extent. We have been warned already about our empty spaces. I mentioned it yesterday and the Prime Minister emphasised it. Let me say at once in my view those empty spaces and the rich internal resources we have in South Africa constitute a menace of a threefold nature. They constitute a menace insofar as the overcrowded, inscrutable East is concerned. They constitute a menace, as the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister rightly said yesterday, insofar as overcrowded and devastated Europe is concerned, and they constitute a menace insofar as the numerical disparity between the European and non-European population is concerned. In spite of what the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. A. C. Payne) said yesterday, I do believe both in the interests of the European population and in the interests of the non-European population we should throw our doors open in South Africa to a large European population, because we cannot replenish the European population by the birth rate. It is only by developing this country that we can minimise the menace to which I have already referred. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister, I am sure, realises that is the position, and we are faced with the fact that in Europe today, in Great Britain, in Holland, in Belgium and in the Scandinavian countries, certainly in Germany and Austria, there are large numbers of people who are prepared and anxious to find pastures new and make new homes for themselves; and I hope we in South Africa will take advantage of that position and do nothing to discourage that immigration, and that we shall not be too late in trying to get those people, who are now being attracted by Australia and other parts of the Commonwealth. The Rt. Hon. gentleman referred to the small absorbing capacity of South Africa. Let me say without hesitation I am sure if he will enquire of soil erosion experts and economists generally, he will be told we have room for millions and millions of white people, and every immigrant carries with him or her a degree of absorptive capacity, by reason of their requirements in the way of food, clothing and shelter, and they bring the arms and the brains with which to help the development of this country. Unless we have a policy of encouraging not only a trickle of skilled labour—because that will not in any way answer the purpose we have in mind—unless we encourage to a great extent immigration of that kind, and unless the Prime Minister when he is overseas instructs our High Commissioner in London and our representatives in Europe to encourage people to come to South Africa, I fear the menace to which I have referred will become greater from day to day. I am afraid, in talking about this aspect of skilled labour, the Prime Minister, very unlike himself, was guided too much by caution and calculation. I ask him not to be led astray by the timidity of the Little Afrikaner in this country, I ask him not to be led astray by the timidity and selfishness of some of our trade unions, but rather to realise, as he did in September, 1939, that there are times, as at present, when precautions and calculations should be thrown to the winds and when there should be shown that boldness and courage which have added glorious chapters to our history. In dealing with immigration, I trust he will realise that the only way to encourage it is by a bold policy to build up a greater South Africa, and to take steps in the interests not only of the future of this country, but also towards our leadership of the African continent generally.

If the internment camps still have to be continued with, I wish to support the plea made by the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Klopper), and to ask the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister to give his personal attention to the matter, in order to see whether the circumstances of the internees cannot be eased. I do not wish to quote any cases, but will mention a few to prove to the Prime Minister the necessity for his investigating the matter personally. Take, for example, the case of the internee Bade. He suffers from a fractured hip, asthma and rheumatics.

Which camp are you referring to?

These are all people who will go to Baviaanspoort. One cannot see the necessity for such a sick man to be detained in the camp longer. Take the case of Kalweit, who suffers so badly from diabetes that he has to receive three injections a day. A man like that can never be a danger to the State, even though he wants to be. Take the case of Mr. Stier. He suffers from pulmonary disease, and is already 70 years of age. I am just mentioning these few cases to show the Prime Minister what type of person is still being detained in the camps, and to prove that it is really worth while to investigate the matter and, in case certain people still have to be detained, to ameliorate the circumstances. Take the case of Mr. Rochotz. Here we have an inexplicable case. He personally was not interned, but his brother-in-law, a certain Carl Reimann, was interned. Dr. Rochotz’s wife, i.e., the sister of the internee Reimann, was very fond of her brother. Eventually she became mentally affected. Dr. Rochotz got no fewer than four medical men to certify that if Mrs. Rochotz were just to see her brother for a short period, it would undoubtedly bring about an improvement in her condition. Not only did the four medical men testify to that, but also the District Surgeon and the magistrate of Krugersdorp. But the request to release Reimann for a brief period was summarily refused. We just mention these few cases to show the Prime Minister what the position is. We accept that these things were done without his knowledge, and that they are not in accordance with his policy. To return to the statement made by the Minister of Justice last night, I think we all notice that the hon. Minister, when dealing with the Germans in the Union, was able to tell us quite a lot about the position, and we are thankful for the statement that these people will shortly be discharged from the camp.

Within approximately ten days.

But then the Minister dealt with the Germans in South-West, and said nothing further. One and all of us, including hon. members on his side of the House, were waiting for him to make a statement on this position, that he would give us details, and that we would learn what the real point of view of the Government is in that connection, but the Minister stopped there, and we could get to know nothing further from him. I want to put the matter this way: In view of the attitude adopted by the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister as regards South-West—we know he is going to plead for the annexation of South-West by the Union—it will be a good thing if the Prime Minister were to make a statement. We know that there is an agitation in process in South-West to acquire the ground of those Germans who are today interned. Let us call the matter by its correct name. It looks very much like robbery. They want to acquire that ground. The Prime Minister may manage to have South-West Africa incorporated in the Union. What results will follow from that? It will be impossible for him to evict all the Germans now living in South-West. We must look to the future and try to create a better understanding between the various sections in South-West. In South Africa we had sabotage, quite a lot of sabotage, but I want to ask the Minister of Justice whether he can point to one instance of sabotage in South-West Africa, notwithstanding the presence of the Germans there, who he says are such great Nazis. Did a single case of sabotage take place there?

It could have happened had we not interned them.

But the Minister did not intern all of them. Many remained free. The fact is that no sabotage was committed. Now the Government wants to expel these people from the country, because they were Nazis or belonged to the Nazi Party. I want to ask the Prime Minister whether, if he were a German and a good German, he would not also have been a faithful German and whether he would not also have been a member of his party? I think we must look a little further into the future than today. It is an extreme measure to expel people who live on the ground from the country. We go further, and the other day we saw a newspaper report which really made one feel ashamed. We must direct representations to UNO in order to receive food. South Africa has already received certain quantities of foodstuffs. In the same newspaper we read of the terrible famine and hunger reigning in Europe. One really felt ashamed of the fact that it was necessary for South Africa to go and ask for food while so many millions of people are going hungry. I ask the Minister whether it did not make him feel ashamed also. I felt ashamed, and I think every right-thinking person felt ashamed because in such circumstances we had to go and ask them for food. We know what conditions are in Europe. We know that Germany has been converted into a Belsen Camp. The food they receive today is less than what was given to the inmates of the Belsen Camp. Now one comes to the Germans in South-West. In fact, it used to be their country. People who lived there cultivated and improved their ground, and now they must be sent back to a country where there is no food for them. It really seems to be the height of cruelty. It almost amounts to murder to send people there. There are certain people who are out for revenge. We are dealing here with people who committed no sabotage and made no trouble, but there is a small group of people in South-West who want to acquire the ground of those people and to expel them for motives of revenge. Let us not do so, but rather try to create a good feeling between the various sections with an eye to the future.

The question of water supplies, both in respect of irrigation and public health, has loomed large in the House during the last six months, and I want to ask the Prime Minister whether he would agree to outline the policy in the matter of the water conservation and the appointment of a Water Supply Commission in which would be vested responsibility for all the supplies of water in the Union. The last Minister of Public Health took a very great interest in this matter, and a Bill was actually prepared and is ready to be placed before the House, if Government policy countenances it. The House and the country would be very grateful to the Prime Minister for a declaration of the Government’s policy in this matter.

I do not wish to discuss immigration as such, but I feel that I have to rise here to answer the gross insults emanating from people not born in South Africa, but who at some time or the other were immigrants. A certain person stands up here and pleads for immigration. He puts his case, before the House, and then proceeds to talk about the “little Afrikaners.” He himself was an immigrant, an immigrant who did not even want to retain his own name.

Cecil Rhodes was also an immigrant.

If that is the kind of immigrants for whom he pleads, I am sure that the Prime Minister will agree that the fewer we receive of that class the better. Is the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister surprised that the people are chary of immigration when one finds such people coming here from other countries to make a living in South Africa, who enjoy the privileges of a free country, and who then refer to “little Afrikaners” in the manner in which the hon. members did?

You want a small, country.

What we want is that people who come here as immigrants should treat us with respect. We are proud of being Afrikaners, and we did not find it necessary to change our names.

Now there is something else which I should like to bring to the attention of the Prime Minister, and I refer to South Africa as our only country. Normal times are returning. The official opening of Parliament once again took place in the usual manner, and I think that the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister will agree that the time has arrived when South Africa should have its own national anthem. I do not raise this matter from any political motives at all. South African troops participated in the war and went overseas. Would it not have been fitting if we were to have had our own national anthem just as we have our own flag? At the opening of Parliament we hear a song which is not our national anthem, but that of another country. South Africa has no national anthem of its own, and the anthem which is usually sung is just an anthem which perhaps at the moment is the most suitable for such an occasion, but it is not our official anthem. Cannot the Prime Minister take steps in view of the fact that he will be in power only for a short period, to try in consultation with Afrikaans cultural associations, to have an Afrikaans national anthem? I want to appeal to him to devote attention to that matter.

Then I should also like, together with the two hon. members who spoke about internees, to raise my voice in favour of the liberation of those people. We have now come to the so-called period of peace, and we should not follow the example of other parts of the world and wreak vengeance on people who only did their duty towards their own nation. They are busy trying and murdering people. We in South Africa do not try these people, but simply keep them locked up in camps. During the war the Minister, under whom internment camps resorted, stated that these people were a danger to South Africa. Can the hon. the Prime Minister, with his experience of the world, rise here and tell us what danger these people can create for South Africa today? What can they do to the detriment of South Africa? I am sure that the Prime Minister cannot mention a single reason for keeping these people in the camps any longer, except the fact that their parents were Germans. That is unreasonable, inhumane and un-Christian. I was given to understand that the Allies fought for Christianity. Well, this is un-Christian. We are now on a peace basis, and I wish to make an appeal to the Prime Minister to take steps immediately to liberate these people. I know of a certain case of a young boy. I think he was eighteen when he was interned. He spoke about Hitler near Cape Town. Perhaps he said things which youngsters sometimes say without reflection. People with more experience would perhaps have been more careful. Today he is still in the camp. Of what danger can such people be to South Africa? Why must a young life like that be ruined? He cannot be sent away and is being detained in the camp. I want to ask the Prime Minister to see to it that South Africa does not follow such a policy of revenge and hatred. After the Boer War certain people were also shot, and the Prime Minister was against it. Today there are again great and small nations powerless in the hands of the big victors, and in view of our own past history I wish to ask the Prime Minister to show mercy towards people who can no longer be a danger to South Africa. I hope that the plea I have delivered here on behalf of those people who are in the camps will be taken up in the right spirit. I do not wish to gloss over any mistakes which may have been made by these people, but I hope that the matter will be considered in the spirit in which I intend it.

I wish to appeal to the Minister with tears in my eyes not to take any notice of the crocodile tears which are being shed in this House on behalf of the German internees.

What is your “van”?

You will hear in a few moments. I am proud of my “van”. I maintain every German who has not tried to become a naturalised South African subject is not to be trusted, any more than we could not trust many of our friends during the war period. The question that has been put to me is: What is my nationality? My father was a German settler at East London. I was bom in South Africa, and am a South African; and loyal to South Africa I have always proved myself. My interrupters should be ashamed to ask me what my nationality is merely because of my name. What I want to get at is this. Being of German parentage I have quite a number of German friends, and it has been my experience, 100 per cent., that where an individual from South-West Africa has not tried to become a naturalised Union subject he cannot be trusted since each and every one of them wanted Germany to win the war. I know that the Minister is in possession of the fullest information regarding these men. Only a short while ago I had a German come to me from South-West Africa; he has been resident there for the last twenty years. He did not become a naturalised South African subject. He told me of the terribly unfair treatment which was supposed to have been meted out to him, but when I made official enquiries, I discovered that his son and daughter disappeared to Germany from South-West Africa just before the war commenced. If that does not prove that they are Nazis 100 per cent., I ask: What more proof does one want?. It is all very well after the war is over to plead innocence, but at the time the Prime Minister and the Government could not take the slightest risk. We all knew there was just a possibility of South-West Africa being the starting point of the war in so far as the invasion threat to South Africa was concerned. I would now like to get away from that subject because we have had too much of it, and the pleadings from the Opposition benches. I would like to say that it is somewhat regrettable that my friends on the Labour benches should make veiled unfair references to the representative of the Government, Mr. Ivan Walker, who was sent to Johannesburg in connection with the miners’ strike. I wish to remind those hon. members that they are wrong in trying to suggest that the Prime Minister did not send the right person. I would also remind them that when Mr. Ivan Walker was Secretary for Labour he was regarded as a very fine individual; but immediately their leader vacates his position as a Cabinet Minister, one hears whisperings about the ability and sincerity of Mr. Walker towards trade unionism and the working classes. I want to say that his long record clearly shows that he has always had the interests of the workers 100 per cent. at heart. I well remember when Mr. Walker was appointed as arbitrator in connection with the building industry dispute, and certain members on this side of the House did not like his award. I never heard any objection then from the Labour benches, no doubt for the reason that the award was in favour of the workers. Now they criticise the Prime Minister’s action in appointing Mr. Walker as his adviser. If some members on this side were wrongly against his building industry award, I feel also then that it is unfair to suggest that the wrong man was appointed, notwithstanding that his name did appear in the Press as being a candidate for Cabinet rank. I would appeal to the Labour Party to give credit where credit is due, and remind them that whén their leader entered the Cabinet one frequently heard from the rank and file very much the same jealous talk, but if the rank and file got the opportunity to fill such a post, they would be the first to jump at it.

It is a general phenomenon amongst the nations of the world that no one hates his own nation as much as a renegade. I do not want to say anything else in this regard, but I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to support in a few words the appeal which has been made here in connection with the internees. I am pleased that of late the Government has been showing signs that on this point, at any rate, it is inclined to make concessions. We all welcome the announcement which was made in this House yesterday by the Minister of Justice and that some progress is now being made—and I hope it will be rapid progress —with the release of the internees. The question which occurs to us is this: Since there has been a movement in that direction of late, why not release from the internment camps those people who were bom in the Union as well as those Germans who are still being detained in the internment camps? What reason is there for not making a final and speedy end to these internments so that South Africa may be rid of that problem? There are still three classes of persons who have been referred to here and in regard to whom a plea is still being made. In the first place there are those Germans who were released from the camp, who are resident in South-West Africa, but who are not being allowed to return to their homes. That is the one category, and one asks oneself why they should not be allowed to return to their homes. Is there any good reason why those 1,060 Germans from South-West Africa cannot be allowed to return to their homes? The other category consists of a number of Germans who were asked under quite exceptional circumstances whether they would like to be sent back to Germany. In circumstances which have already been described in this House, they signed what was submitted to them, signifying their willingness to be sent back. They were prepared to do anything which would save them from detention in the camps, detention which lasted for years. Those people are now anxious to remain. It does not affect them only; it also affects their families. In many cases they married South African women. Initially those women were allowed to remain in South Africa. Now they have to choose between going back with their husbands or staying behind. They chose to return with their husbands. I believe at one time they were informed that since they had once decided they would not be allowed to change their minds. I want to know what reason there is to break up these families in this way and to deport those women find children together with their husbands? Can it be done under the existing circumstances in Germany? It would simply be cruel to send them back at the present time and perhaps for a long time to come in the future. It is equivalent to sending these people to a starvation death, and in those circumstances I hope the Government will again go into this matter and decide to allow those people to remain in South Africa under certain conditions, to release them and to allow them to return to their homes. The Other category consists of those whose cases are now being investigated, and this category comprises a large section in South-West Africa, all people who, it is alleged, belonged to the Nazi Party and who, at the discretion of the Commission, may be deported. The question which has been asked on this side of the House repeatedly and to which no reply has come as yet, is this: Do those people constitute any danger to South Africa at the present time? If any danger became apparent during the war, it was very exceptional. As was said here a moment ago, as far as we know there was not a single German in this country who committed sabotage — not a single one. In those circumstances, we have the right to ask what danger there is. There is only one reason why this is being done, and that is that the German as a German, and particularly if he was a loyal German according to his views, must be punished. That is the only reply there can be. I said the other day that if we had been placed in the position that our Government and our people had believed in a certain ideology, if our nation had followed the road of Nazism under the circumstances in which Germany found herself, the members on that side of the House, with few exceptions, would have been Nazis, and if that is the case why should the German be punished simply because he was a Nazi and because he followed the ruling opinion. If you want to punish people because they believe in a certain ideology, I want to know why you are punishing the Nazi and why you are giving the Communist a free hand in this country and, moreover, in spite of the fact that the Communist constitutes a positive danger to South Africa, having regard to his influence on the nonEuropean population in this country, and the danger that he constitutes to the European civilisation and the future of South Africa. Why punish the one who believes in one ideology and allow the other who has adopted a more dangerous ideology to go free? No, there is a feeling in the minds of a section of the people in this country that those Germans ought to be punished merely because they are Germans, and for no other reason. In view of the speech which has been made here by the hon. member on the other side….

The member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge).

… In view of that speech, I just want to say that if the policy is adopted that a German must be punished merely because he is a German, the race to which that hon. member belongs is in very great danger in this country, because there is a strong feeling on the part of many that the Jew must be deported from this country because he is a Jew.

Especially when he is an English-speaking Jew.

I think he and others belonging to his race should be the last persons to advocate that the German must be punished merely because he is a German.

Have you ever heard me advocating deportation?

I just want to add what I said on the previous occasion, namely, that we in South Africa must set an example of a better spirit than the spirit which is being manifested in Europe. As far as the Germans in this country are concerned, I can only say that they are not poor colonists. I can tell the Prime Minister that if he goes, as he has probably done previously, to the Transvaal, to Piet Retief and towards Paul Pietersburg, where there is a large German settlement, he will find that there we have some of the best colonists in this country, and the same applies to other places in South Africa. They are people of high standing in all respects, people who command the respect of the whole country and of the whole neighbourhood.

They are not Nazis.

There we find some of the best colonists, and I want to know why, in those circumstances, the Germans in this country are being punished merely because they are Germans.

The late Colonel Deneys Reitz one day said of a member of the Dominion Party in the House: “He is the kind of man who would boil his grandmother for soup.” I want to pay that compliment to the hon. member for Pretoria West (Mr. Hopf).

I did not insult the Germans.

I spoke here yesterday with the intention of seeing how far we could influence the Government to act humanely, and in view of the fact that the Minister has intimated that they are in fact going to liberate portion of the internees in the camps, I want to say this, that the rest of his statement, to the effect that more than a thousand people are still being detained there, probably for a year, probably for more than a year, and that they will still further be martyred, is an act of vengeance and of sadistic control which dare not be tolerated in South Africa. I say that when in future the history of the real course of events in our time were ever to be written—and that history will never be written, but in fact that history will be there although it will not be written, because it will not be permitted to be written; that history will be under the control of those people who today commit atrocities in the world—I say that when that history will perhaps come to be written in fifty years or in a hundred years, it will not be a history of the atrocities committed by the Nazis or of what we are told was done in Europe as against the Jews and other people, but it will be the history of what happened to the German nation and other people after the war. History will stand amazed at that. We have here only a small subdivision of that sort of thing, but we have absolutely no excuse for further martyring those people. Twenty-one of the South-West Germans are already in mental asylums as a result of the treatment they received in the internment camps. As I indicated yesterday, large numbers of them have been mentally affected. The Minister knows that it is possible for the Government to release those people tomorrow, and if he were still to allege that he cannot send them back to South-West, he knows that nothing stands in the way of his immediately putting them at liberty in South Africa at least to a certain extent. That can be done, and I repeat that the reason is not that those people are a danger to South Africa. The reason is that there are ulterior motives, motives which will be condemned if the truth were ever to be known, namely, that there is an attempt to acquire the possessions of those people. It is an attempt to keep those people away from their businesses in South Africa, businesses which have come into the hands of other people, who are now afraid that the Germans will perhaps return. I say here that South Africa cannot and dare not allow this blot to remain on South Africa in future, and that we should be described by history as a vengeful, sadistic nation, who in a time, when we could have done otherwise martyred these people in this manner. No, the time has arrived that we should speak clearly and emphatically to the Government. One knows in whose interests these things are being done today. They are not being done in the interests of South Africa. They are not being done to protect South Africa. They are being done to acquire the possessions of those people, and to keep them out of businesses where they proved to be better business men and able to manage such businesses better than those who are there now. I am putting the matter clearly and emphatically. We ask that the Government should now put an end to the martyrdom suffered by these people. They are able to do it and ought to do so. I ask that the Government should take those steps and put those internees at liberty at least within the Union, or if necessary on farms in their own area. But why should these men be sent out of the country? There was no single act of sabotage. The people were disciplined. They subjected themselves to every burden laid upon them by the Government, and now when we in this far corner of the world have an opportunity to act humanely towards those people we refuse to do so. I ask that we should not permit that blot to rest upon the country, and I ask what powers this judicial commission which has been appointed to investigate the cases of these people will have. We do not know in which way it is proposed that these people should be put out of the country. We do not know what the policy of the Government is in that respect. Are those people going to be permitted to take their possessions with them or will they be sent out of the country empty handed? Why all the cries about the atrocities committed in the world during the last fifteen years if we are going to do the same thing? And it is not necessary for us to do it. We are a small country and we have the power to do the right thing in this regard towards those people. I ask the Government to give heed to this plea we are directing to it, and that these people should be treated in a humane manner, and not with a spirit of vengeance and worse.

Unlike the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) I do not think that history, when it comes to be written, will have much to say that is bad about our handling of the internees. I think that the verdict of history will be that a fair attitude was adopted by the Government in interning people who, just before our country went to war, were preparing to take over the Government of South-West Africa in favour of Germany, an attempt that was frustrated by the late General Hertzog, a fact of which I should like to remind the hon. member. But what I think history will find extremely odd, is that hon. members opposite, many of whom boast of their descent from the Huguenots, are against immigration. Many of them are proud of having descended from French Huguenot settlers. Let me remind the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) who so objects to any settlers unless from Germany or Holland, that a good many of the members opposite are very proud, and rightly so, of their French descent.

We do not need you to speak for us.

A good many are proud of being descended from the 1820 settlers and the German settlers, and it ill becomes a party of such descendants to object to immigrants.

But he never said that.

What I would like to do today is to support the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) in regard to opening the door to immigrants from Europe.

From southern Europe.

I am not prepared to specify from where. Might I remind the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) that resorting to personalities is nearly always the last refuge of the man who has no good argument, so when he brings up personalities against the hon. member for Troyeville he betrays the weakness of his argument. What this country needs is immigrants. I am not here necessarily stressing the need for opening the door to Jewish immigrants, only although I believe and contend firmly that any unfortunate Jews in devastated Europe who have relatives here should at least have the right to enter in view of the prevailing conditions in Europe. But if ever a country had a need for immigrants it is this country. We are a small white population against ever increasing millions of natives. Yet the party opposite who are proud to claim descent from their forefathers, who in many instances came from England, will have nothing to do with it. I should like to say this also that the idea of importing only skilled artisans is not sound. I feel that every immigrant is a potential asset. Very often they bring money with them, and sometimes they are skilled and skill is of value to this country; it will help to provide work and opportunities for thousands yet unborn. I would like to ask the Prime Minister to declare to the country a positive policy of immigration. He has told us on many platforms that he is in favour of it. Speaking from this side of the House I want him to go further and in view of the unstable conditions in Europe, in view of the desire of many in the devastated areas to make South Africa their home, in view of the wishes of many of the R.A.F. and convoy men to settle here, to make a positive statement as to the Government’s attitude, and make it soon.

It is remarkable that the hon. member who has just sat down as well as the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) should put up a plea in this House for immigration; that the doors of South Africa should be thrown open to overseas immigrants; and yet they do not say a single word to support members on this side of the House when we ask that those people who are in South Africa today should not be sent out of this country. Where is the logic of their attitude? It only goes to show that they want to get rid of certain persons merely because they are Germans. This morning the hon. member for Troyeville held it against the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) and myself that we are supposed to have adopted the attitude yesterday that the Government should not admit Jewish immigrants into this country. May I just say that in my speech yesterday I did not use the words “Jewish immigrants” at all. What I did say was that the Government should not adopt the policy of unrestricted immigration, but that the Government should follow a policy of selective immigration and that when people come to South Africa it will be in the interests of South Africa in view of South Africa’s mixed population, so as to ensure that people who enter this country will be assimilated and that they are not unassimilable. And if the hon. member for Troyeville takes exception to that and interprets it as meaning that I do not want Jews in this country, he admits that the Jew is not assimilable. I want to repeat what the Hon. Leader of the Opposition said this morning, namely that if the Jews in this country insist on Jewish immigration an anti-Jewish feeling will develop in South Africa, which will do the Jews more harm than they think, and if the Jews want to act in their own interests, they must not advocate the importation of more Jews into this country. That anti-Jewish feeling is not developing today amongst the Afrikaners. After all, the Afrikaner, more so than the English-speaking person, has treated the Jew in this country well, and it is the English-speaking people who feel that they are being pushed out by the Jew and for that reason an anti-Jewish feeling is rapidly developing today amongst ‘ the English-speaking people, and if those hon. members plead for Jewish immigration I just want to warn them that it is not in the interests of the Jew in this country. But if they want this country to have a bigger population; if, as the Prime Minister told us, the danger of the Union of South Africa lies in the empty spaces of this country, we want to ask him why he wants to deport the Germans who are at present in this country. I just want to remind him of a Dutch poet who said: “As jy oorlog voer dan moet jy skerp mik, maar as jy vrede maak moet jy sag skik”. (If you wage war your aim must be firm, but if you make peace the conditions of settlement must be lenient.) In view of that we want to ask whether the war is not a thing of the past; are we not living in a time of peace? And since there is peace today we ask that every effort should be made to establish a spirit of goodwill in this country. I want to tell the Prime Minister that that feeling of hatred and vindictiveness which exists today against the Germans is a passing phase, The danger which the Germans constituted to Great Britain in the past has now disappeared. Today Britain has no reason to fear that Germany will ever again become their enemy. What Britain as well as the whole Western civilisation should now concentrate on is to see how to make Germany an ally and friend as soon as possible in order to ward off a greater danger which faces the world, and in view of that I should like the Prime Minister to give a lead in this matter. In view of that danger, we must not make further enemies; we should rather make friends. He will remember the classic story which is told in the history books of the father who sent his son to conquer the enemy. When the son returned he told his father that he had conquered the enemy. His father then asked: “Did you kill them all; did you capture them all?” The son replied: “I did not kill anyone, nor did I capture anyone; I made them our friends.” The Western civilisation needs a friendly Germany if it wishes to continue its existence in the history of the world, and if it does not wish to be overwhelmed by the East. South Africa’s barren spaces constitute a danger to this country if they remain empty. That is what the Prime Minister told us. If that is so, do not let us adopt the foolish policy of deporting German citizens from this country. Yesterday I stated that we had learned that it is the Government’s policy to allow some of the Italian prisoners-of-war who are here to return to this country as immigrants. Since that is done in the case of the Italians who were also our enemies during the war, why are the Germans who are already in this country and who rendered good services to South Africa being deported from this country? No, there can only be two reasons why the policy is adopted to deport the Germans or to detain them in internment camps, the first being that they are a source of danger to this country. Can that be proved? We must remember that these people did not make themselves guilty of subversive activities. They did not commit any subversive act against the Government of the Union. They did sympathise with Germany, it is true. It would have been strange if they had not done so. They were Germans, and at that time South-West Africa had not yet been incorporated into the Union. It was a mandated territory, and the Germans in South-West Africa felt that they were still Germans. It would have been strange, therefore, if their sympathies had not’ been with Germany. They would have been poor Germans, and if they were such poor Germans and they had become citizens of the Union at some future date, they would not have become good Union citizens, because they would have owed no loyalty to what is their own. Things have changed. We hope that South-West Africa will be incorporated in the Union, and I am convinced that when the Germans in South-West Africa realise that South-West Africa has been incorporated, they, too, will feel that they should no longer return to Germany; they will no longer regard it as necessary to show their fidelity to Germany, because they will then associate themselves with the conditions of this country and they will become good Union citizens. I cannot see, therefore, that there is any danger to the Union, and that they should be deported for that reason. If they are deported, there can only be one motive, and that is the motive of persecution. Why should we do that? We should be lenient; we must not persecute these people. It would be a blotch on the history of South Africa if we treated these unfortunate people in this fashion during peace-time. The argument has been advanced that many of those people asked to return to Germany, and that they are not fit, therefore, to become citizens of the Union. The hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) has shown clearly that they signed for two reasons. They signed in the first place because they were in internment camps and because they were anxious to get out. The war is now over, and one can understand why they no longer want to return. The other reason is that some of the leaders of those people in the camps forced them to sign and made life impossible for them unless they showed their loyalty towards Germany and unless they supported the Nazis. The Allies have been victorious, and we are told that the Nazi danger has disappeared from the world. If that is the case—and we have no doubt that Germany as a strong nation or as a power in Europe no longer exists today; Germany will not be a power in Europe for a long time to come—and we need therefore have no fear that the Germans in South Africa will constitute a danger to our safety. In view of this, I would ask the Prime Minister not to adopt a policy of persecution.

There is only one other reason why the Germans are to be deported from this country, and that reason has already been mentioned on this side, namely, there are people in South Africa who have their eyes on the property of the Germans, as the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) indicated here. There are people who are casting envious glances at the possessions of the Germans. Is that the attitude we are going to adopt, and is the Prime Minister going to support it? Is he going to approve of the attitude of people who are anxious to obtain possession of these people’s land in South-West Africa; is he going to approve of these people being deported so that we may gain possession of what belongs to them today? If that is the motive, it would be a great blotch on our history, and if it is not the motive, what can the motive be? We make a serious appeal to the Prime Minister to give the assurance to this House that the Government is going to act differently and that a policy of peace will be adopted in South Africa. Do not let us wait until peace has been made in Europe, but let us set an example in South Africa by trying to establish a state of affairs where there will be co-operation and good faith amongst all in this country; let us realise that it is not necessary to deport people at a time when we need them in our own country. [Time limit.]

We on this side of the House most strongly deprecate the fact that the hon. Leader of the Opposition thought fit to describe the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hopf) as a renegade. It can only be because being of German descent he associated himself with the national life of South Africa and became a true South African and because his son enlisted for military service and made the supreme sacrifice. He was killed in the war. If we follow that reasoning it means that if the Germans who come to South Africa do not remain Germans but become South Africans, they thereby become renegades.

You know that you are now distorting the facts.

No, that is not the case.

That, in fact, is the German psychology and ideology. That is the view of the Germans, and it is for that reason that there were so many Germans in South-West Africa who never became South Africans and who will never become South Africans. We still recall the speeches that were made in this House…

If that is your attitude, you should deport the entire Dominion Party.

In March, 1939, the Prime Minister with his prophetic foresight into the future deemed it necessary to send a police contingent to South-West Africa to quell the danger in that territory. Who were the people who were most voluble in their protests? It was the members on the other side. If the Prime Minister had not taken that step, the war might have started in South-West Africa. What was discovered there? A whole Nazi organisation was discovered, and if those Germans had not been interned, much more serious disturbances and acts of sabotage would have taken place. Those precautionary measures were taken for the protection of members on the other side as well as for our own protection. Moreover we must admit today that many of the people who are interned at the present time were interned on information which was furnished not only by members who support the Government, but also by members who were not favourably disposed towards the war policy of the Government.

What evidence have you got?

Why were those people not brought before the courts of law? If that had been done we would have known who testified against them.

It was a question of precautionary measures and not vengeance. We were in South-West Africa recently. Hon. members on the other side know as well as we do that the Germans in South-West Africa classify the local population as follows: First the Germans, then the Englishmen, then the Hereros and then the Afrikaners.

And then the Jews.

They regarded it as incest for a German to marry an Afrikaner. When they had the choice of accepting Union citizenship they refused. They preferred to remain Germans. When one speaks to the people in South-West Africa they give one the assurance that the greatest section of the Germans in South-West Africa do not ever want to become Afrikaners and that they are still Germans. We cannot take their present conduct as any criterion. We must go back to the past. Today they are crawling because they were defeated as a nation. But we know that before the war they were impudent. No, these people showed by their conduct in the past that they do not want to be associated with the national life in South Africa. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux) spoke of people who do not want to be assimilated. These Germans showed clearly that they have no desire to become South Africans. They do not want to be assimilated into our national life. They are not, therefore, a desirable element in the population. Members on the other side say that members on this side who may advocate the cause of some interest or other are doing our country more harm than good. I say that the feelings in South Africa and in the whole world against the German Nazis are still running very high, because they caused a completé dislocation in the world. If they now manifest sympathy for the German cause, I am afraid they are doing that cause more harm than good. If they adopt that attitude they do the cause which is near to their hearts more harm than good. If they plead as ardently as the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) pleaded in this House for the Germans, they may possibly prejudice the German cause by doing so. Let me conclude on this note. After the victory in Europe a day of thanksgiving and humiliation was celebrated in Windhoek. One of the German pastors attended those proceedings. The proceedings were conducted with great solemnity, and when it was over he said: “I must congratulate and compliment you on having a day of thanksgiving and a day of humiliation,” and he went on to say: “If Germany had been victorious, how different the position would have been.” It is not a question of vengeance. It is a question of security measures, and we want to support the Prime Minister most strongly when he insists that any element which is a source of danger to this country shall not be allowed to live on the soil of South Africa.

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

I am sorry the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) is not present. I think he has done a great disservice today to the Jewish community in South Africa.

Do not follow the bad example.

For the Prime Minister’s sake I would let the matter stand, but not for the sake of the hon. member for Troyeville. I am proud to belong to the little Afrikaners to which he referred. There are many little Afrikaners, not only Dutch-speaking but also English-speaking We are very proud of falling under the category of “little Afrikaners”. We would rather be little Afrikaners than men who should be in Palestine and who are now here. I want just to tell our Jewish friends what is really the past history. Many of them went around in this country very poor, with a bundle on their backs. They went round amongst the Boer people and the Boers invited them into their homes and showed them more hospitality than they received in any other country in the world. The old Afrikaners believed in their Bible and said they were God’s chosen people. They gave their best room to the Jew. They did this because they believed the Jews were God’s chosen people. But what did these same people do towards the Afrikaners? After they had experienced this hospitality, after, thanks to the Boers, the Jews are where they are today, the Jews never did anything to repay the Afrikaner for what he had done. The English-speaking people said at that time: “I will not allow the filthy Jew to come into my home.” This was the spirit. The hon. member has done a disservice to the Jews. I would just add to that that the history of the Jews shows that in many instances when they are masters they oppress other people. You will never find a brave soldier persecute a beaten enemy. But you get someone like the hon. member for Troyeville, and unfortunately also the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson), who wish to wreak vengeance on people who cannot defend themselves, poor people who are quite helpless. We come and ask that something should be done for these people, for these Germans. The attitude of the hon. member reminds me of Bela Kuhn, the Hungarian, who was also a Jew, and the cruellest brute who ever lived. He was a communist. I gained respect for our Prime Minister when he would not shake hands with such a fellow. The spirit of the Jew when he is master was exemplified in Bela Kuhn. I am sorry over the line taken by the hon. member. It calls to mind the Mayor of Port Elizabeth who a little while ago came and asked: What must we do to rehabilitate ourselves in the eyes of the Afrikaners? I then said that he must first be an Afrikaner and next a Jew. But unfortunately they cannot be Afrikaners first and Jews next; they must be Jews first and then Afrikaners. Then I asked him what about the English-speaking people, their friends. He replied: “They are a lot of hypocrites.” This is the spirit you find amongst them. Today as England is not so strong as she was in the past Englishmen are stigmatised as a lot of hypocrites. They did not say that when England was strong. Let me say that many English-speaking people, even during the war, contributed to the funds of the Greyshirts. There is a spirit abroad against the Jews, and the hon. member did his race no good with his imputations. Fortunately all Jews are not of this type. There are good and decent Jews, but unfortunately we get a large proportion from Eastern Europe. They have been kicked out of their homeland and they were also disloyal to their homeland because they were Jews first, and they have come here and today they want to teach us what is small or big. They are the little Jews, of which the hon. member for Troyeville is one. When they tell us about their good works we agree they have good points. There is, for instance, erosion in Palestine. I admit that in respect of erosion they are the world’s pioneers. In certain respects they do good work; but why should the hon. member give vent to his hatred of the Afrikaner?

Seeing I am referring to erosion I want to turn to the Prime Minister, who is the pioneer of erosion in our country. He made a start with schemes. I want to give him the credit, but I want to ask him now to go ahead a little more quickly with the work. Ten years ago we welcomed this scheme when he started on it, but since that time many tons of soil have been washed away from the face of South Africa. I said the other day that if we could solve the soil erosion problem and if we could store water this country could carry double its present population. We are still losing more soil through erosion than we are restoring. The Prime Minister brought Mr. Bennett to our country. He gave us many valuable hints and did a great deal to make the people of South Africa erosion-conscious. The danger of erosion is just as real as the danger of war. In war time you shoot men dead quickly. It ends there. But unfortunately if you do not put a stop to erosion our nation will be wiped out. I can give the Prime Minister the assurance that our subterranean waters are being reduced daily and parts of the country have become desert. The northwest must be rehabilitated, and if the Prime Minister will devote his attention to it and expend more money on it we shall be grateful. The war is now over and the Department under Dr. Ross has not sufficient staff. There are a number of good practical people who can help in connection with erosion works. I have recommended certain people, but he writes to me that the policy of the Government is that these people must not be engaged, only returned soldiers. There are not nearly enough returned soldiers to do the work, and seeing we have not sufficient competent people, and that the Department has not sufficient technical staff, they ought to be engaged. Let us rescind this provision that only returned soldiers should be engaged. Give the returned soldiers the first chance, but give other citizens a chance as well. The salaries being paid to the returned soldiers, even the foremen, will not attract the best class of person. A foreman receives 10s. per day or £15 a month, which can be increased to £30 a month. How long will the people remain there, and how many qualified people will we get at that salary. I want the Prime Minister not only to proclaim the Drakensberg, but he should also extend the scheme so that we can really begin on erosion works on a big scale. The level of subterranean waters is steadily dropping. Today it is much lower than 20 or 30 years ago, and we must institute erosion works to restore our subterranean waters. The Prime Minister conferred a great service on South Africa when he launched his scheme some years ago. We have benefited by it. The time has arrived to make a fresh start and to go much further with it. I hope the time will come when we will have £1,000,000 on our budget every year for erosion works. [Time limit.]

This debate has taken a deplorable turn in the last hour or two. I feel it is my duty to intervene on behalf of the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) and to point out to hon. members opposite that when he spoke about the Little Afrikaner he did not mean to cast any slur at all.…

Oh no, just like the “backveld”,

What the hon. member for Troyeville had in mind was the narrowminded Afrikaner, and if he had gone on a little longer he would have referred to the narrow-minded English-speaking person. There are narrow-minded people in the country, and we have been shown that there are narrow-minded people in this House. But it is unfortunate that the debate is taking the turn it has. The Nationalist Opposition are indulging in what is purely and simply pro-Nazi speeches. We have only just finished the war and now we are getting pro-Nazi speeches from them, while a certain element are bringing in anti-semitism, and I think all this is deplorable. I wonder whether those hon. members can cast their minds back to the time when their accusation against the Jewish people was that they would not allow themselves to be assimilated in any country that they wandered into or fled into and made the land of their adoption. I want to ask the Nationalist members whether we have a large number of Germans naturalised in this country, some of whom have been here for many years, and whose descendants have been here for generations, and I would ask them how many of the descendants of this old German stock joined up in the interests of this country in the last war. And on the other hand many members of the Jewish fraternity joined up.

Where did you join up?

Now we have personalities coming from our very narrow-minded friends. Many of them have shed their blood for their country and there are few who have not made great efforts to assist this country. A large number of the Jewish fraternity joined up, and as far as casualties are concerned there was as large a proportion of them who suffered as any other section of the forces. The figures cannot be denied. Can the members of the Nationalist Party opposite tell me who was the first member of Parliament to lose a son in this war? No, they want to forget it. It was the late member for Wynberg (Mr. Friedlander), a Jew, who was the first member of this House to lose a son in this war. They want to forget that, and directly after the war they want to plead the German cause. I sincerely hope the Prime Minister will stick to his guns. In regard to these people who are interned the Government have been very fair in deciding to give a trial to all of them, to give them a chance to vindicate themselves. In South Africa we do not want any undesirables wherever they come from, particularly of that type. I have been in two wars against the Germans, and I maintain that all Germans are Nazis. The Opposition members amongst the Nationalists are pleading there was no trouble in South-West Africa during the war. Why? If those police had not been sent there, and if we had not got in there first we would have had our hands full of trouble in South-West Africa. It would have been the same position if the Prime Minister had not stepped in as far as Madagascar was concerned. If we had not done that our Nationalist friends might have witnessed the horrors of the Japanese landing in South Africa. I have made a remark about all Germans being Nazis. [Interruptions.] Does the hon. member not read the newspapers? Has he not read how, when Goering was being tried, he said he did not know that millions of people had been annihilated? Those are the people the Nationalists are pleading for as the type to be assimilated.

Do you want to follow their example?

I will answer that any time the hon. member likes. When Germany overran Holland I never heard any members of the Nationalist Party pleading for Holland. But I do remember when Tobruk fell that celebrations took place in this House …

That is a lie.

It is not a lie, and you took part in those celebrations.

That is a lie.

To a point of order, Mr. Chairman, is the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) in order in saying that the hon. member’s statement is a lie?

The hon. member is not entitled to say that.

I did not say he was deliberately telling a lie, but that the statement that there were celebrations and that I took part in them is not true. And on a further point of order I think it is the rule that the hon. member must take my word and withdraw what he said.

No. That is not the application of the rule.

The rule, I take it, is if the hon. member makes a statement and I deny it, he must accept my statement.

No. That is not the practical application of the rule. The rule is that whatever a member says in explanation of a statement he has made, is to be taken as true and not called into question. The hon. member can quite realise that if one hon. member makes a statement and another says it is not true, and he makes another statement and the first hon. member says that is not true and asks that his own statement be accepted, there is no end to it.

The hon. member stated that the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) was present on that occasion. The hon. member denied it, and I feel therefore that the hon. member for Rosettenville (Mr. Howarth) should withdraw his allegation.

The hon. member for Humansdorp said: “It is a lie.” The hon. member for Sunnyside (Mr. Pocock) then asked on a point of order whether the hon. member was entitled to say that and I gave my ruling.

But then I raised a further point of order, which has nothing to do with the hon. member for Sunnyside. The hon. member for Rosettenville accused me of being present at certain celebrations and I denied it. He then repeated the statement and I demand that the hon. member for Rosettenville take my word for it and that he withdraw that accusation.

That is not the application of this rule.

I say definitely that the rule applies in this case. The hon. member made a certain statement about me. I denied the truth of that statement. The rule is that if a member makes a personal reflection on another member and the latter denies it, his denial must be accepted. I denied that I was present on that occasion; the hon. member for Rosettenville did not want to accept my denial and he repeated this accusation.

The hon. member has now definitely denied that he was present on that occasion, and the hon. member for Rosettenville must accept that.

May I rise to a point of order?

What is the point of order?

Whether those words were spoken or not spoken, will you now tell me, Sir, what is your ruling, when is a lie not a lie?

That is not a point of order. The hon. member for Rosettenville (Mr. Howarth) may proceed.

I am sorry the hon. member for Humansdorp, who was apparently looking for the lash, now that he has got it is rubbing the salt into his own wounds.

On a point of order. I asked the hon. member to withdraw the accusation he levelled at me. I insist on his doing so.

After the explanation of the hon. member for Humansdorp to the effect that he was not present on that occasion, I think the hon. member for Rosettenville should withdraw that statement.

I should like to explain, as an explanation….

Order, order.

Order, order. I think the hon. member should withdraw that statement.

I will withdraw it, but if all the chairmen on the other side would only give you a chance to control the House instead of trying to control me….

Order, order.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, the hon. member is making a reflection on the Chair. It is a very serious matter to make a reflection on the Chair such as the hon. member has made. The only deduction one can make from his statement is that you are not capable of conducting the proceedings.

The hon. member may proceed.

I was saying that celebrations took place in this House to celebrate the German victory at Tobruk when thousands of our South African soldiers were captured.

May I point out to the hon. member that matter has nothing to do with the vote. I suggest to the hon. member he now comes back to the vote.

Very good, Sir. I am trying to point out that I feel there is a large number of undesirables amongst these internees, though the members of thé Nationalist Party are at present trying to retain them in this country, and we will not have it from this side. We have gone through a very bitter experience as far as the Germans are concerned, and I was a little surprised when I heard the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) also get up and plead the cause of those Nazis to remain in South Africa.

He is a human being.

The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) has a happy knack of putting his foot into it at the wrong time. He is a human being. He is a doctor. But what did we find in the last war? That actually the doctors who are humanitarians are obsessed by the Nazi creed. A doctor who was thought very highly of in this country got up and pleaded the cause of the Nazis. [Time limit.]

I am surprised that the debate has sunk to the level at which it now is. I am deeply disappointed especially over the member who has just resumed his seat. When I think back to the incidents that recently occurred in Johannesburg on the occasion of the Nationalist Party Congress, and when I recall that the hon. member who has just resumed his seat was one of the persons who incited those people, one cannot expect anything else than a speech like that from him. Today we have to deal with a nation against which the whole world is ranged. The hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) stood up here and with the utmost moderation pleaded for the release of the men who are interned. We from this side make an earnest appeal to the humanity of the Prime Minister. We admit that he has still a little human feeling left in him. The war has now been over for a year, and these innocent people are still sitting in the internment camps. When we listen to the speeches on the other side, we find it is nothing else than a case of Ahab coveting Naboth’s vineyard. The hon. member for Stellenbosch (Dr. Bremer) and the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux) have already pointed that out. We want to make an earnest appeal to the Prime Minister to think about these things. We believe he can see things in a broader way. If he is as far-seeing as was stated during the war, that he looks not only at South Africa, but beyond the South African horizon to the whole world, we wish that he would do that also in this case. He should also look to the position of the home-life of these men. The Prime Minister has feelings on that, and he can realise in what a position these people are when their domestic life has been broken up in this manner. Can we blame anybody for being proud of his nation? Members on the other side have stated that the Germans cannot be assimilated with Afrikaners. That is the greatest rubbish in the world. In South-West a German married a niece of mine, who is an Afrikaans girl. Can that section on the other side who have pleaded for one group point to such things as proof that they can assimilate with the Afrikaans people? We on this side have never said anything against the Jews when they really meant well for South Africa. The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) has told us how they came into this country and how they enjoyed the hospitality of the farmers. I could also paint a picture to show the hospitality they received from the Boer nation, and how the Boer nation was later trampled underfoot by the Jews.

The hon. member must come back to the vote. That matter has nothing to do with the vote.

Then I will leave it there. We ask here that the Prime Minister should soften his heart and release these people from the internment camps. It is Very unjust of him to be hard towards these people. To place a man in an internment camp purely and simply because he is a German and because he is proud of that is a disgrace. The war is over. The Russians are today more friendly to the Germans than England and America. What is going to be the result of these things? I have already said repeatedly that I cannot understand in any way the diplomacy of England and America. Why do they not look to the friendship of Germany now? They continue steadily to make Germany a greater enemy while the Russians on the other hand do their best to make friends with the Germans. Stalin is misleading them. We do not want to make enemies of these people; we want to make friends with them. Consequently we appeal to the Prime Minister. The war has been over for a year. These people cannot do any harm to South Africa, and why must they still have a rough time in the camps and not be given their liberty? If they had committed great crimes we could acquiesce in their position. But what did they do? Have our friends opposite furnished proof of anything these people have done which has had far-reaching consequences? They have shown us nothing to indicate that these people had any intention to do harm to this country; so why should they be kept in those camps? The Prime Minister knows what home life signifies, so why does he make those people suffer in that respect? I am sorry the debate has fallen to its present level. That was not the intention of the hon. member for Kuruman. In all earnestness he pleaded and implored here for mercy to be extended to these people. But when these statements are made on the other side and accusations are hurled at us that we celebrated the fall of Tobruk we must point out that this is the greatest falsehood. We never celebrated during the war. These are false accusations I take exception to. They are only said by hon. members on the other side so that they may appear as big men in the eyes of the world. We appeal to the Prime Minister. He stated that we must safeguard peace in our country. We had peace in the country and the Prime Minister must now also show that he really wants peace here. Therefore we plead to him in all earnestness to extend clemency towards these people. If there are offenders among them I shall not resent in the least him taking steps against them and treating them as offenders. But there are people in the camps who are innocent. The Ahabs who want the vineyard are responsible for these innocent people being there. We earnestly appeal to the Prime Minister to deal with this matter in all good faith.

One regrets very much, Sir, that on a vote like this so much heat should have been engendered over a perfectly innocent remark by the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge). He was pleading for a wider immigration policy of the kind I think that is desired by this side of the House of the right type of settler, and in his remarks he made reference to the fact of opposition having come from what he describes as the Little Afrikaner. That has been taken up as an attack on the Afrikaans race, and an attack on that side of the House, and it has been a peg on which to make an attack on the hon. member for Troyeville and his race and the people he has sprung from. I submit that is totally unfair and totally wrong.

Why did he say those things?

The construction put on those remarks by hon. members opposite is quite unfair and unjust, and I will go further and say this, if a non-Jewish member had made those remarks that the hon. member for Troyeville made that side of the House would not have taken up the attitude it has. I say these attacks are unworthy and unfair. I would like those hon. members to cast their minds back a very long time ago—I was not out here then—but I can remember the very bitter attacks that were made in Great Britain at the time on the people called Little Englanders, and the Little Englanders in those days were the people who were fighting for and supporting the Boer cause in this country. I would like them to remember that. It is not always the case that these people are wrong, they are not necessarily wrong. In those days those Little Englanders caused a great deal of trouble. On the other side in England were the Patriots fighting the cause of their country, the cause they thought was right. But I ask hon. members opposite to remember they had no better friends in the British Commonwealth than those people who were called Little Englanders. When a reference is made to a section in this country and they are called Little Afrikaners it is a reference to the fact that their views may be very narrow, in this case on a question of immigration, that they may not think as we do; but you are not justified on that account in making an attack of the type you have made on the hon. member on the grounds of his language, his race and his religion. I say it has happened before, and it does nothing at all to promote good feeling in this House. Let me take another remark made by the member for Piketberg (Dr. Malan) — I was not here at the time — a totally unworthy remark in regard to the hon. member for Pretoria West (Mr. Hopf).

He is a renegade and nothing else.

If you are going back into a man’s race, where he sprung from, and you make derogatory remarks because of the opinions he expresses now, and if you make derogatory remarks about the race he sprung from, I ask you to cast your minds over your own ranks and see how many of your own side of the House have sprung from English, Irish or Scots stock.

But we are proud of that.

Then what right have you to say that he should not speak against the Germans? What right have you to say because one of our members came from German stock, and is today as good a South African as anyone else in this House, that he is a renegade? Such remarks are uncalled for and I am sorry that the hon. member for Piketberg made it.

You were not even here.

Is it correct that that reference was made?

Did you hear what the member for Pretoria (West) said in fact?

He attacked his own father.

He said his father was a German and that he could not trust any German.

There were those born of British stock who also attacked their father-land in the last war. Do you mean to say that because members on this side of the House are of Afrikaans extraction and because they have views different from yours they are renegades? I say that the whole thing is totally wrong when a person cannot come into this House and say what he honestly feels. You have no right at all to impute that he is a renegade, and to impute unworthy methods to him.

Who started with that?

Never mind who started with this. I do not care, but let me point out to the hon. member that never since I have been in this House have I heard my own leader, the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister, impute such things to members. I have been in the House for seventeen years and under the very greatest provocation, when we were sitting in Opposition, when I heard attacks made on the present Prime Minister by the then Prime Minister, I never once heard the Prime Minister use language like that or make sneering reference to the country of origin of an hon. member. I say most emphatically that things like that and language like that do nothing at all to help the debate. There was nothing at all in the speech of the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) to call for the remarks and the attacks on him. On the whole the tone of this debate has been better than it has been in the past. There has been a better feeling all the time, but I earnestly appeal to our friends opposite, to get away from personal attacks on races and personalities.

Tell your own colleagues that.

Let us do something to uphold the dignity of Parliament.

The hon. member for Sunnyside (Mr. Pocock) who has just sat down took exception to the criticism we passed on the remarks that fell from the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge). Let me say that we are exceptionally sensitive when members of that race speak. I wish to refer to the observations made by the Mayor of Cape Town at the beginning of the year when he spoke about the backveld Afrikaners, and when he said that people should be sent to the platteland to teach the stupid farmers about their problems. But let that stand. Now the hon. member comes and objects to what our leader said about the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Hopf). We find no fault with anyone who is proud of his origin, but the hon. member is contemptuous of his origin. No member on this side of the House despises his origin, but that is what the hon. member did, and we find fault with that. He said he was the son of a German father and that he did not trust the Germans. Is that not a disparagement of your own people and your own race?

I have risen specially in order to say something on the question of rifles. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister replied on this matter yesterday, and the reply was very disappointing. I am sorry that members of the House like the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) have urged that rifles should not be distributed as previously. In the past also a permit was necessary for a rifle, it was not free; but now the Prime Minister says that they are giving rifles to people they consider sound. I have here a letter written on 11th January this year to the commandant of the Burger forces in Pretoria—

The writer, Mr. P. N. Wiese, is a member of the Kerkraad of Loeriesfontein, and he is a member of the Calvinia School Board. He says in his letter that his request to buy a rifle could not be complied with. It was signed by the Chief Commandant of the Burger Commandos. Last year another person approached me, one of the most well-to-do farmers in our district, also in connection with a rifle. He, too, was refused a rifle. In all the cases I know of rifles were only refused to Nationalists. I do not know of a single instance where a rifle was refused to a member of the United Party. Here you have prominent citizens of our country, people you are proud of as Afrikaners, and they are unable to obtain a rifle. The war is now over. In order to be able to farm with success these people must have rifles. It is part of their lives. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister will know that a farmer prizes his rifle next to his wife, and therefore I appeal to the Prime Minister to see to it that these people get rifles.

At 3.10 p.m. the Chairman stated that, in accordance with the Sessional Order adopted on 31st January, 1946, he would report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported progress and asked leave to sit again; House to resume in Committee on 25th March.

The House thereupon proceeded to the consideration of private members’ business.

I wish to move an amendment to Clause 6 as follows—

I propose this in the first place with the idea of stopping the penetration of Indians in European residential areas. At the moment there is no provision for that, and the whole tendency in Natal is in that spirit. The new legislation in respect of Indian representation is also on those lines. We feel therefore that South Africa is heading in that direction. The Nationalist Party represents a policy of separation and this amendment is designed to set up separation, and consequently we feel it would be well to incorporate this amendment in the Bill. Bearing in mind the large-scale penetration by Indians that is occurring today and the high birth rate amongst the Indians—for every European child three Indian children are born— there exists the danger that Durban eventually and very likely the whole of Natal will later become Asiatic, if this amendment is not inserted. We feel therefore that the Indians should be excluded from European residential areas.

I would just express the view that bearing in mind the legislation the Government has introduced in connection with Asiatic land tenure, I regard this amendment as absolutely unnecessary and superfluous and I wish to express the hope that the amendment will not be accepted.

With regard to the amendment which I moved the other day and which is before us, the hon. mover did us the courtesy of speaking and he pointed out that to make it obligatory to invest a certain percentage of the amount on deposit in mortgage would create an impossible position as far as this Department is concerned. He went on to point out that there is no condition in the Building Society’s Act which makes investing in mortgage obligatory. I think I am correct in saying this, and here I want to point out to the committee that while there is no direct clause to that effect, the approach from the Building Society angle is somewhat different. Building societies start’ off by investing in mortgages. They would like to invest very substantially in mortgages.

Not every one.

If the hon. member will listen to me for a minute, I will answer him. In this particular case the whole object appears to be to avoid having to invest any money in mortgage. The position of the building society is just this; the Building Society approaches this matter from the standpoint of investing its money in mortgages. By legislation and in order to safeguard the situation we force the Building Societies to invest a certain amount of money in gilt-edged security and to hold a certain amount in cash against a rainy day. This is regarded as being in the interests of security and stability. Building societies do have to hold a certain proportion of money invested with them in long-term capital, and being of a long-term character that money carries a very much higher rate of interest than current and fixed deposits. In consequence, the building society is obliged to earn a profit on its operations, which will enable it not only to pay the interest on current and fixed deposits, but also to pay the dividend on the long-term capital. In this way, under the Act the building societies are obliged to carry a substantial liability in this long-term capital. That again is in the interest of security and stability, and when one reviews the accounts of building societies one finds that the amount paid in dividends on this long-term capital is not far short of the interest paid on deposits. Because of that, the building society cannot help but invest as much as possible in mortgage, and the practical implications of the Building Societies Act are to force building societies to invest at least 60 per cent. of their money in mortgages. They cannot escape doing so and at the same time meet their annual expenditure. So I want to point this out to the hon. member, because I am merely moving an amendment which is designed to ensure that not less than 30 per cent. of the amount held on deposit shall be invested in mortgage. At this stage I would like to refer to what the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) said the other day. He pointed out in a speech that it was an impossible condition to impose upon this Department, the condition that it should have to invest 30 per cent. in mortgage. I could understand his argument very much better if we had talked of a very much higher percentage, but I put it to him seriously that I fail to understand his argument when one talks about an amount of 30 per cent. on deposits. This is a vital matter in this whole Bill. This is no laughing matter at all. It is vital that in this Bill there should be some obligation on the Department to invest at least a reasonable percentage of the money it receives on deposit in mortgage. In the course of the evidence led before the Select Committee this very important point was raised, and the witness for the council was asked whether the council would agree to having to invest as much as 70 per cent. in first mortgage. He pointed out that that was an impracticable suggestion, and with that I am in entire agreement. But I join issue completely when it comes to a matter of investing 30 per cent. Those of us who have opposed this measure in season and out of season have felt that the promoters of this Bill have come forward and used the plea of housing as a popular plea to get this House to pass this measure, but it is extraordinary how at every point they have resisted the obligation to put money into housing. It is most extraordinary. Let us take the first Bill that came before this House. In that Bill it was provided that not more than 25 per cent. would be invested in mortgage. Mark those words, “not more than”. It is not a question of “not less than”. It was then provided that not more than 25 per cent. would be invested in mortgage. That first Bill provided, in effect, that not less than 30 per cent. should be available for the council’s free use as so-called cheap money. We have progressed. In the 1943 committee stage of a similar Bill we fought this question to make it obligatory to invest money in mortgage, and now we find ourselves fighting the same battle. We feel that we must fight this issue in order to ensure that if this Bill does pass the House it is made obligatory on the Department to invest a certain amount of its money in mortgage.

Do you know of a more profitable investment?

No. I agree it is a profitable investment, and that adds to my amazement when I see the way in which every effort to make mortgage investments obligatory is repeatedly resisted and strenuously resisted. I cannot understand it. It comes down to this: What is a reasonable figure; what would be a reasonable percentage? I have submitted to the House in my amendment that 30 per cent. would be reasonable. I have thought it over since the matter was last before the House, and I cannot help but think that this is more than reasonable. The hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate) has moved an amendment which waters my amendment down considerably. I do not like his amendment, because he is providing that not less than 10 per cent. shall be invested in not only mortgage investments, but also in the further item of loans to depositors on the security of deposits, and I think that reduces the position to something that is absurd. I do not like his amendment at all, but I do appeal to the House, and I would appeal particularly to the mover, to consider very seriously the case I am putting before the House. Surely to ask the Department to invest not less than 30 per cent. of its deposits in housing is a request that can be described in no other language than as being completely reasonable, and in all the circumstances fair and right. If no amendment such as I have adumbrated is introduced, then we find the Department in the position, in the words of the witness who was giving evidence before the Select Committee, that there is no need for the Department to put a single penny into housing. This indicates that the whole approach to this matter is not so much from the housing angle, which I think is the angle which interests this House mostly, but the approach is from the angle of a bank. With the amendments, which have been introduced by the hon. Minister, linking this up with the Building Societies Act, the issue is no longer a bank; the primary function is one of housing, but by reason of the fact that the Department is not obliged to raise money of a long-term character on capital, by reason of the fact that it is released from that obligation, there is no reason to turn round now and to say: “We are going to release them from any obligation to invest money in housing.” [Time limit.]

I want to refer for a moment to the amendment of the hon. Minister of Finance, which reads as follows—

1. (1) The Department shall hold over and above the minimum amount of liquid assets required in terms of section twenty-three of the principal Act to be maintained against its deposits and other liabilities to the public a further amount of not less than five per cent. of such liabilities in cash, or upon deposit withdrawable on demand in a commercial bank approved of by the registrar, or with a local authority, other than the Council, which is so approved.

I want to point out that the use of those words “not less than 5 per cent. carries the implication that as much more as the Council sees fit to allocate to this purpose, may be so allocated. The meaning of the words “not less than” may be brought home by considering another phase of the use of those words. For instance, when it is stated in an Act that not less than three lashes shall be imposed for certain defalcations as a punishment, then it means that three lashes shall be imposed and as many more as the magistrate sees fit. When used in this context people would wake up to the importance of those words. And that is my objection to the use of these words in other parts of the Bill. This amendment gives the City Council of Durban a prescriptive right when they have deposited the amount of money in gilt-edged securities required by the Act—I am not quite aware what that amount is—and not less than 5 per cent. in cash, they can devote some of it to first mortgage or to loans to depositors or to the issue of a loan which has already been paid, and when we come to find out exactly how much can be allocated to a loan on first mortgage, we are confronted with the position that if the Council so desires there is no money left at all for advancing on first mortgage, none at all, and any amendment of this kind was strenuously resisted in the earlier stages. I can remember that some years ago when we first had this Bill before the House, the only reference to housing was in the preamble of the Bill. There were no clauses in the Bill dealing with housing, but there was at the end a schedule of rules which may or may not have applied to housing, but in so far as the Bill itself was concerned there was no reference to housing. The City Council of Durban wanted to put its fingers on £8,500,000, the unexpended borrowing power of Durban. That attitude has been continued throughout the succession of Bills placed before this House and placed before the Provincial Council of Natal. They have strenuously resisted any attempt to specify any amount which shall be devoted to housing and nothing but housing, and I believe that that is the attitude of mind of the City Council of Durban today. There is no specified amount which the Council is bound to devote to advances on first mortgage, and to my mind this has been the stumbling block right throughout to the passage of this Bill. I had no interest in the Bill except as a member of the Select Committee. I have no interest in any building society or anything of that sort, but I do think that in order to make this a good Bill and to justify the propositions put forward by the City Council of Durban and the sponsor of this Bill in the House before other bodies in Durban, where they made big play of the fact that this is a housing Bill, it is necessary to specify that a certain portion of the funds shall be allocated to advances on first mortgage, and it is most strange that they should strenuously resist any portion of the funds received as deposit being allocated to advances on first mortgage. That is an attitude of mind that I cannot understand. They want perfect freedom to invest it in any kind of security other than first mortgage on housing, and although we have been told that first mortgage on housing is the most remunerative direction in which the City Council can invest these funds, yet at the same time they do not want to be tied down. They want to be free to allocate these moneys to, say, loans to other municipalities, to gilt-edged Government securities, to securities of other municipalities—anything bar housing. And that is the position today. I would like the hon. member who is sponsoring this Bill to say to us candidly that it is the intention of the City Council of Durban to resist anything being placed in the Bill which will have the effect of directly allocating a certain amount of the deposits to first mortgage on houses.

I am afraid the Committee will not be convinced by the arguments advanced by the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell). I think his arguments are very contradictory. After all, as he is bound to admit, if mortgage is the most profitable investment self-interest will dictate to the City Council of Durban that as much money as possible should be invested in mortgage, and I do not see that it is necessary to have a provision in the Bill forcing them to set aside a certain amount of their deposits for investment in first mortgage. I would like the hon. member for Houghton and the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate) to reconsider their position. I do not think that they themselves are convinced by their arguments. They certainly carried no conviction, and if applications are forthcoming in sufficient numbers it stands to reason that the City Council will advance as much money as possible on first mortgage. I think we must leave it at that.

I wish to support the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Brink) in what he has moved, to the effect that it should not be permissible for the City Council of Durban to lend money to nonEuropeans for housing purposes in areas which are predominantly European areas. We know that whatever legislation there has existed in the past, non-Europeans and particularly Indians have found it possible to obtain, by some means or other, properties in areas in which they were not allowed to obtain such properties, and for that reason I think it is most essential that an amendment of this kind should be incorporated in this clause. The Minister has replied that the Government in amending legislation will make this amendment unnecessary. I would point out, however, that this proposed legislation of the Government has not yet gone through the House, and until such time as it goes through the House, this amendment is most necessary. I therefore wish to support most strongly the amendment moved by the hon. member for Christiana.

I want to say at once that I feel most deeply over this matter, and not as the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) would indicate. This matter goes far deeper into the whole proposition than I have been able to indicate in the time available, and now I want to take another aspect of the case. The other day the hon. member for Ermelo indicated that I wanted 30 per cent. of the funds of the department to be frozen. When he says that, he evidently has in mind that they will have no avenue open for investment in mortgage, otherwise how can 30 per cent. be frozen? But now he says that mortgage being the most lucrative of the investments available, selfinterest will dictate that money will be diverted to mortgage, if mortgage is available. But there is something more than that. In this issue we have this one problem that all the money being borrowed is on deposit—current and fixed. Currént deposits are repayable on demand or at very short notice. Fixed deposits subsist for a maximum of two years. But mortgage investment will exist for anything up to probably 20 years. In order to meet the expense of running the department so as to ensure the objective that the Minister is aiming to achieve in the addition to the new clause 8, that the department shall in other words stand on its feet, it is necessary for the department to earn a certain minimum of revenue, because it will have to meet the expenditure of interest on deposits and the general expenses of operating the department, in other words, the running expenses. The amount of revenue, which may be derived from gilt-edged investments, is small in relation to these requirements and a surplus can only arise by investing a sufficient proportion of the funds in avenues such as mortgage, where the rate of interest will be higher and where that higher rate of interest will produce the margin of revenue that is so necessary.

Are you speaking in favour of the Minister’s amendment?

I will deal with the Minister’s amendment. It makes it all the more imperative therefore to ensure that a certain amount of money is definitely invested in mortgage, because not only have the expenses to be met but the Minister in his new clause 8 is providing that all profit shall be put into a reserve fund. The entire annual profit after making provision for expenses shall be put into a reserve fund. Unless there is sufficient revenue to yield a surplus over expenditure there can be no profit and to follow that to its logical conclusion we have the further problem that this Bill is seeking to allow mortgage advances up to 95 per cent. It is axiomatic that the greater the percentage of the loan the greater is the risk of loss, and, if this Bill is going to safeguard the interests of the burgesses of Durban, it is necessary to ensure that there will be a substantial margin of profit to go into this reserve fund. I think I am correct in saying the Registrar of Building Societies in his memorandum made reference to the fact that if that higher margin is not allowed it is necessary to have a bigger reserve fund than otherwise would be the case. Following this through, from one step to another, it is essential, in my submission, that at least 30 per cent. should be invested in mortgages. I believe far more should really be invested in mortgages, but as I said just now I am not prepared to go to the length of saying that 70 per cent. should be invested; that I accept as unreasonable. We find there is no provision in this Bill governing the interest chargeable on loans. We have passed the clause, which deals with interest on borrowings. In reviewing this matter it is essential to look at the whole picture. There must be sufficient revenue to meet expenditure and to produce a surplus for a reserve fund to meet the possibility of depreciation of losses. Property values at present are very high and will remain so for a period, but not for all time, and with 95 per cent. advances it is inevitable that losses will be incurred, and it is essential the next few years that certain reserves should be established. It all brings me back to the argument that this reserve cannot be established unless large sums of money are put into mortgages at sufficient rates of interest to ensure there is a profit to go to the reserve fund. I feel most strongly on this matter, and I have heard no argument yet put forward to show why the department should not be compelled to invest at least 30 per cent. in mortgages. I do not know whether in the light of the discussion today the hon. mover is prepared to alter the views he held the other day, because then he indicated he could not possibly accept it. But he gave this House no tangible and justifiable reason why the amendment should not be accepted, other than to indicate there was no similar obligation on building societies. May I point out that building societies could not exist unless they invested 60 per cent. in mortgages. One of the first and fundamental objects of a financial institution is to put up reserves, to ensure sufficient profit to establish reserves; and the building societies do not invest more in gilt-edged securities than they are bound to. I would be prepared to go so far as to modify my amendment to make the percentage to be invested in mortgage increase on a progressive scale as the years go by, so that the department will have more and more in mortgages up to a minimum figure. Provision would be made that 30 per cent. of profits should be invested in mortgages over three years, with 10 per cent. in the first year and 20 per cent. in the second year. I will be glad to hear what the hon. mover of the motion has to say to such a suggestion.

I hope the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Dr. V. L. Shearer) is not suffering from lockjaw. If he is he should consult a specialist. We have had this Bill before us for six Sessions and we can never get a word of explanation from him or any reason why he opposes practical propositions put before him. The hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) advanced a very necessary suggestion, that a certain percentage of money should be invested in houses. The title of this Bill indicates two things. First of all it indicates it is an opportunity for the small man to invest his savings in the savings bank; and secondly, the money is to be used for the provision of housing. Session after Session this question is brought up, and now the hon. member for Houghton has made the suggestion that the amount allocated for mortgages for housing should be progressive from year to year, and still we have no indication from the mover why he should not agree to this suggestion. I think he owes it to this Committee to explain why he cannot accept this very practical suggestion. I have a further amendment on the Order Paper to this clause, and I now wish to propose it—

The reason I move it is it seems to me that as worded the clause goes against the whole spirit of this Bill. The Bill is supposed to be designed to help the small man, and I am all in favour of its doing so, but the wording of the Bill does not meet that. The man who wants a small amount on mortgage is the well-to-do man; because he is a well-to-do man he only needs a small amount. But the needy man wants a bigger amount. That is the reason for my suggested amendment, which I think will be in keeping with the spirit of the Bill.

I am prepared to accept the amendment moved by the hon. member for Musgrave (Mr. Acutt). The two provisions which the hon. member wishes to delete by virtue of his amendment have only been inserted in order to show the Select Committee it was the Council’s intention in regard to this question of advances on the first mortgage, or loans, to help the small man; and, as the hon. member points out, it is conceivable that this might not operate in accordance with that principle. That being so, and as the Council has indicated its policy to the Select Committee, and it is the policy of the Council to help the small man, and as the amendment does not in any way affect the principle of the Bill, I am prepared to accept it. In regard to the argument used by the hon. members for Houghton (Mr. Bell) and South Coast (Mr. Neate) that the Bill should provide for a fixed amount being invested by way of first mortgage, I indicated when the House last discussed this question I was not prepared to accept that amendment; and, quite frankly, I am not prepared to accept any amendment calculated to alter that position. The reason briefly is that I am not prepared to depart from any accepted principle that has been well tried in this country for years, and that is the principle that operates in building society banks today. It is tied up with the question of “not less than” in regard to gilt-edged stocks. Obviously the extent to which the money must be invested in mortgages and in gilt-edged-stocks is the question of supply and demand. The municipality may find on occasion — we have just had a war — that they cannot find investments on first class mortgage, and the words “not less than” gives them the opportunity to place this money in gilt-edged securities. They prepared to freeze this capital, particularly where the market may be difficult at the time. Building societies may have 70 per cent., but they have to pay dividends. The last point I want to make is even if I was to concede the principle that a fixed amount of 30 per cent. must be provided in this Bill, let us compare building societies on the one hand in regard to the extent they can invest money on first mortgage, and on the other hand a savings department. Building societies can advance money on first mortgage on houses, hotels, industries, and not only in that particular town but throughout the Union. But in this Bill the extent to which municipalities can advance money on fixed mortgage is considerably limited. It is limited to dwellings only, and not only to dwellings only but to a particular class of individual.

When this debate was adjourned I was emphasising the necessity for laying down clearly in this Bill that it must be a Housing Bill, and to achieve that the amendment moved by the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) should be accepted by the member in charge of the Bill. He makes all sorts of excuses for not accepting it. I want to tell the House the real reason for the introduction of this Bill. It is a Savings Bank Bill and has little or nothing to do with housing, and the sponsors of the Bill are not concerned with housing. From beginning to end of the Bill housing is just an appendage. I want the hon. member to take the House into his confidence and tell us the reason for the change. He told the House that had the Bill been passed we would have had 600 houses erected in Durban.

Order, order. The hon. member is digressing from the clause.

No, Mr. Chairman. I am speaking on the amendment, and I claim that the money must be used for the purpose the sponsors of the Bill allege it will be collected for. It is not a Housing Bill.

Order, order. The hon. member must come back to the clause.

I respectfully suggest I am quite in order.

The hon. member cannot discuss the principles of the Bill.

I am not discussing the principles of the Bill. I am discussing an amendment that has been moved.

The hon. member must confine himself to the clause.

I do not think there is any language in which one can say that one can make it certain that 30 per cent. of the money is utilised for housing. If you want me to talk about something else and not housing I will be guided by your ruling. I maintain I am in order in suggesting to the sponsors of the Bill we should make this a Housing Bill. When we want to make it a watertight Housing Bill I submit I am within my rights in pleading with the House to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Houghton. The hon. member for South Coast may be perfectly satisfied that only 10 per cent. of the money should be utilised for this purpose, but I am not. I want to make it quite plain that this money will be used for housing, we do not require any savings bank. The people of Durban have a hundred and one other ways to save money. There is proof that most of the money subscribed to the funds over which the building societies have control is on mortgage. I feel that we have to be very careful in municipal undertakings not to give carte blanche to a municipality to use any funds for any purpose that they think they are within their rights of doing, and when we say we want 30 per cent. of this money used for this purpose I do not think we are asking for the impossible. I do not think the hon. mover is justified in refusing it. He states he fears we shall be freezing this money. This money will be set aside and cannot be used for any other purpose because it is laid down in this Bill it must be used for housing. Why have we been discussing the Bill all these years if we do not want to emphasise we must have a Housing Bill? Once the Bill is passed there will be no question, according to the hon. mover of not putting this money on first mortgage; the difficulty will be to get sufficient money to put on first mortgage. The hon. members say that is so. There will be such an avalanche of money and people will be clamouring to put their money into this wonderful scheme. It is perfectly stupid and the hon. mover knows as well as I do how stupid it is. For him to say: We are not prepared to set aside a certain sum of money for housing because it will be frozen and the people will not be able to take it up —well, I wonder who he thinks he is talking to? On the one hand he tells us the money will be frozen and on the other hand he conveys the impression that people from all over the world will be clamouring to take up this cheap money. [Time limit.]

I move—

The Committee divided:

Ayes—40:

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bekker, H. J.

Bodenstein, H. A. S.

Bosman, J. C.

Bosman, L. P.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Cilliers, H. J.

Clark, C. W.

Connan, J. M.

Conradie, J. M.

De Kock, P. H.

Delport, G. S. P.

De Wet, P. J.

Faure, J. C.

Goldberg, A.

Haywood, J. J.

Hemming, G. K.

Henny, G. E. J.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Jackson, D.

Kentridge, M,

Latimer, A.

Maré, F. J.

Payne, A. C.

Pocock, P. V.

Robertson, R. B.

Shearer, O. L.

Shearer, V. L.

Steenkamp, L. S.

Sullivan, J. R.

Ueckermann, K.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Visser, H. J.

Wanless, A. T.

Warren, C. M.

Tellers: J. G. Carinus and G. A. Friend.

Noes—15:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Bekker, H. T. van G.

Bell, R. E.

Brink, W. D.

Christopher, R. M.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Hare, W. D.

Ludick, A. I.

Mentz, F. E.

Neate, C.

Potgieter, J. E.

Stallard, C. F.

Tothill, H. A.

Tellers: E. R. Strauss and S. J. Swanepoel.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

First amendment proposed by the Minister of Finance put and agreed to.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Neate put, and a division called.

As fewer than ten members (viz. Messrs. Acutt, Christopher and Neate) voted in favour of the amendment, the Chairman declared it negatived.

Second amendment proposed by the Minister of Finance put and agreed to.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Bell put, and a division called.

As fewer than ten members (viz. Messrs. Acutt, Bell, Christopher, Derbyshire, Capt. Hare, Messrs. Neate and Tothill) voted in favour of the amendment, the Chairman declared it negatived.

First amendment proposed by Mr. Acutt put and negatived and the second amendment proposed by Mr. Acutt and the third amendment proposed by the Minister of Finance put and agreed to.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Brink put and negatived.

Clause, as amended, put and a division called.

As fewer than ten members (viz. Messrs. Acutt, Bell, Derbyshire and Neate) voted against the Clause, the Chairman declared it agreed to.

On Clause 7,

I wish to move the amendment as printed to negative this clause. I cannot see any justification for making a charge on the rates as far as this savings bank is concerned. We in Durban have had our rates increased four times since 1939. One year the rate is increased. The next year the value of the land is increased, and the following year the value of the building is increased, and so it goes on. Now here we have another charge on the rate, and as a ratepayer and representative of ratepayers I strongly object to this further liability being put upon the rates. I cannot see any justification for it. If this concern is established in Durban, it should be able to stand on its own legs and not be a burden on the rates of the city.

I want to deal with the matter on its principles.

Then the hon. member should have done it at the second reading.

I am just interested in this particular clause. Let us suppose that Durban makes a success of this Bill. You may then find lots of other municipalities throughout the Union wishing to adopt a similar measure. I have personally seen towns grow and dwindle, particularly in the Cape Province, where towns have sprung up solely as the result of successful diamond digging, and before long they have municipalities. In this case you might have money lent on all sorts of frivolous purposes for these so-called houses, because they think the place will be flourishing, and by and by it is a flop and then you find that the unfortunate people who still remain in the town are still burdened with the extra cost of these loans. I think it would be a criminal folly for this House to allow something like this to take place. In any case in the ordinary way if municipalities embark on any semi-government scheme, surely those schemes should pay for themselves and should not fall upon the rates. We have electricity and water schemes like that, and in a well-balanced municipality these schemes pay for themselves, and do not fall back on the ratepayers. The same policy should be adopted here. If you are going to embark upon a banking scheme, it should stand on its own legs, and not fall back on anything else. For that reason I shall vote against this clause.

I think in clause 4, which we have already passed, provision is made for fixed deposits up to £10,000. At the moment there is a tremendous amount of money in the country seeking investment, and if this Bill is put on the Statute Book, one presumes there will be a lot of idle money coming in for deposit for fixed periods on which interest has to be paid. It is quite certain that in the beginning, at any rate, there is not going to be a large number of applications for loans for houses, and the consequence of that is that for a considerable time this bank will incur a loss, which loss should rightly fall upon the bank itself. But here we are legislating to make provision for such losses to be borne by the ratepayers of Durban, not because they are going to benefit by it, but simply because it affords an outlet for idle money in the country. The time may, of course, come when there will not be so much idle money, and possibly much of it may be withdrawn. It cannot be withdrawn except by drawing upon the funds of the City Council. It seems to me that it is wrong to saddle the ratepayers of Durban with any prospective losses which may be incurred by the bank. After all, the City Council has to find an outlet for the money deposited. I doubt very much whether a very large amount of it will be put out on mortgage, and, as was pointed out by some hon. members, I see no provision here for limiting the deposit. A man may come along with £10,000 obtained in the black market, and think that he can obtain 24 per cent. on it from the bank, and the poor old ratepayer has to pay that interest, and he is probably paying for the Indian who acquires property in some subterranean way. I say that it is wrong in a case like this, where the whole of the provisions of the Building Societies Act are being applied to this savings bank—I do not call it a Housing Bill after clause 6 has been passed. People will come along and put this money into the bank, and I cannot for the life of me see why the ratepayers should be saddled with the prospective losses which I foresee will be made during the first few years, at any rate, of the operations of the bank.

Before we give power under this Bill to the municipality of Durban to inflict upon the ratepayers any serious losses which may take place through this Bill, I think the House will be justified in taking into account the activities of our municipality in Durban as far as past housing schemes are concerned. I think it would be folly for the House to give powers under this Bill, knowing what had happened previously when such powers as they suggest in Durban for building were used, and when they ventured upon housing schemes; because if we can persuade the House that they have indulged in housing schemes before which have been a complete failure, I think this House will be justified in coming to the conclusion that section 7 of this Bill should be deleted. If that is so, the municipality will be justified in indulging in these housing schemes, well knowing that their ratepayers would not be called upon to meet any deficit that may take place. That being so, I would like to give the House a little information that appeared in the “Natal Mercury” on Wednesday, 13th March, 1946. This was an article about Woodlands Estate. Woodlands Estate is a housing scheme that our municipality have quite recently embarked upon. Houses are being built in Durban now under this housing scheme of the municipality. I suggest it is not necessary for a Bill of this nature to be passed, because they have the money, the facilities and the legal rights to build as many houses as they want. This scheme, the Woodlands Estate, is in operation at the moment, and one of our city councillors states the whole scheme may be a failure. This is an abstract from an article in the “Natal Mercury” of 13th March—

In view of the dissatisfaction that is taking place in Durban in connection with our present scheme there, I suggest this House should be very chary in stating that any loss sustained through the scheme should be passed on to the ratepayers. If the sponsors of the Bill have such faith in it why not let it stand on its own legs? Why make it conditional that should any failure; take place in connection with the scheme the ratepayers must shoulder the responsibility? They are not consistent in the arguments they put forward. We have been told this is money for nothing, to build houses and get them practically interest free As responsible citizens of Durban we have to safeguard the interests of the community. I ask the hon. mover to delete the clause as suggested by the hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) (Mr. Acutt). If the Bill is all that is claimed for it there will be no need for the ratepayers to shoulder this. Once this Bill is launched any sort of wild-cat scheme can be brought forward by individuals who will not be concerned about losing their own money—many have nothing to lose—and they will pass on the loss to the ratepayers. I suggest to the mover that this marvellous scheme far from showing a loss should be able to show a substantial profit. Why should the ratepayers be asked to foot the Bill for a scheme in regard to which they have had no say? I do suggest we must not take the risk of forcing on to Durban another white elephant.

I do not doubt many hon. members and many of the burgesses of Durban will agree heartily with what the hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) (Mr. Acutt) said in regard to this clause. I think it is doubtfull in principle that the security afforded to the depositors should be made a lien or mortgage on the rates, rents and revenue of the city of Durban. While I sympathise with him, I realise a fundamental principle has been introduced into this Bill, and that is the principle of eliminating from it all long-term capital which, as I mentioned earlier, building societies are required to hold. This department can only take short-term current deposits and fixed deposits. There is no long-term share capital such as we find in building societies, and that being the case it is self-evident any depositor would be extremely wary of depositing money in this department unless he got something more in the way of security than his own deposit, which would be the position in the absence of long-term share capital. It is necessary to have share capital against which the depositor has a preferent claim, or alternatively to give the depositor in place of that share capital some other form of security, and in this Bill the other security is found in this clause 7. So whilst there may be considerable objection to this clause, if it is to be deleted it will be necessary to introduce further provision to establish longterm share capital. I think this is a position one has to accept, and in all the circumstances if this department is properly run it should constitute no liability on the rates of Durban. So I think this clause should be retained, but in the clause itself there is one weakness, where it states that “the rates, rents and other revenue of the city of Durban” is to constitute the security for any liability to depositors. I think it should cover all liabilities. There will be liabilities other than those to depositors, and I cannot see why a distinction should be drawn between liabilities to depositors and general liabilities. The general liabilities are not likely to be large. They are certainly not likely to be anything like the liabilities to depositors. But I think that those to whom money is owed by this department should be in some way equally secured along with the depositors. The matter could be easily met by means of a small amendment, by deletion of the words in line 40 “to depositors”. This simple amendment would meet the case and extend the provision to other creditors, who should be equally secure. I intend to move an amendment as follows—

You probably noticed, Sir, that I nearly lost the thread of my discourse. I was referring to the fact that the whole of the provisions of the Building Societies Act are to be applied to the savings bank. We shall be discussing at a later stage an amendment or proviso which will ensure that profits shall be allocated to a special fund which can be used in no other way but to meet the losses incurred by the bank. If that is so, then we have an alternative fund which will bear the losses, a reserve fund created from profits. For that reason I see no adequate excuse for retaining this clause 7, which puts a charge on the rates, rents and other revenue of Durban to make up any losses or liabilities to the fund. The hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) proposes to omit the words “to depositors”, and then the clause will read—

It puts the onus on the ratepayers to discharge all liabilities. But deposits to the extent of £2,000,000 worth of money have to be looked to. That is quite a large amount if the project should fail. I still maintain this clause should be deleted, and I support the amendment of the hon. member for Musgrave (Mr. Acutt).

I am a little at a loss when I hear on the one hand members advancing the argument that this bank must stand on its own feet, and when I then hear the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) moving an amendment to the clause so that the liabilities that are a charge on the city shall include all liabilities, that borrowers shall also be a charge on the rates. The hon. member for Durban (Central) (Mr. Derbyshire) spoke about borrowers, but actually this clause has nothing to do with borrowers. If the hon. member had read the amendment for the next clause he would find the Minister had made specific provision. I want to say in regard to the remarks of the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate) that that proviso is only for a period of five years. I hope the House will not accept this amendment. The hon. member for Houghton is quite right when he says that as there is no share capital the main advantage from a clause like this is as a stabilising factor. What I would point out, particularly to members representing the Durban constituencies, is that this is no new principle. In all ordinances Durban puts up to the Provincial Administration asking for borrowing powers this clause is inserted that the rates, rents and revenue of the city shall be a guarantee against losses. But the extraordinary point is we have hon. members taking exception to this, and in other words pleading that the clause must not protect people who deposited the money with their own local authority, but we never hear a word when the Provincial Administration passes an ordinance guaranteeing the depositors of building societies. I would remind the House that in the depression of 1932 the Provincial Administration passed an ordinance giving the Durban Town Council, with the consent of the Administrator, the right to assist any building society. It might be argued, of course, there were exceptional circumstances in connection with the gold standard at the time and much money was leaving the town, with the result that a particular building society collapsed. I have no particular complaint about guaranteeing the depositors of building societies against loss, but what I do complain about is that members should accept that principle in respect of the depositors of building societies, but not in respect of the depositors of their own institution. In addition, in 1942, Ordinance 21 passed a re-enacting clause, and that was that the Town Council may, with the assent of the Administrator, assist any building society having their principal place of business in Natal.

It does not say “shall”, it says “may”.

It means “can”, and that being so I ask the House to reject the amendment moved by the hon. member for Musgrave (Mr. Acutt).

I am sorry the hon. mover has not referred to my amendment and it is incumbent on me to say a few more words. I think the mover has made a good case for the retention of this clause, and whilst in the case of building societies the ordinance is admittedly permissive and here it is obligatory, I think it is correct as provided in the Bill. The position is this institution has liabilities to depositors. It will have other liabilities and its assets cannot be more than its deposits less surplus of expenditure over revenue. Intrinsically it will in early years be in an insolvent state until profits overtake losses, for the reason that until then assets will be less than liabilities. If this institution borrows a certain amount of money, and in its operations spends more money than it earns, it is provided that it can draw on the Council for funds. This means a deficit, it means a balance on the wrong side.

It has to be paid back.

I am not talking about it being paid back. Until then I am merely looking to security for creditors, and this clause only secures part of the creditors, namely, the depositors. This clause does not secure any other creditors. Let us examine what the position will be five years hence. The Council will have advanced money to the department to make good its losses until it gets on to a profit-earning basis. It is under an obligation to repay those losses within four months of the end of the fifth financial year. What is the position at the end of that period if it has not made good those losses? It means that in respect of its liabilities which do not constitute deposits there is no security. In these circumstances I submit that the security offered in this clause should be extended to cover all the liabilities of the department and not merely liabilities due to depositors. The mover was obviously under some misapprehension about my amendment. In the case of the building society the share capital constitutes the security because creditors are entitled to be paid out before the shareholders are paid out, but in this case those who are not depositors have no security whatever. After a period of five years further money can be obtained, and I do not know how the liabilities, other than the liabilities of depositors, are to be met in such a case. I think this is an important issue the mover should give his attention to. If you are going to give security it must be to all the creditors, otherwise those who are not depositors are subject to prejudice until such time as this department has got well on its feet and has accumulated a reserve fund, and that may be many years ahead. Let us look at the case of the Birmingham Bank. It was started under the most favourable auspices. Its money was collected by means of stop orders on the workers, and the whole of the proceeds were invested in Victory Bonds. After that institution had been operating for a period of 3 years it was showing a loss of about £7,000 when the bank was liquidated. After that it was reconstituted in its present form, and many years elapsed before that £8,000 was repaid to the City of Birmingham. One can reasonably expect a repetition of that in this case. It is not always possible to establish an institution on a profit-earning basis in a short time. The losses in the first few years may be substantial, and I should like to ask in those circumstances what security there will be for creditors other than depositors.

The argument put forward by the member in charge of this Bill was not very convincing. When I suggested to him he should accept this amendment as this fund will be overflowing with all the money possible under his scheme, with no losses being shown, and with an enormous demand for these houses, that he should safeguard the ratepayers by agreeing to the deletion of this clause, he turns up some provincial ordinance and states the city council “may” assist building societies.

We may have another slump in a few years and we may be in the same position as we were in 1933 when we went off the gold standard and South Africa was faced with a very severe slump, and this housing department may be showing very serious losses. If that is so, there is no question of going into the merits of the undertaking. There is no possibility of bringing people to book and showing that there has been malpractices and nepotism. Now we come back to the poor old ratepayers, and I maintain that it is not just and fair and reasonable to ask this House to saddle the ratepayers with something for which they will not be responsible and in which they will have no say and to ask the local authority or the Provincial Council to come to the assistance of the building society does not meet the position at all. I take it that when this scheme is launched and when they start to build houses, these houses will have to be most attractive. They will certainly have to be very different to the scheme that I have just recently quoted, the Woodlands scheme that is being built in Durban by our City Council. People are already saying that they do not want these houses. I take it that there will be an improvement in these houses, that they will be better built, and speaking from my experience of municipalities I say that they cannot possibly compete with private enterprise, and they will probably show a loss on every house in every block of the scheme that they embarked upon, and I think that it is only right that we in this House should make some attempt to protect the ratepayers of any city to which this Bill would apply. At the moment it will only apply to Durban, but in the course of time it may be extended to other municipalities. I do not think the hon. member is treating the House seriously when he says that there is no need for this clause to be deleted. I feel that it is the only safeguard that the ratepayers will have, and as the sponsor is so sure of his facts, as he is so certain that there cannot be any losses, what objection can there possibly be to delete clause 7 and to allow this scheme to stand on its own feet? If there is to be any doubt about it, let us put each local authority in such a position that we will say to them: “If you show a loss on this housing scheme or the banking scheme or any other scheme that will be undertaken under the Bill, you must not expect the ratepayers to foot the bill; you must not expect the ratepayers to make up any losses which may be suffered”; and it would not be the first time that such losses have been suffered.

The hon. member must advance new arguments and must not continually repeat himself.

Can you find any new arguments?

I think it is only right that the hon. Minister should give us his views upon this. He certainly has the welfare of our building societies at heart, and if it is true that you can get money for nothing and loan it for less than nothing, which hon. members are endeavouring to make out is the case, surely the Minister of Finance should make some attempts to protect the present building societies. It would be most unfair indeed if the municipality is going to be allowed to trade as a building industry and come into competition with the building societies under the more favourable conditions under which they will be operating. If a building society suffers a loss, can they turn round and say to the ratepayers: “We have embarked on some extravagant venture or other; we have suffered a loss and we expect you to foot the bill.” Is it right that we should put the building society in such a position that if any loss is suffered upon any scheme they embark upon, they will be able to look to the ratepayers to make up that loss? It will be their loss. Instead of saying that it will be their loss we give them carte blanche; we say to them: “Go ahead with your scheme and we are not interested whether or not you show a loss.” There is no guarantee under this Bill. This housing scheme must be embarked upon on strict business principles. There is nothing laid down in the Bill to say that you have to have experience and only experienced people handling this large amount of money which may be as much as £2,000,000. We have heard that the people are going to get houses for nothing, that they are going to get houses more cheaply than they can get them built through the building societies. But are they going to go to any building societies? Certainly not. They are going to go to the city of Durban and ask for these houses, because it is maintained that the people will be able to get them more cheaply than the building organisations are able to build for them. That being so, I do think it is not too late for the sponsor of this Bill to say: “Well, I have the interests of the Durban ratepayers at heart. I am going to look after their interests; I am going to make certain that we do not get a lot of irresponsible people bringing forward building schemes and houses being erected which may become white elephants.” [Time limit.]

The hon. mover of the motion has discussed my amendment with me, and in its present form there appears to be some little difficulty, but in a slightly amended form he intimates his acceptance of my amendment, and I therefore desire, with the leave of the House, to withdraw the amendment I have moved and to substitute another amendment.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) proposes to withdraw his previous amendment. Is there any objection?

With the leave of the Committee, the amendment was withdrawn.

I propose to move the following amendment in its place—

Order, order. The marginal note is not subject to amendment.

I then move the amendmentin line 40, to omit “to depositors” and after “incurred” to insert “by the Department”.

The clause will then read—

The hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) has not improved the position a bit by withdrawing his former amendment and putting in this amendment, because it makes no change whatever in the meaning of the clause. At the moment the clause makes the rents and rates liable to the depositors only, but the amendment makes the rates liable for all the liabilities of the bank and the housing section and any other section, and for the life of me I cannot see why he has withdrawn the one and substituted the other amendment, because it makes absolutely no difference in the end—none whatsoever. But the hon. member in charge of the Bill made the point that in 1932 the Provincial Council made provision for municipalities assisting building societies in time of stress, and he states that that was re-enacted in the Consolidating Ordinance of 1942. May I say at this point that no actual use was made of the provision by the building societies in Durban at that time. But when we come to consider that the building societies, the rules of which are going to be applied to this bank, with the exceptions foreshadowed by the Minister of Finance, have reserve funds to meet any losses which may be incurred, this Bill is going to have a similar reserve fund to meet the losses which may be incurred after making provision for bad and doubtful debts, the depreciation of assets, gratuities and so forth, any profits are going to be put to the reserve fund to meet any losses incurred otherwise. And so far as this clause 7 is concerned, the deposits only are a charge upon the rates, and the other liabilities will be a charge upon the reserve fund, as is set forth in the amendment which the Minister will move at a later stage. But I do submit that the hon. member in charge of the Bill has not made out a case for the retention of clause 7, which makes the rates liable for deposits. We may have such a large number of deposits as to exceed the limit imposed, in these days when there is a lot of free money now seeking investment.

Those arguments have been repeatedly advanced. The hon. member must try to find hew grounds.

I am replying to the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Dr. V. L. Shearer). He justifies this clause….

Order, order. I cannot allow this endless repetition. The hon. member must confine himself to new grounds.

That is the point I wish to make and reiterate, and I leave it at that.

I want to give further reasons why I think the anticipated loss on this savings bank should not be a charge against the rates. I am surprised in the first place that the hon. member who is promoting this Bill found it necessary to insert this clause. It is a sign of weakness that he has to provide for anticipated losses of the department. But I see this situation arising. This department will come into competition with private enterprise, and, as we all know, when public concerns come into competition with private enterprise, private enterprise usually wins, and I expect the same will happen here, and when the municipal savings bank department finds itself being outwitted, shall we say, by private enterprise, they will be in a position to offer their depositors a higher rate of interest than the building societies are offering, and furthermore if they find themselves being outbid by the building societies in the matter of loans, they will be in a position to say: “We will lend money on mortgage or in other ways at a lower rate of interest than the building societies are prepared to do.” That would obviously mean a loss to this department.

Order, order. That is an argument that has been used repeatedly. The hon. member must try to find new arguments.

I have not heard this argument used in this debate. I am trying to show why the anticipated losses should not be a charge against the rates of Durban, and I think that is a very good argument to support my contention. I bow to your ruling, but I contend that I am within my rights. I say that with all due respect.

Order, order. The hon. member must not reflect upon the Chair.

Excuse me, Sir, I had no intention of doing so. The municipality of Durban is running various trading concerns, and they have a monopoly in these trading concerns. As far as the tramway department is concerned they have a monopoly and in spite of having a monopoly they run the tramways at very considerable losses. In years gone by the tramways paid handsomely.

There were no motor cars then.

But in recent years the tramways have been losing very heavily, and I feel that if this department ever comes into being there are likely to be further losses to the ratepayers of Durban; that is why I propose that this clause be deleted. I looked up the Mayor’s minute and I saw that it is shown in the 1943-’44 returns on the tramways that the loss was £43,373, and what it is today I am not in a position to say, but it only goes to show that even in a concern where they have a monopoly they cannot make it pay, and what chance has this department got when it has to compete with private enterprise? What I am afraid of is that this department will still further increase the rates. In this respect I would like to refer to the remarks that were made quite recently by the present Mayor of Durban. He was remarking on the increase in rates year by year, and he said that as things were going the rates, instead of being a minor tax on the property the rates would become a rental, and that people who have been paying instalments to the building societies for years will find that when they have eventually paid for the property the rates will be so high that they will be equivalent to a rental. Those words were used by the present Mayor of Durban who I regard as the father of this Bill, and that is a further reason why I consider that the Committee should support me for the deletion of this clause.

I move—

Division called.

As fewer than ten members (viz. Messrs. Acutt, Derbyshire, Capt. Hare and Mr. Neate) voted against the motion, the Deputy-Chairman declared it agreed to.

The amendment proposed by Mr. Bell was put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and a division was called.

As fewer than ten members (viz. Messrs. Acutt, Derbyshire, Capt. Hare and Mr. Neate) voted against the clause, the Deputy-Chairman declared it agreed to.

On new Clause 8, proposed by the Select Committee,

I beg to move the amendments which stand in my name on the Order Paper. The effect of these amendments will definitely be to separate the finances of the department from the finances of the City Council, except for the fact that provision is made for initial assistance to the department. During its initial stages such assistance is, of course, necessary, and provision is made that the council may make advances to the department in respect of the first five years of its operations, such advances, of course, to be repayable. I move the amendments as printed—

1. (2) The Department shall be liable for all expenditure incurred and liabilities undertaken in connection with the prosecution of its business in accordance with the provisions of this Act, as an entity separate from the Council, and as if it were in all respects an independent building society:
   Provided that—
   1. (i) the Council may out of its funds advance to the Department moneys sufficient to meet preliminary expenses incurred in connection with the administration of the Department and such further liabilities as may be necessarily incurred pending the profitable operation of the Department;
   2. (ii) the moneys so advanced and the interest thereon shall be a charge upon the Department and shall be repayable within a period not exceeding four months after the close of the fifth financial year of the Department, or within such extension of this period as the Minister may approve.
2. (3) The entire annual profits of the Department, after making provision for bad and doubtful debts, depreciation of assets, gratuities or other pension benefits for its officers and all such items as are usually provided for by building societies, shall be allocated to a reserve fund which shall not be drawn upon for any purpose other than to make good any losses sustained by the Department.

I do not know whether the Minister of Finance in moving these amendments has noticed an inconsistency with regard to the audit. In the Select Committee after a good deal of pressure we included the audit of the bank and of the housing section in the ordinary audit of the city council.

But that does not affect Clause 8.

It is going to. The city council suggested the amendment which appears there as Clause 8, that is to say, that the Provincial Auditor shall keep continuous audit on the accounts of the council including the accounts of the savings bank, and that was the intention of Clause 8, that it should be a part of the accounts of the council, but of course that it shall be kept separate from the accounts of the other department. May I just point out to the Minister that his amendment, the new Clause 8, to insert a new sub-section in the clause, can hardly be reconciled with the Select Committee’s Clause 8.

There is no conflict.

It is an entirely separate entity. I do not wish to reject it, but it looks to me as if you are making an unfair separation, in the one case treating it as a building society, not subject to the audit of the provincial auditor, but as something entirely separate, and regulated only by the Building Societies Act, which requires different regulations with regard to auditing. Then again there is this proviso that the Council may out of its funds advance to the department sufficient for the preliminary expenses. I do not know how that is going to square with the provision that the department shall not invest any portion of its funds in the stocks, shares, debentures, etc., of the City of Durban.

It is an advance from the Council, not to the Council.

The Council is going to advance this money to the department, but the department may not invest any portion of its funds in the debentures, bonds or stocks of the city. I have an idea that there is a slip-up somewhere which should be amended, because the one contradicts the other. I cannot formulate an amendment at the moment, but I want to bring it to the notice of the Minister to see whether he can reconcile the one with the other.

I see no difficulty whatever in respect of the two points raised by the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. Neate). As regards the second point the position is simply that we have said that the department may not invest its money in the stocks, debentures, bonds or bills of the City of Durban, but that does not prevent the City of Durban from lending money to the department. Surely there is no conflict. As regards the other point, again the position seems to be clear. It is as contemplated by the Select Committee. The department is a department of the City of Durban, and therefore its accounts are part of the accounts of the City of Durban, and are audited in the same way as the accounts of the city, but they form a separate part of those accounts. They are a separate concern of the City of Durban. The Select Committee itself said that they were to be kept separate. So if there is no inconsistency in the clause as drafted by the Select Committee, there is also no inconsistency between that clause and the amendment moved by me.

I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the provisions in clause 9 also which state that the accounts of the department shall form part of the accounts of the council. That means that they shall be audited by the provincial auditor. But clause 9 states that as soon as possible and in any case within two months after the close of the financial year of the department the council shall prepare and render to the provincial auditor a balance sheet. That means that the provincial auditor is going to render a balance sheet himself.

We are not discussing clause 9 now.

I do not know how that can be reconciled. I do not object to this, but am only suggesting that possibly there is a slight inconsistency there.

The Minister’s amendments are unquestionably of a sound character, but there are just two points I wish to raise in connection with his own amendment, and then I want to deal with a further point.

In sub-paragraph 2 there is provision that the money so advanced and the interest thereon shall be a charge on the rates of the city. I do not know whether it is not wise that some limitation should be imposed on the interest charged, to ensure that it will be at a low rate, because as it stands here there is no limit and they can charge a high rate. The second point is in the same paragraph in the second and third lines. There appears to be a little ambiguity. Is the money repayable at any time before the fourth month after the fifth year, or only after the fifth year, but not later than the fourth month of that year? I have looked at it carefully. It says—

I raise this point because there appears to be ambiguity, and if this department should operate successfully, it may be in a position to repay the money earlier, whilst in terms of this clause, it might be precluded from doing so. In strict legal parlance, the clause may be interpreted to provide that the money could be repaid earlier. I just point that out to the Minister. I come to the next subclause (3). It is advisable and essential that a reserve fund should be established. I like the provision the Minister has introduced here that any profit made by this Department shall be put into a reserve fund and shall not be used for any purpose other than to make good any losses sustained by the Department. In itself that clause is perfectly sound, but what is the position if there are no profits to go into that reserve fund? Then there would never be any reserve fund, and that is an issue of paramount importance. [Interjection.] The hon. mover says that in the case of building societies they have to set aside only 10 per cent. if they have profits, but that is not quite the position. In building societies the position is this, that the profit is arrived at by deducting from revenue the expenses of management, depreciation and the payment of interest on deposits, but before dividends are paid on shares. It is in respect of that profit that it is obligatory to set aside 10 per cent. into the reserve fund, until that reaches a certain figure. After setting aside 10 per cent. from the profits, out of the balance the society is at liberty to pay dividends to shareholders on its shares. That means that the society is obliged to earn a profit sufficient to enable 90 per cent. of the profit to meet the liability to shareholders in respect of dividends. There is an obligation, therefore, on the building society to lend money at a rate sufficiently high to earn profits accordingly, but in this particular Bill there is no obligation whatever to make any profits. What I consider to be an omission of a serious character is the fact that whilst clause 5 provides safeguards for the interest payable to depositors, the Bill is entirely silent on the question of interest to be charged on advances on loans. It seems to me necessary to insert a provision to ensure that interest charged on mortgage advances will be at such a rate that revenue will exceed expenditure, and in addition will provide a margin which will constitute a profit and be applied to the reserve fund. I think the Minister will agree with me that there is no provision whatever in this Bill to ensure that the rate of interest charged on mortgage investments will be sufficient to produce that result.

This clause is not the place to do that.

I think that a provision could very suitably be incorporated to follow the Minister’s sub-clause (3) wherein he provides for profits, or it would not matter if if were in a new clause.

It would have to be a new clause.

I have drafted an amendment which might meet the case as a new subclause (4) to follow sub-clause (3). I move as an amendment to the amendment moved by the Minister of Finance—

1. (4) The rate of interest charged upon mortgage advances shall be determined with due regard to ensuring that the annual revenue accruing to the Department shall exceed the expenditure together with an amount which shall be equal to not less than one-half of one per cent. reckoned on the total amount invested in such advances.

We do not know how much will be invested in mortgages. That is the nigger in the woodpile, but we are told that mortgage investments are the most lucrative form of investment, and in consequence it seems to me essential to provide some safeguard so that in arriving at the rate of interest to be charged, the expenses plus a margin will be covered. This question becomes the more important when one has regard to the evidence laid before the Select Committee in 1942. The Department aimed at being relieved of high rates of interest on share capital with one object of lending money at a very low rate of interest. I think we are all in agreement with this objective, but with this proviso that the low rate of interest must not be so low that the stability of the Department becomes questionable. At that stage in 1942 it was suggested that they anticipated lending money at 3½ per cent., as against the building societies lending it at 4¾ per cent. to 5 per cent. If the objective is such a low rate of interest, it may turn out as entirely inadequate to meet expenses. The hon. mover interjects to ask what that has to do with this Bill. I submit that it has everything to do with the Bill, because the Minister has introduced an amendment, which I hope the House will accept, to provide that the entire annual profits shall be devoted to the reserve fund, and I am looking to see where this reserve fund is coming from. [Time limit.]

I must say that I feel very confused over this matter, and I would ask the mover of the Bill to give us an explanation of it. Here we have a further amendment by the Minister that the department shall be liable for all expenditure incurred in connection with the prosecution of its business, and we have already passed a clause to the effect that any such loss should be a charge on rates. Why is it necessary for this clause if losses are to be thrown on rates? I feel confused, and hope that the hon. member for Durban Point (Dr. V. L. Shearer) will give an explanation as to what necessity there is for this clause.

I think clause 7 should be reconsidered. The amendment by the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) now makes the, people of Durban liable for all the losses of the Department, and here we have an amendment which provides for the losses of the Department in addition to liability to the depositors. I fear that the amendment inserted at the instance of the hon. member for Houghton in the previous clause was not intended to be accepted.

We cannot go back to the previous clause.

I suppose we could do that at a certain stage if we found that a mistake had been made.

This is not the appropriate stage.

I was pointing out that the objective seemed to be to lend money at a low rate of interest, but there is a further aspect, namely, that the money lent on mortgage will be lent for long-term periods, and here there is another deficiency in the Bill. There is no safeguarding clause that the Department should reserve the right after a certain period of time to alter the rate of interest. I submit that it is impossible to look 20 years ahead, and, if this Department starts off in a wave of enthusiasm to lend cheap money or if it finds that it has a lot of money on hand and wants to get it out, naturally the lower the rate of interest charged the quicker it will get the money out, it may saddle the fund with a liability while these mortgages are being redeemed. It is essential to safeguard the position from the outset, and it is all the more essential in view of this House having passed clause 7 where the rates and revenue of Durban are made liable for any losses. Having secured the depositors, it now becomes necessary to ensure as far as possible that there shall be no losses to be borne by the ratepayers of Durban, and that the Department stands on its own feet, as the Minister aims at in his amendment. Therefore there should be some safeguard. The rate of interest charged upon mortgage loans might be subject to the approval of the administrator or of the Minister of Finance, so that there shall be some safeguard against too low a rate and committing the Department to interminable losses whilst these investments last. I think the Minister should be sympathetic on the point.

Order, order! It does seem to me that the point which the hon. member is trying to make is to vary the terms of a contract made with the mortgagee, to vary the rate of interest. If that is so it seems to me that the proposed amendment is of a frivolous character.

I submit that I have raised that as an aspect. I will dilate on that aspect at a later stage. At this stage I am merely trying to ensure that such a rate of interest as is to be charged on mortgage investments will ensure that a stable position is maintained in future.

If the hon. member contends that the rate has to be altered at the caprice of the society from year to year, I feel that that is a frivolous suggestion, and I cannot allow him to proceed with it.

The purport of my amendment is that the rate of interest shall ensure that revenue will exceed expenditure plus a margin. I do not suggest that the rate of interest should be altered each year, but I submit that there is nothing frivolous in what I have said because there are societies who make provision in their bonds that after six years and upon six months’ notice the rate of interest may be varied. I do not say all societies do so, but some reserve to themselves this right, after a fairly lengthy period of time, but not an unduly long time, to alter rules. This is not brought in here, but it can follow later. My amendment is simple. The effect will be that expenses will be covered and at least ½ per cent. on the amount advanced will be available each year to go to reserve so that after some years the reserve will reach reasonable proportions. It is necessary to have this because of the further provision which authorises loans of 95 per cent. Something must be done to safeguard the rates and rents of Durban.

I hope the mover of this Bill will tell us what he thinks of the amendment of the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell). It was somewhat difficult to hear the argument put forward. I feel that some clarification of the Minister’s amendment will help us considerably in deciding this matter. His amendment states that the department shall be liable for all the expenditure incurred by the department as if it was in all respects an independent building society. [Reading Clause.] This is a very wide and important clause. First the Minister takes it for granted that this is going to be a profitable operation which is sure to show profits. Probably it will be just the reverse. The municipal undertakings have a monopoly and no competition; they more often than not show losses and are a liability on rates. I would like to suggest to the Minister that he limits the amount. What guarantee have we in this Bill as it is at present that all the money put into the fund is not absorbed in bringing the department into being. We give them carte blanche to use this money as they like, putting up elaborate buildings and furnishings, and possibly a large proportion of the money that was accumulated is used for bringing the department into being. We have no guarantee how many thousand pounds will be absorbed. It may be £250,000. There is nothing in the Bill to lay down that for the purpose of launching the scheme a definite amount will be provided. What is to prevent an extra charge on the votes in order to launch this very doubtful scheme? The Minister referred to “pending the profitable operation of this department”. Is it the intention of the promoters to exploit the poor working man? Are they going to charge exorbitant prices to enable them to show a profit, because profits are obviously expected from this undertaking. I would suggest to the Minister…

May I suggest to the hon. member that he confine himself to the clause and not traverse the principle of the Bill.

I am merely asking the Minister whether he will give us some clarification of the clause and how he is to limit the expenditure of ratepayers’ money in launching a scheme which has not a penny to its name. I do not know whether the promoter imagines that the money is going to fall down from Heaven. Where can it come from? It must be the ratepayers’ money that will bring this scheme into being and finance the equipment, building and staff necessary to run the fund. I suggest to the Minister he should state in this clause what he considers a reasonable amount to bring the scheme into being, and how he proposes profits will be derived from the scheme, especially as it will be in competition with concerns that have been in this business for generations.

I move—

As fewer than ten members (viz. Messrs. Acutt, Derbyshire and Neate) voted against the motion, the Deputy-Chairman declared it agreed to.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Bell put and negatived and the amendment proposed by the Minister of Finance put and agreed to.

New clause, as amended, put and a division called.

As fewer than ten members (viz. Messrs. Acutt, Bell, Derbyshire, Neate and Waring) voted against the clause, the Deputy-Chairman declared it agreed to.

On clause 9,

There appears to be an inconsistency between clause 9 and clause 10 in this respect. Clause 9 provides that the accounts be prepared and submitted to the provincial auditor, and goes on to provide they will be in such a form and containing such information as may be approved or required by him. In the following clause the accounts are to take the form laid down in the Building Societies Act. This raises the question of which form is to be adopted. I think the Minister will agree there is an inconsistency here. In these accounts there are a large number of items. There is a revenue account, a statement of assets and liabilities, and in addition a certain number of schedules are required under section 30 of the Building Societies Act. If my contention is right clause 9 requires a slight amendment in order to bring it into line with clause 10. I therefore move—

The effect will be to ensure the accounts will take the form outlined in section 30 of the Building Societies Act, and that the provincial auditor will have no right to call for any particular form as required by him.

From my point of view the amendment is not really necessary. As Minister of Finance I am merely concerned with the requirements of clause 10. If in addition to that the promoters of the Bill are willing to have the further requirement in regard to this submission of accounts to the provincial auditor, possibly in different form, that is their business. From my point of view the amendment is not necessary.

I appreciate the Minister’s explanation. The question is whether this department is going to be put to the trouble and expense of preparing two sets of accounts, one to suit the provincial auditor and the other the Minister of Finance under the Building Societies Act. It is a matter for the promoters, apparently, and I shall be glad to hear what the mover has to say on the matter as to whether he is aware of this particular condition. I am merely seeking to remove what would appear to be not a discrepancy but a complete anomaly.

I do not know whether it is common knowledge that there is a continuous audit of the accounts of the City of Durban, not only the provincial auditors, but there is a running audit all the time, and it seems to me there is a tremendous amount of work involved here, and that the two clauses are contradictory.

Question put: That the words “approved or”, proposed to be omitted stand part of the clause, and a division was called.

As fewer than ten members (viz. Mr. Acutt) voted against the question, the Deputy-Chairman declared it affirmed and the amendments dropped.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On clause 10,

Amendment proposed by the Select Committee in lines 63 and 64 put,

I have two small amendments of a verbal nature as printed on page 175, and I move accordingly. I may further draw attention to the fact as far as the second amendment is concerned the Afrikaans version is not quite correctly printed, and the word “voornoemde” should also be deleted. I move—

Amendment put and agreed to.

I have a small amendment which I think is desirable. The accounts are required to be signed by the City Treasurer and the official managing the department. I think it desirable that the chairman of the department should also sign accounts. I think it is well to fix the responsibility on one of the members of the committee, who will supervise this department, in addition to fixing responsibility in the administrative officials, and I think it desirable to include the chairman as one of those required to sign the balance sheet. I therefore move—

There is no reference in the Bill to a chairman.

The Minister says there is no reference…

The hon. member cannot speak twice in succession.

I wish to support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell). It was the custom when I was a member of the City Council of Durban for the chairman of the Finance Committee to sign all accounts that are paid. I hope the hon. member for Durban (Point) (Dr. V. L. Shearer) will accept this amendment as a safeguard to insure the bank is run on proper lines.

The Minister has passed a comment that he does not think the Bill makes provision for a chairman. In its present form it does not, but in view of an amendment the Minister has tabled—I refer to the new clause 18 covering definitions— the Minister is taking steps to make a very necessary provision with regard to adapting the present Building Societies Act to this Department, and that amendment covers the definition of a Board of Directors by a modification of the definition under the Building Societies Act. It is absolutely necessary to have some body governing the affairs of this Department, and it is common practice in municipal circles to establish committees for the purpose, and the Minister is merely making the provision here to reconcile the fact that a committee will govern this Department with the fact that under the Building Societies Act the Board of Directors is the governing body. I submit that the Board of Directors must have a chairman, and therefore it is self-evident that this Department will and must be presided over by a chairman, so that I submit that the amendment to include a chairman as one of those whose responsibility it is to sign the balance sheet and the accounts is perfectly in order.

As there seems to be a little doubt about the desirability or otherwise about the amendment moved by the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell), I hope the Minister will advise the hon. member in charge of this Bill that this is really a very small amendment that can be accepted. In viewing this amendment, one must take into consideration that certain statements have been made in connection with the Bill. It has been said that malpractices have taken place in certain municipalities. I do not say that that is so in Durban, but there have been such cases. Thank goodness, the Durban Municipality is pure. But it has been proved that there are malpractices in many municipalities, and I think this is a safeguard in the interests of any city treasurer. We will not always have our present city treasurer. We have to protect our municipal officials to the best of our ability. We have to see that they are above suspicion, and if we can help them in any little way by a little simple amendment, that will result in someone else sharing the responsibility with the city treasurer as far as the accounts are concerned, it will be a step in the right direction. This is a safeguard that will help in the administration of a fund of this kind, and we have to realise that it is not a small amount that is involved. It may be anything up to £2 million. If we throw the responsibility upon the shoulders of the city treasurer, I do not think we shall be doing something that will be in the interest of the particular incumbent of the post, whoever he may be, and I hope the Minister will be able to advise the promoter of this Bill that there is nothing in this amendment that will be to the detriment of the Bill. It is very often the small amendments which greatly improve Bills, and I do think we should consider that question. This is a very important safeguard. I am sure that if I were the city treasurer handling large sums of money) I would be only too pleased to have someone sharing the responsibility with me, so that I can never be told that I am solely responsible. I am not asking that all the committee members should sign these documents. The amendment moved by the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) merely refers to the chairman and the treasurer. If there is any difficulty in accepting this amendment, I am quite sure that it can be met by a small amendment which the Minister can move, although I do not see anything inconsistent in this amendment. Any board of directors must have a chairman, and I think it is the desire of many members that this fund should not have any more privileges than the average building society, and it will help considerably if we can keep it within the framework of building society organisations.

I would like to support the idea of having a councillor, at any rate, to sign these documents and share the responsibility with the city treasurer, but I realise the difficulty which presents itself by including the word “chairman” as this Bill does not provide for a chairman, although it is fairly certain that when the bank is established, if it is ever established, a committee will be formed and that there will be a chairman. But in order to get over the difficulty I would like to suggest that the word “councillor” be substituted for the word “chairman”. I think that would get over the difficulty. You would then have one councillor signing the documents in addition to the city treasurer. I hope the hon. member will agree to that.

I think that the request made by the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell) is a reasonable one. These councillors are divided into various committees and when the city treasurer prepares a document for the council the chairman of the Finance Committee signs the document and he takes the responsibility. From the executive point of view he is not responsible so much, but from the administrative point of view he is responsible and I feel that in this instance it is not unreasonable to suggest that the councillor who is the chairman of the committee which will undertake the administration of this work should support the treasurer’s report and the documents by appending his signature to it.

The Minister was out just now when I spoke…

I was not.

In that case he would have heard what I said, so I shall not repeat it.

I would like to say a few words in view of the remarks made by the hon. member for Houghton (Mr. Bell). He has not stipulated exactly what chairman he refers to. Who does he mean?

Obviously the chairman of the Governor-General’s Fund.

I would like to ask the hon. member for Houghton whether he would not improve his amendment by inserting the words “chairman of the Finance Committee” instead of just the word “chairman”.

Leave it to the free vote of the Finance Committee.

If he does that it will avoid any confusion that may arise in the minds of members. There are a dozen different committees and the word “chairman” may refer to any one of those committees, and I would suggest to the hon. member for Houghton that he should stipulate what chairman he would like these documents to be signed by.

I move—

Division called.

As fewer than ten members (viz. Messrs. Derbyshire and Waring) voted against the motion, the Deputy-Chairman declared it agreed to.

Mr. DERBYSHIRE called attention to the number of members present.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN having caused the division bells to be rung for two minutes and twenty-nine members including the Deputy-Chairman being found present, the Deputy-Chairman left the Chair.

House Resumed:

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN reported that on notice being taken it was found that there was no quorum.

Whereupon the House being counted, Mr. Speaker declared that a quorum was present.

House Resumed in Committee:

Amendments proposed by the Select Committee in lines 63 and 64 and amendment proposed by Mr. Bell put and negatived.

Amendment proposed by the Minister of Finance put and agreed to. Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On New Clause to follow Clause 10,

I beg to move the insertion of the new clause as printed. The first sub-clause will provide for the necessary publicity in regard to this department and the second sub-clause is taken from Clause 5, sub-clause 5, as submitted by the Select Committee. That particular sub-section is more appropriately placed here and on that account it was deleted when we were considering Clause 5. I move—

1. 11.
   1. (1) Any reports, notices or documents required by the principal Act to be submitted to members shall be—
      1. (a) submitted to the Administrator and the registrar;
      2. (b) displayed at the head office and any branches of the Department:
         Provided that the audited balance sheet of the Department shall in addition be published in at least one English and one Afrikaans daily newspaper circulating in Durban.
   2. (2) All application forms, notices, receipts and advertisements of the Department shall be in both official languages.

Agreed to.

On clause 11,

Amendments proposed by the Select Committee in lines 6 and 7 and in line 9 put and negatived.

I beg to move the amendments as printed on the Order Paper. These amendments are really consequential on the amendments previously adopted. The most important of them is the deletion of paragraphs a, b, c and d in sub-clause 2, that being necessary because those particular provisions are covered by the Building Societies Act which will now be applied to this Bill. I move—

Agreed to.

Amendment proposed by the Select Committee in lines 26 and 27, put and negatived.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On new clause to follow clause 11,

I want to move a new clause which follows clause 11, as follows—

Speaking to this, may I say that in the Select Committee the Registrar of Building Societies submitted through the Treasury a practically new Bill, but this new Bill omitted practically every reference to the Administrator, under whose control all municipal institutions exist. The upshot of that was that I moved several amendments in the Select Committee which put the Administrator in his proper place, that is to say, that his approval in every case is essential in every phase of the Department’s activities. In the application of the Building Societies Act to this Bill with the exceptions moved by the Minister of Finance the function of the Administrator has been lost sight of and it is merely to safeguard the control by the Administrator of all the phases of the Department that I moved this amendment, and it will be seen that the prime object is that there shall not be correspondence between the Registrar of Building Societies and the City Council and the Department in Durban without the cognisance and the knowledge of the Administrator. I seek to put that matter right by inserting this new clause, and I trust that the Committee will be prepared to accept it.

I would like to move—

There is a motion that the House should be prepared to report progress. We have spent quite a long time endeavouring to improve this Bill, and to make it something of which we can all be proud, and for the sponsor of the Bill now to ask for the adjournment of the debate means that at least he ought to give further consideration to it. But I appeal to the mover of the Bill to have a little more consideration for members. We have one or two amendments to move which will improve the Bill and hope that they will accept it. Our members patiently stayed here during the dinner hour to improve the Bill and I hope an opportunity will be given to them to speak as many of them are anxious to give us their opinions even at this late hour, but have been prevented from doing so due to the exuberance of the mover of the Bill. I appeal that the House shall further consider the Bill.

Question put and a division called.

As fewer than ten members (viz. Mr. Derbyshire and Dr. L. P. Bosman) voted against the motion, the Deputy-Chairman declared it agreed to.

House Resumed:

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN reported progress and asked leave to sit again; House to resume in Committee on 29th March.