I move—

I had hoped that the Minister in moving the third reading of this Bill would have given the House some indication as to his intention in connection with some of the objections that were raised to one or two of the principles contained in this Bill. One point I wish to make to the Minister is in connection with the new principle that is introduced in this Bill under which the property of a married woman immediately on the insolvency of her husband vests in the trustee and the onus is thrown on the married woman in such a case to satisfy the trustee that she had acquired the property under certain terms and conditions. That is a reversal of the general policy which has been in practice in this, country and it is a reversal which is unfair to a large proportion of the people. To a considerable extent members on the Nationalist benches by voting for that principle have overlooked the fact that it will react detrimentally to a large proportion of the agricultural population of this country. The latest statistics issued by the census department show that taking the year 1925 out of a total number of something like 1,200 insolvencies there were agricultural sequestrations to the number of 228 and sequestrations among wage-earners to the number of 359. In cases of that kind it will mean that the wives of those insolvents, if they happen to have any assets at all, will find that those assets are, immediately on the insolvency of their husbands, handed over to the trustee, and the onus of proving to the trustee that the property belongs to the wife will be thrown upon the shoulders of these small people. In many cases they will not be in a position to spend money in order to satisfy the trustee and in the long run it will mean that the creditors will benefit at the expense of the wives of these small people. I trust that the Minister will reconsider the new principle which he has introduced and consider the desirability of reverting to the practice which at present obtains in this country. There is the other point, on which I feel even more strongly, and that is Clause 69, deportation. That involves a very serious principle. The Minister made very light of the objections. We all agree with him that we do want to discourage dishonesty in this country. It is generally the big people, the company promoters, who get the benefit of the distinction that is drawn. The general principle of deportation is absolutely wrong, particularly when it is laid down that it shall take effect entirely at the discretion of the Minister himself. It is not as if it were for some serious offence, fraud or dishonesty ; but for any offence committed under the Act the Minister may deport that individual. Let us remember that every Bill that comes before this House creates criminals in South Africa. I notice that for the year 1925, 200,097 people of South Africa were convicted of statutory offences. We lay down the general principle in this Bill that anyone guilty of any offence under the Bill may be deported. Once you start with that principle you can see what the effect is going to be. The effect is going to be that a large proportion of the population of South Africa will be subject to this double penalty, the ordinary penalty, and over and above that the penalty of deportation. I submit it is a wrong principle, a principle which certainly this House should not countenance. I hope the Minister will give the House some assurance as to the extent to which he is prepared to meet the opposition to this clause. I do not think he should put his friends, the supporters of the Government, in the awkward position of having to vote against this. He should not place his Labour colleagues in the Cabinet in the awkward position of having to run away when a vote is taken. I hope he will give the House some assurance that he will meet the objections that have been raised.

If one takes a general survey of the Bill there are many points in which it is an improvement on the existing law of 1916. According to our experience in the last few years there are many improvements in the Bill now before the House. There are two principles, and against one of these I have already spoken, viz., the principle of banishment and deportation provided for in section 69. I understood that when we introduced in our legislation the principle of banishment, it was to be applied only to contraventions of a serious nature, such as high treason and murder, as is laid down in the Roman-Dutch law. Since Union we have extended the principle, which is now applied in the immigration law. If the Minister declares anyone to be a prohibited immigrant he must lay the papers on the Table of the House, so that we can go into the system of immigration as carried out by the Minister. If a man is declared a prohibited immigrant he has the right to appeal to the immigration board, but under section 69 of this Bill the Minister takes to himself absolute power without qualification. I am talking now against this principle. If a man is found guilty under any provision of the insolvency law—and there are many contraventions of this law possible apart from culpable and fraudulent insolvency—such a person can, on the order of the Minister, whatever the contravention may be, be banished from South Africa. Well, I personally am opposed to any Minister having such power. If a subject not born here, but who has been naturalized and has full rights of citizenship, contravenes the insolvency law, then the Minister, according to this clause, has the power without any right of appeal to banish him from South Africa. The individual has no right to appeal to a board or to a court of law. The Minister, in committee stage, promised to go into this question in order to see if it was not possible to specify for what offences a person could be banished under this Bill. I want to suggest that he should re-consider this clause, and that, when it is dealt with in the other House, he should state in a schedule in what cases a person will be liable to deportation. If the Minister will not do this, then he should give the individual the right to appeal to a court before he is banished. I think this is a serious encroachment on the rights of the subject. Since Union we have proceeded on these lines, but when this is done repeatedly, it becomes the duty of this House to see that the rights of the subject are protected. This clause must be so worded that there shall be more protection if the Minister makes use of his power. Then there is another principle, that is, that when two persons are married without community of property, and the one goes insolvent, the possessions of the other spouse automatically vest in the Master or in a curator. This I regard as an encroachment on the rights of property. Certain exceptions are made. One is that if the property belonged to the man or woman before marriage, then it does not go over to or become vested in the Master or the curator of the insolvent estate. There are, however, many instances in which the spouses mingle their property after marriage. When two persons marry, the one may have money and this may afterwards be put into fixed property, and this is thus property which is mingled after the marriage, and according to section 10, as it is here laid down, this property becomes changed in form, although it was the property of the solvent spouse before the marriage. What is the consequence ? The individual has to go to the Supreme Court and prove that he or she was the owner of that property. I regard this as an insult. Marriages by antenuptial contract are on the increase and are approved of by the law. And it is acknowledged by law that when two persons marry by antenuptial contract the property belongs in absolutely separate ownership to the person who brought it in. Now we depart from this and say that if a person goes insolvent, the property passes automatically to the insolvent estate, firstly to the Master, and then to the curator, and then it becomes the duty of the husband or the wife to go to the court and to prove that it is his or her own property. I must say that many of our people feel very bitter about this section. Take, e.g., the case of a widow or widower marrying again. It is the usual custom to marry by antenuptial contract in such a case, and that is the only way to protect property for the children born of the first marriage. It may be a man who possesses little whom the woman marries, and he may fall into financial difficulties. The property of the wife is automatically thrown into his estate and she has to prove to the court that it is her own. This is an insult to a great part of the population. The Minister knows that according to the insolvency law, man and wife cannot make donations the one to the other. They may only buy or sell for value. The existing insolvency law makes provision that the curator can enquire as to when husband or wife came into possession of the property, and that the property is only lawfully passed after a certain time, and then only for the first time is it protected according to law. Creditors are fairly well protected under the existing law. I do not think that in the outlying districts the circumstances are such as to call for such a drastic interference with the property of husband or wife and I hope the Minister will in the other House meet the expressions of opinion given effect to here.

We have just had a vacation of ten days, and I must say that I thought the Minister who was in charge of this Bill would have come to this House in a better frame of mind.

I have not said anything.

I do not know what he has done during the vacation, but he has not carried out his promise—he has left the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) in the same state of mind—whether he should run out or vote for or against the Bill. I propose to test the feeling of this House later on by moving that this Bill be read this day six months. Undoubtedly the two speeches to which we have just listened have gone to the root of the gravest objections which are held generally against this Bill—I am referring in particular to the clause on insolvency, or where two parties are married under ante-nuptial contract, and when one spouse becomes insolvent the estate of the other spouse vests in the Master, which is going to cause a tremendous amount of difficulty and pain in South Africa. Parties may have been married for thirty or forty years, and the property of the other spouse would follow the course laid down in this Act, and make it difficult for the solvent spouse to prove that a particular property belongs either to him or to her. The Minister takes under his wing the interests of the farmers, and I thought, seeing that last year he laid down the broad principle that whenever a farmer goes insolvent, and has kept no hooks, he is going to see that he is released ; because he does not expect farmers to keep books ; I thought he would have come forward with a clause in this Bill saying this a farmer shall not keep books. With regard to the clause which relates to deportation, perhaps it would be interesting to the Minister to know what “South Africa,” a paper published In London, states. It says—

“ May be” not “will be.”

But why does the Minister not say that only for a very serious offence he will deport ? The article proceeds—

That means that anybody born in this country who becomes insolvent can go on smiling, but the poor chap who came into this country 50 or 60 years ago, and has helped to make South Africa, and perhaps has married a South African, can be deported in case of insolvency. And the Minister can sleep calmly when he has deported this unfortunate fellow. But where is he going to deport him to ? I hope he will send him to the constituency of the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow). I need not continue. Some people have made up their minds that, regardless of anything, the power is going to be left in the Minister's hands, and I say, God help the unfortunate man who falls into the hands of the Minister. I move—

seconded.

I trust that the Government, will stand firm in regard to the clause, which deals with insolvents shielding themselves behind their wives. I fail to see that any argument has been brought forward for weakening that particular clause. It is unnatural for a wife not to help her husband financially if she has money in her own right, and vice versa. I hold it a disgrace for any man to accept credit, owing to his wife having money in her own right, and then refuse in time of insolvency to allow that money to be used by the trustees.

I think we have gone ad nauseam into this question of the property of a married man and woman vesting. We had it discussed at second reading, in select committee, and in committee of this House, and I think it was made perfectly clear that the majority of the House is in favour of these provisions. If you examine the clauses you will find that the point is that the onus is placed on the spouse of showing that the property is hers. The onus rests on the wife, who knows everything, to prove a set of facts, and if she does so, no injustice will be done. I cannot hold out any prospect of any amendment, as far as I am concerned, of that particular section, in the Senate or elsewhere. Nor am I greatly influenced by the remarks of “South Africa,” published, as it is, thousands of miles away. That paper shows an entire misapprehension of the scope of the section. The paper practically says that every person who commits an offence under this Act will be deported, and that shows that the newspaper editor never read the section, which says that on consideration of all the circumstances of a case, the Minister “may” deport; which is quite different. I have hardly ever seen the paper “South Africa” having a right view of South African affairs.

The Minister thought it good enough recently to communicate an article to the same paper under the heading “The Situation as I see it.”

“South Africa” uses the word “verneuking,” and indicates that fraudulent conduct by a son of South Africa will be allowed under this Act. Nothing of the kind. The Bill makes it clear that anybody out to defraud creditors is going to be very much more sad than before. In regard to deportation, there is no change of principle, which is that of every country in the world. Each country has to consume its own smoke. Following that principle we have the deportation clause. I promise to consider before the Bill is introduced into the Senate whether one can, to a certain extent, soften down that provision. I hope I will be able to do something to soften it down, but I am quite convinced that it will not be softened down to any great extent. I think it is an essential power to place in the hands of the State, and as long as one is certain that Government will use it in a fair way—and I do not consider that any Government would use it in an unfair manner—I do not think it is a very serious provision. At all events, it simply follows principles already laid down in South Africa. The House was entirely in support of that point of view, carrying it by a very large majority. As so many members of the Opposition are eager for the Bill to pass I will not accept the amendment.

Amendment put and negatived.

Original motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

There will, no doubt, be considerable differences of opinion as to the exact powers and functions of the Irrigation Commission, but I do not think there will be any differences of opinion on this side of the House as to the necessity for the appointment of such a commission. We are committed to the principle, because early in 1924 the then South African party Government made a lengthy statement in this House on the very point.

Why didn’t you do it before ?

Certain unforeseen events took place in the meanwhile which prevented us. We intimated that legislation was being prepared on these very lines. We favour the principle because there is obviously something radically wrong with the irrigation schemes of this country. I think one of the prime causee for their difficulties is because of the absence of an irrigation commission such as is foreshadowed in the Bill. I believe that if we had had a powerful irrigation commission we should have been able to avoid at any rate the major errors into which we have fallen; by “we” I mean the country at large. Irrigation schemes have never been thrown into the party melting pot, and I believe that every scheme without exception has been agreed to with the assent of all parts of the House. With the exception of the right hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) and the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan), who did sound a note of caution, this House has always been unanimously in favour of going ahead with these-schemes. The public is apt to think of all irrigation schemes as purely State schemes, but there are only two purely State schemes in the country—Hartebeestpoort and Olifants River— the remainder being built by loans from Government. The local public come with uncurable-optimism and draw a beautiful picture of the splendid results that will follow from an irrigation scheme ; they get the money from Parliament and the next step is that the same people come along with a most lugubrious tale of woe and ask the Government to write-off a portion of the loan. That this has been possible is due to the fact that we have no strong commission of experts able to go into these optimistic forecasts and sort out facts from hopes. The trouble has been that the Irrigation and Land Departments have worked in watertight compartments. The Irrigation Department is a department of engineers—they build most beautiful dams—but there has not been sufficient co-operation between the land settlement side and the engineering side. I am afraid the Irrigation Department has looked in the past too much to the mere engineering aspects and too little to the land settlement side. The result has been that after the dams have been built only then are enquiries started as to the adequacy of the water supply and the extent of irrigable land available and so on. We find that almost invariably the quantity of water has been overestimated while the amount of land that can be irrigated has also been overestimated, but the costs of construction have been underestimated. I stated in 1924, and it is still my opinion, that apart from the fact that we have no irrigation commission, I think one of our main difficulties is the very high cost of construction of irrigation schemes in this country, together with the sparse populations which we invariably have below these dams. I drew a parallel at the time, which I think still holds good, between the dykes of Holland and our irrigation schemes. In Holland they have to build their dykes to keep out the water, while we in South Africa have to build dams in order to keep out the drought and the desert. In Holland when they build a dyke, they debit the cost to the whole community of Holland. I said then that I believed the time had come when the public of South Africa should accept the principle that irrigation schemes are of such very far-reaching importance to the general welfare of this country that the taxpayers should bear, at any rate, a proportion of the cost of these works. I do hold that we cannot go on building these costly schemes at the present rate, and find that every one of them is in difficulties. I quoted an outstanding case, though by no means a unique one.

There is one that was not a failure.

What is that?

Kakamas.

I wish I could agree with my hon. friend. I think the hon. member, if he looks up the blue book, will find that as an irrigation scheme it has not been a financial success. Let me quote the Fish River Valley as an outstanding example, but by no means an isolated one. On that scheme the Government spent about one and a quarter millions, and there are only 127 irrigators below that dam. I am talking now of two years back, before the new system came into vogue. The result was that of about 24,000 acres of land under that scheme, 13,000 were lying derelict, with rates running day and night on that derelict land. Bankruptcy was, and I am afraid still is, facing a great many of them there. That is one case illustrative of the position into which practically every one of our irrigation schemes has fallen. I am sorry that this Bill has apparently overlooked—I hope it was merely an omission— what I consider to be one of the two chief functions of this Irrigation Commission, viz., to go into the difficulties into which the existing schemes have fallen. Something must be done if we are going to prevent these thousands of irrigators from going under. I see nothing in this Bill investing the commission with the powers and duties of investigating and going into and examining the existing irrigation schemes. I think there is about nine millions of public money invested in irrigation schemes in this country, and a good deal of that is jeopardized at the moment. I hope the Minister will accept an amendment in that direction. Then I suggested, and I think it is being carried out in the Bill, that in future no major irrigation scheme should be contemplated by the Government unless it has been favourably reported upon by this commission. I do not wish to delay the House over this Bill, seeing that we are all agreed on the necessity of a commission, but I said in opening that the difference will arise when we come to defining the functions of the commission. It seems to me that as the Bill is drafted, the commission’s powers are far too wide. A statement made on behalf of the South African party Government as to how we regarded a commission on this subject in April, 1924, is—

That was the crux of the matter. It seems to me that it is essential that this commission should be responsible to the Minister, who, in turn, is responsible to the House. As I read this Bill, the Minister proposes setting up a commission which will have almost unlimited powers, and which, as far as I can see, is nowhere made responsible to the Minister himself, or in other words, to the House. As far as I can see, the commission, as the Bill stands, will not only abolish the Director of Irrigation, but it will also abolish the Lands Department to a large extent. It seems to me that to invest a commission with powers to appoint civil servants—to appoint engineers, to appoint surveyors and a host of other officials—without any responsibility whatever, is going very far. I remember that when the Railway Board was first constituted in 1910, parliamentary action had afterwards to be invoked, because the same mistake was made then.

What about section 9? Doesn’t that give control?

No, I am afraid that does not reinstate the Minister in control, because section 4 of the present Bill invests the Irrigation Commission with the powers and functions conferred on the Director of Irrigation under the Irrigation Acts, and the Commission is also invested with the functions specifically assigned to the Irrigation Department under the Irrigation Acts. I think it would be very wrong indeed for any Government to relinquish control of its irrigation policy. I believe that irrigation is going to prove one of the most important methods in the future for increasing the production and wealth of this country. In spite of our unfortunate experiences in the past, I still have great faith in the irrigation future of this country. It would, therefore, to my mind, be extremely short-sighted if the Government of this country lost control. I think as this Bill stands, the Minister will find, once it comes into operation, that he has lost control, that he is no longer in a position to direct the irrigation policy of this country. I hope to that extent the Bill will be altered. I understand that the Minister intends to send this Bill to a select committee. These objections, I think, can be largely met in select committee. I am not optimistic enough to imagine that all our irrigation troubles will be cured by a commission of this sort, but I do think that this Bill will, at any rate, tend to minimize mistakes in the future, and to that extent we welcome it on this side of the House.

I am in favour of this Bill. I think that something of this nature has long been necessary, and I hope that this measure means the solution of the difficulties in connection with irrigation works. I agree with the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) that the powers of the Irrigation Board are too great, too unlimited, and I am glad the Minister is not going to insist on that point, and that it will be referred to select committee. The only point of difference in connection with this matter is, in my opinion, the fixing of the powers of the board. We are afraid to accord by law unlimited power to a body which is independent of Parliament. This is dangerous in connection with irrigation, upon which enormous sums of money have already been spent, and which if we make a success of it will be the salvation of South Africa. Our great difficulty, however, is to obtain water. Our soil is excellent, it is water that is lacking. I fear, however, that too much power is going to be placed in the hands of the board in connection with this important matter. Parliament and the people must keep the control in their hands. So I am glad the Minister is not remaining firm on this point. In connection with the appointment of the Irrigation Commission, I think that perhaps the most important point is the personnel of the board, and I would suggest that, if the board is appointed. We must nominate the very best persons in the country. We should have on the board a person who has had wide business experience, somebody with technical knowledge, and a practical farmer. It is of importance that the best people should be selected. Section 6, in my opinion, goes a little too far. If we read it carefully then we come to the conclusion that the board can go to a person who has the ground falling under an irrigation scheme, and say to him, “Look, we’ll pay you so much for your ground, and if you refuse to accept the price, we have the power to force you to pay your arrear rents.” That is going too far, and is wrong in principle.

That power is in the hands of the Minister.

If that is so I feel that it is going too far to give anyone the power to deprive another of his property. We must recognize that in connection with irrigation works mistakes have been made, and also that mistakes have been made by farmers falling under these irrigation schemes, and I agree with the lion, member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) that the person falling under the scheme should not be the only one to pay for the mistake, but the people as a whole should assist a little, because if irrigation becomes a success, it will not be to the advantage only of that individual, but to the advantage of the whole country. But I think that power should not be given to any single individual to hold a revolver at the head of anyone else and to say to him “You must do this or that.” What is going to be the position where such a person has surplus ground below a dam whenever anyone has a bond on that ground ? What is the position then of a person who has to pay arrear rents when a third party has a bond on his ground? The Minister says in section 6 that arrear rents shall be taken as part of arrear payments for the ground. I would like him to clear this matter up in the case where there is a bond on the ground. In my opinion this is going to render the position impracticable. On the other hand the result may also be as soon as the Rill becomes law the holder of a general bond who has a bond on this kind of ground can imagine that the Government now comes in and says it is going to buy land and will hold a, first bond. It is possible that the bondholder will become afraid and will say to the mortgagor that he must pay immediately. The result is going to be great confusion. I feel that irrigation can be a success and I am thinking, for instance of the Fish River. That may become a great success. If the Minister had been there and seen what has been done and what can still be done, he would agree But we must proceed with caution. Further, it is not clear to me what the powers of the Land Board and of the Irrigation Commission, respectively, are going to be. It appears to me that in future we are going to arrive at the position that the Land Board will be superseded by the Irrigation Commission, not at once, hut eventually. Will the Land Board disappear ? There is much that is not clear in connection with the powers of these two bodies. From time to time proclamations may be issued which the commission will have to carry out, and I notice in addition that the Governor-General can proclaim any district in which he thinks that in the future a dam or irrigation works will be built. I am afraid that that will lead to confusion, viz.: the fact that we will not know where the duties of the Land Board and of the commission, respectively, begin and end. Another important point that the commission must go into is in regard to enquiries as to what the actual working position of each irrigation works is, what mistakes have been made, why the expenses were higher than they should have been, and whether the ground has decreased or increased in value. The position to-day is such that after these schemes have been put into working order ground has decreased somewhat in value, and I mention in particular the Vlekpoort scheme, where values diminished. What are the powers going to do in connection with that place? If the commission is convinced that the expenses per morgen are too high, that the ground cannot possibly produce the rentals, that the scheme should be worked on different principles, what powers have they with reference to writing-off payments ? The Government must make a success of these schemes, and I think that in such cases the commission must have the power to recommend to the Government, or at any rate to this House, where writing-off should take place, because costs were too high. It is not necessary now to go further into this matter. I hope the select committee will bring a good Bill before the House. The country calls for solution of the irrigation problem, and it is a good plan that the commission enquire carefully into future schemes before they are carried out. If this had been done in the cast we would have had much less adversity. Technical advisers must enquire as to where the water is, whether it is good or not, how much ground there is that can be irrigated, how deep the furrows should be, etc. And all this information should be before the Department of Irrigation before a scheme can be begun.

This discussion is the best indication of the position in the past. It is strange that, notwithstanding the best intentions, faults can still be found in the several provisions of this Bill. We on has side of the House do not acknowledge that the Bill, as it stands, is sufficient. However, everyone welcomes it, because there is pressing need for it, because we want to be satisfied that the money provided for irrigation will not only be of advantage to a small section, but to the people as a whole. In the first report of the commission on irrigation finance, many things appear. I read from par. 46—

Here it is emphasized what the cause of complaint of the farming population is. At least £4,000,000 of State money has been spent on irrigation schemes, and as has been rightly said by the previous Minister of Lands (Col. D. Reitz), with the exception of two, the schemes were private schemes. 197,748 morgen of land are irrigable. When so many thousands of morgen are brought under irrigation, a large portion is rendered irrigable to the advantage of private individuals, but as a result thereof, there are still to-day 118,806 morgen unworked. The result is that State money is used to benefit a small section, and the irrigable land is used in such a manner that a large portion cannot be cultivated. If we take the figures as given us by the Minister of Lands, during this and the previous session, of the number of persons who were placed in settlements so that they could become owners of land, we see that it is not desirable that this ground should remain locked up in the hands of a limited number of owners., I do not want to advocate socialistic doctrines, but State money must be used to the best advantage of the population. Consequently we welcome this Bill, which makes provision for the appointment of a permanent commission. This change is being made because the present Government feels that the position, as it existed in the past, cannot be allowed to continue. Because a large number of irrigation schemes appear to be of no advantage, and many remain to-day in the balance, steps must be taken to remedy this state of affairs. I have much interest in a particular irrigation scheme, which was brought to the notice of the Minister, where the owners are so anxious to get out of their difficulties that they want to hand over the ground to the Government for nothing. I do not want to go into the circumstances. If there is a body which can undertake the responsibility under the Minister and Parliament, it must have the necessary experience. The members of the commission must be above all suspicion as to capability and impartiality. Another reason why I support the Bill is that I feel that the political element has come too much into the forefront, just as happens in many other State undertakings, and that the interest of the State has taken second place. For this reason we hope that the commission, of which mention has been made, when it is appointed, will be above suspicion, and that where State money is being used, the interests of the public will be furthered. I welcome this Bill, and hope it will become law, to the advantage of the whole country.

I have not much to say about this Bill, except that the whole country has been looking forward to a measure of this sort for some time, and we are glad on this side of the House that the Minister has decided to send the Bill to a select committee, as there are certain points which want putting straight. The commission should be under the Minister’s full control, and should not have too free a hand. I wish to draw the Minister's attention especially to the question of irrigation settlements, which Chapter 3 of the Irrigation Commission’s report dealt with fully. I do not see that the commission has power over the settlement of these irrigated lands. The country has got absolutely tired of spending vast sums of money on irrigation schemes and seeing little return for them. I think you can put the general failure down to anticipation of things which never happened, and land speculation. The hon. member for Hopetown (Dr. Stals) quoted some figures with regard to the amount of land which is unworked. Twelve thousand eight hundred morgen of land are in the hands of owners of less than 50 morgen, and 7,600 morgen in the hands of owners of more than 50 morgen. I am of opinion that there are very few men who have the capital, energy and ability to run successfully more than 50 morgen under their own control, I would like to see a large number of small holders under irrigation settlement, and this board endowed with power to carry through all preliminary investigations in that regard, and the training of irrigation settlers, and the provision of semi-established holdings for them, and so make a success of what we have already undertaken, before we embark on any new schemes. The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) seemed to be worried about Clause 9—about the taking over of surplus land. I do not read into it any coercive power of expropriation on the part of the Minister. I would be against a power of such sort, and, except in the last resort of the common weal such power is to be deprecated. It is merely to deal with the men who hold more land than they can honestly work, and such surplus land may be bought by the Government at a fair valuation placed upon it. If the owners are in arrears with their water rates they may surrender land in lieu of payment of such rates. There is no compulsion or expropriation in the matter. With regard to Chapter 3 of the Irrigation Commission’s report, I do wish the Minister had taken power to give the commission some authority in the matter of the actual settlement of this land, from A to Z. My view is that it is not sufficient merely to put up irrigation schemes which, in the past, have been looked upon too much only from the engineer’s point of view, and the initial blunder was that there has not been sufficient attention paid to such vital matters as thorough soil survey, situation, transport and other practical questions. The crux is that far too much land has been considered and assessed as irrigable which is not usefully irrigable at all. The “under the furrow” phrase has been the curse of irrigation in South Africa. Half the failure again is due to the misuse of the water after we have found it. There are not many expert irrigators in the country. There should be thorough training provided for prospective settlers on these irrigated lands. The lots should be partially developed and semi-established before being allotted to applicants in general. A farm should be handed over to the new owner in such condition that he could go straight ahead and make an income. The irrigationist wants to be a special type of man, and just any man who has “been farming” cannot for that reason naturally take up irrigation work, which is an extremely onerous kind of farming and of an intensive sort. A man has to stick to it right through the year to make a success of it. The irrigationist should be a specially selected man of good stamp with character and determination, and not a man who has tried this, that, or the other and has failed, and, therefore we put him on irrigation farming. The hon. member for Cradock also spoke of the personnel of the commission, and we all agree with what he said— the personnel is going to make or may the whole scheme. We have good men in the country, and we want practical as well as technical men. We would all be reassured if we knew that only those men who had made a success of their work would be put on. I am exceedingly glad to see that irrigation will get back into the hands of the right Minister—I do not mean the personal man, but the Ministry—Lands and Irrigation should never have been parted. The questions of land and irrigation are so closely interwoven, and those again interlock so intimately with the whole question of land settlement, that the Minister of Lands is the right person to deal with them.

We all know that many faults have been made in the past in connection with irrigation works, and now they are in a rotten condition. I believe the Minister means well with his Bill and that he wants to bring about a better state of affairs. Re appointed a commission which has brought in a report, and it appears that in the past mistakes were made.

This everyone acknowledges. Then the question arises as to who made these mistakes, and who wasted so much money ?

You are making political matter of it.

If the hon. member will listen a little he will see that I am not introducing politics. The person who has to farm under this scheme and make a living has no voice whatsoever under this Bill. As long as that is the case, and as long as the man who has to work under it has no voice, these schemes will always be failures. This is not a party matter, it must stand above party, but the previous Government made a party matter of it and made a curse of irrigation works. Throughout the length and breadth of the land irrigation is necessary, and the whole country is suffering under the mistakes made by the engineers. The commission that enquired into the matter had as adviser an engineer, and I never heard that Satan punishes himself or that one doctor denounces the faults of his colleague or that one engineer will point out the faults of another. They mentioned what mistakes the farmers made, but not the mistakes of the engineers. According to them the fault lies with the farmer, and in the fact that too much land was given out. The engineer receives a salary. First he takes care that he is fixed on the permanent staff, so that he cannot be discharged, and then tries to erect irrigation works. He does not care how much it costs, nor whether it is effective or not. He tries to erect a monument to himself, and it does not matter to him whether it pays or not. He draws his salary, is later removed, draws his pension, and it does not matter how much trouble he leaves behind. The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) spoke of the Fish River Valley. I know that valley as well as he does. Do hon. members know that the first schemes which were undertaken were flood schemes, and that later, on the advice of the engineers, storage dams were built, because, according to themselves, the first did not pay? It is now said that the farmers wasted the water and that too much ground was given out to them. Well, there is not sufficient water. That is the point. It is no use giving a farmer 100 morgen of ground if there is only sufficient water for 25. But this was done. Now it is said that the men who had too much ground must give up part, and that this will be written off against his rents. This is unjust. I recognize that the chief factor is water, hut I would have that the engineers must first learn what they do not know. The great scandal is that we have no engineers in this country (not a single one) who knows how much water should go on a morgen of ground. He knows how much goes on a morgen if it is in a cement dam, 3 feet thick, through which nothing can percolate, but not one, not even the Director of Irrigation, knows how much water a morgen of ground needs for sowing. I have already said this, and I repeat it. They should have learned this fifteen years ago. The first work undertaken was the Van Wyk’s Vlei dam. Only the small schemes planned by the farmers themselves were successful. Later a Humber of engineers arrived, and from this time! on the Government was to blame that they did Hot get the best men. These men knew nothing about it. Their theories were perhaps excellent, but not a single one of them could lead water. I feel obliged to speak of this to-day. In five or six years’ time many a person, who is to-day in favour of the appointment of an Irrigation Commission, will sing another tune. How is the commission going to help us ? Every year we shall receive a report about the mistakes that have been made, and it will be shown how they must be corrected. We will, however, be able to see how much further damage has been done. If the Minister wants to appoint a commission to find a solution, then I will welcome it. We know how much mischief was done by the previous Government, but to go back now, and to say that in the future more schemes will be undertaken, but under the commission, will not help at all. Besides the Director of Irrigation, we get now a companion for him, and these two will advise the Minister. A lawyer, farmer and engineer are now to advise the Minister. If there are a number of farmers, say, twenty, and they wish to have irrigation works, and they approach the Irrigation Board and approve the plans and work hand in hand, then we shall get a better state of aflairs. In case of differences the Minister can act as referee. Then the persons who have to make their bread thereby and have an interest that the work is constructed as cheaply and efficiently as possible, will have some voice in the matter. I would like to see that what in the past has been a curse should be a success and be placed on a sound basis. Now the commission will sit here in Cape Town, and if an enquiry has to be made, an engineer will be sent out. He will advise the commission, and the commission will advise the Minister. How is that going to help ? In some cases the commission itself will make enquiries for two or three days. But that will mean nothing. An engineer would require three to six months to become familiar with the conditions in certain districts. There is the Kamanassie scheme. The estimate was £360,000, and the cost is already over £100,000. The district of Oudtshoorn paid more in actions to obtain servitudes than the whole district was worth. I warn the Minister that he is going to have trouble without end. The commission means no improvement. I can understand that hon. members on the other side are in favour of the proposal. Then their mistakes will not be emphasized. All the blame is laid on the poor farmer. The engineers make the mistakes and the farmers are blamed. And this proposal is going to make no change. If irrigation works are to be a success, then the Minister must control them, and whenever irrigation works are planned, he should send engineers to make measurements, and they should go into the rainfall and ascertain how much soaks into the ground (this has never yet been done), and the people who have to hear the cost should be consulted. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) said that all the works were failures. But the small schemes in which the farmers co-operated were not failures. The people who come from the Eastern Province do not know how to lead water. There are schemes where there is enough water in the river, but the furrows cannot hold the water and cannot carry sufficient. I may now be a voice crying in the wilderness, but the day will come when the country will awaken, and the day will soon come when the man who has to bear the cost will have a say in the matter. Then only—

Are you looking for a job ?

I have never yet asked for a job, and will not ask for one. I represent my constituents and their interests. I myself gave my people promises long before I got into Parliament and before I ever thought that I would come here. If hon. members would again read Hansard for five or six years, they will find that I was right. The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) proclaims his wisdom here. Let him first learn a little about the conditions in his district. He knows nothing about the country. No, the commission is not the remedy for these complaints. It can give relief ; that I acknowledge. But the engineers must first learn how much water is needed for one morgen of ground, and how many morgen can be served by a dam, and how large the furrows must be, etc. There are in my district persons who can hardly write, but who know better than a salaried engineer how to lay out irrigation works. With their imperfect remedies, farmers have co-operated and laid out plans which were successful. The engineers work on a large scale, but the persons who have to bear the expense should be consulted. No eye is kept upon the costs of maintenance. I feel that I should make my views clear to the Minister. The position is now reached when the Minister has a scapegoat in the Irrigation Board, and the Irrigation Board in its turn can point to the Minister as the scapegoat. In five or ten years’ time the Irrigation Board now appointed will be discharged, and then they will adopt my proposal.

As representative of a constituency where there are many irrigation works, it is appropriate that I should say a few words. I welcome the Bill. I believe, as does the hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert), that the new Irrigation Commission to be appointed will not be the solution and the remedy for all the mistakes and blunders of the past. I believe, however, that the best course is to see, as far as possible, that the same blunders and wasting of money shall not be repeated. I believe that matters in connection with irrigation will never come right unless some of the farmers who have grown up in the country and have worked with water on the land are trained as engineers, and taken into the Irrigation Department, because there are one hundred and ten matters which have to be taken into consideration. The statement of the hon. member for Namaqualand technically trained persons and engineers should not serve on the Irrigation Commission, is nonsense. He will have it that there should be no engineers on the Irrigation Commission, but only persons who have a practical knowledge of ground and water. Leading water in the Oudtshoorn district is a totally different matter to being responsible for large undertakings. I grew up there and worked with water. That is good enough when one has to deal with such matters, but when a dam wall of from 50 to 100 feet high has to be built, then the knowledge of a practical man is not sufficient, and a trained engineer is necessary. One at least of the members of the commission must be an engineer. The hon. member for Namaqualand says that the man who is served by the furrow should have a say. He had this in the past, and, together with his co-owners, chose the Irrigation Commission. After the measurements had been made, they voted whether they would go in for the furrow, and then the board itself appointed an engineer to do the work. The great mistake was that the people had not the technical knowledge to control the engineer and his work. If they had, this waste would not have taken place. If we appoint an Irrigation Commission which has so little knowledge about the technical work of the engineer, then we are no further than we were before. Consequently, I say that there must be at least one engineer who has sufficient knowledge to go into the work if the irrigation scheme is adopted, in order to see whether the specifications and data are right, or nearly so. I agree that the practical farmer has knowledge of the ground, and knows better whether it will become brack if it is put under water. One of the great difficulties in this country is that where we have a splendid chance of making a dam, the ground becomes brack when the dam is built. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) knows that a portion of the ground below his splendid dam at Britstown is already brack. Fortunately, there is endless ground which can be irrigated. At Van Wyks Vlei it is the same. There must be a member with sufficient knowledge to know that the ground will not become brack, and the water in the dam poisonous, should it stand for a while. A business knowledge is also necessary for the Irrigation Commission, in order to decide whether the schemes will be payable according to the revenue and expenditure. All kinds of knowledge are necessary for the commission, and the members must certainly not be without technical knowledge, as the hon. member for Namaqualand would have. He says there must be an engineer under the Minister, and that he must act according to the instructions of the Minister. That is the position to-day, and we want to alter that. We have in the Irrigation Department trained men, but they go wrong with reference to the ground and the quantity of water. No one doubts that. I have seen all the irrigation schemes in the country, and there is less water than is reckoned, and less ground than can be used. This is a condition which we must remedy. I do not say that the appointment of the Irrigation Commission will remedy this entirely, or that the commission will avoid mistakes, but it will to a great extent prevent a repetition of the mistakes made in the past, for there will be no absence of control. I do not know whether this House knows of a dam which was commenced by the department on its own account in my constituency at Keimoes. They commenced making a dam of concrete, and no one conceived what the object and intention of it were. To-day it is incomplete and derelict. I have never discovered its secret, and if there was an object, then I say that these people were absolutely stupid to build that dam with the object in view. The Irrigation Commission must consist of persons of understanding, for a great deal of the success depends on its personnel. If the members are men of great capabilities, many things can be prevented, but this is not all. Farmers’ sons who grew up on the land and have worked with water from their youth up must be trained as engineers, and then we will have success with our irrigation schemes.

I am glad the Minister has introduced this Bill for the appointment of a permanent Irrigation Commission. It will be a means of avoiding in the future the wasting of money that has taken place in a great number of our irrigation schemes. The methods followed previously were to a large extent wrong and a disappointment, and if we want to have success in future we must adopt other methods and benefit by past experience. A lot has been said about the blunders of the engineers and the good work of the farmers. I myself, have made dams, and had success with them, riot failure; but, notwithstanding this, we hear nothing of the good work of the engineers or of the blunders of the farmers. The farmers have also made blunders and the engineers have also done good work. They have had the experience of years of work, and the Irrigation Commission can benefit by it. Blunders were unavoidable in a country like this, where the information provided was mere guesswork—information which was mostly wrong. We must not forget that there was a great desire in the country to speculate and so more than one dam was built which, otherwise, would not have been. I live in a district where many projects were planned and where there were many failures. If the farmers knew what the actual results would be in many cases, they would not have-gone on with the schemes. I will give the history of one, viz., the Bellair. When it became known that there was a scheme to build a dam wall in the Brak River, I used my personal influence to prevent it, for I thought it would fail. At first I succeeded in keeping the people off it, but when they were told that if they built the dam they could sell their property at a high price by speculating, they showed no more opposition, and so the dam was built. The original estimate was £29,600, but they were not long at it before it appeared that it could not be built at that price, and the actual cost in the end was £45,296. If we go into the cause of this high cost, we find £5,000 for a servitude of water conservation, which is just £4,500 too much. The question is, what became of it, and who got the money ? Then there is the large cost of raising the loan. I also built a dam and had success, but I did not pay any more for a loan. The measurements exceeded what was expected. If the farmers knew that this darn would cost £45,000 instead of £29,000 as estimated, they would not have agreed to build it, even though they had in mind the possible profits from speculation. What is at the root of this trouble ? I am inclined to place the blame on the engineer, although the Irrigation Board is also blame worthy. They did not know what the rainfall of the district was, and they gauged this by the rainfall of the surrounding villages, which was much higher than that of the district near the scheme—four or five times more. Eventually, the dam was complete, and still it was never full. The farmers trusted the engineers of that time, and not only there, but in other places as well, because they were held out as practical men sent by the Government, and were expected to know more than the farmers themselves. If the engineers expect success, then the ordinary farmer does the same. The Government is responsible for its officials, and should not shift the responsibility on to the farmers. I disagree with the Irrigation Commission where it asserts that if the farmers knew that, although the schemes would cost more, they nevertheless would have gone in for them. The reason that is given is that ostrich feathers were expensive, and the price of ground so high that the people would, nevertheless, have gone in for the schemes. It is stated that in the Oudtshoorn district £200 and more was paid for a morgen of ground. I am convinced that these dams would not have been built, and particularly not in the districts of Ladismith and Oudtshoorn. The majority of dams were built there after the fall in the price of ostrich feathers. Loans which were approved in the Cape Province before 1910 were not more than £100,000 per year. From April, 1913, to March, 1917, £651,000 was approved for the Cape, or an average of £163,000 per year. From April, 1917, to March, 1924, the amount was £3,019,000, or an average of £431,000 per year. Thus the great development took place after the fall in ostrich feathers. I challenge the commission to name an instance where ground was sold for £200 or more per morgen, after the fall of ostrich feathers. Let me go back so that we may see how the estimates and the actual cost compare in many cases: Bellair, original estimate £29,600 and actual cost £45,296; Prince Rivier £16,000 and £22,000; Kamanassie £360,000 and £726,000 ; Calitzdorp £65,000 and £168,054 ; Buffelsfontein £6,611 and £8,850; Buffels Vlei £15,000 and £15,000; Leeuw-Gamka £35,780 and £60,000; Stelsrivier £13,500 and £31,500; Blyderivier £6,700 and £33,802 ; Meer-Mentz £250,000 and £560,000; Welbedacht (Oudtshoorn) £3,402 and £16,032. The total estimated cost thus came to £956,191 against the actual expenditure of £2,288,131, a difference of £1,331,538. Under these different irrigation schemes, there is an irrigable surface of 197,748 morgen, of which 78,942 are under working, and 118,806 are still suitable for cultivation. Where-in the last case it is reported that the expenditure was £12,692 more than the estimate, would, however, like to say that after the estimate for the dam of stones and wire, the wall washed away, and it was decided to build one of concrete. Where the farmers thought that this would cost £4,000, and it later came to £16,000, it is no wonder they were disappointed, and that a man from the Oudtshoorn district, who had helped to build the Kamanassie dam, told me that he came to Cape Town three times in order to obtain the building of the dam, but that he now will come again at his own expense to have it destroyed, so that they can go back to their former condition. If we go into these matters, then I agree with the hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert) in ascribing a part of the failures to the engineers, though not all of it. If the condition has to, be changed, then it is one of the first duties of the Irrigation Commission to take account of the rainfall and the flow of the river before any work of importance is undertaken, and a careful register must be kept of the flow of the river for at least ten years. That does not mean that they should sit still for ten years, because there are many rivers whose condition is thoroughly known, e.g., the Gamka River, or the Buffels River, and these can be gone on with. If care is taken, one will know with what schemes to proceed. I am satisfied that if the right persons are appointed to the Irrigation Commission, there will not be so many failures as there have been.

I also think that this Bill is very important, and that the future of our country defends largely on irrigation. The people have, however, been frightened by the failures of the past, and by the fact that the taxpayers are asked to contribute to the expenses connected with these failures. This is wrong, because every irrigation scheme should pay for itself ; not the population in general. I think that the great cause of these failures must be sought in the fact that too much of party politics was mixed up with the schemes. Another great cause is that the engineers ran I up the expenses too high. I am talking as a I farmer. If I want to build a dam I will not go to the Government’s engineers, for I am afraid that I shall then become bankrupt. The dam will cost too much. I am talking in the name of the farmers, and I say that they have no faith in the engineers, and regard themselves as better qualified to think out a scheme and to carry it through in a satisfactory manner. I know of persons who to-day would have been poor whites if they had followed the advice of the engineers, as their irrigation schemes would have cost too much. They have completed the work themselves, and it was a success. With reference to the composition of the proposed Irrigation Commission, it is important that that body should enjoy the confidence of the whole of the people and of the farmers concerned. Success in the future depends on the composition of the commission, and the members must not only be persons with technical knowledge, but also have practical knowledge. Some of them must have previously built dams, so that the schemes can cover the costs, and the taxpayers shall not be asked to contribute. I know of an instance—the Vlekpoort scheme—where the farmers co-operated with the intention of building a dam, and digging the necessary furrows, and the cost was reckoned at £1,500. They called in the advice of the Government engineer, and he submitted a splendid plan costing £16,000. The furrow was consequently dug so shallow that it repeatedly chokes up, and has to be opened by the farmers each time. As a result of the high cost, the land decreased in value, and the owners said that if the Government will take it they will give it for nothing, to be relieved of the rates. I hope that when the Irrigation Commission is appointed they will enquire into the Vlekpoort scheme. It will be necessary to write off every penny. That is the price that has to be paid for mistakes in the past. So I hope that practical men with experience in the making of dams will be appointed, and that they will constitute the majority. I hope the Irrigation Commission will give the country their best services, for our future depends largely on irrigation.

I will not take up the time of the House very long, and I am perfectly sure that the Minister has been charmed by the last three speakers. I am sorry that the hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert) is not here, because I was really surprised at his speech. I was under the impression that he was one of those who were fully impressed with the essentiality of building the Olifants River dam, but when I heard him attacking the engineers and accusing them of faults committed, my mind went back to the time when the hon. member was so impressed with the good work done at Olifants River that he impressed upon certain gentlemen from Australia to visit that dam because “he thought some little new blood was necessary in the district.” To-day the hon. member devotes nearly 40 minutes to attacking the Irrigation Department and its engineers, who have no opportunity of defending themselves. The Minister and older members of this House who know anything of irrigation works which are subsidized, will recollect that it is not the engineers who are so much to blame as the farmers who came forward and protested in the direction of having these works constructed, as the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. Conradie) knows full well. Although there have been mistakes in this country, there have been mistakes in other countries as well, and I am one of those who maintain that, notwithstanding that there have been disappointments and great disappointments and mistakes, this country is far better off than if these works had never been constructed. If there is one country where water should be harnessed in the interest of the State it is South Africa. We are not like America or Australia, and we have few schemes where water can be impounded and usefully used. We are learning by experience, but the great difficulty in connection with the great majority of our schemes is that we have not the trained practical men to place upon the land and work that land when water is impounded and ready for distribution. If there is one thing more than another that the Government can do in the interests of irrigational development, in this country it will be to see that you have a certain section of trained men with a certain amount of scientific and agricultural knowledge who will go round to the various irrigation schemes and point out the proper manner in which the land should be worked and the water distributed. One can hardly listen to the tirades of the hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert) with patience when he says that there is not an engineer who can say what amount of water should be let on the land. I give that statement an unqualified denial. We have not the knowledge of the amount of water for different crops under different climatic conditions, but many farmers are making investigations, and where they make application they are getting every possible assistance from the engineers of the Irrigation Department. I am very glad to see the attitude adopted by the Minister that the question should be approached as a national question entirely dissociated from party considerations. We are doing all we possibly can to profit by our own mistakes and losses of the past and putting irrigation in the soundest and best possible condition. Almost everybody in this House, and the majority of irrigators in the country, agree so far as the establishement of such an irrigation board as is proposed is concerned. The only point is what functions should be ascribed to it. My hon. friend has made it perfectly evident that there have been differences of opinion as to its functions even amongst the Government, and no doubt that is the reason why the Irrigation Association was prevented from expressing a reasoned opinion—not from any desire on the part of the Minister to treat it with disrespect, but owing to the difficulties which he himself has expressed to the House. I think it is a very wise decision that the Bill should go to a select committee, and I hope that there will be fully thrashed out the functions that such board should perform. I hold very strongly to responsible and parliamentary government, and I do not think that the bulk of the people of this country would desire to see the powers laid down in this Bill handed over to the Irrigation Board, and absolve the Minister from his responsibility in furthering any irrigation scheme that was brought before the House, or was refused to be brought before the House. That is a question on which I feel very strongly. I should think that when the select committee investigate this question they must go carefully into the functions of the board and that board should be much in the same position as the Railway Board: that the Minister for the time being entrusted with the Irrigation Department should be the chairman of that board: that he should place upon the board a great deal of responsibility for investigating various schemes brought forward, but that when any policy was adopted the Minister alone should be responsible to this House and the country for the adoption of that policy.

That is the principle of the Bill.

I take it, in reading the Bill, that the Minister to a large extent disappears from the picture. Clauses 4 and 5 of the Irrigation Act of 1912 are repealed. Clause 4 provides for the formation of the Irrigation Department and prescribes certain functions which that department shall perform ; and Clause 5 makes provision for the appointment of a Director of Irrigation. But as the Bill is printed these clauses disappear, the Director of Irrigation disappears and the Irrigation Board becomes a body that will administer a public department, which I understand should only be administered by a Minister of the Crown, and a Minister of the Crown responsible to the House and the country should be the person who is alone responsible for that department. You should not take from the Minister—irrespective of the fact that you had an Irrigation Board— the right of being able to consult his technical officers whenever he liked, irrespective of what the Irrigation Department were doing. I maintain that it would be a great advantage if a proper board of that sort were appointed, and here I would appeal to the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Lands, in whom I hope the administration of the Act will be placed. I am satisfied that the only department that should administer irrigation is the Department of Lands, as the question is bound up especially with land settlement. In appointing that board political and party considerations, I hope, will have no place. As you are making a very serious departure, your board must be composed of the best men this country produces. It should contain an engineer of outstanding ability; a financial man of great business ability.

Why?

Because this board is going, at its very inception, to be associated with the expenditure of eight or nine millions of State money. I hope the expenditure will be increased, because I believe you are not at the end of successful irrigation. And you should have a scientific, practical agriculturist who would be able to go into the agricultural problem. Then any scheme submitted could be investigated from the engineering, financial and agricultural points of view, and, I believe, with a board of that sort, of which the Minister will be chairman, you will eliminate many of the failures that we have had in the past. It is not fair to saddle the engineers with the failure of many of our schemes. Men have stood at the doors of the Government and the Irrigation Department and when told that the rates would be £3 or £4 a morgen, have stated that they did not care whether they were £10 a morgen, as they knew what they could get out of the land.

That is the usual story.

And yet the hon. member for Namaqualand (Mr. Mostert) comes here and says it is not the case. I would like to know what representations he made when the Olifants River dam was constructed. I am sure he would have been strongly in favour of that scheme, otherwise he would not have been so anxious for others to come down and see what the scheme would bring forth. I am sure he was then a supporter of the scheme, and now to come and blame the engineers and take away all blame from those who asked for this scheme, is not fair. I had charge of the Irrigation Department for a couple of years, and the difficulty I had was to resist the requests for the construction of new works, and when I said I was not prepared to ask Parliament to vote money for a single major work until the works already authorized by Parliament were brought to completion, many people thought I was pessimistic. I mention that to show that it is not always the engineer but very often the people who own the ground who come forward and propose these works, and they forget that it is impossible to make a work successful, even with sufficient water, if you have not sufficient people to till the ground intensively. Therefore I think one of the most important things that this Irrigation Board should enquire into, when it is appointed, is the position of these various schemes in which the Government has advanced a great deal of money, not only to see whether it would be fair to reduce charges, but to see if some scheme cannot be evolved whereby you would take from the individual a certain amount of the scheduled land under the irrigation proposition and thereby relieve him of the water rates for which he would otherwise be charged.

That is Clause 6.

That is one of the wisest things you can do. The idea of all irrigation works is to increase the production of this country, and to make homes on the land, and even if the State is the loser in its full interest charges, so long as the land is worked and developed and the extra produce is forthcoming, not alone the individual but the State will be the reaper of great benefits in the end. Under these circumstances, I do hope and believe that my hon. friend will allow that select committee as much latitude as possible, to go into the whole question as to what the functions of the board should be, and I hope he will see the advisability, no matter what Government is in power, of retaining the irrigation policy in this country and irrigation development, in the hands of the Minister and the Government for the time being, and not placing it, as I believe this Bill would do, in the hands of a board dissociated from Parliament, as this board must be, because I believe that might be a step in the wrong direction and one that would be very difficult to retract later on. The board and the Land Department must work in harmony; it is essential that the responsibility for the policy must rest on the Government if you are going to make a serious departure of this character which, I believe, is in the general interests of irrigation development.

I want to give the House the assurance that there is no intention to take the control and responsibility for irrigation works out of the hands of Parliament and the Minister. If the phraseology in this respect is not clear, I hope it will be made clear in select committee. The committee will also have to consider what powers must be given to the Irrigation Commission. I do not agree with the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) when he says that the duties of the commission should only consist of the drawing up of a report when irrigation works fall into difficulties. That is not sufficient. The commission must certainly make enquiries when works give trouble, and give the best advice to make provision for such cases. We do not want to circumscribe it too much. If we wish to do this, we would arrive at this position of having to help all irrigation works with large sums of money. But under section 7 (2) the powers are defined, and if the commission recommends that something has to be written off one or the other system, then the Government will naturally have to come to this House and obtain its consent. I agree with the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt) that the responsibility must remain with the Minister. The commission must send its recommendations to the Government and to the Minister, and the Minister, as chairman, will be in a strong position, otherwise he will possibly be influenced by the advice of the commission. The idea is not, however, to take away the responsibility of the Minister and to allow the commission to act on its own and not bring in a report, as the Government in such a case will not have the final decision in its own hands. I think that the select committee can go into this point. I am also not in agreement with the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) that the Department of Lands will be deprived of many of its duties, and will in large measure be abolished. If one goes through the various sub-sections of section 1, it is clear that the department will actually retain the same powers as it has to-day. There is not the least intention of taking away the functions of the Minister of Lands and of the existing Land Boards, and of substituting the commission for the Land Boards. As to proclaimed lands, the functions of the Land Boards will be the same as they are to-day. I do not share the objections of the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. C. van Heerden) in connection with section 6, which he regards as amounting to an ultimatum on anyone who possesses land to decide whether he will hand it over to the Government or pay the charges thereon. Naturally, he must pay. That is his duty, and it remains his duty. Nor can he go away and say he will not pay. We merely give authority to the commission to recommend that portions of certain ground can be taken over by the Government, and if persons are unwilling, then they must naturally pay their debts. A chance will be given him, but he must naturally pay.

He has no say in the matter.

Just as much as any man who owes money. Naturally, his freedom is somewhat reduced because he must pay his debt, but the hon. member does not want to give him the third choice of being able to say he will not pay. He, however, is placed in a position of being able to sell.

What is the position in the case of anyone who has a bond on his ground ?

When he decides to surrender his ground for me charges due by him, he must make his own arrangements with the bondholder. This is unfortunately the only chance that he has. It may happen that the commission will recommend that a larger portion of the ground will be taken over, and that the Government will also pay off the bond, and take more ground, but in any case we take up the position that if a man owes money, then he is in difficulties, and the only thing that can be done is to reduce his difficulties as far as possible. I think the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Struben) was right when he said that a part of the idea is to give the commission power to make recommendations in cases of settlements. To-day all the dry lands fall under the Department of Lands, and it will possibly be desirable to bring irrigable lands under the same department, because to-day they fall under their own department, the Irrigation Department, but there is no intention to refuse the commission an opportunity to make recommendations in cases of settlements. The matter is closely connected with the department which is concerned with irrigation, and settlements fall to-day exclusively under the Minister of Lands, and the Irrigation Department should eventually fall under the Department of Lands. Now, however, there is a separate Department of Irrigation. Certain points were made in connection with engineers. From the speeches that have been made, one would conclude that the farmers have no confidence in the engineers. The ordinary paid requests for advice from the Department amount to about £365 per year, and in previous years the number was about the same. So the people have the same confidence in the engineers as in the past. It speaks for itself that the engineers have more experience now than before. It is no new matter now. Engineers work with schemes on a large scale. A few farmers may co-operate to carry out a small scheme. I think that hon. members who have pleaded that large schemes should be carried out in the same way that small ones are by the farmers lose sight of this fact. I do not want to go into particular cases, but in many instances estimates by the engineers are upset by circumstances wholly beyond their control. Estimates were made, and the war and other circumstances upset these, because the price of material, etc., had gone up. If we bear this in mind, we find when we go into matters that the percentage of mistakes for which enginers can be blamed is much smaller than appears at first sight. Engineers cannot be held responsible for the fact that they have not reckoned how much water the different kinds of ground need. This is not their work. People have come and said they want water for one or other scheme. The engineer can say how much water can be collected, but he is not there to say how much water is necessary for peat land, clay soil or gravel soil. The Irrigation Commission will not act only on their own ideas, but will have to call in the assistance of the Department of Agriculture and other departments in certain cases. Further objections and difficulties can, I think, be properly dealt with by a select committee.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and referred to select committee for consideration and report ; committee to have power to take evidence and call for papers.

When the House was last considering this Bill I pointed out that the previous Bill, of which this is the successor, was a very different one from this, and I expressed my acknowledgment to the Minister for having so handsomely met the serious objections raised to the Bill in its old form. I think everybody will agree that provision should be made for reciprocity in the matter of naturalization throughout the Empire. Under the old Bill the position of those who were already naturalized was not clearly shown. That has been put right in the new Bill. The status of those who are naturalized is clearly recognized in the Bill now before us. Then, under the law of 1910. Where a person’s naturalization certificate was revoked, it was limited to cases of false information or false statements in connection with the application, etc., and then only after conviction. Under the Bill, as presented to us last year, the Minister was left in the position of an omnipotent autocrat with power to cancel naturalization certificates as he pleased. I think the Minister, as a person who has democratic ideas, quite rightly did not want to be left in the position of an omnipotent autocrat. Under this Bill it will be impossible for a man to have his certificate taken away, except after conviction or inquiry. Provision is made that these certificates can be taken away in cases where a crime is alleged against a man, but in that case it is done only after he has been properly convicted of such crime, and also in other cases where he can demand an enquiry, and the Minister has very properly made provision that a man may appear at such an inquiry himself, or be legally represented, so that there are new safe-guards put in, protecting any person against injustice being done in the matter of revocation. There is also a provision which caused me a certain amount of misgiving in the old Bill. That is now amended so, as at any rate, to make it more acceptable. There was provision in the old Bill by which a person could give secret information to the Minister about anybody applying for naturalization, and there was no provision by which a man was entitled to get a copy of the information without the consent of the informer, except for the purpose of a prosecution. That would have left this serious injustice, that a man might find that all sorts of secret allegations had been made against him and he had no chance of meeting them, or making the person who made these allegations responsible before a court of law. That clause has now been amended by the Minister. Taking the Bill as a whole, I think that those who want to see reciprocity in the matter of naturalization throughout the Empire, those who want to see proper safeguards enforced against undesirable people being naturalized, and those who want to see that no man should have his certificate cancelled, except on good cause properly proved, will recognize that, as far as it is possible, this Bill meets the various objections which have been raised, and puts the matter in a better and fairer light than it was in the old Bill. There are a few other matters in this Bill to which I should like to refer. One is the status of the married woman. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) rather indicated that he thought nothing could be done in that regard. I think hon. members will find that women are to-day all over the world objecting to being treated merely as the appendage of man. They want their own status and individuality recognized. In regard to the question of nationality, the laws were made when women had no say in the affairs of the world. The time has now come when women object to these shackles being placed on them. Some of those shackles remain in this Bill. The Minister makes provision here that he may grant a certificate to married women in certain oases, so that the Minister in certain circumstances does recognize that the wife may have a different nationality from her husband. That is a sign of grace, and that principle should be extended. I realize this is a matter which would be difficult to alter in this particular Bill, because most of us are still in a state of mind that is prehistoric, as far as women are concerned. There is a provision with regard to what one might call an educational test of naturalization. I am in favour of an educational test, but you ought to lay down what that test is. The Minister lays down that a man must have an adequate knowledge of either of the official languages of the Union. I ask him what does—

mean? There is no definition of what “adequate knowledge” is. It may mean anything. It is very bad for Parliament to encourage the passing of any legislation leaving in indefinite words like this, which may mean one thing to one man and another to another: one thing to one Government and another thing to another Government. The expense of naturalization will be somewhat added to, because publication will have to take place, not only in the “Gazette,” but also in one English and one Dutch newspaper. Still, I do not object to that. The fees are now laid down as to be fixed by regulation. We know that in the old law of 1910 the fee was fixed at half-a-crown. The law in 1921 was altered, and it was left to the Government to fix the fee by regulation. It remains very much higher than in 1910. I do not find fault with the fact that it is fixed by regulation, because if you fix it by act of Parliament, it will be very much more difficult to alter. As far as one can give in opinion upon this new Bill, the Minister has done almost everything that is possible fairly to meet the criticisms that have been directed against this Bill ; and I hope it will have an easy passage through the House.

I am grateful for the reception of this Bill on all sides of the House. The member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) has said that certain concessions were made in comparison with the first Bill. I am glad I was in a position to make them. I have noticed that in certain respects the much power is given to the Minister, particularly in connection with the cancellation of naturalization papers when once they have been written out. This point is contained in part (2) of the English Act, which is the basis of reciprocity between the different parts of the British Empire. I feel that, unless there are good grounds, I can make no alteration in the foundation of the Bill without the consent of the other parts of the British Empire. After taking the advice of the lawyers, it has been made clear to me that, under Part 2 of the English Act, it is possible to limit the power of the Minister. There is no single provision which prevents one or other part of the British Empire limiting the power of its Minister So I have made this alteration. The status of a married woman has been discussed. I am glad to see that no objection has been made to the Bill on this ground. I belong to the old school, which holds that the wife follows the nationality of her husband, but I have no objection to the provisions in this Bill. The hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) discussed the provision dealing with the knowledge of one of the two official languages by an applicant for naturalization. His difficulty is to make out what is understood as being sufficient knowledge of one of the two official languages. He complains about the absence of a test. If it is difficult to say what is sufficient, then it is still more difficult to say what is insufficient. There is, e.g., a provision in our law, which is more or less the same, viz., in section 4 (b) of the immigration law. In such circumstances it is not necessary to provide for the making of higher demands. It is the custom to leave that to the officials. The provision is necessary, and we cannot do better than make a provision of the same nature as exists in the Immigration Act. If the hon. member can suggest anything else in the form of a test, we will adopt it.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time ; House to go into-committee on the Bill on 14th April.

I move—

This Bill has had a very long and chequered history in Parliament. The need of such a consolidating law has been felt for a very long time, and I think I can say that the history of this particular Bill, of which we hope to take the second reading, really began when Union began. In any case, the need of an Act of this nature was felt even before Union, and it was felt that though South Africa was not united and had different states as far as medical practice was concerned, it was very desirable that we should have as much uniformity as possible. Immediately after Union conferences were held—first at Johannesburg and afterwards at Bloemfontein—where representatives of the four medical councils of the Union and the pharmacy boards met and discussed the question of the consolidation of the medical laws of the country, and actually drafted a Bill which was the basis of the present Bill. Unfortunately, since 1910, nothing was done until 1917. The hands of the Government and Parliament, I suppose, were too full of other consolidating measures. In 1917 the initiative was taken by the other House, and a Bill, which was substantially the same as the one I have introduced, was introduced in the Senate, passed the second reading, was referred to a select committee, and passed the third reading in that House. Unfortunately, It was not proceeded with in this House during that year. During a period of eight years this Bill was introduced and reintroduced in this House. In 1923 the Bill actually passed its second reading in this House, and after that was referred to a select committee. During that year the Bill was not taken any further, and in 1924, when it was taken from that stage further, it was again referred to a select committee, more particularly in connection with one clause, on which there was much difference of opinion in the House. I think I may say, under the circumstances, that there was no Bill ever introduced into this House which was so well and keenly scrutinized on all sides as this particular Bill. It was actually considered by no fewer than three select committees—one in the other House, and two of this House; in addition to that, the Bill was referred for their observation to all four medical councils of the Union and the pharmacy boards, and also to the medical faculties of the University of Cape Town and of the Witwatersrand. We may take it that this Bill is really the fruit of the consultation, and represents, we may say, the agreed opinion of all the professions and callings with which this Bill professes to deal This Bill is the logical result of the Act of Union. Medical practice has inherently nothing to do with local and provincial circumstances, and therefore, with regard to these matters, there ought to be uniformity between the various provinces of the Union. As if is, there are no fewer than sixteen laws which are repealed by this measure, and which are in force now, and have to do with the various professions and callings with which the Bill deals. It is quite true that in 1917 an emergency Act was passed which, in a certain measure, removed certain of the barriers which existed between one province and the other. During that year that emergency Act was passed, and it became lawful even for those medical practitioners registered in one province to practise also in other provinces of the Union. At the same time, the emergency Act dealt with the study overseas on the part of South African students. It was felt at the time that South African students who went to study overseas at other universities ought to be free to receive their medical training at whatever university they selected—which was provided for in that Act. Notwithstanding that Act, there are still certain barriers with regard to practice between the different provinces ; that is particularly the case in connection with chemists and druggists. A chemist registered in the Transvaal or Free State, if he settles in the Cape Province, must be registered here again. There is no reciprocity between one province and another. We must not forget, too, that since Union quite a new position has arisen in South Africa in regard to medical training. In 1916 our universities were established, and in connection with two of them we have medical faculties. In South Africa to day we are training our own students, and it stands to reason that any Act dealing with the medical profession must take account of the existence of these universities, and must lay down the conditions of admission of medical students and their requirements, so far as practice is concerned, when they leave the university. In our existing laws—the sixteen laws in force at the present day—no provision of that nature is made. Then the Bill also deals with two matters of very practical and vital importance. One is in connection with the sale of poisons. It has been said, and I think with justice, that there is no country in the world world where it is so easy for any person to get into possession of poison as in South Africa, and where, as a consequence, it is so difficult to trace the origin of crime. The Bill has a chapter dealing with the sale of poisons. The other point of vital importance is in connection with the importation and sale, and the use of, habit-forming drugs. Not only has it become a necessity to deal with this matter in South Africa effectively, but we have also in connection with it an international obligation. We must not forget that we are signatories of the Versailles peace treaty, and that in that treaty we undertook, along with the other signatories, to brings into operation, to enact, the recommendations of the opium conference of 1912. We undertook to do it within twelve months after the signing of the peace treaty. We have dealt with this matter only in a very makeshift manner. We passed a clause which is a part of the Financial Relations Act, 1922, in which the Minister was given power to make regulations with regard to that matter, and it has become necessary that we pass legislation of the nature proposed in this Bill. I shall not weary the House with the variety and multiplicity of the various provisions of the Bill. I can only say, in general, that in this Bill I have adopted practically all the recommendations and amendments of the select committee of 1923. With regard to that, I may say that if we except the occasions when there was a division and when the hon. member for Hanover Street voted in splendid isolation, there were remarkably few divisions in connection with this Bill when it was before the select committee of 1923.

You threw over the amendments of 1924, when I had a majority.

And for very good reasons.

What are the ideas of the Minister of Labour about inoculation ?

That is in connection with the Public Health Act, not in connection with that. It has nothing to do with that. I think I may say, under the circumstances, that at least 25 per cent, of this Bill may be taken to be non-contentious. I come now to a few of the more outstanding provisions of the Bill. In the first place, I must point out that this Bill makes provision for unification of control as far as the medical profession, and the other callings with which the Bill deals, are concerned. Under existing laws, we have no less than seven different bodies which deal with these matters, which exercise supervision over the medical profession. We have a medical council in each of the provinces and also a pharmacy board in each province, except in the Free State, where we have the medical council and the pharmacy board combined in one body. Under the Bill we will get unification, and there will be only one South African Medical Council and one South African Pharmacy Board. The council will consist of 22 members, and on the council will be represented the medical profession, the dentists and nurses, midwives, masseurs, and also the universities. The pharmacy board will consist of eight members, consisting of representatives of the profession on the one hand, and the Government on the other. Provision is made in the Bill to have the election of the elected members in such a way that you get a proper distribution of the representatives throughout the Union. We make sure that all the different provinces will be represented on these two boards. Hon. members will also see that the representation of the Government on the new boards will not be so large, proportionately, as on the existing medical councils That has been done for a very good reason. These bodies have cost the Government between 400 and £750 every year by way of subsidy. It is now proposed to make them financially independent, and for that reason I think it is only right that the elected members should proportionately be greater in number than on the existing dependent councils. The Bill further proceeds on the principle that all who are practising medicine or fulfilling these other callings with which the Bill deals, shall be registered. The reason for that is that the public shall be able to distinguish between qualified and unqualified men, that the standard of education and training may be properly regulated, and that the professional conduct of persons following these professions shall be brought under proper discipline. In the requirements for registration no alteration of any great importance has been introduced. All those now registered in the various provinces will automatically be transferred to the new register; all those who may be registered under the existing laws will be able to be registered under the Bill ; all those who cannot be registered now will not be able to be registered under the new law. I am speaking generally. As far as the recognition of medical practitioners coming from overseas is concerned, no change is made. We will recognize and admit to practise in South Africa qualified persons coming from those countries with which we have reciprocity. Where there is no reciprocity, we do not admit, and that is certainly necessary, because we have our own medical faculties in South Africa, and our own students ought to be protected. On the other hand, students from South Africa who go overseas to study, are free, as they have been before, to study wherever they like. The only safeguard with regard to that will be this, that the diploma which they obtain at the foreign universities must entitle the holder to practise in that particular country, and that diploma must have been got by examination, and the examination must be of the same standard as that for similar diplomas given by our own universities. These are the safeguards, and I think it is only right we should have them. As far as the provision dealing with dentists is concerned, our difficulty is that we have no school of dentistry as yet in South Africa, although the initial steps are being taken by the universities, therefore it is impossible for us to, make provision for reciprocity with other countries, and, under the circumstances, until we train our own dentists in South Africa, we are willing to admit dentists who have been trained in countries which, as far as medical training is concerned, have reciprocity with us. There is, however, a body of dental mechanics who have been practising dentistry lawfully in the Transvaal, who will be able to be registered under the Bill as dentists under certain restrictions—they must not advertise, and must practise only in the Transvaal. Further, all those dental mechanics who have been registered as dentists in England, and who have been living in South Africa for ten years immediately preceding their registration, will be able to be registered as dentists. In these respects the Bill is made a little wider than the existing legislation.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 8.8 p.m.

When the House adjourned at six o’clock I was still dealing with the provisions of the Bill which have to do with registration, and I had dealt with the registration of medical practitioners and dentists. The Bill further makes provision for the registration of nurses, midwives and masseurs. As far as the registration of nurses is concerned, there is not much alteration effected by this Bill and, more or less, the most important feature is that the uniform of nurses will be in future protected by law. As regards midwives and masseurs, and especially masseurs, no provision was made by the existing laws for their registration. Proper provision is now made under the Bill. There is no doubt that the untrained midwife is very largely responsible for the abnormally high infantile mortality in this country. We must, of course, take account of the fact that the supply of midwives is at present very insufficient and, for that reason, an arrangement is made under the Bill by which there shall be prescribed areas in which every midwife practising there shall be required to be properly trained and properly certificated. These prescribed areas will be extended when the supply of midwives becomes greater. The Bill further makes provision for the registration of persons who now practise in a sort of ill-defined sphere, and who, as one of the clauses expresses it, are trained in matters relating to the treatment of physical defects or disease in man. At this stage it is probably too soon to make provision in the Bill itself for their registration in the same way that medical practitioners are registered, but provision is made for their registration in future, and the procedure to be followed and the machinery to be used are described in the Bill. One of the features of this Bill is that it abolishes the legalized practice of witchcraft. Hon. members will be surprised to learn that my hon. friend the Minister of Finance is making a good deal of money every year out of witchcraft. In Natal there are no less than 2,150 so-called witch doctors registered. Natal, I suppose, is the part of the country where you find all things wonderful. In Natal 2,150 witch doctors are legally registered, and they pay a licence fee every year of £3 per head, so that the Minister of Finance is making between £6,000 and £7,000 out of witchcraft.

Why call them witch doctors ?

I see the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) has not quite broken with the past; with barbarism, let us say. The possibility of registering as a witch doctor holds out so much advantage that there have been cases lately in which well-qualified doctors have preferred to register as witch doctors rather than as ordinary medical practitioners. The Bill proposes to abolish the registration of witch doctors. Those who are practising as such at present retain their rights, but no new ones will be admitted. There is one chapter of the Bill which, as it did before, will probably arouse a good deal of attention in the House. That is the chapter dealing with unqualified practice and the qualifications of unregistered persons. As the house will know, a determined attempt has been made in the past, whenever this Bill has been before the House, and is being made now by those practising the so-called cults, to obtain rights under the Bill which they did not possess before. At this stage I think it is premature for me to enter very deeply into that question, but, in the first place, I would emphasize this fact, that no one, who at present possesses any rights under the existing legislation, will be deprived of those rights. The position in regard to the people practising these cults will practically remain unaltered. If they could not be prosecuted before, if this Bill becomes law they cannot be prosecuted in future. If they could be prosecuted before, then they can be prosecuted under the Bill. It is only a question whether those not possessing these rights to-day will acquire these rights under the Bill. The second point that I wish to emphasize is that no one belonging to these cults will be prohibited from practising and no one, who desires to be medically treated by any of the people belonging to these cults, will be prohibited from being so treated. It is, therefore, beside the mark to speak in this connection of the infringement by the Bill of the rights of citizens in this country. The only requirement in the Bill is that no one will be able to practice medicine for hire or gain, or to exercise any of the functions which belong to the medical profession for hire or gain and do work, for instance the diagnosis of disease, which presupposes medical training. In the third place, I wish to emphasize that in principle there is no opposition between the methods of healing of: the medical profession on the one hand and at least some of these cults. It is very often represented that the medical practitioner heals through medicine, and that those practising these cults heal without medicine, that they are drugless healers. I think that distinction is a false one. All these methods, which are practised by these drugless healers, are well known to the medical profession and, to a very large extent, they are practised by the medical profession. There is, for instance, great benefit to be had in systematic exercise or in dietetics, or even in spine manipulation, but the point is this, that these methods, which are practised by the people belonging to these cults, are not the only methods of healing, and if they are considered as the only methods of healing then very often it becomes dangerous, because these methods are applied without their use being based on a proper diagnosis of the disease. All those who practise these cults will be allowed under the Bill to practise, but they must not do so for hire or gain, or if they do for hire or gain they must do so under proper medical supervision. I think, as far as this is concerned, that the Bill proceeds on right lines. We require, to-day, by law in South Africa, that no person, who is not properly trained and qualified and certificated, will be allowed to handle delicate electrical machinery, because at is something that may have to do with life and death. The human body is a much more delicate and complicated machine than the electrical machinery with which any of these people may have to do who have to be certificated, and it is only right that people who handle the human body, who practise medicine, should be properly trained and qualified. Another point I wish to emphasize is the discrimination which is provided for in the Bill between the qualified medical practitioner and the unqualified man. That discrimination is certainly for the protection of the medical profession. We must recognize that that is so ; but it is not proposed to create a monopoly, but if we do not protect the man who is properly trained and qualified, the result will be that the medical profession will, as such, be depreciated, and our young men will be discouraged from studying medicine, and, as a result, there will be a scarcity in the future of properly-qualified medical practitioners. It is a well-known fact in the economic sphere that bad currency drives out good, and if we open the door to people practising these cults, to men not properly trained, the result will be they will drive out properly-trained and qualified men from the profession. I think we can all admit that there is a tendency among the public generally to attach very much value to anything that has to do with the mysterious and the occult, and, therefore, they do attach too much value to remedies of which they know nothing and which are used by quacks. The reason for that, I think, is quite clear. In the first place, the public is not scientifically trained and, therefore, cannot be expected to appreciate the value of science and scientific methods. In the second place, we, as a community, are, I think, not so very far removed from barbarism, from a state of affairs in which witchcraft and the occult held sway. In the third place, we must not forget that medical practitioners may not advertise and, therefore, the good results which they obtain are not known by means of advertisement to the public, but the people who practise these different cults advertise as much as they please, and if they do occasionally get good results, then the public is in a position to know about it. In the fourth place, the public generally compares—and very unjustly compares— the good quack with the bad doctor. That comparison is not fair. There are good doctors and there are, we must admit, bad doctors, just as there are good lawyers and bad lawyers.

All bad!

There are good and bad lawyers; but, judging by their political performances, I would not entrust any case to them. But, because there are bad lawyers, that is no reason why the legal profession should not be protected. The principle of discrimination between the qualified man and the unqualified man rests in the last instance on the belief in the acquisitions of science and the correctness of scientific methods. Can there be anyone in the modern world who is not impressed by the acquisitions of science ? I think I am right in saying that our whole civilization rests on the acquisitions of science. Science has bridged the oceans ; science has eliminated space ; science has conquered the air. It scans and maps out the heavens ; it predicts the existence of new worlds and new substances, and even describes their properties before ever they have been seen by the human eye. In these circumstances, will anybody dare to tell us that science knows nothing of the human body, or at any rate, that science does not know more than the unscientific and untrained and very often uneducated man ? No one will take up that attitude in the face of what medical science has done for humanity in connection with epidemics, what it did, for instance, after the war in Serbia, where there was an epidemic of typhus. No one will dare take up that attitude in view of the fact where in the Panama region malaria was rife, and where that region was practically uninhabitable and has been made, through the activities of medical science, into one of the health resorts of the world. I do not contend that medical science knows everything about the human body. Medical science itself does not take up that attitude but, at any rate, it knows so much more of the human body that discrimination between the scientifically-trained man and the untrained and unqualified man is justified. It has become the duty of any Government to protect the public against ignorance and abuse. As far as the correctness of scientific methods is concerned, there is an essential difference between the qualified man and the quack. The quack remedy is surrounded by an atmosphere of mystery ; they have got their secrets. Medical science, on the other hand, has no secrets. Every medical man, if he makes a discovery, is compelled to make that discovery known to the world, and to place it at the service of humanity. In the second place, those who practise these cults, as a rule, believe in one method of healing only. They think their method is the panacea of all ills. Medical science, on the other hand, makes use of all remedies which are discovered, and they make use of remedies which are the most suitable with a view to that particular disease, and their use of a particular remedy is based on scientific diagnosis. If we should obliterate that line of distinction between the two, then it would leave the medical profession unprotected. It would result in scarcity of medical practitioners and, as such, it is certainly not in the public interest.

The Bill which the Minister has just placed before us is one which I have wrestled with for a session or two in my time but unfortunately the House was never able to give the time necessary to pass this measure, a measure which is most necessary, and will be I think, most beneficial, but which undoubtedly in one respect at any rate, is controversial. That is the point which the Minister has just been dealing with, namely, the question of unregistered persons, as to whether they should be allowed to practise at all, and if so, to what ex tent the medical profession ought to be protected. The Minister began by telling us that there is nothing in this Bill which would prevent any of the persons practising these cults from practising without let or hindrance, or which would prevent anybody who wished to be treated by one of these persons from being so treated. But that, I think, is not exactly the effect of the Bill as it now stands, and the Minister made that clear a little later on when he said that although they might practise their arts they would not be allowed to do so if they do so for gain. Naturally that puts a very different complexion on the permission to practise, because most of the persons who practise these cults do not do so from philanthropic motives ; therefore, we must face the fact, with all its implications, that this Bill, if it becomes law, will prohibit these persons from practising these cults. The question is whether this is a sound principle or not. It is a matter which has caused very great controversy not only in this country but in many other countries. The Minister put forward very cogent arguments for the protection of the medical profession, and we agree that it would be unfortunate if the medical profession lowered its standard or adopted a lower standard of ethics owing to the competition of untrained and unscientific practitioners. That would be a very great loss to the community as a whole, and that is very generally recognized, but the question is not finished there. The question is, if you have given the medical profession all the protection it ought to have, whether you can go still further and say to a man who is suffering and has found no relief from the medical profession, but thinks he can find relief from an unregistered person, that he must not go to him. Or are you to say to a woman whose child is suffering, and her child has got no relief from the medical profession, that she shall not go outside that profession. When I had this Bill in hand I had very great difficulty on this point, and had very many deputations of men and women who assured me that, no matter what the law was, if they or their children were suffering, they would go to the other person if they could get no relief from the medical profession—whether they were going to gaol or not. In these matters you are up against human feelings. A man may be a mere magician, and people will go to that person if they think they can get relief. I take another aspect of the thing—you have religious healers—persons who practise healing on the principle that it can be done by ministrations of a religious character. The Minister may say that that is not touched by the Bill because it deals only with persons who practise as medical practitioners or perform acts pertaining to the calling of a medical practitioner, and do so for gain. Personally, I think a religious healer would not come under the prohibitions of the Bill as it stands now, but when the Bill was before the select committee an amendment was carried expressly exempting persons who practised healing by religious methods—I forget the exact wording—but I do not see it included in this Bill, either, I suppose, because the Minister does not think it necessary, or he thinks that it should not be there. With all the wonderful things the medical profession has done in the application of science to the treatment of human disease, it is not infallible, and the medical profession has set itself again and again in the long course of its history against persons who had practised methods which it did not think were orthodox ; and it had to go back on its methods and recognize that some of these persons had methods which it did not have. The Minister has perhaps gone rather far when he provides that it shall be an offence for an unregistered person to do anything pertaining to the calling of the medical profession. I know it was in the Bill I introduced, and perhaps my criticism is more weighty because of that. A man should not attempt to make people believe that he is a medical practitioner when he is not, but when he performs spinal adjustments he can tell people that he is a spinal adjuster. He must not hold himself out to be, or practise as, a medical practitioner. But you go further, and say he shall not perform any act pertaining to the calling of the medical profession, and when you do this you are setting up something which the courts will find difficult to construe, because, after all, the simplest things, such as massage and physical exercises, may be acts which pertain to the calling of a medical practitioner. I think possibly the Bill goes a little too far when it says that, and is going further than we are justified. What we want is a law that will protect the medical practitioner, who has to devote a long and painful time to study to qualify himself, against being competed with by ignorant, unskilled and unscientific men who impose themselves on the public as medical practitioners. Of course, I realize, as the Minister said, that the public in matters of health are extremely gullible, and are easily imposed upon by persons who say that they practise particular mysteries to solve their trouble. If we do that we ought to go further and stop the people who make large fortunes out of advertising pills that are said to cure all the ills that flesh is heir to. These people are imposing on the credulity of the public just as much as these cults which we are trying to stop, and if we are trying to stop the cults we should stop the others, too. I am glad that the Minister of Labour has just come in—he has taken an interest in these matters, and I would like to know what his share has been in drafting the Bill, and how far he agrees with the sentiments expressed by the Minister of Public Health We have two medical schools in South Africa which have been established on a good basis and are making a good reputation for themselves inside and outside of South Africa, and we have a number of our yong men going there and looking to South Africa as the place where they are going to practise their profession, and we are bound as a Parliament to see that that profession is now lowered in its standards and conduct by the activity of what one may call “quacks ”—ignorant and unscientific persons who profess to be what they are not. I only want to indicate that I, and I believe most members on this side, are in sympathy with the object of the Bill, and I think that it should be passed into law without delay, and we will give the Minister every assistance in our power to arrive at a solution of the difficulty to which I have referred.

With the general nature of the Bill and its object, to make the law uniform with regard to the various professions mentioned in the Bill, the provisions with regard to poisons and habit-forming drugs and the like, I do not think many members will have reason to find fault ; but it is rather with the omissions from Bill that we have reason to criticize the Minister. In doing so, one will have to refer, in view of the rather sketchy manner in which Minister dealt with the proceedings of the select committee, to them in more detail. Although the Minister has dismissed my efforts as a member of the select committee as one of splendid isolation, I think the Minister’s contemptuous reference to what I did on these committees is quite uncalled-for. I hope the House may find time to read these two reports, which contain much valuable evidence. The evidence and the work of the select committees deserve a greater measure of attention than the Minister saw fit to accord to them. There were fifteen divisions in the first select committee, and I took part in all except one. I find that on four occasions I was in the majority. One of the most staunch supporters of the Bill and of those professions that the Minister has devoted so much praise to the hon. member for Paarl, also found himself twice in a minority of one in the proceedings of the second select committee. The Minister must not assume, as he apparently does, that God is only on the side of the big battalions. On six of these divisions in the first select committee proceedings, I was in a majority of one. Three times I was in a majority of two, and in another case the voting was three to three, and the casting vote of the chairman was against us, and as I have stated, on four occasions I was in the majority. But a minority of one often becomes a majority. When the next select committee sat, on some of those points on which I was in a minority, I managed to secure a majority, and I have no doubt that if the Minister studies the question deeply he will come round to my view on some of these matters. He cannot dismiss these men, who are going in for other forms of healing, in the slapdash way he did. He divided up the world of medical science into those who practise medicine, and those who are quacks. He lauded science. Did he mean that the people who do not go in for medicine, but go in for other scientific methods of healing, are not scientists? He left it to be inferred that everyone who was not a doctor must be a quack. Having regard to the fact that legislatures in the British Empire in other countries recognized these people whom he regards as quacks, he should see that proper consideration is necessary before he makes a sweeping condemnation of these people. The first select committee was asked to consider the position of these people, and, in the first place, the words—

which the Minister has not given any definition of, because it is not only an offence to practise for gain, hire or reward, but to expect to get gain, hire or reward. I have pointed out all along how absurd these words are. What is the meaning of them ? We all expect things in this world. Even a Cabinet Minister expects a salary, and members of Parliament get their reward for their services. But there is nothing to prevent these people doing the work, provided they do it without reward. How does the Minister define the mental act of not expecting any reward ? I moved the words out in select committee in 1923, and I only got three to vote with me, and three against me, and the casting vote of the chairman went against me, but I got a majority for it later. The next amendment was to include those persons healing by Christian Science, etc. There, I only got one other to vote with me. In 1924, when this matter came before the House, an interesting debate took place on the 13th February, on a motion by the present Minister of Labour, whose views have not changed in regard to this. I hope the Minister will not treat this as a party matter. A large number of people want to be free to deal with whom they please, provided these people are subject to the jurisdiction of a board established by regulation to see that they are qualified in the particular form of healing they propose to use. The Minister of Labour moved that the order for the committee stage be discharged, and that the Bill be recommitted to a select committee to report in respect of Clause 34. They took all that evidence on one clause. The Minister has not even said a word about the 1924 committee. In a very powerful speech, the Minister of Labour stated the case for these men who are going in for the drugless form of healing. If the Minister had read that debate in Hansard, he could not possibly have uttered the words which practically condemned anything done by other than medical men as quackery, and outside of science. The House was so convinced of the strength of the case made out for these people on this motion, that the motion was agreed to. The Minister of Public Health at that time accepted it. After an interesting debate, the matter was referred to a select committee, which brought up its report, but owing to the untimely end of the last Parliament, the report never received consideration. The Minister knows there is a considerable body of people who believe in spiritual healing. It is not a question whether you and I believe in it. There are thousands of God-fearing people who believe in it. Has the Minister read Dr. Hubbard’s evidence? He gave up his practice, and devoted himself entirely to Christian Science, and he pointed out that it is quite impossible to expect these men to go in for this kind of healing, and to do it without their expenses being provided for. They are not rich people. Are you going to prevent these people going in for this form of healing after proper investigation by their church, simply because they charge fees? Without any disrespect to the Minister, I say there you have the whole hypocrisy of the Minister’s attitude. He practically says, let them do what they like as long as they do not charge. What becomes of your cry of protecting the public ? You reduce this to a purely mercenary basis. If there is any danger in these cults, why allow them to do it at all ? You cannot say you are protecting the public if you allow them to do all the healing they want, provided the public are not called on to pay for it. It is sometimes said that there are not very many people interested, but on the day after the motion I have referred to, one of the Durban hon. members moved that certain petitions received, I think, mainly from Natal, be referred to the select committee. Whatever you may say of the merits of this question, the Minister says the public are not able to understand it. They are fit to put in a Parliament, and to elect members to govern a democratic country, but the Minister says they are too stupid and not well enough educated on this point, and the Bill must therefore say what kind of healer they must use. People having tried all the medical practitioners available, are not allowed to say, we have tried medical men and now we are going to try the drugless healer. May I point out that if the Minister thinks I personally have any hostility to the doctors, he is mistaken. I am a professional man, and I have the highest regard for the medical profession, but I do not see why a qualified man who is not a doctor should not be allowed to practise. This drugless healing is not a new thing. Does the Minister remember the celebrated bonesetter Barker; he was not a doctor, but he did wonderful work. To imagine that science is the sole monopoly of the medical profession is a mistake, for the chiropractors have just the same access to the latest developments in medical science as doctors have. From information supplied to me, it is estimated that nearly 50 million people in America have turned from medicine to drugless healing. Twenty-eight states of the American Union have definitely recognized chiropractors by law. I suppose the Minister would describe these practitioners as quacks. Then South Australia has passed what is called the Nonconformist Medical Practitioners Act, which recognizes the right to practice of any person trained or skilled in the art and practice of healing by nonconformist medical systems. Are the people of South Australia any less intelligent than we are? If that does not satisfy the Minister, let us take Canada, another very important dominion, at least as important as South Africa, I take it. Last year the province of Ontario passed a law recognizing drugless practitioners. These practitioners do not interfere with medical men, and the public are entitled to choose between them and doctors. The medical man has a higher status, and surely he should not be frightened by competition with other forms of healing, provided that the people who practise them are kept under strict control. You can eliminate the quack by passing legislation making these non-medical practitioners subject to control. I would now like to deal with some of the evidence that was given in 1924 before the select committee on the Bill. Tromp van Diggelen, who has performed some very wonderful cures, expressed apprehension as to being allowed to continue his work if the Bill is passed in its present form. Are you going to forbid physical culture ? Men will come under the law if they instruct in physical culture in order to cure complaints. Sir William Osier, the celebrated surgeon, was quoted as having stated that he is the best doctor who best knows the uselessness of drugs. Tromp van Diggelen states that men only come to him after they have tried other channels. The masseurs have to some extent been brought under the Bill, but they were not given protection in the original draft of the measure. We are told that we must remember the sons of South Africa. Well, a Minister of the Gospel from Villiersdorp told the select committee that he had a son and daughter studying drugless healing in the United States, and the training cost him £300 a year. They became qualified in a proper form of healing under a system which protects the public from abuse, but when they come back to South Africa they find that if they use their curative powers they are criminals if they attempt to charge for their services. The witness suggested that duly qualified persons trained at acknowledged institutions and registered as such, should be allowed to practise in South Africa. An hon. member laughs. But people, who are going to be affected by the Bill, are very, very sorrowful about it. In Natal there are thousands of people who are anxiously watching to see whether drugless healing is to be made available to the public or not. The wife of a professor at Potchefstroom University College, who goes in for drugless healing, stated that Col. van Heerden, M.L.A., had been under her treatment. The reason she did not charge for her work was because she was not allowed to do so, but the people she visited gave her presents. The House will see how the select committee, which introduced these amendments that I have referred to, was actuated by the evidence that was put before it. There is one other class of the community that is affected by this Bill to which I want to refer briefly before I sit down, and that is the dental mechanics. The Minister has not said a word about them. He has referred to the Transvaal men, because they will be entitled to recognition in the Transvaal, but he has not said a word about other dental mechanics. It is quite true that they have not got the right to practise now, and the same applies to the drugless healers. Surely that is not the way to tackle this question, simply saying that they cannot do these things now, and that they can be prosecuted if they do, and that we are right to continue on that line. The position is this, that a dental mechanic here and in other parts of the country, apart from the Transvaal, is not allowed, although he is entitled to make teeth, to take the impressions, so that he can only supply the public through the dentists. If he takes an impression of a person’s mouth, except under the supervision of a licensed dentist, he commits an offence. These men are slaves to the dentists. I do not say that they should be allowed to extract teeth or stop teeth, or do anything whatever to a man’s mouth, but surely, if a dental mechanic is entitled to make teeth, he should be entitled to put those teeth into your mouth. I submit it is absurd to say that a man who makes a set of teeth for you is acting as a dentist, because, in order to make those teeth properly, he has to put wax into your mouth, a thing which you can do yourself. There was some evidence given to which, I think, I ought to refer the House, by some of the witnesses before the 1923 committee, showing some of the prices given for the teeth by the dentist and what was charged to the public. If that evidence is correct, it certainly shows a wide difference between what the dental mechanic got and what the public had to pay the dentist for that particular work. There is evidence given by several persons on behalf of the dental mechanics. The evidence of Henry, Nurick, Hyde and Taylor, and of others throw some light on this point. They showed that the amount obtained by the mechanic for his work was very small in comparison with the amount that the dentist obtained from the public for a set of teeth. These people are placed in a hopeless economic position in that, while they are doing purely mechanical work, for which they are well qualified, and for which they have had a good training, you are not going to allow them to get the reward of their labour. You are not going to allow them to do any work at all, unless they do it under the supervision of a dentist. On page 29 will be found the evidence of this deputation of dental mechanics representing those who will now get some recognition under the Bill, i.e., the Transvaal men, viz., Messrs. E. Nurick, W. Hyde and C. Taylor, who stated—

It amazes me to hear that the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) wants to open the door wide for the dental mechanics, dental quacks. He himself is a professional man, and as an advocate is an upholder of the law. I wonder what he would think if we were to allow anybody to take on and plead cases. He and his friends in this House have taken care to see that there is no profession which is better protected than that of the law. Here we have to deal with a profession in which the practitioners have to pay their licences just like advocates and attorneys and ordinary doctors, and to-day the licences which the people have to pay are high. Must we go back and say that these people should not be protected ? It is an acknowledged fact in other countries, and in all countries of any importance, that dentistry must be protected. In some countries this has already been the case for forty years. The only country where it is free is Russia, and also in some of the Balkan States, and the majority of people who do this kind of work come from overseas, and it is they who try to fix themselves firmly in our country and then open the door wider. Can we take Russia and the Balkan States as examples of progress ? We must progress. The hon. member has also spoken of healing generally, and says that some people are prohibited from practising. I did not understand from the Minister that those who have not a medical degree are out-and-out quacks. In other countries, not only in America, but also in Germany, there are persons who study what is called nature healing. In America this is a recognized degree that can be acquired, and there are already a few people in this country who have qualified in this. I do not know if those persons are forbidden to practise. But these persons cannot hold themselves out as doctors, and they cannot as such expect fees. The hon. member spoke in a railing manner over the expression—

If they cannot expect it they have no right to demand it from the people they have treated. They cannot sue for it. Let the people go on in their own way, and if there are persons who will go to them, let them go. I know there are some psychological ailments which are more of a spiritual nature and where a medical man can do nothing. I admit that an experienced psychologist can do them good. I do not expect that people will be prohibited from going to them for treatment. Faith-healing has been spoken of, and it has been said that it is not a profession. We speak of physical and spiritual ailments. Why are properly qualified persons necesary for these ? Since it has been found that diseases of the teeth frequently result in disease of the gums, the result is that the whole system is attacked and broken down, and that all kinds of ailments result therefrom. To assert that the common dental quack is a man who does not fix in teeth is no argument. He must fix teeth where there are none. How have these teeth disappeared ? It is absurd to say that these people do not extract teeth and that they do not undertake the filling of teeth. I know of such cases. If a person with no knowledge of dentistry obtains for treatment someone who suffers from an infection of the gums, he will merely try to fix in teeth and obtain his fees. He will not advise the patient to go to a proper medical man, but will treat him himself. Knowledge with regard to ailments of the teeth has progressed very much in the last few years. In America at the universities dentistry must be studied for five years after matric, and it is the same in Europe. In France and Switzerland a dentist has to-day to be a medical man as well. At the large universities in America, no one is trained to be a dentist, but rather to be a dental surgeon. He is a medical man as well. He takes a course of five years with the intention of becoming a doctor. Because of the danger existing in connection with ailments of the teeth much attention is devoted to their study. We must not only protect the dentists but also the public. It may well be said that dentists and doctors are jealous to-day, because these persons work more cheaply. They are in their own estimation the best persons in their department. The less they understand the more they advertise, and the poor public usually rather go to the quack who cracks up his own reputation in opposition to the scientific man. Against that we must protect them. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) was concerned about persons who could provide different remedies than those of the medical man. Let the people use these remedies. If the hon. member has a private specific which the doctor cannot provide, and persons are so stupid as to believe whatever they hear, then let them use them. The law cannot prevent that. If a man wants to go to such a quack in order to have his teeth extracted and others fixed in, let him do it. This can be secretly done as long as a fee is not demanded, but why should not the State protect the public by saying that it will only recognize the properly qualified man? We must encourage this. If we protect the quack and say that he is entitled to practise then we encourage the public to go to him, and this is wrong. I say let such a man in his simplicity go to the quack if it pleases him, but let the State recognize only properly qualified men, in order to encourage the public to make use of the best men available. Dentists are by no means scarce. More than 200 young Afrikanders practise as dentists to-day, and there are at present 200 studying overseas. What must they do? How much money are they not spending on study ? Should we not help them and so help the public too? I trust that this House will not be prepared to open the door to the quack, especially where dentistry is concerned. We must protect the public against quacks who go round and advertise themselves and allow the people to suffer.

I regret I was not present when the Minister introduced the Bill, so that I am not able to judge of the various aspects upon which he touched. To my mind, this Bill is very much overdue, and despite the Union, we have the greatest diversity as regards medical practice and the rules under which it has to operate, and this applies as well to the nursing profession. We have four medical councils, and in spite of the necessity of uniform conditions, we have four boards with four different powers to regulate in the various provinces. We find that registration conditions differ, and that many other essential things are different in the various provinces, and there is no reason why that should continue to exist. You may find a medical man residing within a short distance of the border of another province, and he is not entitled to practise in the other province, because an artificial boundary separates one from the other. The Bill has been called for for a long time. As to the composition of the board which is to regulate things in the future, I take it for granted that the Minister has followed the opinion of the medical profession as expressed to him direct, or expressed to the select committee. I have some doubts as to the proper representation of the four provinces as regulating this Bill, but that is something that can be settled later on, if it is done by a common concensus of the opinion of the medical profession. I think it is clear, from the provisions we have here before us, that one province may be represented by only one representative, which may lead to friction in the future. I hope the Bill may be made elastic enough to prevent such friction arising. I plead in particular for the representation of the nursing profession on the board. I feel that this profession, which deserves so much from the community at large, and whose voice is never heard, with regard to any complaints and disabilities they may suffer from, they should get proper representation. On a body of 22, the nursing profession will be represented by only two individuals. I hope the Minister will find it possible in the committee stage to modify the representation of the nurses on this board. It may be argued that the universities are represented by only two men as well, and that they are very important bodies, but the univesrities are protected not only by the Minister, but by the whole Government. The dentists are represented by four men, and have their vote and voice, of which they make use to the best of their ability. With regard to the function of this professional board, I find some difficulty in judging of the proper relationship which ought to exist between this board and the medical council that is to be instituted. The legal position of the board is purely advisory, as it seems to me. I am not in a position to tell the Minister and the House what the exact relationship should be, but it appears to me that an important body like the medical council, which deals with a number of very important things—the medical course in various schools—that a certain amount of power should be left to these bodies, and not merely advisory power. When once men are elected to this important council, it is essential that they should have these powers in the interests of the community at large. I feel that the council, as at present constituted, or the powers to be given to this council, are too much, or may be too much, controlled by the Minister in power at the time, and to my mind it is one of the defects from which this Bill suffers, that the powers of the medical council are rather ill-defined. They may do a number of things. Sections 22, 25. 28 and 29 refer to their powers. They must do a number of things, but this refers to an insignificant number. I was told that the Minister, in his speech, dealt with the matter of reciprocity, and I am sorry I was not present. That latter is dealt with in section 22b, and this has been a vexed question for a number of years. I wish to thank the Minister for this Bill making provision for the South African-born students who go abroad and qualify in any country they are pleased to go to, and get their best qualifications without binding them by the same reciprocity of the State to which they wish to go. I know from the evidence given in the select committee that this was insisted upon by one witness—that our students should not be allowed to come back to practise in South Africa unless the State where they studied allows our students to practise there with our diplomas. That, of course, would be a grave injustice. It would not be so great to-day as it was in the past. In the past, it would have been a crying shame to prevent our students from studying abroad. But to-day we have students from South Africa studying in various countries such as America, England, Scotland, Ireland and several universities on the Continent, and it is their right and our privilege that they should go abroad and make the best of their ability, and come back with the best scientific methods and the best vocational training that they can get. With regard to reciprocity, I think that it is of no use to us, and there is no suggestion and no question that our students may possibly go abroad to practise somewhere else. We have an open door, I will not say to all universities, but to universities of recognized degree, and students from these are permitted to practise. I do not object to this—we are not sufficiently narrowminded as far as that goes, and our trade union is not confined to these narrow limits: but we want to allow the best trained and qualified men from all countries to settle in South Africa, and to let us have, as a community, the benefit of their trained capacity. The clause in regard to the registration of midwives and nurses who are not certificated— Clause 29—is one of the most important clauses of this Bill. I suppose we all feel, with the Minister, that here is a compromise to meet certain conditions prevailing at the present time. We have a number of uncertificated midwives doing a certain amount of good work. They do it to the best of their ability ; but, in spite of their very best efforts, they cannot do the work they are out to do, and the sufferings of the country in infantile mortality and women dying in consequence of infection cannot be estimated. The evil results can only be calculated by finding out the number of women suffering all their lives as a result of insufficient knowledge and lack of proper scientific care. In the Bill it is left to the Minister, when he sees fit, to proclaim certain circumscribed areas. I want the Minister to give his very best attention to this particular clause, because the time will very soon come when we will have more than sufficient properly trained midwives to meet the demand. At present, in a number of bigger towns, we have more of such than we can provide for. There is no question that there is a growing need for registration. A very respected medical officer in a northern province of the Transvaal, whom I respect very highly, and who gave very valuable evidence before the Hospital Commission in regard to this particular aspect, has stated that there is a good deal of doubt in the minds of very close economic reasoners, whether this excessive infant mortality prevention work is entirely justified from what is called the economic view, and from the point of view of an already overcrowded world. He stated that there was no doubt whatever in regard to the prevention of what he considered one of the greatest of human tragedies—the death of a woman in child-birth. In America, he stated, this rate is eleven per 1,000—the highest in the world. New Zealand is the next highest, he states, with about seven per 1,000. The figures for the Union he had not got, but he referred to what Dr. X., who has a large practice in and around Bloemfontein, had stated in the Public Health Council, viz., that the maternal mortality in the rural districts of South Africa was anything between 12 and 20 per 1,000. If I might quote my own personal experience, I should say that that is a fairly low estimate. I appeal to the Minister to see, where the discretion is left in his hands to proclaim certain areas, that he will watch carefully to see when these areas should be circumscribed, so that the work of alleviating suffering for the sake of the nation should be undertaken as soon as possible. In regard to Clause 34, which has taken up most attention this evening, the hon. member for Hanover Street (Mr. Alexander), who has in the past given us the impression in this House that he has consistently stood for the protection of an honoured profession, wants to open the flood gates to all to have permission to practise on the human mind, body and soul. The subject is very important, and the arguments advanced are entirely based on a misconception of the position which the medical practitioner holds in society. He is not the medical man that exists in the minds of certain quacks. A medical man dealing with medicines only has not existed in my own experience. He exists only in the vivid imaginations of certain people — hon. members of this House included. We feel that the medical man’s position is a very peculiar one. The position of the medical practitioner is one of trust, and one of the most intimate character that can exist between two individuals who are not related. For that reason people who practise on the public must be licensed. I would be prepared to agree that a clause should be inserted in paragraph 34 stating that a testimonial of character is one of the essentials for the licensing of a medical practitioner. The view has been expressed that the Bill provides for the protection of the medical profession. Of course it does, to a certain extent, but the Bill is not out to make the medical profession a trade union. We have, in addition to South African medical students studying abroad, about 500 young men and women who are being trained in South Africa at a cost of between £1,500 to £2,000 each, while the expense of those studying abroad will be even greater. If we are not satisfied with their qualifications let us lengthen the course, and make it more difficult for them to become qualified, but do not deviate from this essential principle that medical practitioners must be people of trust and judgment, and they can never be that unless they are trained. No reliable judgment can be exercised without a substratum of knowledge of character. The protection of the medical profession is a minor aspect of the case—what is far more important is the protection of the public, and, in many cases, protection against themselves. The hon. member for Hanover Street knows of unfortunate men who have been duped into taking shares in certain companies. As a result of that the company law was made more stringent. Even educated men and women must be protected against making fools of themselves and placing themselves in the hands of quacks. Sixteen years ago, when I was in Germany, there was a man who was skilled in diagnosing disease from the hair of people by means of a microscope. Not very long ago I made the acquaintance of a man who has prevailed upon a number of his fellow-citizens to purchase a remedy worth twopence, which he sells for 5s. By this means he is making £10 a day. He mixes two or three oils in soda water and calls them “mixed oils,” and he has, unfortunately, prevailed on a number of inmates of a very important institution to buy about £300 worth of these oils. He has not killed people by any means—he has only duped them ; they want to be fooled and they are being fooled. The common-sense view as to who ought to be entitled to practise is this—an individual who has been properly trained to exercise with discretion and judgment the knowledge he has acquired. This is true, not only of the medical profession, but of the electrical and mining engineers and other professional people. When people descend a gold mine they will not entrust their lives to unqualified men. Should the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) have to undergo an operation he will not go to a quack, but to the best surgeon he can find, and if he cannot find him here he will go abroad in search of him. Your medical practitioner must have some knowledge of anatomy and a very good and very sound knowledge. You cannot expect any decent judgment from any practitioner who does not know the anatomy of the human frame. He must not only have knowledge of the construction of the human frame, but also of the ordinary laws to which the human body is subservient. He must have some knowledge of the diseases to which the human body is subject. It is also essential that your students must have a knowledge of bacteriology in these days. That can only be acquired by proper study. What is the duty of the State in regard to this question, when once the State, as the father of the community, has to register or allow certain people to occupy certain positions of trust ? Is it to ignore its entire responsibility? Here the Government stands faced with this question: What are you going to do in regard to your responsibility towards the public as such ? We cannot say that qualified medical men are the only persons who are capable of doing some good. I do not claim that. I have very much respect for these men who practise physical culture, because, after all, they apply natural laws.

There is place enough for them to exist in the community as well, but they occupy a very different position from the ordinary medical man and that is what we realize and what the State must realize. The Government has taken a very important responsibility under section 26 (2). By means of the medical council, the Government is going to control the study, the curriculum, the courses of the students in medicine, surgery and other respects, before they can qualify. The responsibility in this country will rest on the Minister of Public Health for seeing that our young men are properly qualified. Here is not only a responsibility but also an opportunity of seeing that the public at large will have the very best medical assistance in so far as knowledge of science is applied in South Africa. At the outset of my remarks I said that the Bill contained a number of excellent provisions. I am still of that opinion, but I feel that some of the provisions are entirely at the option of the Minister and some matters are of such a nature to-day that we cannot leave things to continue in the old course. Active steps must be taken as soon as possible, and I trust that the Minister in charge of this Bill, which I hope will soon become an Act, will see that steps are taken at the very earliest opportunity to safeguard the interests of all concerned.

I am sure we must congratulate the Minister on having brought this Bill forward at this early stage of the session, but I would warn him, if he is not aware of the history of this Bill, that we have had on the stocks of this House for nearly fourteen years a Bill on similar lines to this, and up to now, many of the objections have been met. Other objections, of course, are impossible to meet, and I agree that the Minister, in this Bill, has gone as far as he could. I hope he is not now going to be frightened off the path by the eloquent speech of the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander). He is the only person who has put up any objection to the Bill; it is not an objection to the Bill in principle, but only because certain people are excluded from it. He gives as a reason why they should be included that, in certain states of the United States of America and in Canada and Australia these people are recognized by Act of Parliament, and certain boards are set up to control them. You will notice that in these countries these people are not tacked on to medical men; the Bill is brought forward entirely separate. They are set up under entirely separate jurisdiction, and there can be no question of confusion in the mind of the public. It is not only a case of securing the protection of the public, but there is this greater danger that many members of the public, who are parents of young children, sacrifice their children very often, because they take them to people such as my hon. friend mentioned, and very often if their lives are not sacrificed they are ruined in health through ignorant and wrong treatment. We have to remember there are many thousands of children who have no option in the matter, as they are taken to the drugless or faith healer by their parents. I would advise the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) if he wishes to protect the chiropractics and the osteopaths and such people, that he should bring forward a separate Bill, as they have done in America, entirely apart from the medical profession. Thereby he would present the case on its merits without any confusion. I want to emphasize to the Minister that now he has got the Bill to this stage, he should not dilly-dally with it as his predecessors have done, but he should take it firmly in hand and get it through. The bulk of the House is entirely in favour of the Bill, and the public are entirely in favour of it, and the only opposition is that we have heard to-night. With regard to the pharmacy section, the position in the Free State is that when young men are qualified there they are not eligible to practise in the Transvaal or the Cape or Natal. That seems to me to be a condition of affairs which should not be allowed to continue any longer. The Medical Officer of Health of the Union was able to establish reciprocity as far as the other three provinces were concerned, but that is still the position in the Free State. At the present time we do not get equality of examination, and there again it would seem beneficial to get a Bill such as this through as quickly as possible. I would submit to the Minister that he should benefit by the experience of his predecessors to this extent, that he is not going to easily postpone this Bill. He will do a great service to the people of this country by putting it through as quickly as possible. As far as dental mechanics in the Transvaal are concerned, I am glad he has met that position, and I am glad he is conceding them recognition, but that position does not exist in the Cape or Natal or the Free State as, in those provinces, if dental mechanics practised on their own, they were breaking the law ; whereas, in the Transvaal, they had certain rights to practise under supervision. I think, in hearing the various speeches to-night, the Minister can safely take it on his own hands to get ahead with this Bill as quickly as possible. There are a number of alterations I wish to make at the committee stage with the object of making the Bill more workable. I hope we can get the second reading through to-night and get on with the committee stage soon, and that it will not be, as in previous years, side-tracked again; another year gone past, and all these injustices and complaints going on from year to year.

I just want to express my approval and appreciation of the views expressed by the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander). I have nothing against the Bill as a bill, but I have strong objections to one clause. These objections are pretty well known to members of this House because, for a good many years, I have fought hard that the door might be kept open to those people who practise healing methods other than through medicine.

Is not this Bill introduced on behalf of the Government’

As far as the clause is concerned, it is not a Government measure. I am going to be quite consistent on this clause. For years and years, in this House, I have pleaded for the drugless healer and for those who have successfully been healing people of all kinds of sickness and disease by methods other than orthodox medicinal methods. I am going to-day again to ask the Minister in charge of the Bill if he will not meet the views put forward by the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street), and in the committee stage set up machinery which will give all the protection that my hon. friend, who sits before me, says is necessary and should be given. My hon. friend before me said that what you want are men of trust, discretion, judgment, knowledge and integrity, and I claim you will get men outside the medical profession with these qualifications and a knowledge of anatomy and health. I submit that in other countries they have succeeded in getting men with all these qualifications, and have registered them, not as medical practitioners—no one is asking that, as the hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. Christie) seems to suggest—that these healers should come in under the cloak of the medical practitioner. A separate Bill is not necessary, but a separate clause, which provides for the setting up of machinery by which people other than medical practitioners could be registered.

Why did not you persuade your colleague before he introduced is Bill?

I am appealing to my colleague here. When the Companies Bill was Before the House a few days ago my colleague voted against the ‘Government, and on this ocassion there is no reason why I should not stick to the views I have always held in this matter. The hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. Christie) said that the only reason why the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander) had suggested that provision should be made in this Bill was because provision had been made in separate legislation in other countries for these people. There are thousands of people in South Africa who have tried medical practitioners for years and years and have not benefited, and have tried the drugless healers, and have voluntarily testified to the benefits received from these drugless healers. I am not pleading for any particular kind of drugless healer, but all civilized countries are realizing that the march of science in health matters is not a monopoly of the medical fraternity, and that there are more, or as many, successful cures, I think, outside the medical fraternity, as inside. Some of the greatest cures in South Africa, I think, have been made by those who are not orthodox medical practitioners and a large number have been brought to the notice of hon. members in this House. I am not going to give my own personal experience, which goes back to 1917: but having benefited myself when the orthodox medical methods failed, it would be the height of ingratitude were I not to try to do something to get for those who practise those methods successfully the opportunity to practise. All the hon. member for Hanover Street and I ask for is that there should be equality of opportunity, and liberty of action. Let those people who believe in drugless healing methods have the liberty, and not be precluded by law from going to these people to get that treatment. The Minister in charge of the Bill says they can go and get the treatment, but that a fee cannot be charged. That is only another method of trying to drive these people out of practice. There are thousands who have tried the doctors without benefit, and why should such a sick man be denied the opportunity in any civilized country of getting treatment which he experiences is doing him good and likely to continue to do him good ? That other countries are taking this up is no reason why we should do so. But we have the experience in this country. I have somewhere in my cabinet hundreds of unsolicited letters sent to myself and other hon. members from people personally testifying as to the beneficial effects received at the hands of drugless healers. It would be unjust, and a crime against the law of God and man, to deprive the sick people of the right and the opportunity of getting relief where they can get it, when they have tried other means which have failed. This matter was Brought up in the House of Commons recently, and by accident I happened to receive sitting this morning from one of the leading newspapers in the English tongue, “The Christian Science Monitor.” This is one of the finest newspapers published. The cable from London, which is dated Feb. 10 of this year, states—

That is all we ask. I am saying nothing against the medical profession, but I speak on behalf of thousands of sick people who have been ill for many years and have been helped tremendously by drugless methods of healing.

I ask the House to support the amendment which will be moved in committee by the hon. member for Hanover Street (Mr. Alexander), and not to regard this particular clause as a party matter, but to allow those people who want to go to medical practitioners to do so, and to permit those who wish to go to drugless healers to do so. I feel somewhat strongly on this matter, and I hope my colleague will allow every man to vote on this question as he desires and in the public interest. It is not in the public interest to compel a sick person to go to a medical practitioner if he has no faith in him, and can get no cure from him. The day the medical practitioners show that they can always cure, I will withdraw my objection to their having a monopoly. They are not infallible—they commit mistakes. We all know what they do with their mistakes.

I did not intend to intervene in this very interesting debate, because I thought it had been made perfectly clear that we all appreciated the speech of the Minister of Public Health in the admirable and learned manner in which he introduced this measure. I would say to the Minister of Labour that it is not what is the view on a particular question of the Secretary for Health in the British House of Commons, but it is what is the view, as a responsible Minister, of the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Public Health, who introduced this Bill. Perhaps my hon. friend, the member for Hopetown (Dr. Stals), who indirectly represents me in this House, would inform me which of the Ministers he supports in this extraordinary difference of opinion.

Why “extraordinary”?

I will tell the hon. member why extraordinary. No matter what the individual view of a Minister may be, it is considered under all forms of responsible parliamentary government, that if a Minister does not agree with a measure introduced by one of his colleagues and cannot persuade that colleague to alter any particular clause of that measure, then he, as a Minister, must sit still and agree to the passage of that measure, or he must take the only constitutional course that is open to him as an hon. parliamentarian, and that is to vacate his seat in the Government and take his place on the cross benches and explain the reason for the position he has taken up. When the Government introduces a measure, as a Government measure, that measure every member of the Cabinet is respon-the profession. With regard to the attitude of the Cabinet get up and deliberately disagree with the views which have been expressed by his colleague. If there was any portion of the speech of the Minister of Public Health which I consider was an extremely admirable and well thought out utterance, it was the strong emphasis that he laid upon the fact that it was the scientific study that was an necessary in matters of this character, and my hon. friend pinned his faith entirely on the fact that only people who are thoroughly qualified in a scientific manner of this character should be allowed to exercise the profession. With regard to the attitude of the hon. member for Cape Town (Hanover Street) (Mr. Alexander), I would just say that my hon. friend is a very ambitious individual. Were he not so ambitious he would not be leading a party in this House, though it is true that at the present moment that party is very small, but he has been explaining to the House that, though at one time you may be in a minority of one, which I believe is his position at present, there are still great hopes of that minority of one becoming a majority. What I would like to say to him is this, that I would like also to be able to earn an honest penny, and I do not suppose my hon. friend would have any objection to altering the laws of this country and allowing me, without taking the degree of a barrister-at-law, to be able to compete with him in the courts of this country. My hon. friend won't give me that opportunity. I would like to ask another thing. Would the Minister of Labour go back on all his previously expressed opinions in this House ? I understood he was a great supporter of the trade union doctrine. I understood he was one of those who would protest in the strongest possible manner to prevent an individual who had not gone through the full apprenticeship of his trade from blossoming out as a skilled mechanic or carpenter. It rather ill becomes him that he should think that every other profession should be treated in an entirely different manner.

No analogy.

Well, I would like to know what is the analogy between the Minister of Labour and the Minister of the Interior on this Bill. This is not the first time he has done it. Then as justification for his attitude he says—

What did I do?

I could not exactly catch it. Or was it the Minister of the Interior? At any rate he said he was justified in his unconstitutional attitude because one of his colleagues did the same thing the other day. Look at them!

Is your mind wandering? What are you alluding to?

To the extraordinary differences of opinion between members of the Government who stick like barnacles to the Treasury benches. Even outside this Bill it would be extremely difficult to find upon any one of the great public questions of the day greater differences of opinion than exist between the Minister of Justice—if he was free to express his opinion—and his two colleagues who sit alongside him.

Who do you really mean?

We have heard that there have been considerable differences of opinion in the Cabinet, and we heard it with a great deal of regret. I have had many years of parliamentary experience, but I have never seen a case in which the Government has introduced a Bill—and I think you would agree, Mr. Speaker, that when a Government introduces a Bill that Bill is the considered opinion of the Government of the day—when that Bill is introduced in such a strong manner as it was introduced by the Minister of Public Health, who showed his sincerity of belief in every clause, then certainly it is an extraordinary thing for one of his colleagues to get up and tear that Bill to pieces.

He referred to one clause.

When we see this in the legislature of the country, what must take place in the Prime Minister’s room when Cabinet councils are called together ? When this extraordinary Government was formed I expressed the opinion that it reminded me very much of the Kilkenny cats, which, I may remind you, were all tied up in a bag, and all had differences of opinion. When the bag was opened the condition of the cats was of a most deplorable character. I understand that takes place over the way, but I certainly did not think it would be possible that we would have this exhibition before the public. The other day I called attention to the fact of the necessity of the Prime Minister gracing this House more often with his presence, because then I felt we could appeal to the leader of the House as to what the policy of the Government was. But for the life of me I do not know what the policy of the Government is with regard to this Bill. No doubt, with regard to this particular clause, the Minister of Public Health is going ; to stick to his principles—he is the last man who is going to run away from his principles. What a deplorable thing it would be when the division bell rang, and the House and the public should see on the second reading the division that exists among the members of this homogeneous Cabinet. My hon. friend knows that, upon many matters, it is impossible to get a. Cabinet to agree. They may be matters of minor principle on which a member of a Government considers his views are not so strong as to justify him in resigning ; but he keeps silence, and although he does not agree with any particular clause of a Bill, he is responsible for the Bill. My hon. friend knows that on a matter like women’s suffrage, where there have been great differences of opinion, not only here, but in Great Britain, the Bill was introduced as a private Bill, to prevent such an exhibition as the Minister of Labour has made of himself, has made of this House this evening, of the Government and of the country.

What about the empire? Didn’t he make an exhibition of that, too?

My hon. friend has ; and I would ask him, is there any necessity, even in the position he holds at present, to make a sneer at the empire?

What rubbish!

I can understand that sneers of this character may carry cheap support from some of his followers. He has been unable to secure any assistance of any sort to try to side-track a debate of this character.

Business interrupted by Mr. Speaker at 10.55 p.m. ; debate adjourned until 14th April.