I move— That the Bill be now read a third time.

May I ask whether the Minister of Mines and Industries will be in the House shortly ?

He is away in the country doing a bit of propaganda.

He is looking for the—

As I have one or two questions to ask of the Minister of Mines and Industries, in connection with this measure, will it be possible to wait until he is here ?

Move the adjournment.

If I sit down now I shall lose the opportunity of speaking on this measure and I would like to know whether it would be advisable for me to say what I have to say now or wait until the Minister is present.

You can go on with your speech.

I want to ask the Minister of Mines whether, if this Bill is passed, he would be prepared to suspend its administration in connection with the stop orders for a period of three months so as to give the recreation clubs and the co-operative societies an opportunity of meeting the altered circumstances. I think they are entitled to that. Whilst the overwhelming majority of workers on the Witwatersrand are opposed to compulsory subscriptions for the recreation clubs being stopped from their pay, they have no objection to the members of these recreation clubs who wish to join such clubs having an opportunity of signing good-fors, that is members of "the recreation clubs using the stop order for their own purposes during the month. When this Bill was before the House previously I had very largely-signed petitions from the workers in my constituency asking for this privilege. I hope that, as far as the members of the co-operative societies are concerned, they are not going to be treated as—

I have a telegram here from the Messina copper mines, which reads—

The petition, which is signed by voters and members of the Messina recreation club asks the hon. member for the division to use his influence to the utmost to secure the omission from the Bill of the clause dealing with the abolition of stop orders. The petitioners state that they are peculiarly and to an unusual extent adversely affected by this legislation because the recreation club makes the only provision in Messina for entertainments, public meetings and evening recreation, and that they consider that the abolition of stop orders would hamper the functioning of the club to such an extent that the institution would most probably close. The petitioners also protest against the provisions of the Bill interfering with the status of the existing clubs in regard to the supply and distribution of (commodities. I would like to say that, especially in the mining centres, where we have a shifting population, we know that the man who pays his debts under the present credit system has to carry the bad payer on his back. Rents, groceries, meat and everything else you purchase, the prices of these are higher owing to the enormous number of bad debts. Hon. members know that that is true in their own hearts, although some of them on this particular question seem to be inclined to go against their own particular knowledge in order to bolster up a case against these co-operative societies. In connection with this question it has been put to me by members of the East Rand Co-operative Society that the members of the Labour party in particular conducted a campaign during the war period, and of course during peace periods as well, against profiteering and against the exorbitant prices charged in many cases by private traders. Here we have members of the Labour party to-day taking up the cudgels on behalf of the commercial community in order to prevent the workers from having their own co-operative society. If it were any other employer but the Chamber of Mines, I venture to assert this particular legislation would not be passed. The Government themselves allow the principle of the stop orders in connection with the supply of commodities to the civil servants in this country. The Government have taken no steps whatever to do away with those stop orders. Members of the Defence Force can purchase clothing at the canteens for their wives and families and they can have that stopped off their pay. It is absolutely wrong for members of this House to single out the men working on the mines for this special legislation. It is worse than class legislation, it is sectional legislation. I hope that next session the Government will introduce their important legislation early in the session, and not have the least important affairs discussed in the early stages, and the most important left to the later stages of the session when we are all tired.

Hear, hear.

My hon. friends on the other side have very short memories when they raise those hear, hears, because they were just as much to blame as the Government. It has never been done before since I was a member of this House. Matters are being put on the statute book without due consideration, and we will find later on that these laws will require amendment or they will have defects which at present we do not anticipate.

It is coming home to you.

I am going to be honest enough to admit that one does not realize a thing until it comes home to you. Now it is being brought home to hon. members on that side that they should have given us a great deal more consideration when we were in opposition, than they did give.

One fly has struggled off the stick-fast paper.

The right hon. member for Fort Beaufort doubtless when he opens bis morning testament believes everything he reads there, and when he opens the full testament in the evening, he doubtless believes everything there. I prefer to hear what the Minister himself has to say, before I judge. We know hon. members on that side are trying to do everything they can to create bad blood between different sections of the people. Their only hope of ruling South Africa is to set the people at each other’s throats.

The hon. member should not allow himself to be misled by interruptions.

Speaking seriously, I feel that very grave injustice is being done by this Bill to a large section of the South African community. I feel whilst this Bill is doing everything we want in the direction of preventing the mines from trading, from turning the reef into a second Kimberely, at the same time this Bill has gone too far in the direction of preventing the workers from helping themselves. When the Minister asks me whether I am advocating legislation to help workers who cannot help themselves, I say every bit of legislation that passes through this House is necessary, because there are certain people who cannot and will not play the game. In my constituency there have been no abuses. Hon. members in this House have made repeated statements on pure hearsay evidence, statements made to them by interested people, and I prefer to rest my case entirely on the impartial investigation that was carried out by the Mines Department. There you have the evidence absolutely refuting the arguments which have been brought forward, proving conclusively that the cost of living has been reduced, and that it has had a good effect on prices prevailing outside. It is a society owned, controlled and run by working men for working men, and the only privilege they possessed was that they were able by the signing of stop orders to use their collective credit for the purpose of financing their own particular organizations. This organization has been of great value to 800 members in my constituency, and whatever the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs may say, or any other member, I say the case of these men is beyond dispute. I hope the Minister in charge of this measure will at least agree that before this particular law is put into operation, that he will give these people at least three months’ time. In this particular instance this House has legislated, consciously or unconsciously, on behalf of the commercial class, and against the interests of the working class. In these circumstances, in view of the position these men are being placed in, I think it is a very moderate request to ask the Government to suspend the administration of this Act for three months in older to give these men an opportunity of meeting the situation and of making provision for the altered circumstances. No one anticipated that this measure was going to be passed this session. Had it been brought earlier in the session a very different complexion would have been placed before the House, and there would not have been the opportunity for all the misrepresentation that has taken place. Quite a lot of members on that side of the House never waited to see the measures come in. They cleared off, they went home. I am sorry this clause has been passed. Of course, being in a minority, we must bow to the majority. I am sorry that the Minister is not here— I suppose he is in another place.

I am certain that the House has listened with a great deal of interest to the revelations which come from the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) this morning. They show the utter folly of the course the Government has pursued during the last fortnight. Let me correct the hon. gentleman, and say that that course has been entirely unprecedented. It has never happened yet that, after the supply and the appropriation Bills have been passed, the House has been kept to sweep up the odds and ends of bills which the House did not pass at the proper time. We have had to consider three or four Bills of the Minister of Mines and Industries which the hon. member acknowledges should have been brought before the House some months ago ; and now, in a depleted House, we have to deal with these technical Bills at morning sittings. The hon. member, after indulging in mild criticism and posing for a bit in his general role of ’mbongo, softened his criticism.

You have used that expression once too often. If you use that expression outside the House—

The hon. member has permitted himself the utmost licence of speech in this House, and this morning we see him in an entirely new light. Since the last election he has patted the Government on the back, and this is the first time in two years we have listened to some criticism from him. A month or two ago when the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Nicholls) spoke about the natives dying like flies—

The hon. member must not discuss what took place in a previous debate. Perhaps the hon. member will deal with the Bill.

I agree with the hon. member’s criticism of the Government’s dealings with measures at this stage. This Bill is a series of extracts from a Bill prepared by the late Government, and on which a select committee sat for two years. In so far as it represents the work of that select committee, no reasonable exception can be taken to it. The Minister of Mines and Industries puts this Bill on the order paper, moves the first reading about two months ago, then moves the second reading, and on the first of June puts on the order paper an amendment which goes to an extreme length, and says that if anybody carries on business on mining ground, on property owned or leased by a mining company, but in which the mining company has no other interest at all, he and the mining company shall be guilty of a criminal offence and liable to a continuing penalty. New Clause 97, which took the place of old Clause 97 in the gold law, was drafted and agreed to by the select committee, and after hearing all parties ; but the Minister puts down an amendment on which no one has been consulted. The principle of that clause up to now has been that a mining company should not directly or indirectly be interested in trading, and I agree with that, because it is the business of a mining company to mine and not to trade. But when it says that anybody who carried on business on that stand is liable to a penalty [No quorum.] I have not the slightest doubt that there are not three hon. members who read this amendment. A man is not allowed to do business unless a mining company, as the hon. member for Pretoria West (Mr. Hay) says, sells him that stand. I would not object so much if I had the belief that the Minister of Mines and Industries knew what he was doing ; that he had thought out this amendment, and knew what its implication was, but from his answer yesterday, he showed he did not have the foggiest idea of it. The Minister gave this House the impression that he himself did not really know what it meant. We have no right at this stage to pass this Bill. Had the Minister accepted the deletion of these words, which was proposed, I would not have objected to the third reading. If we are asked in the last stage of the session to pass a Bill that is entirely technical and that members do not understand, it is time for us to protest, and I record my protest against the way this has been handled.

I want to support the contention of the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston), in that the operation of the cancellation of the stop orders shall be delayed for three months. That, I think, is quite right in the interests of these co-operators and these recreation clubs. I think that the Minister will give these people the time to make new arrangements in view of the law. I want to correct an impression conveyed by the hon. member for Brakpan when he said that members of the Labour party were deserting their own people and taking up cudgels on behalf of the commercial community. I do not want the impression to go abroad that the Labour party are either pro or anti-the commercial community. We are anticapitalism and commercialism: but not anti the commercial community. We do not want the impression to go abroad that the Labour party in this instance are opposing the stop orders in the mining areas in the interests or the commercial community. It is quite true that the nonoperation of the stop order system on the mines is in the interests of the small retailers of the commercial community, for I look upon the small retailer as a working man, and in all instances where I can make anything easier for that particular class of working man I am ready to do so. He is the victim of a system just as the wage-earner is, and is entitled to the same assistance from us as we give to the wage-earner; they, after all, are only agents as between employer and wage-earner, but the wage-earner ultimately benefits much more than the small commercial man ; because if the stop order system is going to operate and reach its ultimate development, it means that the working men in the mining areas will be trading not with independent wholesalers but with the mines acting as the wholesaler or storekeeper, and we know that the end is going to be the compounding of the Rand. There is also the danger of the further extension of the so-called co-operative movement depending for its survival on the stop order system. If this question had come up for debate earlier I might have supported it and it is only on mature reflection that I have come to the conclusion that the propagation by statute of the stop-order system is far too great a danger for us to entertain, operating within our commercial system, in order to obtain the somewhat chimerical benefits that offer themselves at the moment. I would rather have seen the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr, Waterston) and the co-operative societies, take the line of approaching the Government to get opportunities for obtaining cheap credit on lines somewhat similar to the agricultural societies which obtain such facilities through the Land Bank. We want to eliminate as many as possible of the people who intervene between the producer and the consumer. It must not be overlooked, in considering this Bill, that co-operative societies have great advantages over outside commercial trading. They only are permitted to trade on mining ground and that is enormously in their favour. The great drawback against them is that they have not the capital to set up their business in the first instance, and cannot stand loss. That is just the test of co-operation and members of such societies should be prepared to make a small sacrifice to save up enough capital to put the cooperative society on its feet. I know it is difficult to do that now that wages have come down so much and there are past debts to recover, but this difficulty could be met by the Government setting up machinery for giving them capital on easy terms. Amongst all the strata included in the gamut of commercialism, the only section which trades for cash is the consumer. Therefore the worker—not only the man in dungarees but also the salary-earner—trading for cash, is entitled to some advantage from the Government or from any other source obtainable, as against the individual who, after all, is trading on credit and enjoys that credit simply by virtue of the cash trade which the consumer carries on with him. In regard to the message from Messina quoted by the hon. member, you cannot kill the amenities in these country-places where people have to make their own diversion. In all my experience I have never known the necessity of the stop-order system in such places. I am afraid the wire has been worked up from sources other than the one from which it purports to come.

It seems extraordinary to go on with a Bill of this importance when the Minister is not able to be present in the House. It shows the impossibility of properly dealing with measures of this kind at the end of the session. The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) seems to have come back to the view he held a couple of days ago. I thought he had become alarmed and run away from his amendment because he did not even call for a division. I presume the hon. member has only brought the matter forward because he seems to be a little rattled by the Minister of Mines referring him to “flies on the wheel ”.

That is not true ; it is one of your own representations.

If the hon. member would devote his attention to reading during the recess I would recommend him to read “The Book of Proverbs” which refers to the fact that occasionally two flies are killed with one flap.

The hon. member must confine himself to the Bill.

I would like to refer my hon. friend to a study of Charles Churchill. He will find an interesting passage where he says—

It is amusing to find the complaints of the Opposition constantly repeated on every Bill which has been laid or the Table during the last ten days, that it is the most important legislation and that it is introduced at the fag end of the session. All the legislation which was passed in the beginning of the session is quite unimportant Only these most important Bills are brought up for consideration at the end of the session! It is really amusing. If we had turned the order in the reverse way then the Opposition would have said exactly the same thing. Still more amusing, however, is the memory of the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) and other hon. members of the Opposition. They did the same thing for years. Surely some of the legislation has to be done at the end of the session, but now suddenly it has become the most important which is kept, to the end. During the past years the hon. member for Standerton when he spoke to farmers told them that the Government was engaged on Bolshevistic and Socialistic legislation, but when he spoke in the towns he said that the Labour party was only a “fly on the wheel,” and the Minister of Mines and Industries at Robertson, but the matter is now so distorted as to turn it into an expression of the Minister’s while it really was that of the leader of the Opposition, ft is a distortion of the truth and I did not expect that the hon. member for Standerton would permit words he had himself used to be put into the mouth of the Minister of Mines and Industries.

I move—

I do not think it is necessary to use any arguments in support of my motion. Surely the supporters of the Government have proved by their eloquent speeches that this measure should not go through. I saw the Minister earlier and he will remember that when we protested against this Bill and the next one on the order paper being brought before the House, he said they had been on the order paper almost since the beginning of the session. None of us thought that they would be brought forward, and we had a promise from the Minister of Justice that these Bills would not be brought forward.

Rubbish ; there is some misunderstanding.

I will admit there is so much misunderstanding that the Minister of Justice probably forgot, before he left, to see the Minister of Mines about the matter. The hon. member for Kimberley (Sir Ernest Oppenheimer) also stated that the Minister of Justice had said that these two Bills would not be brought forward this session. Do not let us smart under this sense of injustice. Naturally one gave attention to other matters and none of us has been in a position to, discuss this matter fairly in the House. Even the Minister himself was not aware of the effect of the amendment he moved at the last stage. How can he expect us to be satisfied with that ? I am Very glad to see that the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) is so brave, but this is a swan song.

The hon. member must confine himself to his motion.

I want to get his support for my motion, which is a very much easier way of obtaining what he wants. This is a very important measure and has frightened people. Only this morning I was discussing a deal in coal with a leading financier in Cape Town and he said: “No, we have no security. If a-Government can do what it intends doing by passing this Bill confiscating private property it can do anything.” The Minister is frightening people from investing in this country.

seconded.

Motion to adjourn the debate, put and negatived.

[No quorum.]

I regret that the hon. member for Ermelo (Col.-Cdt. Collins) seems to think the Government is proceeding with the Bill in conflict with a promise given by the Minister of Justice. The hon. member informed me of that privately, but the Government knows nothing about the thing. It is unfortunate that the hon. member relied upon something the Minister told him in private. We have heard again the old story about the Government proceeding with important measures at the end of the session.

It is correct.

The Government considers everything passed during the session important. If any of the measures passed previously had come on at this stage we should have heard practically the same thing.

Surely it is un-precedented to be in the third week of morning sittings.

The Government prefers to establish its own precedents. Let us get on with the business and leave that sort of argument alone. We have been wasting a lot of time. We consider these matters important, and also that matters that have preceded them to be equally important. The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Waterston) and the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Allen) have asked me if the Government would consider the advisability of postponing the operation of the measure for three months. If necessary the Government would have been qirte prepared to do so, but the section of the Act to which they refer will be repealed only from January next so there will be six months before the measure will come into actual operation, thus the people affected will have plenty of opportunity to adapt themselves to the altered circumstances brought about by the passing of the Bill. If it were still necessary to have an additional three months after that the Government would consider the matter.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

I wish to draw attention to the remarkable complacence of the Government in the Senate as compared with their unwillingness to consider amendments in this House. I moved this amendment here and it was rejected but it was carried in the Senate ; not that I have had any communication with the Senate.

There were no Commmunications whatsoever!

It is very remarkable that the Minister only saw the reasonableness of the amendment in the Senate, but could not perceive it when it was moved in this House. Instances of this sort have occurred several times in regard to other Bills, the Government being far more reasonable in the Senate, where they have not the overwhelming majority that they have here.

The Government is in the minority in the Senate. I am sorry the hon. member does not appreciate the willingness of the Government to meet his point of view.

I do appreciate it.

Then I hope this House will concur in the amendment made in the other place. We accepted it on the very strong representations made by senators.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Remaining amendments put and agreed to.

In connection with this Bill which has just been dealt with by the House, I just wish to repeat an undertaking which the Minister of Mines and Industries gave to the other place in connection with Section 5. The Minister informed the other place that he will go into the matter and if he finds there are cases of extreme hardship he will see what can be done to meet those cases.

Bill certified accordingly.

The general proclamation for proroguing Parliament, will be issued forthwith.